Downloading to Lightroom: I use a Mac and have used Picasa for some years. I have over 49,000 pictures in more than 1,000 folders in Picasa. All the folders are labeled. I use my own...

Bob55 Loc: Valhalla NY

I use a Mac and have used Picasa for some years. I have over 49,000 pictures in more than 1,000 folders in Picasa. All the folders are labeled. I use my own file system, 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 3 letter month and 2 digit folder number for each month. Also, I have captions for many of the individual photos within each folder. I downloaded a trial version of Lightroom and have a specific question before I proceed. If I click "import" (and check the sub folder option) will all these folders and pictures copy into Lightroom and keep the integrity of my file structure, copy the labels for each of my folders and also copy the captions of the 49,000+ pictures within these folders? If not, is there another workaround? Thanks in advance to all the knowledgeable hogs out there for your advice and guidance. Bob

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Bob55 wrote:

I use a Mac and have used Picasa for some years. ... (show quote)

Don't copy, use the Add option instead. It will leave everything you have set up as it is. And when you import new images, just create the folders exactly has you have in the past. You can either create the folder, copy the images to the folder yourself and sync the folder when you open LR, or do it from within LR and create the folder as you import. Do not check the subfolder option if you don't want to.

How did you do the captions?

Bob55 Loc: Valhalla NY

I'm such a dunce when it comes to computer work. Forgive my stupidity but don't I have to click "include sub folders"? Now if I highlight my catch all "racquetking" in my tree the 1,000+ folders are there, under the racquetking heading. Thanks for the quick reply, Gene.

tsilva Loc: Arizona

include sub folders

Bob55 Loc: Valhalla NY

Gene51 wrote:

Don't copy, use the Add option instead. It will leave everything you have set up as it is. And when you import new images, just create the folders exactly has you have in the past. You can either create the folder, copy the images to the folder yourself and sync the folder when you open LR, or do it from within LR and create the folder as you import. Do not check the subfolder option if you don't want to.

How did you do the captions?

In Picasa I opened a picture and started typing. The caption appears at the bottom of the photograph.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Bob55 wrote:

I'm such a dunce when it comes to computer work. Forgive my stupidity but don't I have to click "include sub folders"? Now if I highlight my catch all "racquetking" in my tree the 1,000+ folders are there, under the racquetking heading. Thanks for the quick reply, Gene.

Checking the subfolders will add another layer of subfolders to your existing structure. Since you will be adding what is already on your hard drive to your catalog, and your structure is all ready organized by year, date and folder number, there is no need to impose LR's folder dating by clicking include sub folders. It is redundant and unnecessary.

You don't want to COPY anything anywhere. You just want to ADD the image names and folders to your catalog. Leave your structure intact. It is fine the way it is.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

Bob55 wrote:

I use a Mac and have used Picasa for some years. ... (show quote)

Bob, you've received some very good advice, so I won't repeat. One other piece I would offer is to get some sort of reference for Lightroom. I found the book "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classroom in a Book" very, very good. There are so many great nuances to Lightroom that you'll never get to all of them in this (or any) forum. It's powerful software that isn't easy to 'muddle through'. A reference helps tremendously.

Good luck!! You seem to be well on your way.

TomZ

Select just one of your existing images which has a caption. Following the excellent advice already given for how to set up the import operation (use the Add fiction, include subfolders) go through the import dialogue selections and give the result a meaningful name so you can return to it again. Using this newly named preset import your single test image and see where Lightroom put the information. If you are not satisfied you hopefully can get help tweaking the preset until it does what you want.

Bob55 Loc: Valhalla NY

Gene51 wrote:

Checking the subfolders will add another layer of ... (show quote)

Thanks Gene, I will click on "Add" and leave sub folders alone.

Bob55 Loc: Valhalla NY

brucewells wrote:

Bob, you've received some very good advice, so I won't repeat. One other piece I would offer is to get some sort of reference for Lightroom. I found the book "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classroom in a Book" very, very good. There are so many great nuances to Lightroom that you'll never get to all of them in this (or any) forum. It's powerful software that isn't easy to 'muddle through'. A reference helps tremendously.

Good luck!! You seem to be well on your way.

Thanks very much. I will look for the book online.

IowaGuy Loc: Iowa

Gene51 wrote:

Checking the subfolders will add another layer of ... (show quote)

I would suggest you duplicate 2-3 of your sub folders and copy them to a new location. Then make a new LR catalog called "test". Go through the actions of ADDing to the Test catalog. Your can then remove these from the catalog and try ADDing again with the "include subfolders" in the alternate state than on the first time.

Always best to test first so you are sure of what you are doing.

Bob55 Loc: Valhalla NY

Thanks again to everyone for all your help. I seem to have missed something very important. I added/import two folders but for some reason the all important captions that are under the photographs in Picasa don't seem to have transferred to Lightroom. Have I missed something?

blackest Loc: Ireland

Bob55 wrote:

Thanks again to everyone for all your help. I seem to have missed something very important. I added/import two folders but for some reason the all important captions that are under the photographs in Picasa don't seem to have transferred to Lightroom. Have I missed something?

Think so, one of the things i like with picasa is facial recognition which lightroom 5 doesn't have. So i would get picasa to tag my photo's and use a script to import from picasa database into lightroom.

read these

http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/74805/how-to-migrate-from-picasa-to-lightroom

http://picasa-lightroom.com plugin may work untested by me.

Jeffrey’s “Picasa Face-Recognition Import” Lightroom Plugin

Bob55 Loc: Valhalla NY

Complete success! My downloaded photos actually had the captions for each picture. They are located in metadata. I'm transferring 49,000 + right now an am 75% finished. Thanks again to all who participated and happy thanksgiving to all the hogs