Help needed trying to correct a messy workflow

[Windward]

Lightroom Version Number

15.5.1

Operating System

1. Windows 11

My catalogue and my images are stored on my M2 hard drive on a desktop PC. They are both backed up on a portable SSD and a cloud server. Whenever I upload images I do not always get time to filter and cull as many as I should. In addition, I sometimes cull images on my hard drive when I come across them during selection for editing. I don’t use a sync program and so I have a set of images now that includes pretty much all the images I have ever taken. Not necessarily a bad thing, but of course too much space is now being used. Realistically I need to reduce my image collection to just those photos that are worth keeping/editing etc.

For various reasons I find I have some spare time over the next couple of weeks and intend to go through the photos and cull! My images are in year folders (i.e. 2025,2026 etc.).

My plan was to:-

• copy the images in the folders, year by year, onto my Laptop.
• create a totally new catalogue, sorting out images one year at a time, then adding a new year.
• cull the images one year at a time.
• once I have all my images culled, I would then have a copy of the streamlined catalogue and set of image files, without risking my original set and catalogue.
• Once confirm all is tickety-boo I can delete the old catalogue and file folders.

I appreciate this is not the best workflow, but can anyone see any problems with this approach?

 

[clee01l]

Consider that Lightroom Classic is your DAM tool for managing your images. If you only use one DAM tool (Lightroom) to manage your images , then you eliminate one area of confusion.

1. Begin by using Lightroom to Import your images.
2. It is strongly recommended using one of the automatic date named folder schemes to copy your images to their place in the filesystem. This eliminates the posibilities of duplication. You will use Keywords and Collections for organisation. The filesystem is a poor excuse to try to organise images.
3. After import (and in the import panel) you can use tLightroom's Assisted culling to make a first pass at culling images
4. Do not delete images yet, simply mark them as rejected .
5. Assign keywords to images and create Smart Collections to automatically assign these images to collections.
6. Create a Smart Collection for rejected images
7. Create other static collections as you deem necessary.
8. Close the Folder panel (you no longer need it) This gives you more room for Collections in the Collections panel.
9. Select images for develop editing and use a top down approach to apply edits in the develop right side panel.
10. As you Develop images, continue to rate, pick and reject. images based upon your edit efforts
11. Create Publish services for images that you want to export.
12. Instead of using the Export process, Create a Hard Drive publish service with collections that are appropriate as you did in steps 5-7
13. Publish your images that are assigned to a Publish collection
14. Open the Folder panel and filter all rejected images.
15. Select all rejected images showing in the folder panel and delete then from Lightroom and Disk.

 

[lightroomtoolbox]

My approach is a bit ugly, but it works for me:

In my computer disk, everything is on a folder named "photos", there I do have subfolders with the photos. In my backup disk I do have everything inside a folder named "backup". Inside "backup" I do have the same structure and photos as in "photos". Then after a photo session:

1- I do copy all new photos to some folder inside "photos". I do also copy them to the same folder but inside "backup" folder of my external disk.
2- Import the photos to lightroom
3- Make the culling and mark rejected photos.
4-select all rejected photos and export them as a new "tmp" catalog (without the originals, just the catalog)
5-delete the rejected photos from my catalog and form the disk (they are in "photos" folder)
6- Open the "tmp" catalog, it only contains the rejected photos but they are shown as missing
7- look for missing photos (it is simple just chage "photos" to "backup")
8- delete all photos from catalog and disk (this is from backup disk)
9- go back to my "official" catalog and delete the tmp catalog

 

[MarkNicholas]

I can't quite follow exactly what you are wanting to achieve. At first I thought you meant that your backups on SSD and cloud server include all your photos whereas you have removed a number of photos from your M2 hard drive (via LrC) and that you were wanting to also remove those photos from your backups. I then got lost with your plan to copy photos and create a new catalogue on your laptop ?

 

[Windward]

I can't quite follow exactly what you are wanting to achieve. At first I thought you meant that your backups on SSD and cloud server include all your photos whereas you have removed a number of photos from your M2 hard drive (via LrC) and that you were wanting to also remove those photos from your backups. I then got lost with your plan to copy photos and create a new catalogue on your laptop ?

I essentially have three copies of my catalogue and images in three locations (Desktop, Removable SSD drive and cloud). These contain all of the photos I have ever taken (good, bad or ugly). I want to create a catalogue with just the good images that I want to keep or edit in the future. But, I don't want to risk deleting anything by accident. As such, culling all the images in the catalogue is a huge task and so I intended to do it year by year.

I intended to:-
1) create a new catalogue named "good images" on my laptop
2) import one year at a time from the SSD drive
3) cull and generally clean up the images in that year.
4) import the next year and cull etc.
5) when all years/images are imported, culled and I just have the good images I want to keep, I would create a final catalogue on my desktop hard drive and back up to the SSD and Cloud.
6) delete the old messy catalogue.

I was hoping that if there were any flaws in this plan someone would spot them and let me know.

