nana989 Loc: Rural West Tennessee

I have a passport with 450 GB of digital snapshots from the last 10 years that I would like to get organized. There are folders inside of folders, a lot are duplicates. Most need to be trashed. But many are sentimental from vacations, grandchildren etc. My husband bought me Lightroom as a Christmas gift and I am overwhelmed by it already and don't know where to begin. Are there any suggestions for something very simple that I could do to get this mess untangled? I get frustrated very easily and am just wanting to ditch them all today.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Post #1! Welcome to UHH.

There is nothing simple. Lightroom is up to the task.

The "trick", if there is one, is to understand the parts that are useful and start with a dozen photos as a training exercise.

I would be happy to explain where and how to start. Others here will be too.

Assuming your "passport" is an external hard drive. The first place to start is to make sure you have a proper backup of it.

The second step is to understand how and what the Lightroom "Import" process is. It only registers the existing location of your image files. It does not move them into Lightroom.

The next step is to pick a couple photos and "Import" them.

When you're ready, we can take the next steps. Note that you will probably get lots of divergent advice.

Lightroom does everything "non distructively". You have to force it pretty hard to screw up any of your photos.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Without seeing, in detail, the described hodge podge of files you have, I'd say your first order of business would be to leave the computer off, or at least in the other room.

Sit down and devise a design that will encompass the information you have and what you wish to do with it. Make this a large overall plan.

Then design in more minute degrees how you wish to organize the various files you have. At each step, carefully review and look for places where your plan could fail. This is critical.

After much planning and review on paper, take the design and start implementing it. However, do not implement it all at once. Take a few files, they can be selected at random, and start filing them. I'd say 20 would be sufficient. File them, retrieve them, and if any issues that arise. Deal with those issues, even if it means a minor setback and re-plan.

Yes, this seems like a lot of work. However, in the long run, you'll have a filing system that works and is easy to maintain.

addendum: if you want to find duplicate files on your computer these work rather well:
clonespy - windoze
dupeGuru - Mac
--Bob

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Well, I would hope that thru the years you have been adding keywords to each image instead of just neatly plopping them into folders.... ;)

My advice would be to LEARN Lightroom, basics first of the catalog and keywording, understand how it can help you organize by picking up a few printed guides, watching a few beginning tutorials, and then importing all of your images to begin organizing them with proper keywording techniques and collections.... In reality, a neatly set up folder system is NOT required for Lightroom to maintain a vast library of images where things are instantly searchable and able to be organized by collections on the fly.

Lightroom, along with its editing capabilities, is a database system for organizing your images into a searchable and manageable system.

Good place to start for tutorials on Lightroom

http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/tutorials.html

Violameister Loc: michigan

There are as many ways to organize photos as there are people doing it. I was in a similar boat as you are in until I bit the bullet. I didn't use any special software, but made a decision you will have to make: Is the principal organizing element the date, or is it the subject? When you have decided that, you can begin. I decided on date, so I started with a folder for 2006, one for 2007, 2008, etc. Then within each of those folders I had another folder for "Family", one for "Vacations", one for "Animals" and one for "general". I added folders as new subjects came up. For example, if I had a lot of pictures of deer around the house, I added a "Deer" folder under "Amimals." Or if I took a lot of pictures of club meetings, I added a "club" folder in the appropriate date folder.

The alternative system which has subject material as the main heading can have dates as sub folders, or perhaps, have the dates be in the sub, sub, sub folders. For example, There could be "Family" and under that "Children" Under that "Sam's family", "Sally's family", "Kate's family"; then under "Kate's family" there might be grandchildren: "Harry", "Johnnie", and "Samuel". and finally, under each grandchild's folder, could be a date folder as well if the number of images of each child is large enough. I generally do not start a new folder unless I have at least 10 images to put there.

This system does have failings: mainly it does not make cross referencing easy. That is, if I want to find images of deer, and there happen to be deer pictures in one of the grandchild folders (where the child and the deer are both on the same image) I won't find it unless I filed the same picture in both folders which I rarely do. However, I have found all the programs that make such cross referencing easy are so complex to set up and use that I have never made the effort to set them up and have continued to use this system which, in a way, is a carryover from my old slide tray organizing system.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Before considering with 'sentimental stuff' deal with the obvious: 'Duplicates' Double killer. This program will find and kill all you do not want twice. Be aware that this will find the duplicate but will not make a difference if you have made them for a reason like 'Trip to the mole hills made into mountains'....

Then kill what you already know has no value.

Once you have done that you can start to get serious about organization.

Reasoning: Why do the same job twice or do it for nothing?

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

First off, get yourself another external HD and, please, make a copy of the Passport. Your images are too valuable to reside on only 1 HD, which can fail after a while.

Secondly, as an alternative to Lightroom, consider ACD Pro, which has many of the same attributes as the Adobe product, with less complexity.

Thirdly, Lightroom is seemingly complex when you first open it. See if there are any classes available at a local camera shop or adult school.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

I hope nana989 can see through the chaff! There are already five widely different suggestions! It is only her first post here ever!

I was hoping to lead her step by step to a Lightroom solution that would help. That already seems like a dumb idea.

orrie smith Loc: Kansas

take all of your photos out of the folders they are in and put them into one folder, sort them by date taken, this will show you your duplicates that may be deleted, then return them to annual folders. you may make subfolders that title things like family, vacation, etc. I would suggest this as a first step, then if you want to have them in lightroom also, so be it, you will still have an organized set of folders for your originals.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Gotta agree - Lightroom will default to organization by date, and quite frankly, that is plenty good for me....

Lightroom folders by Date

(Download)

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

That will only work if they are all named differently within their respective folders.
--Bob

Marionsho Loc: Kansas

In an hour and 18 minutes, you've got five different suggestions! Isn't that exciting?
Welcome to the Hog, nana989.
Marion

orrie smith Loc: Kansas

with every task, there needs to be some adjustment.

mcveed Loc: Kelowna, British Columbia (between trips)

Now, go back to bsprague's post and follow his advice. As part of the learning process, even before you tackle your Passport, buy this book and work your way through it: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC, 2015 release - Lightroom 6 - Classroom in a Book. by John Evans and Katrin Straub. To really manage your stock of pictures and prepare for those to come you need a well organized 'system' and Lightroom has the best one I have found.

sueyeisert Loc: New Jersey

As others have suggested spend some time learning Lightroom before jumping in.
I learned from this site and still refer to it. I doesn't matter that it's Lightroom 4. It's FREE just scroll down. The instructor is excellent.
http://en.elephorm.com/tuto-lightroom-4-complete-training.html