GregJ
Greg Johnson
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2011
- Messages
- 647
- Location
- San Antonio, TX
- Lightroom Experience
- Power User
- Lightroom Version
- Cloud Service
I am not a professional photographer but am as good or better (or at least more experienced) than many of the people who make that claim. I have been a photo enthusiast for 40 years and it is now my absolute main hobby that I am very devoted to and passionate about. I love LR. I love the gurus here that teach us so much.
I invest serious money in the latest gear I can get and I don't consider myself old-school at all in terms of digital ability. I'm up on all the latest tech and devour 8 photo magazines every month and receive several daily email letters and posts from the greats and near greats who make money giving seminars, but also share their knowledge if you sign up for their newsletters. I spend a lot of time reading this LR Forum but don't post much. I also read a lot of photo technical books and am trying to learn portrait photography from some accomplished portrait pro friends. Off-camera radio controlled Speedlites is my current kick. I also consider myself very adept at LR and have been shooting RAW and using it almost daily since Jan, 2011, when I finally decided to start shooting RAW and use LR after years of just shooting just JPEGs from 2003 to 2011 (and 30 years of film shooting prior to 2003). I struggled for 6 months with LR and the gurus here were so helpful getting me started. But here is the point of my post....
I don't use Collections. I did at first but I just don't think I need it. I know ... I know.... I get it. I understand the database power of LR and I'm not a low-volume shooter. But I still organize with folders. Here is what I do. For example, we just came back from a trip to Ecuador. I shot 1500 RAW images in a trip across that beautiful country. I got home, created a folder (using LR) called "Ecuador, Feb 2015" and imported all of my cards into that folder. Then I worked in LR in that folder. I deleted 200 or so bad shots, put a Title for each image based on the location of the shot, added Key Words to each image, and renamed all the files in the order they were shot Ecuador 2015-1 through 1230. Then I developed each image in the Development Module. That took a week of work off and on. Then I exported all the images as small 1 MB JPEGS into another temporary folder and copied all 1230 images onto 5 thumb drives and mailed one each to my kids and Mom. I deleted the JPEG temp folder and of course have the Ecuador folder full of RAW files and Sidecars forever. In the future, if I want to view or use(Export) any image for that trip for printing or emailing, I will just go to that folder in LR and do whatever I want. I didn't make a collection. I know where my images are from that trip. I have done that about 25 times in the past 5 years for trips and probably 50 more times for various other shoots, events and Family gatherings So I use folders exclusively. I used to create a Collection with the same name as the folder with the same images in it, but why? Don't need it. I just go to the folder in the LR Library module and do whatever I want. I have never had the need to search for some specific type of image and let LR grab them and form a Collection for some purpose. I also scanned over 30,000 slides negatives into folders of a similar type. It took me ten years but I did it - -all before starting to use LR in 2011. Those are all TIF files that I have not brought into LR yet, but will.
So I probably have around 350 to 400 folders now with maybe 45,000 images total. I feel comfortable that the folders are well enough named that I can go back and relive old trips and events, like my trip to Prague in 1984, Norway in 1988, Kenya in 2002, or my Son's wedding in 2012. It is all in folders and I can find what I need when I need it.
I use LR exclusively now and of course use it as the base for all my RAW work for the last 5 years. I will eventually pull all those old folders full of scanned TIF files into LR. But I won't make any collections. They are still just folders.
What am I missing?
I invest serious money in the latest gear I can get and I don't consider myself old-school at all in terms of digital ability. I'm up on all the latest tech and devour 8 photo magazines every month and receive several daily email letters and posts from the greats and near greats who make money giving seminars, but also share their knowledge if you sign up for their newsletters. I spend a lot of time reading this LR Forum but don't post much. I also read a lot of photo technical books and am trying to learn portrait photography from some accomplished portrait pro friends. Off-camera radio controlled Speedlites is my current kick. I also consider myself very adept at LR and have been shooting RAW and using it almost daily since Jan, 2011, when I finally decided to start shooting RAW and use LR after years of just shooting just JPEGs from 2003 to 2011 (and 30 years of film shooting prior to 2003). I struggled for 6 months with LR and the gurus here were so helpful getting me started. But here is the point of my post....
I don't use Collections. I did at first but I just don't think I need it. I know ... I know.... I get it. I understand the database power of LR and I'm not a low-volume shooter. But I still organize with folders. Here is what I do. For example, we just came back from a trip to Ecuador. I shot 1500 RAW images in a trip across that beautiful country. I got home, created a folder (using LR) called "Ecuador, Feb 2015" and imported all of my cards into that folder. Then I worked in LR in that folder. I deleted 200 or so bad shots, put a Title for each image based on the location of the shot, added Key Words to each image, and renamed all the files in the order they were shot Ecuador 2015-1 through 1230. Then I developed each image in the Development Module. That took a week of work off and on. Then I exported all the images as small 1 MB JPEGS into another temporary folder and copied all 1230 images onto 5 thumb drives and mailed one each to my kids and Mom. I deleted the JPEG temp folder and of course have the Ecuador folder full of RAW files and Sidecars forever. In the future, if I want to view or use(Export) any image for that trip for printing or emailing, I will just go to that folder in LR and do whatever I want. I didn't make a collection. I know where my images are from that trip. I have done that about 25 times in the past 5 years for trips and probably 50 more times for various other shoots, events and Family gatherings So I use folders exclusively. I used to create a Collection with the same name as the folder with the same images in it, but why? Don't need it. I just go to the folder in the LR Library module and do whatever I want. I have never had the need to search for some specific type of image and let LR grab them and form a Collection for some purpose. I also scanned over 30,000 slides negatives into folders of a similar type. It took me ten years but I did it - -all before starting to use LR in 2011. Those are all TIF files that I have not brought into LR yet, but will.
So I probably have around 350 to 400 folders now with maybe 45,000 images total. I feel comfortable that the folders are well enough named that I can go back and relive old trips and events, like my trip to Prague in 1984, Norway in 1988, Kenya in 2002, or my Son's wedding in 2012. It is all in folders and I can find what I need when I need it.
I use LR exclusively now and of course use it as the base for all my RAW work for the last 5 years. I will eventually pull all those old folders full of scanned TIF files into LR. But I won't make any collections. They are still just folders.
What am I missing?