 

[clee01l]

You mention “backup”.. This has nothing to do with Lightroom Classic But should be an integral part of everyone’s system insurance plan.

A system backup should run automatically in the background so that all of your critical user files including your Lightroom catalog settings and file and your master image files when you disk drive fails, you accidentally overwrite a critical Word document, accidentally remove the Keywords from 2000 images, your home gets wiped out by a tornado, etc.

MacOS includes. A system backup app called TimeMachine for Mac users.

For Windows users Macrium Reflect comes highly recommended.
https://recoveryreadinessfieldbook.com

Your plan to start over means you will lose any edits, keywords and collections that you have created. Not a desired result.

If you want your images stored in a Date Named Folder scheme, you can do that in your current master catalog using filters and the folder panel with “Drag and Drop”. Moving the images from their current location to the new folder location.

If you have three catalogs containing some different data, you need to merge them into one master catalog. Before you tackle the filesystem locations.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Ron-Alexander]

I essentially have three copies of my catalogue and images in three locations (Desktop, Removable SSD drive and cloud). These contain all of the photos I have ever taken (good, bad or ugly). I want to create a catalogue with just the good images that I want to keep or edit in the future. But, I don't want to risk deleting anything by accident. As such, culling all the images in the catalogue is a huge task and so I intended to do it year by year.

I intended to:-
1) create a new catalogue named "good images" on my laptop
2) import one year at a time from the SSD drive
3) cull and generally clean up the images in that year.
4) import the next year and cull etc.
5) when all years/images are imported, culled and I just have the good images I want to keep, I would create a final catalogue on my desktop hard drive and back up to the SSD and Cloud.
6) delete the old messy catalogue.

I was hoping that if there were any flaws in this plan someone would spot them and let me know.

I will assume you have a way to back up (clone) ALL your image files and the REQUIRED catalogue files. A few days ago, I selected Catalogue/All Photographs, then Cmd-A (select all) and created a NotCulled Collection. I put mine in a Collection Set of Culled and NotCulled. Later, I reviewed the culled photos and started marking them for Rejection. Later, I will review the Rejects once more, just in case, and finally run Delete Rejected Photos. So far, I haven't used Auto Cull, but after I cull, I will compare mine to the Auto Cull.

 

[lightroomtoolbox]

if the problem is that you want to remove rejected photos from your computer and from your backup disk in order to not have a huge backup with unwanted photos, you can follow the steps I mentioned.

 

[Windward]

if the problem is that you want to remove rejected photos from your computer and from your backup disk in order to not have a huge backup with unwanted photos, you can follow the steps I mentioned.

Thanks Lightroomtoolbox. I need to think your solution through as I am not sure I follow it completely.

My intention was indeed to get rid of rejected images from everywhere. However I have a week or so enforced rest away from home and desktop. My laptop doesn't have the capacity for all my images and catalogue, so I thought I could cull a couple of years images whilst I was away. I didn't spot the loss of edits, sidecars etc so I will have to re-think.

I may consider creating each years catalogue (export as catalogue) and then merge them. I think that may work?

 

[davidmaizil]

You don't need to rebuild or merge catalogues for this. Keep your current catalogue as the master and take only Smart Previews of the photos to the laptop:

1. On the desktop, select a year folder (with Library > Show Photos in Subfolders on), Ctrl+A, then File > Export as Catalog. Tick "Export selected photos only" and "Build / Include Smart Previews", untick "Export negative files". Smart Previews are a small fraction of the size of the originals, so a year or two should fit on the laptop. Building them takes a while, so start it before you leave.

2. On the laptop, open that exported catalogue directly (double-click the .lrcat), don't import it into another catalogue. Flag with P and X as usual. Smart Previews are 2560 px on the long edge, so they're fine for composition, exposure and obvious blur, less so for pixel-level focus checks.

3. Back home, in your master catalogue: File > Import from Another Catalog, pick the laptop catalogue, and under Changed Existing Photos choose "Metadata and develop settings only". The flags land on your existing photos, and your edits, keywords and collections are untouched because the master never moved.

4. Select the year folder, then Photo > Delete Rejected Photos > Delete from Disk.

One rule while you're away: leave those photos alone in the desktop catalogue, because the laptop version replaces whatever is there on import.

This only clears the M2 drive. The SSD and cloud copies still hold the rejects, which is the part lightroomtoolbox's method deals with.

 

[Windward]

Thanks davidmaizil. Sounds just what I needed. will give it a trial run on a few images just to make sure I understand!

 

[Windward]

Excellent David Works a treat. The only thing is - on import I end up with the deleted images showing as missing and so I have to mark them for deletion and then get rid of them.

This method does mean I have back-up catalogue and image files on the removable drive and in the cloud, so I have good safeguards.

 

[lightroomtoolbox]

Thanks Lightroomtoolbox. I need to think your solution through as I am not sure I follow it completely.

