More folder structure questions!

[charlie boy]

So after a wee look around the forum, I'm still unsure of the best way to go in terms or organising and backups.

I have a 1TB drive with a mix of dated folder structures and batches of images, as coming from windows, and now bought another 1Tb for backup.

In a perfect and (probably unattainable!) world i would like to have it all in dated folders, and then key worded for ease, but as its all a little higgedy piggedy in there after the year folder, i was thinking of starting new with my new back up drive. Have key worded a fair bit, but still think i have lots more to do.

So, what is the best way to back up all images to my new drive and do you think its worth trying to reorganize them into dated structures on new drive and then even using that as primary drive with current drive as a backup?

oh the joy of data. Whaddya reckon guys?

 

[dj_paige]

So, what is the best way to back up all images to my new drive and do you think its worth trying to reorganize them into dated structures on new drive and then even using that as primary drive with current drive as a backup?

For ease of backup, you would put all your folders containing photos under a single parent folder. In my case, all of my photos are in folders under "D:\Nikon Pictures". Then, to do a backup, I know I simply need to backup everything in "D:\Nikon Pictures". If you have to move your existing folders/photos to get this structure, make sure you move the folders/photos in Lightroom as opposed to moving them in Windows.

As far as changing existing folders to folder by date, I think this is an inefficient use of time. I think you would be much better served by putting your energy and time into making sure you have good keywords, captions and other metadata for all of your photos. Keywords, captions and other metadata will enable you to find your photos a lot faster than a date folder organization. Also, keywords, captions and other metadata give you the ability to find photos by the subject matter of the photo, rather than by something entirely tangential to the subject matter (dates). You have this very powerful program (Lightroom) to aid you, make the best use of it and make the best use of your time ... organize by keywords, captions and other metadata, not by dates.

 

[charlie boy]

Thanks paige i will do that. Incidently do you know of the best way to export your selected images into photoshop? and do you then re import your images once edited in PS back into lightroom? It seems really longwinded, maybe i'm doing it wrong!

 

[Kiwigeoff]

For ease of backup, you would put all your folders containing photos under a single parent folder. In my case, all of my photos are in folders under "D:\Nikon Pictures". Then, to do a backup, I know I simply need to backup everything in "D:\Nikon Pictures". If you have to move your existing folders/photos to get this structure, make sure you move the folders/photos in Lightroom as opposed to moving them in Windows.

As far as changing existing folders to folder by date, I think this is an inefficient use of time. I think you would be much better served by putting your energy and time into making sure you have good keywords, captions and other metadata for all of your photos. Keywords, captions and other metadata will enable you to find your photos a lot faster than a date folder organization. Also, keywords, captions and other metadata give you the ability to find photos by the subject matter of the photo, rather than by something entirely tangential to the subject matter (dates). You have this very powerful program (Lightroom) to aid you, make the best use of it and make the best use of your time ... organize by keywords, captions and other metadata, not by dates.

Paige how does having files in dated folders have less efficiency for searching than non dated folders?

 

[dj_paige]

I export to Photoshop Elements, not Photoshop, but I assume the procedure is similar.

In Lightroom, select a photo(s), then select Photo->Edit In->Photoshop. This should create a .tif file of your photo which opens in Photoshop. Do your edits, and then save the file in Photoshop under the exact same name that Lightroom created (which, in my example, would look like DSC_64'7-Edit.tif). Then, once the save is complete, Lightroom should recognize your Photoshop edits.

 

[Kiwigeoff]

You can create dated folders, which by the way seems the most commonly used system, by importing you folders with "copy to a new location", at this point LR can automatically create a dated folder structure.
Inside LR you can then further organise files into collections and smart collections, these are the most practical way of "sorting" files as they can be across folders.

 

[Kiwigeoff]

Thanks paige i will do that. Incidently do you know of the best way to export your selected images into photoshop? and do you then re import your images once edited in PS back into lightroom? It seems really longwinded, maybe i'm doing it wrong!

To export several images to PS you need to be in Library/Grid with the files selected, then cmd/crtl-E will send them to PS. Depending on your version of PS a new file will be created at export/edit or at time of saving. You can set either PSD or TIFF in the preferences and of course if you "Save As" from PS you will have extra options.
Generally the saved file will show up in LR automatically.

 

[dj_paige]

Paige how does having files in dated folders have less efficiency for searching than non dated folders?

What I was referring to was that putting your energy into Lightroom keywords yields more benefits and a better organization than putting the same amount of energy into moving your photos into dated folders.

 

[Kiwigeoff]

What I was referring to was that putting your energy into Lightroom keywords yields more benefits and a better organization than putting the same amount of energy into moving your photos into dated folders.

Ok, I see that point. However a tidy house has many pluses!!

 

[Mark Sirota]

As far as changing existing folders to folder by date, I think this is an inefficient use of time.

Today this needs to be done manually, if they're already in Lightroom. I would suggest filing a feature request to allow for "Organize by date" in either Export as Catalog or Import from Catalog. Organize by date is currently only available when importing new images.

