Prior to 2011 I was using Bridge/Photoshop and organized the files by client.
In 2011 I started using LR and let it import new sessions using the year/yyyy-mm-dd folder structure. I now use LR exclusively 99% of the time, and would like to "re-import" my older images into the year/yyyy-mm-dd structure and do away with my haphazard prior organization for those images. Is there a way to get LR to reorganize the files (i.e. move all the old images into year/yyyy-mm-dd folders) while keeping all other catalog/editing metadata intact?
How does this sound for an approach:
Synchronize to make sure the catalog is up to dateSave Metadata so that all metadata is written to sidecar files or into the image files for formats that support itIn LR "remove" the foldersImport the folders with the "Move" option but disable renaming.
I typically import my photo's from my camera and reorganize the photos by date.
However I just had several thousand old printed photographs scanned.
I have: 1. Imported the photographs into a seperate new catalog2. Labeled all the photographs with keywords 3. Metadata->Edit Capture Time so that the capture time is now the correct date
Now I would like to reorganize the photo's into folders by date the usaual yyyy/yyyy-mm/yyyy-mm-dd by the capture time date.
I have tried to import them into another catalog either by either "Import Photo's and Video" or by "Import from another catalog" either way the new catalog has the folders by date that the photographs were scanned not by the capture time that I changed.
How do I do this change the folders to be by capture date?
If I transfer the catalog ( not the actual image files) from my desk top computer to my lap top, only thing I can do is to preview my images in the catalog. I cannot use 'Develop or any' function or reorganize my folders etc.
I've been using LR for 18 months or so now, and do pretty well with it. But my organization, I think, is lacking. I'm not sure when I would want to start a new catalog, or why. It seems to be a pain to go from one catalog to another, just to access different folders of pics that I've worked on in LR. I now have dozens of folders that I can access in my current catalog, and I'm wondering if it's getting to be too many. I shoot lots of events, from weddings to dance performances, so many of my folders might have 1,000 images or more.
Are there any links to information or instructional videos that really explain the organizational process of LR? What I've seen so far gets me started in LR. It hasn't really explained how long you can stay in one catalog, or how many pictures can be in there, before LR's performance starts tailing off. I am a member of Kelby Training, NAPP, and I use a Mac Pro on a SSD, 32 gigs of RAM, so I should have plenty of comp power. Not really facing doggish problems right now, but just curious about LR's optimal organization.
All of my folders in my Lightroom 4.3 catalog vanished, though you can still see the folder/file structure when using my Mac Finder. So clearly the folder structure exists, but the program can no longer view them or reads them.
I have right clicked on catalog and none of the choices return the tree view of my folders. I did back up my catalog last time I used Lightroom (it and the ircat and ircat alias files are on an external drive) to another external drive. How to return all my folders that apparently are not viewable? Might the Carbon Copy Cloner software I used (recommended as being good for Lightroom 4.3 by several) have messed up the folder view.
Is it possible to use "Locate missing folders" feature for MANY folders which were just physically moved from one drive to another? I'm talking about HUNDERDS of folders which were moved from fast internal drive to slower external drives for archiving, however occassional access to the pictures is needed.
I imported pictures into LR from three different SD cards. On one of the cards, I inadvertantly created it in a subfolder. I have been working for several days to correct the problem, but just seem to keep making it worse.
I renamed the 2013 subfolder and drug it into the 2013 parent.
I renamed the May folder as Maay1 and drug into the 2013 folder and that took care of it, but I can't get the Apr folder fixed. I renamed it Apr1 and drug it into the parent Apr folder and ended up with
I have been trying to move the Apr1 images into the Apr parent folder, but get the message that "there is already a folder named "Apr" and a fail. The two Apr folders seem to contain the same images, so could probably delete the subfolder Apr, but a little afraid to. I have spent a lot of time editing the images, and would have to reimport them as originals from the backup.
My problem is that when I'm importing photos from my folders on the computer to my catalog in Lightroom 4, Lightroom doesn't import all photos from my folders. It imports the first 3-4 photos rom my folder.
I keep all my image folders in one Master Catalog on one disk.
My system of filing is to have a main folder, say "Airshows", with sub folders named "Original-RAW Files" and "Finished Files".
Each sub folder is then further sub divided into "Show 1", "Show 2", "Show 3", etc.
This system also enable me to duplicate my files in such a way that they can be accessed by programmes other than Lightroom.
