lsupremo Loc: Palm Desert, CA

I admit I’ve screwed up! I stared using LR two year ago w/o learning how, now my LR Catalog and computer pictures files are all screwed up. Lucky for me I have also saved all my SD cards during this period.

So my question is: After backing up all my images to my external HD, should I then delete them and re load them into my computer and import them into a new LR catalog?

If I do that will I lose all myPP? Not a viable option!

Is there a better solution?

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

In what way are your files "screwed up?" Are you saying they're spread out all over the drive, or not named meaningfully? You can use LR to rename and/or drag and drop directories in order to arrange them into a more meaningful structure. If you do, your edits won't have been lost.

nikonkelly Loc: SE Michigan

If you have the xmp file set to be saved then you could delete the lightroom filmstrip at the bottom of the screen but do not delete the catalog. And further, only delete the filmstrip if you have the xmp files saved. if the xmp file is not saved then you have to reprocess every image. Now that all said, if you delete the filmstrip, then you can reimport all of the images and you will have a new film strip... but will this fix your issue? You say that your catalog is all screwed up... but that does not explain what is actually wrong... so I dont know if this is even a viable solution to your problem. truly you need to explain your situation and exactly what is wrong much more completely before we can really help you.
Kelly.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You'd have to clarify, preferably with examples, what exactly you mean by this summary assessment: I admit I’ve screwed up! I stared using LR two year ago w/o learning how, now my LR Catalog and computer pictures files are all screwed up. Do you mean you've poorly organized your source images? Do you mean you have both source and processed images in your catalog? Do you mean you have missing image indicators in your LR catalog? What exactly do you mean?

Without focusing yet on "how", what do you envision when you complete this clean-up effort? Certainly the last extreme action you should be considering is deleting all your existing PP work and starting over. There's no amount of "screwed up" that justifies that course.

Everyone willing to help will need you to more clearly communicate specifics, both of the problems and the intended results. We can then take point by point and determine the course of action for each issue and desired outcome.

BTW - how many images are we talking about?

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Tim Grey and B&H teamed up to do a YouTube on "Cleaning Up Your Mess in Lightroom". It is not short!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daYUG8orcF8

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

No, no, no. Just create new folders in LR and move images around. You will not loose your adjustments this way.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

"No, no, no. Just create new folders in LR and move images around FROM INSIDE LIGHTROOM. You will not loose your adjustments this way."

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

Right On!!

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

I did that. Made a mess.

Several years ago I determined to clean up my mess. I had a lot of images in the LR catalog (65000?) including junk and duplicates. The first thing I did was to archive everything. The second thing I did was to make some collections based on date (from the metadata). I then exported those collections as catalogs, one per year. I then had an array of catalogs based on date. Starting with the earliest year I went through and cleaned them up. It was easy for the earliest images because I hadn't yet gotten to the point of taking multiple shots of the same thing. However, whenever I edited something I kept all the edits as separate files. (That practice was only a problem for the first couple years).

I had retired from the paying job and was working on the farm, which was a seasonal business. So I had some time over the winter. The first couple years of images went pretty quickly. I could do a couple years per day. A few years into the list, I was taking a lot of shots and keeping them all. Those years took a while, maybe several days per year.

I would go through the images and look at the duplicates. Try to pick either the best one or the earliest one and delete the others. Not just delete from the catalog, delete from the disk. (Remember, I had archived everything so in theory I wasn't losing anything, although in practice I have never looked at the archive since then). I also took note of where the files were and moved them (from within LR) to a more reasonable file structure. My structure is basically: Photos [the root photo folder] => Year => Subject. So all the images are in a subfolder of Photos. I can save the Photos folder to an archive and all the other subfolders go along with it.

The next thing I did with a year's images was to go through them and add keywords to every photo I had saved. I included the names of people in the photo as keywords as much as possible. No need to include the date because that's already in the metadata, and I haven't a clue about the relationship between dates and events. In fact when I want to know what date an event happened, I look for the photo.