Once that feature is available, it will be trivial to reorganize by date. So submit the request, and wait for it to show up (probably not before 3.'). There's a link to the feature request form on the blue bar at the top of the page.

 

[Scott O]

I really agree with all of this. When attempting to reorganize an existing file structure, your time is better spent on doing some serious keywording. That way you can access everything easily despite the file organization. As far as tidying the house goes, that can be done a little at a time as it really is aesthetics and won't affect you being able to easily access your images. Note to Newbies...perhaps the most important thing you can do when getting into digital is to figure out a file structure that makes sense to you and stick to it! It is so much easier to start correctly that to go back and organize something which is messed up.

 

[Replytoken]

While I understand that date folders may not be as useful within Lightroom as other organizational methods like keywords, they do serve a useful purpose for Digital Asset Management and recovery in case of a crash. So, while arranging files by date folder may not be key to using Lightroom, it does have other useful purposes and should not be completely dismissed as an inefficient use of time.

--Ken

 

[seanfin]

Hi all.

This is my first post here. I have ordered LR 2.' and the Kelby book to work through and should get them in the next couple of days. The first thing that I was worrying about is related to this thread.

Should I reorganize my files (e.g. sorted by date) on my C drive *before* starting to work with LR? I have photos going back years, and each camera manufacturer used a different default place to put the photos. It's a mess trying to find anything. As mentioned above I *should* have come up with a good structure in the first place, but it's too late now . I am not sure if the disagreement above is because the OP had already started with LR and would mess up the database, or because it just isn't worth it. I am planning to use LR pretty much exclusively, and shoot mostly in RAW (which I just started). I do recognize that sometime down the line I may decide to use different software or just more software, so being able to easily find a photo in Explorer might be useful. It might also help if I use multiple machines (which I often do), move to a new PC (hopefully soon) or even to a Mac (if I can ever get rid of some legacy software ).

Finally, I now import by plugging in my camera and using Picture Project. Will I now do this in LR, or should I copy the files to my wonderful new file structure and then import the directory to LR?

Thanks

Sean.

 

[DonRicklin]

Hi all.

This is my first post here. I have ordered LR 2.' and the Kelby book to work through and should get them in the next couple of days. The first thing that I was worrying about is related to this thread.

Should I reorganize my files (e.g. sorted by date) on my C drive *before* starting to work with LR? I have photos going back years, and each camera manufacturer used a different default place to put the photos. It's a mess trying to find anything. As mentioned above I *should* have come up with a good structure in the first place, but it's too late now . I am not sure if the disagreement above is because the OP had already started with LR and would mess up the database, or because it just isn't worth it. I am planning to use LR pretty much exclusively, and shoot mostly in RAW (which I just started). I do recognize that sometime down the line I may decide to use different software or just more software, so being able to easily find a photo in Explorer might be useful. It might also help if I use multiple machines (which I often do), move to a new PC (hopefully soon) or even to a Mac (if I can ever get rid of some legacy software ).

Finally, I now import by plugging in my camera and using Picture Project. Will I now do this in LR, or should I copy the files to my wonderful new file structure and then import the directory to LR?

Thanks

Sean.

Welcome. The best thing you can do is, if you have not already, download the 3' day trial, which is LR version 2.3 (what you should be using. Get started with it.

When the box comes with 2.' or whatever is in it (2.x) don't do anything BUT look for the serial number and register the copy you have downloaded under Library Menu/Help/Lightroom Registration.

That is all you will need to do to get going. And ask away with the questions!

Don

 

[dj_paige]

Should I reorganize my files (e.g. sorted by date) on my C drive *before* starting to work with LR? I have photos going back years, and each camera manufacturer used a different default place to put the photos. It's a mess trying to find anything. As mentioned above I *should* have come up with a good structure in the first place, but it's too late now .

I would recommend that you leave your photos exactly where they are. Don't move a thing. Don't even think about it. Put your energy and time into Organizing within Lightroom using Lightroom tools such as keywords, captions, other metadata and collections. Why? Two reasons: 1) These are more powerful tools than anything you can come up with using folders to Organize; 2) Once you begin using Lightroom as a database of your photos, you will no longer need to search for your photos in Folders; instead you search for your photos using the more powerful features of Lightroom.

Further, once you import your photos into Lightroom, don't rename or move them (or the folders that contain them) using Windows. If you must move or rename your photos, use Lightroom to do so.

I do recognize that sometime down the line I may decide to use different software or just more software, so being able to easily find a photo in Explorer might be useful. It might also help if I use multiple machines (which I often do), move to a new PC (hopefully soon) or even to a Mac (if I can ever get rid of some legacy software ).

Moving to a new PC or Mac but continuing to use Lightroom: then moving your photos around in folders to get better organized doesn't help. Lightroom remains your tool for finding your photos. As long as you are using Lightroom ... don't think in terms of folders.

