Lightroom organizing

[Mitchell]

Latly ive been taking alot of pictures.. I now have over 4000 imported into lightroom and there all in there own folders acording to date, and i have about 30 folder with dates..
some are keyworded but it still takes awhile to find them and im afraid im not going to beable to find any of my pictures the more i take pictures.

So i was wonder how you guys and gals organize your photographs it doesent matter if you use lightroom or not Im still curious.

Thanks a ton!

[Edd]

Hi Mitchell,

I used the Organiser on Elements 6.

All unedited images remain in folders (in date order) as produced when downloading from the camera.

All edited images get sorted in to categories such as birds, mammals, landscapes etc. I then break these down into subcategories i.e. birds goes into eagles, robins, woodpeckers etc.

I try to keep everything tagged with a map so that I know where each photograph was taken.

It does take a few more minutes to do but at least you can see what you took and where within a couple of clicks of a mouse.

With edited images if there are TIFF and JPG files they all get stacked together.

Ed

[gldiana]

I use Lightroom for my workflow:

I have a main photo hard drive (only photos go here and nothing else, other hard drives and blu-ray for backup). Photos get imported through LR into this hard drive from memory cards. At import I ask LR to assign keywords (more specific keywords will be assigned later) as soon as they're in LR's database I delete the shots that have no quality, delete them from the database and from the hard drive too. All photos left are assigned a PICK flag if they're worthy or REJECT if I have no use for them but prefer not to delete them. At this point I ask LR to show me the PICK so that the other photos won't take useless space on my screen. I now assign more specific keywords and then assign a 5 star rating to those I really like and which I know, at some point, will end up on a print. Keywords are the most important think in a workflow in my opinion, I can just type Tetons and LR will show all my photos with the Teton mountains in it, or Teton Night and I will get only the photos of the Tetons taken at night... hope this helps you, Mitchell.

[Mitchell]

Thanks both of you for your help

Luca, thats pretty mutch what i do (other than i only got one hard drive )
But i was wondering do you just download all you pictures to one file on your hard drives?
or do you have them in like the date they were shot??

Thanks, Mitchell

[gldiana]

Get a 2nd hard drive right this minute!
Hard drives are cheap and you don't want to lose all you have because of a (very common) glitch.



Yes, I'll keep photo in a folder that starts with the date I shoot in a way that it's easier for the OS to organize by date.
Example:

2009 08 12 - Jackson Lake

[Mitchell]

OK thanks

Thats what i do but i dont put the location on the end becuase i dont really shoot certian areas i just go were ever i think would be good for photos and most of the time i dont know what the place is called..

[gldiana]

well, you can call it whatever you like, something that will remind you of that place. But it is a good idea to grab a map and learn about the places you photograph.

[Edd]

Mitchell,

I'm not fimilar with Lightroom but like I said in Elements you can access an online map and mark where each photo was taken.

I don't tag the photos with keywords but really its something I should be doing.

Ed