fotobyferg

OK, I am probably about to set myself up for some *sshole in UHH to tell me how stupid, ill-advised or obtuse I am regarding photo storage.
If you are one of those types, please scroll on past and resist the temptation to once again prove your superiority.

However, if you are one of the nice guys, and have a moment to spare, I'd like your opinion on my (amateur/novice) methodology.

Basically, I have never completely grasped the whole LR catalogue thing...but I am ok with that because, before I obtained my LR subscription, I did simple edits in iPhoto where I managed my own collections easily. Now that I have obtained LR and Luminar I play a bit in both and use iPhoto only occasionally.

Here's the catch:
I have always been tidy about organizing my photos. Once I have made my edits, I export them all to a folder on my desktop (as jpegs, of course) and place them as a subfolder in Macs Pictures folder. I back them up on external hard drives, SmugMug and run Carbonite in the background. So, finding my pictures is never an issue.

My question:
Is that why LR can never find them again? Since I have made my edits and am happy with the results (i.e. I don't ever go back and re-edit a picture) is my current method a reasonable approach? I understand LR is a powerful tool for photo organization...but do I really need it if I never go back and do additional edits? Does LR only store the RAW images and, because I (gasp) delete them after editing, LR can't find the edited jpegs?

I hope I do not sound like a total idiot. As I said, I am not terribly upset when LR gives me those !!! marks on images...but I would like to understand why and, despite watching several videos on the subject, I still can't wrap my head around it.

Can some of you helpful UHHers provide some assurances that, given my goals (just have fun) and level of competency (reasonably happy with my picture taking skills) my approach to photo organization is adequate for my needs?

I might add that at this point in my life, with so many additional interests, I am getting less motivated to learn new software, etc. Basically, I am strictly a hobbyist who likes taking pictures when convenient....mostly trips and my adult son's rugby games, with some wildlife and macro thrown in for diversity.

TIA

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I'm not a huge LR user. However, the little I know is that LR likes to keep track of everything. So, if you move a file without LR "knowing" about it, that can cause some issues. Things have to be copied, moved, deleted, etc. through LR.
--Bob

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Bob is right. I got LR just over a month ago and made a couple of mistakes in setting it up. As long as you do all of your moving, copying, and saving through LR, it’s easy peasy.

I found Victoria Brampton’s free guide and many videos to be extrheloful. Giggle her as the “Lightroom Queen”.

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

Don't worry about it. I have been a professional Photoshop user and instructor of advanced Photoshop encompassing a period of 20 years and I don't use Lightroom. It looks like we don't need it for different reasons though as I have a need to save all my raw files.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

"My question:
Is that why LR can never find them again? Since I have made my edits and am happy with the results (i.e. I don't ever go back and re-edit a picture) is my current method a reasonable approach? I understand LR is a powerful tool for photo organization...but do I really need it if I never go back and do additional edits? Does LR only store the RAW images and, because I (gasp) delete them after editing, LR can't find the edited jpegs?"

I'm on the end of the spectrum where Lightroom is center to what I do.

It seems there may be four parts to your question.

1- When you Export your finished version, there are options for where you put it and if you want it registered in your catalog.
2- When you "delete", there are options to remove from Lightroom or remove from Lightroom and erase from the disk.
3- Every thing you would do to move image files from one place to another can be done withing Lightroom. Doing so gets rid of "those !!! marks on images".
4- Lightroom does not "store" anything. It only registers and tracks where your files are.

I would be happy to post screen shots, further description, etc. If you would like. I would also be happy to agree that, if you don't like Lightoom, there is no point in using it.

fotobyferg

Hi Bill,

Actually, I do like LR...just confused on the catalogue system. I don’t always get the “back up images” text box when I exit LR. Should I see it every time?
Are you saying that, when I see that text, I could customize the storage location...or just continue to use its default location?
I am about to head out for another rugby game...but would like to see your screenshots.
Thanks!

blackest Loc: Ireland

When you create a jpeg using the export dialog , you are exporting and Lightroom does not track that file you just created.
When you choose to delete the raw file then that has gone as well.

Lightroom primarily is a database and recipe maker.

You can add files to Lightroom or you can copy files to lightroom

If you copy files to lightroom

on a mac you usually store pictures in pictures for me i have a basefolder called lightroom
Pictures/Lightroom/2018/2018-06-09/
would be for todays photo's
Pictures/Lightroom/2017/2017-12-25/ would hold last christmas's photos

iPhoto does something similar but hides the photos within the iPhoto App.

Lightroom can also add photos you might have a folder in pictures called mybestphotos and keep your photos there.

Pictures/mybestphotos/picture1.jpg

If you add the photo picture1.jpg lightroom will not make a copy of that photo.

So the import process makes a copy if you want to copy to Lightrooms file structure or just records where the photo is if you use add.

What else does it do?
It makes a thumbnail image (actually about a screen size copy of your photo and adds it to its database. It reads all the metadata contained within the file including camera (right down to serial number) lens, focal length aperture fstop shutterspeed use of flash gps coordinates (later it might add a human readable location) copyright information if your camera writes that. Any keywords you care to add e.g today might have been "Uncles Toms Birthday" So you might want that as a Label to put on todays photos. Basically any meta data you can think off that can be used to describe that photo goes into the database.

Why it does this is for speed, without the database if I wanted to find photos from uncle toms birthday it would mean loading every photo I ever took and searching to see if uncle toms birthday was in the metadata. Around 20,000 photos are not and i maybe took 50, Then I want to find photo's of Aunt Violet and again with the massive search...

With the database it searches for the keyword Aunt Violet and returns me all the matches which I see as thumbnails. If I pick one of these to work on then it fetches the actual file to work on.

