Incorporating other types of images (photos from other people, scans) into my current LRC catalog

[Nancy Everds]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic version: 11.0.1

Operating System

1. Windows 10

• Hi--

I have been using LRC for my photographs for awhile (after years using just BreezeBrowser/Photoshop). I have other collections of digital images that I have kept outside of LRC, and I'm struggling with a strategy to bring them into LRC. I've been reading old posts, but I didn't find quite the answer that I'm looking for. Here's my current arrangement:

• My photos: arranged via folders based on year/date (works well for me-no questions there)
• Cell phone and point/shoot photos: my plan is to combine with the "my photos," but they're not always taken by me, and that bothers me. It seems like keeping these photos separate from the "my photos" folders is a throwback to my old system, but wonder how to best use metadata to tag photos.
• Photos from friends: not sure what to do with these--don't really want to combine with my own photos. I now have a folder called "Photos from other people" with a year and initials of who provided the photos, but it's not very satisfying. These generally are from charter guests on our boat, so I'd like to make sure they are uniquely identified.
• Two primary sets of scans:
  • History of our boat: Captures (via camera) of photos and documents in the National Archives in Washington DC, and numerous scanned images. Many of these are dated by the date that I visited the archive only. A subset of these images are from government deck logs from a ship, and need to rename these to the actual date (2 pages per date), or a quarter (eg Jan-March 1947)--see image.
  • Family snapshots and kodachromes; can probably guess at decade (older) or year (newer)
  • Miscellaneous scans

My questions:

• Is there any reason to keep cellphone or point/shoot photos separate? Seems like a throwback, but wanted to make sure before I started combining. With filtering in LRC, it seems unnecessary.
• How do I deal with sets of photos from other people?
• How do I deal with scans? Do I keep them in the same LR catalog as photos, but just use separate folders? I could set up 3 separate folders: Patton (images from National Archives), Family+Friends, and other. I plan to rename all the deck log files by date and A or B (for the 2 pages), and I can rename all the files (see example of page A below for 19August 1944).

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
Nancy

 

[clee01l]

Here are some suggestions. The default folder structure for Lightroom Mobile photos is one of the Date named folder schemes. This I have found integrates nicely with my Master inventory which uses a date named folder scheme.

I find it useful to keyword (on import if possible) images that I receive from a foreign source. A smart Collection or Collections based on that keyword will quickly group these images in separate groups and apart from my own images.

It is easy to filter on different cameras. So I can quickly pull up images that were not shot with one of the cameras that i have used.


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[Paul_DS256]

I have other collections of digital images that I have kept outside of LRC, and I'm struggling with a strategy to bring them into LRC.

If you want to find any of them, then best to bring them into your existing Catalog. If you are going to treat them entirely separate, multiple catalogs may be a better approach.

I think all of your questions about how to identify the images separately can be solved by properly applying metadata tags and keywords.

• Under EXIF there is ARTIST that you can assign to the actual photographer (There are other tags such as OWNER)
• As Cletus stated, the camera information is automatically indexed into the catalog's metadata
• Scan's are a little trickier but there are tags to support them. I use them for my scan's. The tricky part is setting the create date to what you think the actual date is of the scan if it's a file negative or slide. You will also have to manually set the MAKE and MODEL of camera if that's important. Attached is an example. I set these before LR import using EXIFTOOL however the metadata import settings should also be able to duplicate this.

Bottom line, like Cletus, I think you should be able to keep images separate using metadata and keywords

 

[PhilBurton]

If you want to find any of them, then best to bring them into your existing Catalog. If you are going to treat them entirely separate, multiple catalogs may be a better approach.

I think all of your questions about how to identify the images separately can be solved by properly applying metadata tags and keywords.

• Under EXIF there is ARTIST that you can assign to the actual photographer (There are other tags such as OWNER)
• As Cletus stated, the camera information is automatically indexed into the catalog's metadata
• Scan's are a little trickier but there are tags to support them. I use them for my scan's. The tricky part is setting the create date to what you think the actual date is of the scan if it's a file negative or slide. You will also have to manually set the MAKE and MODEL of camera if that's important. Attached is an example. I set these before LR import using EXIFTOOL however the metadata import settings should also be able to duplicate this.

