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Setting Up My First Catalogue & Previewing in the Libray Module

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R

rozel

Member
Joined
May 11, 2020
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46
Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom Classic Version 9
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
Hi all​

I have used Lightroom on and off over the past 3 months or so and am getting to grips with how it works. I have recently been reconfiguring my Desktop PC so that I can organise many photos, shot when I first got a digital camera years ago - probably spanning over 20 years. Having researched quite a lot since coming on here I have installed an NVMe SSD Drive (2TB) to move all my photos to. Currently they are dotted around many HDD's and Nas servers. My Windows 10 OS is on another NVMe SSD drive (500GB) and my first (and experimental) Catalogue "Family & Travel" is on a 250GB Sata SSD. At the present time I have the Parent Photo Folder On the 2TB drive named again "Family & Travel" containing 783 photos (.jpg's / .dng's / CR3's) and have 1 other folder outside the Parent named "Edited Files" which contains 2 edited "keepers" from Lightroom itself. It took me ages to work out how to do this - first learn was to do the swapping and changing etc from within Lightroom itself. As all my photos will be situated on this same drive, I have premanently moved 17 more folders to it which I have yet to introduce into my Catalogue. Later on I shall create a second Catalogue for my Videos, which as I write this makes me think I will want to change the current Parent folder to "Family & Travel Photos" lol!​
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I have manged to get the folder structure on the 2 Catalogue folders in Lightroom identical to those on my drive and want to keep it like that when I "Import" the 17 other folders. I am attaching a photo, so you can see where I am right now.​
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Capture.JPG​
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Before I proceed though I first of all want to change the 2TB Drive Letter in Windows - I know how to do this but I was a too hasty setting it up in the first place. I also want to change the Volume Name and change the Parent folder name slightly (see above) at the same time. I have a number of questions please, if I may ask? : -​
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1. So I change the Drive letter and Volume name in Windows but then what? Obviously I need to do something in Lightroom but I do not want to change anything that I've done so far. I've read much about changing drive letters on here and on the interweb but cannot find what to do unless my photos are on an external drive, which they are not.​
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2. Then, because I've gone through much angst to get to where I am at the moment, what is the exact procedure to import my other 17 and future folders into Lightroom retaining the same folder structure. At the moment I can click on a folder in Lightroom to preview those photos that folder and which are actually in the same folder on my 2TB drive - again I want to retain this methodology. At first if I clicked on the Parent Folder in Lightroom, it showed all the photos across the 2 folders on my 2TB drive but I found the setting to avoid showing subfolders and voila!​
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3. When viewing photos in the Library Module, is there a way to easily see the next or previous photo? At the moment clicking on the photo makes it larger and, I think I have to double click to get back to where I was. I know you can set up a slideshow but when Previewing I would like to go forwards and backwards, as you can in windows using the basic Windows Photo app. Is this possible?​
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4. At the moment my photos in the Library show the name / type / resolution / date / time of the photos. Brilliant, but then I read about "Keywords". What are these and how do they work? - I guess I can change the names but does doing so overwrite this information - what I mean is, is there a way to rename whilst at the same time showing this name as well as the other information (which I assume is taken from the meta data in the photos)?​
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That's it for now haha! - thanks for reading and hope you can help this enthusiastic newbie :):):)​
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roz​
 
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Most of the questions will be answered if you download and read Victoria's free Quick Start Guide (you'll find it using the "Shop" link at the top of each forum page).

Changing the drive letter of a drive which contains images which have already been imported into Lightroom will cause all folders and images to be marked as "missing". That's not a problem, all that you need to do is right-click on the top-level Parent Folder(s) in the Lightroom Folders Panel and select "Find Missing Folder". A file browser window appears, use that to browse to and select the correct folder (which is now on a different drive as far as Lightroom is concerned, as it has no knowledge of the drive letter change). Once selected, Lightroom will update its internal pointers to reflect the new drive, and all "missing" folders and files will automatically be relinked. Renaming the Parent Folder is best done inside Lightroom, right-click on it in the Folders Panel and select "Rename". Enter the new name and Lightroom will make the change for you, no need to rename using the OS file system.
 
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1/ Once you will have changed the drive letter, in LR the folder "Family & Travel" will have a "?" in front of it. That means the LR cannot find it at the path stored in the catalog. This is expected since you changed the drive letter and therefore the path.
To fix this, in LR right-click on the folder "Family & Travel" and select "Find the missing folder". Browse to the folder on disk, select it and voila, the path will be updated in the catalog.
2/ Open the Import window, select the folder you want to import in the catalog, select ADD at the top of the import window, then click Import.
This will request LR to reference the folders and their contents in the catalog, whithout moving them.
3/ Did you try to use the arrow keys on your keyboard?
4/ Keywords are words that describe your image ("Birthday", "game", "Dog", "Landscape", etc.). One image can have several keywords. Keywords can then be used to find images (like find landscape images with dogs). Keywords are metadata that are attached to the image.
 
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Thanks guys, very much appreciated. I'll have a bash after lunch.
Will changing the name of the Volume and Parent Folder be resolved in the same way? Ans also how do I correctly Import my other 17 folders and retain the same folder structure?
Cheers
 
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Changing a volume name doesn't really matter on Windows, it's the drive letter that's important....but do them both at the same time and relink Lightroom to the new drive letter/volume name as described earlier.
Changing the name of a parent folder, I've already told you how to do that.
Importing existing folders and retaining the structure....use the "Add" option in the Import dialog.
 
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