It's actually a bit more capable than that if it is a recent photo it will have a largish copy that can be worked on to some extent without going to the actual file. if its an older file the thumbnail is much smaller, big enough to id the contents.

This is really handy for me since anything from 2017 or older sits on a drive on my nas, I couldn't clutter my laptop up with old photos.

The next thing you tend to do is start making adjustments till you get something you like the recipe building part and then exporting where the recipe is applied and you get your final jpeg.

It is worth keeping the raw files for future use. You may want different sizes and crop ratios, sharpening may be done differently for print use v screen use. If you crop for 8 by 10 then want to print 6 x 4 you may want to keep more background you may have to lose some of the subject if you only have the 8 by 10 to crop from. If you sized the jpeg to be able to be sent by email you may find it has too little resolution to Print.

If you don't want to keep the raw files but you want lightroom to keep track of the jpegs you exported.

Simply export the jpegs with metadata from lightroom put them where you want to store them, delete the raw files and now use the import dialog in lightroom to navigate to where you are storing the finished photo jpegs file and choose add. This will be very like a regular import but all lightroom is doing is creating records for the database.

now you can search lightroom for just your finished photographs.
If you keep the raw files you can copy the finshed jpeg to the same location, as part of Lightrooms filtering you can select the file type to be jpeg and lightroom will hide the raw files and only show you jpeg versions. You can also rate your photos with one to five stars so if you want to impress filter to 5 star only and only your very best photos will show up.

I hope that helps. incidentally to move photos from my mac to my nas i just pick up the folder in Lightroom and drop it onto my NAS even if I accidently drop the folder for todays photos in christmas 2017 Lightroom still will know where they are.

You see now how lightroom is designed to manage lots of photos and present them to you in different views.

hope this helps :)

fotobyferg

Thank you for your detailed reply blackest!
I will explore in detail when I get back home!

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

"I don’t always get the “back up images” text box when I exit LR."

That would be question 5. That box at exit is backing up the catalog file. Nothing more. It does not backup images. Image files are not in the catalog. The frequency of the backup box is displayed in Lightroom preferences.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

blackest has given you a detailed response. Anything I write or offer now will only create confusion.

fotobyferg

“Image files are not in the catalog.”

So, if I am understanding correctly, the catalog just contains the edit info, right?

Tomorrow I will review all these kind responses and see if I can increase my understanding. That would be great.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

"So, if I am understanding correctly, the catalog just contains the edit info, right?"

Yes, the edit info and where the image files are in your system. The catalog also keeps track of where the preview files are.

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

Yes, you are largely missing the point.

LR can't find your files because it doesn't know where they are. You can tick the box to add the files to the catalog on export, but I suspect you didn't do that.

If you use the OS to move files around, LR won't know what you did. You'll have to add any new folders to the catalog, and update (synchronize) any file movement in the source and destination folders with LR.

You can make virtual collections without moving a single file in LR.

Your competency must go up if you are going to get the benefit of LR. Otherwise you can use Bridge, which is a file browser, to do what you want. LR's catalog is more comprehensive.

I never save jpegs. I shoot raw, which I never delete unless they are obvious mistakes or multiple shots of the same subject, but I do select a few for additional processing which I export as 16 bit psd files in ProPhoto color space to Photoshop. There I do all of my fine tuning, local adjustments and other stuff that LR is not good at. I use the "edit in" command to do this, which automatically adds this "working file" to my catalog.

Rather than clutter my drive with jpegs, I merely create an export preset for each destination I might send a jpeg to - social media, print lab, client, Instagram, club competition, etc - each of which has a specific set of resolution, image size and file size requirements. If I need a specific image in a specific format, it's fast and easy to generate a new jpeg.

I do revisit old images with newer software updates, which is why I never delete raw files.

blackest Loc: Ireland

That checkbox add to Catalog on the export dialog is handy (why did I never notice it before).

It could work quite well with an option I use,- export as PSD and open in.

I'm currently tending to just balance highlights and shadows pretty much in lightroom ,export as PSD and open in Affinity Photo or ...

I have a few export presets that are similar using that checkbox and save to same folder or subfolder could be quite handy since it adds a layered editing approach that finishes back in lightroom.

I'm very sloppy about exporting usually just dumping on the desktop, far tidier to have the exports in a lightroom subfolder and then they end up automatically in my NAS and (subsequently backed up automatically to a 3rd system that checks for changes every 2 hours) .

I Keep learning new aspects of Lightroom even after several years using it.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

As noted above, the catalog contains two important things: the edits, and the location of the files used to create the edits (i.e. the raw files or the original jpgs).

The catalog does not contain your image files. If it did, it would be HUGE. But instead of containing a file that's probably in the 10-50 MPixel range, it contains a few bytes describing just where on the disk your file can be found. If you have a lot of those 10-50 MPixel files in your catalog you can see just how large it might get. Larger files take longer to load.

Since the catalog contains the location of your original file, LR will not be able to find it if you move it somewhere else without doing it through LR or at least going into LR and telling the catalog where the file is now. And of course if you delete the original there's no going back.

I probably never go back and re-edit 99% of my images, but I don't delete the originals. For one thing, I don't know which files are going to be in that 1% and for another thing I was married for about 50 years to an archivist who beat into me "Never discard the original". I don't find it to be a problem with disk space because memory is cheap and I have external drives that handle all my files easily (not just my photos).

LR makes it easy to keep track of my photos and find things through the use of keywords. However, I use a secondary organization through a folder structure. I do this because although it's so easy for me to use LR to find things, when I kick the bucket my family doesn't use LR and wouldn't know how to use it to find things. However the folder structure is easy to search through standard computer search techniques and the files have meaningful names that describe briefly the subject of the photo. I have a description on UHH at http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/user-page?upnum=1595

All the above works well for me. YMMV.