sirvive Loc: South Louisiana

Here is MY Lightroom Classic Import process for newly acquired images using Windows in a step by step format. Some others have already expressed a similar method. I think it is simpler to let LR create the new folders during the import process rather than manually creating directories to copy images from the card media to a hard drive. There are numerous other ways to achieve the import.
1. Insert media card into the reader attached to your computer.
2. LR click import
3. Choose the source of import, in this case the letter assigned to the new SD card.
4. See thumbnails of all photos on the drive not in the LR catalog
5. Check or Uncheck the ones you want to import. All are checked by default
6. Select Copy in the center top screen (will copy to your desired location and catalog them)
7. Click right arrow in upper right screen in the “To” box. Then select “other destination”. You will see a file manager window where you will select a destination for the new photos and create a new folder for them based on your storage naming method. I use for example, “Bayou Sauvage 210305” for my method. The new folder will be created and the images copied from the SD card to that location. (A list of recent import locations you can choose from appears at beginning of this step if you wish to move new images to an already used folder). Images can be stored on any internal or external drive linked to your computer. LR does not care, as long as you do not change the locations by moving files outside of LR. Always use LR to move files around if needed.
8. Verify your path chosen by viewing the TO box in the upper right corner if you wish. Then click IMPORT in the lower right corner of the LR screen to start the import.
9. The new folder will be created and Images will be copied from the media card to the new location and will be recorded in the LR catalog. The progress will be shown in the upper left of the screen. When complete, the SD card is dismounted, and the imported image thumbnails will appear on screen. The images will be in your new directory folder and will also be listed by LR in under “Previous Import” in the left hand column under “Catalog”. You can begin your sorting and editing process using LR’s many tools. LR will always remember these images in this location. Edits for each image are stored in the catalog are seen on screen, but are not applied to the actual original until you choose to “Export” them.

chasgroh Loc: Buena Park, CA

I'm going to address your question as written: "When you edit a photograph, where is the photo stored?"

When you get done editing you have to deal with the export dialogue (Ctrl_Shift_E is the keyboard shortcut). The very top box in the export dialogue is "Export Location," that is where you tell LR where to put the finished image. Click the "Choose" box and find where you want to store the image. That's it. There are other choices to check or uncheck in that box and you should familiarize yourself with them. I for one don't use them much, but there is a checkbox for "existing files" where you direct LR on what to do with overwrites, here I stipulate "ask what to do" as a safety. Go through the entire export dialogue, it's quite extensive, at the bottom there's an After Export choice, I keep it simple by stipulating "do nothing." Like someone said, you need to *learn* LR rather than expect it to be intuitive in all respects. Hope this helps.

al lehman Loc: San jose, ca.

RPaul
Like you, I'm not a fan of the cloud. I prefer to secure my own images with several external hard drives. If you copy files for editing to maintain the original file, storage can fill up quickly with higher resolution files such as a .tiff file. Cloud storage fees quickly add up. If you are not good about backing up your images then I would stick with the Cloud storage. With cloud storage you need wifi access. At times, I'm shooting in remote areas that don't have good wifi access. It's more convenient for me to haul around a small 1 TB storage device so I have immediate back up capability and quick access to my images for reference. It's all about fitting your needs and what is most convenient for you.

In Lightroom, when you save your edited version, it will store the edited image in the same directory location as the original file, or you can do save/as and put the file into any file directory location.

Hope this helps. Be safe and have fun shooting images.

gsmith051 Loc: Fairfield Glade, TN

With LR Classic you can store your photos on your computer hard drive.

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

Try not to get confused, but when you edit a photo in Lightroom, your photo is in two or three places.
(1) The original photo stays where it was when you imported it into Lightroom. The original photo will have no edits.
(2) The edit commands stay in the Lightroom catalog. You have an option to copy them to an .xmp file. The edit commands aren't really a photo, they just tell Lightroom how you want it edited, e.g. "Crop 10 pixels off the top, 55 pixels from the left, 199 pixels from the right, and 137 pixels from the bottom"; "increase the exposure by 43"; "change the color temperature to 2350K and tint to -12" and things like that.
(3) If you export a photo with edits, that photo will be stored where you tell LR to store it. When you export a photo you get a dialog telling LR where to put the file, what kind of file you want (jpg, png, tif, etc.), and what the name of the file will be. There are a number of other things on that dialog that you can learn later.

