At some stage, most people run into worrying exclamation points or question marks denoting missing files. These warnings appear when Lightroom can no longer find the photos at their last known location. But if Lightroom thinks my photos are … Click to continue
How do I move only my photos to another hard drive, leaving the catalog where it is?
If you need to move photos to another hard drive, perhaps because you’ve outgrown your existing hard drive, there are two main options. As a rule of thumb, you can use option one for moving a few photos/folders, but option two is safer when moving … Click to continue
How do I clean up duplicate photos?
Over time, you may have ended up with a load of duplicated photos that you need to clean up. Merging catalogs can introduce duplicates, but so can importing photos with Don't import suspected duplicates unchecked, importing exported photos or using … Click to continue
How do I copy metadata or edits between photos?
It's easy to end up with duplicate photos in your catalog that need cleaning up. These may be real files on the hard drive or virtual copies. Either way, some will have edits you don't want to lose. For example, you may have edited one copy of the … Click to continue
My rating workflow
In the previous post in the series, we discussed how to apply flags and star ratings to your photos, and how to filter them... but when you're faced with thousands of photos, where do you start? How do you decide which photos deserve which ratings... … Click to continue
How do I use flags and star ratings with Lightroom Classic to identify my favorite photos?
In the last post, we discussed using collections to group photos. You don't need to create additional collections for your best photos, because you can use flags/stars and filter them. Flags vs. StarsLightroom offers multiple ways of … Click to continue
How do I create and manage collections?
In the "Why use collections to organize photos?" post, we learned why you might want to use collections to group photos. Now let's learn how… How to create a collection To create a collection, scroll down to the Collections panel, which you’ll find … Click to continue
Why use collections to organize photos?
In previous posts, we've learned how store photos and videos in folders on your hard drive, but now let's start organizing them into virtual collections based on their content.Collections are designed to group photos and videos for a specific … Click to continue
How do I use the Import dialog’s Destination panel to put the photos in per-shoot folders?
In the last post, we learned how to automatically place photos into dated folders, but if you need to find photos outside of Lightroom, you may want to store your photos in a year/shoot-named hierarchy instead. This still meets the best practice … Click to continue
How do I organize photos into folders?
Once you’ve decided where to store the photos on the hard drive, you then need to decide how to organize them. There’s no right or wrong way of organizing photos on your hard drive, but there are some basic principles that can help you avoid … Click to continue
The Dangers of Synchronize Folder
"Synchronize Folder." Sounds safe enough, doesn't it. And it IS safe enough... as long as you read and understand the dialog. But how many of us hit OK on dialogs without first stopping to read them? I'll admit, I've done it too. If you do that with … Click to continue
I have a long list of folders—can I change it to show the folder hierarchy?
Depending on your Import dialog settings, the folders may be in one long list regardless of their hierarchy on the hard drive. That can make them hard to find and relocate if they’re ever marked as missing.As a preventative measure, you can … Click to continue
Should I convert to DNG?
DNG is a well worn debate on many photography forums on the web, and there’s no right or wrong answer, but there are a few pros and cons to consider when weighing your personal decision.Pro - Long Term StorageThe DNG format is openly and … Click to continue
How should I organize my photos on my hard drive?
There’s no right or wrong way of organizing photos on your hard drive, but it’s worth spending the time to set up a logical folder structure before you start. There are a few important factors to bear in mind when deciding on your folder … Click to continue
Ready to move on from Aperture or iPhoto?
Adobe has just released their first Aperture/iPhoto to Lightroom Import tool. They're going to continue refining the plug-in and will include it in a future Lightroom update and it's now included in Lightroom 5.7 (updated 18 November 2014), but if … Click to continue
