I love Lightroom but I have never fully mastered keeping my files ultra organised. This is something I really want to rectify as I hate that my photos are in such a chaotic muddle.
Does anyone have any tips as to how I can go about sorting out this muddle? Every time I look at doing it I find an excuse to put it off until tomorrow.
I'm in the exact same situation so was interested to see what people replied. Think my approach will be large glass of wine and semi interesting tv in background. Although its a shame to spend evening in front of computer in the summer...so maybe i will put it off a few more months.....
I'm in the same boat. I keep putting it off till the winter but there have been a few winters now and I see to have more and more photos. 15 mins a day you say @northy ...mmmmmm. I might have to try that but I'm old so will probably be dead before I get them all sorted at only 15 mins a day :) Perhaps if I spent less time looking for the magic wand to fix the problem and more time on the sorting it would be better :) Good luck getting them sorted :)
I am in the same boat with Lightroom. I was some way down path (a little) when pc problems messed everything up. I will await replies and solutions with great interest. I love magic solutions too, so .........
I am very particular about filing and have them all by reverse date so they are really easy to find. A folder for each year, within that a folder for each month, then I import by date and choose a file name. Not everyone's solution but it suits me. I learnt at a photography seminar yesterday the beauty of using "collections" within Lightroom rather than folders. You can have a photo in many different collections but there is still only one physical copy on your computer, so perhaps that's another good way to organise them all. Also, use keywords upon importing, saves time tagging individual photos later. Hope this has been useful :)
I wrote a post on my blog about how I tag and organize my photos. http://www.archaeofrog.com/2013/06/why-and-how-to-tag-your-photographs.html. I know in Picasa you can select a large group and give them all the same tag at once, which saves time. Best advice I've seen is to focus on organizing your incoming photos each day and then yes, as @northy said, put in 15 minutes each day going back to slowly catch up. (Set a timer; makes it seen much quicker.)
On my light room when I import they go into sub folders in a 2013 folder in my My Pictures folder. Could you just import them from there and they would be chronological?
I appreciate this may not be the answer you want. I use LR to import all my photos into. Process what I want them export to 365 folder in my documents then upload. I then have all my 365 uploads in one folder. I then delete what I don't use unless it's the kids or an event/dayout etc
I'm sure you won't go this route, but I will tell you my method, which has been in use since my 1980's DOS computers. I use a simple database organised by photo location with a searchable description. It started as a slide database, now includes digital images, and has been been converted repeatedly through several versions of windows and database programs. I can locate any image - slide, negative, or digital in moments. Just like Lightroom or Photoshop Organizer, it still takes time and discipline to keep it current. Good luck.
I've been using Lightroom for a couple of months or so, working it out as I go along, watching the occasional online training video, but the other day I bought Victoria Brampton's 'Lightroom 5' book. I bought the e-version, which is much cheaper than the hard copy and already I've learnt so much. I wish I'd bought it sooner. She deals with organising photos and everything else in a very accessible way. It's much cheaper to go direct to her website than Amazon. The price is £14.95 or US$ 23 and for me it's money well spent. See: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/
i have a similar issue. My laptop is now full, so I've had to offload my Lightroom files to a drive. Because I'm so nervous about it, I think I've copied some of the files multiple times. There must be an easy way to do this (and a way to make sure its complete and accurate).
I'm on a conference call so can't read all the responses here, so if you've already answered this, just ignore me!
Well I am glad I am not the only one that is in a lightroom muddle. Thanks for all your comments.
I decided to bite the bullet today and follow this tutorial that I found (link below). I was so panicked I was going to delete all my photos but it seems to have worked.
I am nervous to download new photos to my organised library now incase I mess up the order :-) I also have to do lots of reading about using keywords etc properly so I don't get back in a muddle. Let me know how you all get on and if this works as a solution for you.
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"As if..." Says I - but you may have more discipline or will or whatever it is you need than me ;0
I was hoping for a quick fix ;-) sigh, I am still hopeful for a magic solution... :-)
I appreciate this may not be the answer you want. I use LR to import all my photos into. Process what I want them export to 365 folder in my documents then upload. I then have all my 365 uploads in one folder. I then delete what I don't use unless it's the kids or an event/dayout etc
I'm on a conference call so can't read all the responses here, so if you've already answered this, just ignore me!
I decided to bite the bullet today and follow this tutorial that I found (link below). I was so panicked I was going to delete all my photos but it seems to have worked.
While it is not a magic wand fix it is about as good as I could hope for. I still have lots of renaming of folders to do but all my photos now look more orderly than they ever were, and are all in folders organised by year and date. Duplicates were removed automatically. If any of you want to have a go here is the link:
http://laurashoe.com/2011/10/12/help-my-photos-are-unorganized-and-lightroom-is-a-mess-how-can-i-just-start-all-over/
I am nervous to download new photos to my organised library now incase I mess up the order :-) I also have to do lots of reading about using keywords etc properly so I don't get back in a muddle. Let me know how you all get on and if this works as a solution for you.
Nicky :-)
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