ORGANIZE Photos in Adobe LIGHTROOM

Looking to organize your photos in Adobe Lightroom?  ln this video, I’ll share my organization structure and some tips that may help you with your photo organization.  The key is that you need a system that will allow you to find images in your Catalog when you want something specific.  

To help you develop your own system, I’ve created a document with some tips and my organization structure in it for you to download for FREE.  Pick it up over on my blog here:    

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FREE Tips and my Organization Structure Document

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Lightroom 5 - Creating Metadata Presets

Metadata Presets

Setting up a metadata preset in Adobe Lightroom 5 is not only a timesaver, but it allows you to easily apply additional metadata information to any image file.  What is metadata?  Metadata is all of the information associated with your photograph.  For example, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, location, capture date/time and more.  Creating a preset is easy and only takes a few steps. 

In the Library Module, select an image.  Look on the right hand side of the screen for a tab titled ‘Metadata’.  Expand the tab.  Here you see all of the information that is associated with your images.  Take a look through all of the fields and fill out the ones that you would like to apply to your images.  Generally, the metadata information that I add includes my name, address, email, website and copyright information.  Once you have your information filled out you are ready to save it as a preset. 

Go to the top of the Edit Metadata Presets dialog box you’ll see the word ‘Preset’.  Click the pulldown menu and select ‘save current settings as new preset…’.  Name the preset and click ok. 

Now your metadata preset is all set up and ready to be used.  You can apply the preset on your images as you import them into Lightroom or to images that are already in your Lightroom library.

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Lightroom 5 - Creating Import Presets

Looking to speed up your Lightroom workflow?  Creating import presets is going to help you do that.  Import presets allow you to make all of the choices about how to import your images and where to store them and then save those settings as a preset.  Each time you import photos simply select your preset and all of your settings are applied automatically!  It’s a great time saver and prevents you from having to make all of the same choices and selections each time you import photos.   If you have any questions about setting up import presets in Adobe Lightroom, leave me a comment. 

Thanks for watching!

Getting Started in Lightroom - Importing Photos

I'm a big fan and advocate of Adobe Lightroom.  Lightroom is a fantastic program that I use for importing, organizing, and developing all of my photographs.  It took some learning to get up to speed on the program and how to use it, but now I could never go back to using simple folders or other methods of organizing my photographs.  Below is a quick tutorial of how to import photos into Lightroom 5.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment below or email me.

Getting Started in Lightroom 5

Adobe Lightroom 5 Logo

Getting started in Adobe Lightroom can be a little intimidating.  When I first got started using Adobe Lightroom I remember thinking 'how am I going to figure all this out?'  I literally spent days researching, learning and sorting through all the information I could find to help me understand the program and how to use it.  Little by little I learned the program, how to use it, how to set it up and how to take advantage of the tools that are available to me.  By sharing my experience and knowledge of Adobe Lightroom, my hope is to help others just as I have been helped along the way.  

In my experience, there are no great 'secrets' to all of this stuff - its really just techniques, settings, styles, creativity, interpretations etc. that you may not have thought of or may not have learned yet.  I love to learn and I learn something new every day.  All the information that I plan to provide is the way I use Lightroom and what works for me.  I'm not saying this is the only way to do things, it's just what I found to work for me.  So, lets get started!

Adobe Lightroom 5 - File Locations

First Things First

I'm assuming that you have already installed Lightroom on your computer and are ready to go.  I use a Mac, so my setup will be based on the Mac system.  There are a few things you should know as you get started using Adobe Lightroom (Lightroom).  

• Lightroom is a program that allows you to import, organize, manage, develop/process and export images.  It is a database for all of your images.
• The more information you input about your images through metadata, ratings, keywords, etc. the better you will be able to search for specific images later on.
• The Lightroom catalog houses all of the information related to your images - file locations, organizational structural, develop settings, ratings, keywords, etc.   
• Image files are separate from the Lightroom catalog and can be stored in a different location than the Lightroom catalog file.  
• Lightroom provides non-destructive editing of photos. 

With these few things in mind, we can get started on setting up Lightroom.  First, you want to think about where you would like to store your Lightroom catalog and where you would like to store your images.  

The Lightroom Catalog (.lrcat)

What I do and would recommend is to place the Lightroom catalog file (.lrcat file extension) on your local hard drive.  This will allow your computer to have the fastest access to the catalog.  Each time you load your catalog in Lightroom, all of the information contained in the catalog must be called up.  The quicker the computer can access the catalog file, the quicker Lightroom will be up and running.  I store my Lightroom catalog on my hard drive under Pictures>Lightroom>Focus Photography & Design>Learning Catalog_LR5.lrcat.  You can name your catalog anything you would like.  In this case, this will be the catalog I use for various tutorials, learning and teaching to help keep the program moving efficiently. 

Image File Location

Next, think about where you want to store your image files.  If you will not have a lot of images or if you have a large internal hard drive, it might make sense to save the images on your internal hard drive.  I use an external hard drive to store my images.  I use a Drobo that contains 4 bays of hard drives.  The Drobo has been a great system for me that offers tons of storage and I would recommend them if you need a large external hard drive system.  

On my external hard drive I created a folder called 'Lightroom'.  Inside the 'Lightroom' folder, I created another folder called 'Photos Go Here'.  This will be the main location for all of the images.  It is important to keep all of your images inside one main (or parent) folder.  This method of storing your files will be helpful later on should you decide to move all of your image files within Lightroom.  

From this point forward, it is best to create your organizational system/file structure directly in Lightroom.  As you import your images into Lightroom, the Lightroom catalog creates a link to your images within the catalog.  The image files are not stored physically inside the catalog file, rather the catalog remembers where they are by saving a linked to them.  You never want to move the image files around in Finder or Windows Explorer because the link to the image in the Lightroom catalog will be 'broken'.  You will then need to 'relink' the file (you will see a little question mark in the top corner of the image preview letting you know that Lightroom can't find the file).  The best way to move and/or organize your images is directly in Lightroom.  By moving items in Lightroom, the Lightroom catalog will automatically update the links for the new image file location.

Inside your 'Photos Go Here' folder (or whatever the name you choose), you can then create any kind of organizational structure you'd like.  Below are the top level folders that I have created to organize my images:

I currently have my images broken down by year, then 7 primary categories.  Inside those 7 primary categories I have additional folders with specific events, places, etc.  I have a separate directory for iPad and iPhone images as well as a separate directory for all business/work related photography.  Inside the work folder, I further break it down into clients, projects, etc.  

This is the system that works for me, but it might not be the best for you.  Think about what you need and what you think will work for you.  I do find my organizational structure evolving over time, however with the setup I have, it is easy to move images and folders directly within Lightroom.  Keep in mind, the more images you have, the longer it will take to move them all around if you decide to change your organizational structure.  

I hope these basics help when getting started in Lightroom.  If you have any questions about the file locations and setting up a directory I'd be happy to help you further.  Please leave me a comment below.