If some day you want to use other software for your photos, I would hope that this other software is modern enough to read your keywords and captions. If it is, then again folders become irrelevant. If the software is somehow unable to read the keywords and captions, then you must be using an abacus.

And if you simply want to take a photo and use it in some other software, then the proper method is to find it in Lightroom, and export it to a temporary folder. Finding photos in Windows ... let's not go there. That was how we did things in the Cretaceous era.

The only time I ever think moving photos is worthwhile is to move them to a new computer or hard disk, or to make backups easier. To make backups easier, you could move every folder that contains a photo to be all under the same parent folder (you would do this in Windows before you import into Lightroom; otherwise you do this in Lightroom). Other than that, I simply can't see the benefit of moving photos from here to there.

Finally, I now import by plugging in my camera and using Picture Project. Will I now do this in LR, or should I copy the files to my wonderful new file structure and then import the directory to LR?

I am not familiar with Picture Project. You could easily use Lightroom for importing. When you import from a camera, you must put your pictures somewhere, I use a simple structure where the folder name is the capture date. And from then on, I don't think about folders. I have no idea what folder that great picture I took of the Gothic Revival Barn is located in; but I can find the photo in seconds in Lightroom.

 

[dj_paige]

... while arranging files by date folder may not be key to using Lightroom, it does have other useful purposes and should not be completely dismissed as an inefficient use of time.

Could you please state what those "other useful purposes" are?

 

[Replytoken]

Could you please state what those "other useful purposes" are?

Hi Paige,

While you quoted part of my response, the other part that was not quoted was mostly what I was referring to:

they do serve a useful purpose for Digital Asset Management and recovery in case of a crash.

Peter Krogh's The DAM Book, and his web site, go into greater detail about the use and value of folders for back up and DAM. And, I personally find this type of structure to work well for my organizational style. I am very "date oriented" and this type of folder structure helps me find things quickly in and outside of LR. And, its a very scalable approach. YMMV.

--Ken

 

[Kiwigeoff]

I use the same method as Ken (folders of ymd)after much experimenting, it was the most practical solution I could come up with.
After importing all my old files into LR I could then sort by capture date and move them to dated folders within LR.
End result a tidy library within LR and a tidy structure on disk which makes back ups easy.

 

[dj_paige]

Peter Krogh's The DAM Book, and his web site, go into greater detail about the use and value of folders for back up and DAM. And, I personally find this type of structure to work well for my organizational style. I am very "date oriented" and this type of folder structure helps me find things quickly in and outside of LR. And, its a very scalable approach. YMMV.

I haven't read the book. So, although I keep my folders by capture date, the folders are just receptacles. They serve no other purpose for me, I never use them. So please elaborate, what DAM purpose is served by folders by capture date? Is it just to allow people like you who are "date oriented" find files in folders, or is there some greater DAM value to having folders by capture date?

 

[Replytoken]

I haven't read the book. So, although I keep my folders by capture date, the folders are just receptacles. They serve no other purpose for me, I never use them. So please elaborate, what DAM purpose is served by folders by capture date? Is it just to allow people like you who are "date oriented" find files in folders, or is there some greater DAM value to having folders by capture date?

Hi Paige,

You are correct, from a pure LR perspective, dated folders are just receptacles, although I personally like having a dated folder structure in LR.

From a DAM perspective, folders make the logistics of backing up to, or restoring from, "buckets" much easier. "Buckets", crudely defined, are offline media (i.e. CD, DVD, Blu-Ray DVD) where original and deritive files are stored as secondary backups. For purposes of clarity, I need to add that the originals are usually stored separately from the derivitives (a practice that seems different from what you are currently using in your one folder layout).

While I cannot say that a dated folder arrangement is "superior" to a single folder like you are using, IMHO it certainly is better than having images scattered accross multiple folders and/or multiple drives. I guess the key undelying this whole philosophy is having everything reside under a single, to level folder. After that, it just depends how O/C you are feeling about the organization of your images.

Personally I would find it very frsutrating to open a single folder with tens of thousand of images. And, this frustration would be repeated in LR's folder structure in the Library module. Under my scenario, my dated folder structure appears in LR automatically, and I can easily scan a year or day if I want to browse. This is a different method of browsing than by collection or keyword, but it also require no time or energy on my part; it happens automatically. And as I previously stated, I often remember things by date and may want to browse the shoot for that day.

I hope this better explains this methodology. Perhaps John Beardsworth, a fellow DAM'ophile, could provide some addition insight on the value of folders? Just don't ask him to split his catalog!

--Ken

 

[dj_paige]

Thanks, Ken.

I believe your explanation is consistent with what I wrote earlier ("The only time I ever think moving photos is worthwhile is to move them to a new computer or hard disk, or to make backups easier. To make backups easier, you could move every folder that contains a photo to be all under the same parent folder")

And just to be clear, I am not using a single folder, I do use folders by capture date. My derivative files are in the same folders as the originals, I don't separate them, as I use the Lightroom/Photoshop Elements defaults when creating derivative files.