New Installation

[georgegerhard]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom classic 8.3.1

Operating System

1. Windows 10

Hello all
I recently purchased light room classic.
I have an external hard drive that I have used to back up all my photos, I use my cannon 80d or my phone.
On this hard drive a have a folder for each one of my grandchildren. I was going to use this same folder structure in light room, instead
of folders by dates.
Where Im a bit confused is when I want to add photos, should I deposit the photos to that particular folder in the hard drive, and then
import using the Add function in the import dialog.

many thanks for help
George

 

[Paul McFarlane]

Hi George and welcome!

You can either do that (into the folder you want then Add) or use the Import dialogue to tell Lightroom where to copy them to. I happen to use the add myself (due to the type or organization I like to use)

One issue with a folder for each of your grandchildren is what do you do when there's a photo with both of them in of course, which is why many use a dated folder system and then use People or Keywords to find what they want. This Blog you may find useful reading:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/why-not-organize-photos-into-folders-by-topic/

 

[georgegerhard]

thank you Paul

 

[Califdan]

Echoing Paul's comments, a date oriented structure or a shoot oriented structure is much preferred over a subject oriented subject. A shoot oriented structure is a combo idea being primarily a chronological order but with the advantage of having some contextual info and not being limited to always being a day or month. For example, "2019 -> 2019-08a Yosemite", or "2019 -> 2019-08b Trip to France" or "2019 -> 2019-08c Jake's 3rd birthday" , The single letter after the month is just there to keep the folders in chronological order, but one could also use the first (or only) day of the shoot instead.

The key "rule" for folders, in my opinion, is that there should be no ambiguity as to what folder any image belongs in. This forces a chronologically based structure since subject oriented structures introduce ambiguity (e.g., which folder should an image containing both grand kids go into?)

 

[mcasan]

I use a capture date folder structure. /Pictures/Year/year-month-day. Then I use Collections and Collection Sets to create groupings by topic such as "2018 Kenya". Personally I never keyword.

 

[clee01l]

One issue with a folder for each of your grandchildren is what do you do when there's a photo with both of them in of course, which is why many use a dated folder system and then use People or Keywords to find what they want.

This is another argument for organizing by Collection rather than to use filesystem folder and the limits imposed by the filesystem. A Collection by "Grand Kid name" can have the same image in two differently named Collections without disrupting the organization of the files on the disk. You can automate the process using keywords and Smart Collections. As soon as a keyword is assigned, the image automatically in included in as Smart Collection where there is a match on the keyword.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I use a capture date folder structure. /Pictures/Year/year-month-day. Then I use Collections and Collection Sets to create groupings by topic such as "2018 Kenya". Personally I never keyword.

So how do you quickly get all your images of lions? Do you create normal collections for that too? That is possible of course, but it’s a lot easier to use a keyword ‘lion’ so you can filter or create a ‘lions’ smart collection.

 

[mcasan]

I have never had a reason to find all photos with lions all at once. If I wanted to look through all my lions I can easily scan through one or more of my Kenya or South Africa safari collections.

 

[clee01l]

I have never had a reason to find all photos with lions all at once. If I wanted to look through all my lions I can easily scan through one or more of my Kenya or South Africa safari collections.

So maybe you are looking for that one photo of "She who must be obeyed". It is 10 years from now. Do you look in the Kenya or South Africa safari collection? Having picked the wrong Collection the first time and having gone thru every image in that collection before doing an eyeball scan of the second collection, how many images to you have to look thru before you find the ONE image that you want? With a few Keywords and a Smart Collection, you could probably have found that image faster than the time it took me to type this.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

If I wanted to look through all my lions I can easily scan through one or more of my Kenya or South Africa safari collections.

Of course you can do that, but it would be quite time consuming to scan through all the pictures of several safaris, just to find some lion picture. It makes a lot more sense to me to scan through only your lion pictures if you want to find a lion picture, and to scan through only your elephant pictures if you want to find some elephant picture...

 

[prbimages]

This point is often made - that it will be time-consuming, at some point in the future, to find exactly the photo one is looking for, unless it is keyworded. But there are a few counter-arguments to this:

• It takes time, sometimes quite a lot of time, to keyword images in the first place.
• It takes time to design and maintain an appropriate keyword hierarchy.
• It is quite possible that one may NEVER have a requirement to find any given photo, meaning that the time spent keywording it was "wasted".
• There is no guarantee that the keywords you apply today will be the same keywords that are important to you 10 years from now.
• Since keywords currently do not sync between the Classic and Cloudy versions, their utility is limited in a hybrid workflow.
• Automatic facial recognition means that people may not need to be keyworded.
• Image searches can be done intelligently and quickly via many other attributes, e.g. on title, caption, date, pick flag, star rating, etcetera.
• The time required to "scan through one or more of my ... collections" is often over-estimated. Especially if the scan universe is reduced by, for example, only looking at "picked" or "starred" images.