I also like to make Collections of specific planes which appear and therefore the Collections can include images taken at any number of individual shows but as LR3 keeps the Folders and the Collections in different sections, this entails looking in two different locations for any images taken at Airshows.Another disadvantage is that I believe LR Collections cannot be accessed by other third party programmes should I wish to change from Adobe.
I would like maintain my current filing system (which suits my purposes), but wish to find a way to file say,"Spitfire" Collection as "AirshowFinished FilesSpitfire" so that all files are kept together.
Is there a way to achieve this without resorting to making duplicate image files ?
How can I EXCLUDE particular folders/files from being included in the Lightroom 5 catalog?
I want to be able to specify paths and/or filename patterns that should NEVER be indexed in the catalog: not that they don't show up under certain circumstances, just that they are NOT THERE (in the catalog) to begin with!!
I also do NOT want to have to respecify these criteria when "synching" the catalog; criteria should be PERMANENT (or at least 'til they're changed in LR preferences).
I just upgraded my external hard drive and named the new drive with the exact same name as the original, lets call this HD-1. My entire LR gallery is on this drive. After doing a complete backup to the new drive I opened LR and all Folders and Collects were in their place as they should be.
The Problem -
When I imputed new photos, a new duplicate hard drive appeared with the exact same name HD-1 and holding the newly imported images (which were placed in a subfolder at time of import)
- So now my Catalog shows two hard drives called HD-1. For sake of this discussion I will label them HD-1a and HD-1b. HD-1a has the original photos and HD-1b has the newly imported photos.
- I tried draging the new subfolder of photos for HD-1b to HD-1a but I get a message that the folder already exists, even though it doesn't show in the HD-1a folder structure.
- I created a new sub-folder in HD-1a and was able to drag the photos into it. I then deleted the empty folder on HD-1b. As soon as this was done the duplicate hard drive, HD-1b disapeared.
- I thought this solved the problem but as I was working on images by opening them from LR into Photoshop, the HD-1b drive reappered in my catalog with the PS created files in them.
- So it looks like LR will put any newly created or improted photo file into HD-1b. I can't seem to find a way around this. For some reason LR doesn't want to write new files into HD-1a even though it recognizes it and has no problem reading the existing files.
I just purcgased an iMac (and installed LR3) after running LR3 on a MacBook for several months. Is there a straightforward way to copy all of my content (folders, collections and catalog) from the laptop to the desktop? I'm essentially trying to duplicate what's in my laptop LR3 on my desktop LR3.
I am trying to reorganize my develop presets. When I go to the Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Develo Presets/Lightroom Presets, the folder is empty. I know I have them somewhere, because I can see them in the develop module. My user presets are there, but all the defaults are missing. Are they buried within the Lightroom programme? I would love to find them in order to make things neat and tidy and be able to back up/sync with my other catalogues.
I have created a hodge podge of directories with images in various locations. I want to re-organize all my images into the single location and organization in a logical directory structure. Now for my question. Would I be better off moving all my files into the new directory structure then create a new master catalog then import into the new catalog? I am wanting to develop and use import templates to better organize and document my images... btw, I am not opposed to upgrading v3 if this will make things easier... just haven't had a need as yet.
I had two 2013 folders, each with about 100 daily folders. The dates were differnt in each annual folder. I dragged one into the other. The folder where the daily folder was dragged from is now empty but those folders do not appear in the recieving folder. All the photos are still in the catalog, but do not show in the folders (left side panel).
I renamed a lot of my photo folders in Explore. Now in LR4, all these folders appears with an ?. I can't work on pictures from these folders - I get the message: File named xxx is offline or missing. It does not sync the parent folder. Nor does it sync the folder it self. If I right clik on a LR4 folder with a ?, and try to locate the folder, I only get the option to merge the identical folders. Is there any way to sort this. I can't restore the old folder names.
I am using LR3. I appear to be digging a massive hole for myself trying to sort out the catalog. When I first got LR, I had initially added just a small number of files just to see how LR worked. At this time I was still completing sorting out my full photo collection in 'my pictures' which were also copied to two external hard drives. Once that work was completed, I imported a complete folder (some 4000 images) into LR. The folder/subfolders appeared in the folders panel but the sub folders I had initially imported were displayed with a ? and a message 'file is missing or offline' Going down the road of 'find missing folder' eventually led to my problems.