My intention was indeed to get rid of rejected images from everywhere. However I have a week or so enforced rest away from home and desktop. My laptop doesn't have the capacity for all my images and catalogue, so I thought I could cull a couple of years images whilst I was away. I didn't spot the loss of edits, sidecars etc so I will have to re-think.

I may consider creating each years catalogue (export as catalogue) and then merge them. I think that may work?

If I understand your problem you have the photos in the catalog, in the pc hard disk and in the back up. You want to make some cooling and delete rejected photos from the catalog and both disks.

If you delete them directly from your catalog (with the option to also delete files from disk) you end up with the rejected photos in your back-up.

There you have some options, there are some sync programs (for instance total commander can do this), you compare your pc disk with your backup and tell that program "if a photo is not in the pc, delete it from the back up". It is ok, but if some good photo has been accidentally removed from your disk, it will also be removed from your backup.

The clue is to get a list of photos to be deleted, then remove from lightroom (from catalog and hard disk) and use this list to remove the rejected photos from the backup. The procedure I do use, is export rejected photos as a temporary catalog (and when exporting, I just create a new catalog and not the photo files, there is an option to not include the filed). Then I do delete all rejected fotos from lightroom (catalog+files on pc). I to open the tem catalog. The temp catalog has now all photos that I want to remove, and no more photos than them. The catalog points all photos as missing, since the catalog assumes they are still on the pc disk, so I use find missing to point to the back up disk. I finally use this temporary catalog to delete photos (from temp catalog+files in back up disk), and remove the temp catalog.

 

[davidmaizil]

The only thing is - on import I end up with the deleted images showing as missing and so I have to mark them for deletion and then get rid of them.

glad it worked! The ones showing as missing are photos whose files got deleted outside the master catalog, so it still lists them.
If you only flag on the laptop and run Delete Rejected Photos at home after the import, it's one pass and nothing goes missing.

 

[Windward]

If I understand your problem you have the photos in the catalog, in the pc hard disk and in the back up. You want to make some cooling and delete rejected photos from the catalog and both disks.

If you delete them directly from your catalog (with the option to also delete files from disk) you end up with the rejected photos in your back-up.

There you have some options, there are some sync programs (for instance total commander can do this), you compare your pc disk with your backup and tell that program "if a photo is not in the pc, delete it from the back up". It is ok, but if some good photo has been accidentally removed from your disk, it will also be removed from your backup.

The clue is to get a list of photos to be deleted, then remove from lightroom (from catalog and hard disk) and use this list to remove the rejected photos from the backup. The procedure I do use, is export rejected photos as a temporary catalog (and when exporting, I just create a new catalog and not the photo files, there is an option to not include the filed). Then I do delete all rejected fotos from lightroom (catalog+files on pc). I to open the tem catalog. The temp catalog has now all photos that I want to remove, and no more photos than them. The catalog points all photos as missing, since the catalog assumes they are still on the pc disk, so I use find missing to point to the back up disk. I finally use this temporary catalog to delete photos (from temp catalog+files in back up disk), and remove the temp catalog.

Thanks.
I need to do a practical trial with this to fully understand what you have said. Will give it a go!
I have a sync program and this may help. Must check!

 

[MarkNicholas]

The problem is that you might want to delete certain photos from your backups but keep others even though they are no longer in your LrC catalogue or even on your main hard drive.

What I do is delete my rejected photos from LrC and also from my hard drive master set, but I keep a copy of all photos (including all the rejected photos, except complete duds) in my backups. If I ever need to link LrC to these backed up photos (after restoring them to my hard drive) then even though all the photos will be on my hard drive (including the rejected photos) only the previous (post culled) set of photos will show up in LrC. The rejected photos still on the hard drive can then be easily identified from within LrC and deleted if desired.
(Sorry if this sounds convoluted)

 

[Windward]

The problem is that you might want to delete certain photos from your backups but keep others even though they are no longer in your LrC catalogue or even on your main hard drive.

What I do is delete my rejected photos from LrC and also from my hard drive master set, but I keep a copy of all photos (including all the rejected photos, except complete duds) in my backups. If I ever need to link LrC to these backed up photos (after restoring them to my hard drive) then even though all the photos will be on my hard drive (including the rejected photos) only the previous (post culled) set of photos will show up in LrC. The rejected photos still on the hard drive can then be easily identified from within LrC and deleted if desired.
(Sorry if this sounds convoluted)

This does seem like less work and as I have the space no problem in keeping all the images. The only issue would be if my master catalogue became corrupted and I have to revert to a back-up, it would contain all the images I don't want or need. Needs a bit of thought.

 

[Ron-Alexander]

This does seem like less work and as I have the space no problem in keeping all the images. The only issue would be if my master catalogue became corrupted and I have to revert to a back-up, it would contain all the images I don't want or need. Needs a bit of thought.

I have no idea why you are keeping images you don't need, but one answer is to spin them off into their own catalogue. That way, your master and backup are identical as of the last backup.