If it makes more sense to you to waste your limited time creating complex and information-laden folders and file names instead of embedding all that same data and the time doing it inside the LR catalog, software you pay to use, well it's your time and money to use (not use) as you please.

LR lets you use the simplest folders and file names such as "YYYYMMDD <Description>" for your folders and retain the original 12345678.xxx file names, The files don't mean anything until the LR edit data is merged with the original image and "export" to a target file. Worry about renaming the files, if needed, when you export the edited version.

The effort spent trying to 'describe' the images via complex folders and / or file names just needs to instead be performed inside LR so you can find those images instantaneously via the catalog search / filtering. You don't have to remember your shooting dates, just put that descriptive data into the keywords.

The reality of using a database to access your images is you just have to behave differently. You access your images via LR, not the computer OS / file system. Use a simple file system that uniquely organizes the images and don't spend time trying to move the images around afterward. LR is much more efficient and capable. Yes, it's different. It's modern-ish. Just like LR is superior to ACR. If you don't want to use the most popular software in the industry to work smarter and faster, it's your choice and your loss (and your money).

The point is: yes, it's critical to organize and identify your images. The LR catalog is the way to do this entirely inside a searchable database, again with much more robust tools and capabilities vs the OS file system. Yes, penmanship was important. But today, your typing speed and accuracy is the relevant skill. Both are communication skills, but one doesn't really matter anymore. That's the same as the unimportance of folders and filenames in the modern LR environment.

Maybe there is something about "will they bend to our will" going on. Sort of like celebs who want only the brown M&Ms. You know, if they have only the brown M&Ms when I get there, then MAYBE just MAYBE they have the really important demands covered. But these companies are NOT celebs. They are just people trying to do a job. And this kind of demand limits their ability to do that job. It DOES NOT enhance it!


F-THEM!

Send a polite but clear email saying you are sorry they do not want a broad range of input. Wish them well in their obviously short career.

PDC is apparently unaware that this is a forum where fellow photographers help each other out with such questions as this! It’s interesting that in a previous post he was asking for advice on what firmware updates do. One could have responded just like he did on this post...to think for yourself. Moving on:

My only advice is that I recently purchased a 27 inch iMac. I returned it for a few reasons. The main one was that in the Apple OS the menu bar is always at the top of the screen. If an active window is reduced in size the menu bar is still at the top of the screen. So, that required the user to look at the open window and then look all he way to the top of the screen. With a screen that large and sitting close to the screen at a desk, it was a chore. ...