The real question is, whether the amount of time spent keywording each and every image now, balances out the time spent searching for as-yet-undetermined images at some time in the future.

Further, there is also the value of serendipity when scanning through collections or through dated folders or whatever - for example, the idea that while scanning the "Kenya" collection you might find a photo of a leopard which actually suits your purposes better than the image of a lion you were thinking of, and which would never have been found if you had limited your search to the keyword "lion".

I actually do use keywords, thinking that I will get some wonderful future payoff when I need to find *exactly* this or that photo, but there is always a nagging thought in the back of my mind that I am somehow wasting my time ...

Obviously everyone's needs will differ, but I don't think the value of keywording is as cut-and-dried as is often claimed.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

• It takes time, sometimes quite a lot of time, to keyword images in the first place.
• Image searches can be done intelligently and quickly via many other attributes, e.g. on title, caption, date, pick flag, star rating, etcetera.

And adding titles and captions does not take time? I think that it's faster to use keywords and not use titles and captions than the other way round. And date, flags, star ratings are very useful too, but they don't tell you whether this is a picture of a lion or an elephant.

But like you said, to each their own.

 

[clee01l]

This point is often made - that it will be time-consuming, at some point in the future, to find exactly the photo one is looking for, unless it is keyworded. But there are a few counter-arguments to this:

My image inventory is about 30,000 images. I use John Beardsworths "Workflow Smart Collections" to manage my workflow. With this I can assure that an image is not completely through the workflow until is has a Title, Caption, at least one keyword and has been through the Develop module. Then and only then it is assigned one of two color labels designation that it is Complete and Unpublished or Complete and Published. I can quickly develop a Smart Collection (usually by adding a keyword Criteria to an existing Smart Collection) and find one or more images that meet my needed search parameters.

 

[mcasan]

Scott Kelby has a course titled Simple Lightroom Image Management (SLIM). Lesson 5 is called Rethinking Keywording. His take on keywording is that unless you are shooting for stock portfolios or have specific commercial client needs, keyboarding cans a waste of time.

Granted some folks may not like or respect Scott. But it is hard to argue with his huge business success and influence.

 

[clee01l]

Granted some folks may not like or respect Scott. But it is hard to argue with his huge business success and influence.

I liken Scott Kelby to Apple. Apple machines and Apple apps, you do it the Apple way or you don't buy Apple. There are lots of non commercial users that have huge inventories approaching 100K images. At that scale, I think Scott Kelby's "don't bother with keywords" approach would suffer. In tiny quantities, if you have a good memory, you can keep your image organization in your head. I often do this when first importing and wanting a quick digest to a public (Published) album. Eventually, I'll need to go back to put relevant keywords on those that are going to be keepers. Currently my inventory goes back to 2007 (12 years). I have hundreds of Dragonfly photos and if I want one in particular shot around 10 years ago that I used in a nature lecture, I need keywords to find it quickly.

 

[PhilBurton]

So maybe you are looking for that one photo of "She who must be obeyed". It is 10 years from now. Do you look in the Kenya or South Africa safari collection? Having picked the wrong Collection the first time and having gone thru every image in that collection before doing an eyeball scan of the second collection, how many images to you have to look thru before you find the ONE image that you want? With a few Keywords and a Smart Collection, you could probably have found that image faster than the time it took me to type this.

I want to add my +1 to what Cletus just wrote here. I have not yet keyworded about 11 years of digital photos, and when I need to locate particular image or group of images, it's very hit-or-miss.

I posted a question a few weeks ago abouot keyword strategies, and I'm trying to work out mine (in my "spare time") but I'm not yet finished. I create a draft, then look at lots of different images, then make some changes. Rinse and repeat.

 

[PhilBurton]

Scott Kelby has a course titled Simple Lightroom Image Management (SLIM). Lesson 5 is called Rethinking Keywording. His take on keywording is that unless you are shooting for stock portfolios or have specific commercial client needs, keyboarding cans a waste of time.

Granted some folks may not like or respect Scott. But it is hard to argue with his huge business success and influence.

I completely disagree, strongly, with Scott's take on keywording. Yes, I respect the fact that Scott has a lot of influence, and I thought his first DAM Book was excellent for people without strong IT skills. But I also find that he can be rigid and I daresay, simplistic, in his approach to various issues.