Bottom line, like Cletus, I think you should be able to keep images separate using metadata and keywords

Paul,

For film scans, how do you create new fields for film-only metadata in Lightroom?

I don't know of any way to record "fuzzy dates" into the standard date metadata field, at least not for Lightroom.

 

[clee01l]

Paul,

For film scans, how do you create new fields for film-only metadata in Lightroom?

I don't know of any way to record "fuzzy dates" into the standard date metadata field, at least not for Lightroom.

Scanned images will inherit the date of the scan as the Capture Date. If you want to set the Capture date for when the photo was taken You can update the capture date field. If you only know the year, enter 01/01/YYYY, or MM/01/YYYY if you only can guess at the month. Christmas photos would be 12/25/YYYY for anything taken around Christmas. The Same for other holidays.


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[Nancy Everds]

Thanks for all the suggestions, this is really helpful!

 

[Paul_DS256]

For film scans, how do you create new fields for film-only metadata in Lightroom?

I'm not creating new fields, just repurposing the EXIF 'USER COMMENT' field for my own use. In this case I'm listing FILM type, ISO,SIZE,Colour/B&W,DATE Estimate when I only have a rough idea. e.g Spring.

Cletus provided some good insight on how to override the Capture Date (Date/Time Original) with the date you think it is. I also added information about the scanner settings I used e.g. "Epson,2400dpi,Auto Exp,Color Restore,ICE=Quality". This is because I had that information doing the scans myself.

In terms of 'fuzzy dates'' ,the convention I adopted was:

• Always use the time 07:07:07. This works for me because of the naming convention I use which doesn't use CREATE date for scans. If you are going to use the CREATE date as part of the file renaming on import, this will cause an issue.
• If I know the date, I set it for the Capture (Date/Time Original)
• If I only know the year, then yyyy:07:07 07:07:07
• If I know nothing then it's 1977:07:07 07:07:07

Hope this helps.

 

[Nancy Everds]

I have a related question about these scans that I want to bring into lightroom. The person who made one set of scans annotated a subset of images by filling out the IPTC Image/Date Created field. How do I search for images that don't have this field filled in? I can't find that field in the dropdown search menu. Thanks!

 

[johnrellis]

There's no way to search accurately the IPTC Date Created field with built-in features. You'll have to use the Any Filter plugin:

However, I don't recommend using IPTC Date Created to record the capture date with LR, for a couple reasons:

- You can't use any of LR's tools for organizing by capture date: sorting Grid view, the Library Filter bar's Metadata > Date column, smart collections, Metadata > Edit Capture Time.

- Many other apps and services will look for the capture date in EXIF Date/Time Original rather than in IPTC Date Created.

- The Edit Capture Time command will silently overwrite the IPTC Date Created field.

- LR won't already read in IPTC Date Created when it imports a file or when you do Metadata > Read Metadata From File.

So I recommend copying the IPTC Date Created to LR's notion of capture date using the Edit Capture Time command of the Exiftool utility.

 

[Nancy Everds]

Thanks, this makes sense. One more question about scans. I have a series of scans that fall into 3 big buckets: Scans from National Archives, personal (family) snapshots, husband family snapshots. I think that it makes sense to put each group of scans in folders, but then tag images with people, approximate date, etc. Right now, I have subfolders: Ann and Carol, A, C, P, and B, grandparents, etc. I see those subfolders as pretty useless in LR. Am I taking a reasonable approach?

 

[Paul_DS256]

Am I taking a reasonable approach?

IMHO I'd suggest asking 'If it isn't broken, don't fix it'. If it's working for you, then leave it. As you are finding, if you've effectively used metadata tags, it doesn't matter what the structure is.

I maintain a 'where' file structure because that's how I remember images. If I have insufficient tagging, it let's me find my photo faster.