Once I had gone through all the years, I just combined all the catalogs into my LR Master Catalog.

I should note that while I have no problems using a fairly large LR catalog, (it's now around 30,000), it does take a long time to back up the catalog. So I start a new catalog every year and use that for my working catalog. At the end of the year I combine it with the master catalog. If I need to look for something I can usually find things that happened within the last year with no problem so the master catalog is my historical reference.

All in all, it took me maybe 2 months working on the catalog using available free time. It was worth it because now I can find things.

Forest Loc: Central Florida

Check out Laurashoe.com website for this title:
“Help! My Photos Are Completely Unorganized and Lightroom is a Mess. How can I just start all over?”

Meemz

I have used Lightroom forever! Take Scott Kelbys class —. simplified Lightroom image (slim) system course online. I no longer use folders as such (you have to have them ) I use collection sets. It’s worth taking the time and doing it right. I think Matt K came up with this idea first a long time ago. I thought well why import like this. Well it’s so much more organized.. no key words!! And Just use one catalog. I shoot raw. So while he uses a 2tg hard drive I use a couple of 4. And please please use some kind of a cloud storage. His class on this is excellent. It only takes about an hour to get through.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Are you working in raw image files or are you working with jpg? If you work with raw, check to see if your files have a sidecar file next to them. If you do, then simply move all the files and sidecar files to a new drive and organize them in folders that make sense to you. After that, in LR create a new Catalog and import all the pictures you've relocated. Then all the edits will be there along side of each file inside of the sidecar file. But, and this is a big BUT!, if you let your file editing record inside of your catalog, and you chose not to have it create a seperate sidecar file, then I'm afraid you'll have to try and use the catalog you've been working with and move all your files from within LR using the Library module and the file structure in the left hand panel. This can become tedious but it can be done with some patients. If your files are all still jpg files, you may treat them the same if you've got a lot of edited jpg's, but you may want to export all the edited jpg's now and then simply reorganize them as in the first part I outlined. Jpg's edits are kept inside of the catalog and don't have sidecar files associated with them. So you'll want to salvage your current catalog.

lsupremo Loc: Palm Desert, CA

Thanks for all your help in this matter, I’m sure I can sift out an answer from all these suggestions.

I do work in raw, a side car to me is a drink, my catalog has numerous duplicates because I changed names of my files after down loading, plus a whole lot of other dumb stuff.

That’s what happens when you think you know it all, Why should I ask directions? Real men don’t ask directions, right?

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

First off, do not panic, remain calm! Backing up your images and fixing your current catalog are two different issues. Yes, you should have backed up all original files and if you did not do that, it would be good to do that at some point. Do not delete your current LR catalog as that would delete any edits made in that catalog.

All you need to do is go into LR and rearrange files as needed. This will take a lot of time and work on your part but then you will have the catalog fixed and updated as needed. You can create new folders and drag and drop as you desire, then delete any folder that has no images in it. Being organized in LR starts first with your mind and a piece of paper. You need to determine how you want to organize your images and then stick to the plan, although your plan needs to have built-in flexibility. I don't recommend organizing by date, you can always find the date in the file metadata. I put all of my images into one main folder, then put images from each shoot into a folder that goes into a year folder. I use keywords to find images; you could also set up smart collections if that appeals to you. When you re-arrange folders in LR it re-arranges the folder on your desktop at the same time as LR only reflects what is on your desktop; the application simply links up to the folders you store on your desktop computer. Read the LR help manual to learn more about the Library Module before you start to organize.

lsupremo Loc: Palm Desert, CA

All this leads me to another question. If I download an image from my SD card to pictures file in my computer and then import it into Lightroom, post process it, and then export it back to the pictures file in my computer. The questions are: 1. will I then have both of them in the pictures file? 2. If I delete the original on my computer will the PP image still be in both places? 3. Will I be able to make additional PPing on it? Will I be Able to somehow start over PPing from the beginning or is the original un PPed gone forever? 4. If I change the name of my original will LR be able to find it?

No more questions for now