Note that your original file is NOT changed. If you look at your original file it will look the same as it did when you imported it into LR. To see the edited version you have to export the file first, then look at the new file.

Note also that LR will not let you export your photo to a file with the same name as the original in the same folder. That would destroy your original file. Instead, you can store the new file in the same folder with a different name, or in a different folder with the same name. I believe it is really valuable to get into the habit of changing the name when you edit a file. That will tell you whether you're looking at the original or an edited version, no matter what folder you find the file in. Everyone has their own preferences there. you can just append a number (e.g. original-1, original-2...) or you can make it a little clearer with some text (original-edit1, original-edit2...). You could even change the name completely to describe the photo (e.g. Suzie's Birthday Party 20210305-15), but that takes a bit more work.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

The LR (cloud) version will do the same thing. It is a check box choice that has been added.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

If you’re familiar with thr Elements Organizer, it’s similar to LR. The edited version stays with its parent file with an "edited" added in its file name. That’s the way Elements does it but LR may give you different options.

SteveG Loc: Norh Carolina

Very helpful and informative

RPaul3rd Loc: Arlington VA and Sarasota FL

The learning curve on Lightroom is a bit much for me but I'm still going to give it a try. Then I said "why don't I try Canon's editing program - the one that came with my 5D Mark III. I downloaded it and can not keep my fingers off the keyboard. It is lightning fast and there are a lot of features and so far I like it very much. Thank you for your earlier comment. I'm of the old school and like to download all edited photos to a folder on my computer and then back up the photos to external hard drives.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

"I'm of the old school and like to download all edited photos to a folder on my computer and then back up the photos to external hard drives."

That is how Lightroom Classic works.

David in Dallas Loc: Dallas, Texas, USA

I'm a simple person. My photos reside in an external hard drive connected to my computer. I import them into LR from their residence location and edit them. I publish them directly to Flickr from LR most of the time. I also sometimes export them to e-mails to share that way. For any other functions, I create a "Processed" subfolder in the related file and export edited versions there for subsequent activity. (I have done this quite a bit recently to enable me to re-process photos that had previously been uploaded to Flickr and use the new versions to replace the images on Flickr. My usual "publish" to Flickr from LR redoes all the information there, deleting any descriptions, etc. that I had put in place; just replacing the image leaves descriptions, tags, etc. in place. I have to have an edited version at hand to do that.)

Photolady2014 Loc: Southwest Colorado

You know, there are such things as typos and some like myself who just don’t spell well.
Why try to embarrass someone? There is enough meanness in the world right now.

Photolady2014 Loc: Southwest Colorado

Glad to know I’m not the only one doing it that way!

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Lots of information given in this post...reader beware. In some photo editing programs, Photos on my Mac comes to mind, the software puts your images where it has been written to put them and they can be hard to find. The more advanced processing software, like Lightroom Classic (LrC) does not do this; LrC lets you be in charge of where your images are stored. The software only links to the image on your computer or external drive: the default location, if you make no effort to change it in the beginning, is the Pictures folder on your computer. I don't know that you have a storage system set up but that is what you need to start with, determine where you want to store images and how it will be set up. With LrC it works best to store all images in one main folder, called something like All Images, and then within that folder you can use whatever structure you have determined suits your needs, i.e., date, place, etc. Most often people store their images on an external hard drive as this offers more storage space than a desktop computer and leaves the space on the computer free of other uses. It is important when using LrC that you know where your images are kept and what the structure is. There is no need, in general, to use the Export function after editing: this function is normally only used to export finished images for general use, such as posting on a web page. Read the online Adobe help manual before you start using the software.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

If you go back and check you'll see that it's the OP correcting himself/herself (very harshly ).