About 6 sub folders are involved so I eventually took the decision that it could be easier just to remove them so I could then re-import them from 'my pictures'. That hasn't worked out as planned. When I go into 'file' to import photos from 'my pictures' the missing sub folders are there but the images are 'greyed' as well as the import button. When I put the cursor onto one of the greyed-out images the message 'appears to be a duplicate of another photo already in catalog' appears.
how I can restore the 'missing' sub folders into the folders panel.
PSE users have posted questions about removing deleted folders from the PSE catalog since version 5 or 6. Back in 2009, the recommendation was to delete only in PSE. However, I manage my folders, backups, and archives in Windows, because I prefer the interface and use other tools. This causes me to have many grayed-out folders in the PSE catalog. As each new version comes out, I hope this will get fixed, with no luck so far. Are there any new features in version 11 that make this possible? Is there any hope that a future versions will allow the user to clean up the catalog, or synchronize automatically to the real folder structure?
I have upgreaded to Elements 10 and when doing the catalog conversion many of the folders in the new catalog are missing the files(photos). When I right-click on those folders and try to add the files I can see the missing files attempting to transfer but on completion I receive this: :The files or folders selected to import did not contain any supported file types or the files are already in this folder"-BUT-the files are NOt in the folder in the catalog. They are in the folder on my computer as I am able to access them easily-They simply did not end up in the catalog's respective folders. I am using Windows XP Pro and all my Folders and Files are on an external drive and are saved there when I download the photos from my camera. I have not had this issue before--How might I get these files into the folder in the catalog?-I tried setting up a new catalog and attempted to convert again with the same results.
I don't want to have the original files on both laptop and desktop.
I want to make a copy of a Lightroom 3 catalog to put on my laptop so while on the move I can be geo-tagging and keywording to 8000 photographs. I don't want to drag an external drive with me. I just want to be able to work on the catalog metadata and have all the updates/changes stored there (on the laptop)(in the catalog) and then transfer the catalog back to the desktop (to the primary archive) and have all the updates/changes pushed back into the DNG's or the XMP sidecar files alongside the CR2's. These changes would be only keywording and possibly writing GPS data into them….NOT image edits (that would probally require access to the original image files)
As a test, I tried "exporting as catalog", TWO images (with the source images "unavailable"). I flash-drived the resulting catalog to my laptop. I opened the catalog in LR3 and made changes to the metadata. I tried both "saving metadata to file" and "updating DNG previews" (which would be useless anyway since I could not write data back to the missing originals) and also tried doing nothing and just closing LR, then pulling the flashdrive and plugging it into the DESKTOP.(knowing the changes are stored within the catalog itself only) I open the 2 picture catalog in LR and see the keyword updates. Hurrah!
I switch over to the master catalog. All I want to do is import the updated metadata (keywording, contrast, etc…) back into the master catalog and push the data into the original DNG or XMP. On import I select "replace: Metadata and develop settings only" (with or without "preserve old settings" checked) and click import. Voila! NOTHING HAPPENS and the updated keywords are NOT picked up.
I know that the metadata updates were carried out because they showed up when I opened it separately in LR! For some reason they don't seem to making through the import process to the master catalog…
I will be managing a small portion of a client's overall image workflow by updating their web prescence on a regular basis with new work and retagging/uploading old work. I believe this requires the catalog and the image library to be housed on an external hard drive that can travel between the two of us. We are both working on PC's with LR 5.3.
The workflow would look something like this:
Client downloads new images onto external hard drive and imports into LR "ClientCatalog" is created Flags Picks and Creates a Collection from those Picks.Hard drive is handed off to me where I open "ClientCatalog".Make suggested edits to images add detailed tags and metadata upload to various social media sites and websites return hard drive to client
Is there potential problem with this workflow? My assumption is that if everything is housed on the external hard drive then there are no worries about the catalog containing all the latest updates. Are there any "safety protocols" you would add in to this workflow (besides mirroring everythign on another hard drive)?
I'm using Lightroom 1. I tried to merge catalogs by importing a catalog into a master catalog, but there were some problems. The one I noticed immediately was that the collections are not correct. It imported the collections, but for example one collection now has only 4 photos when the originbal had 140? How can I fix that? (Although not necessariy a problem, it seems to have the wrong number of photos imported too. It says the previous import was 3175 photos when it was more like 10,000.)
I had to reinstall an OS in my computer due to a virus. As a result LR 3 in no longer installed. I still have the catalog on a backup disk and have just installed and updated to LR 4.4. What is the best way to merge the V3 catalog with V4 and are there any things I should expect or look out for?
i have an 8 giga LR4 catalog (about 300000 images).just installed the new LR5 and tried openning the LR4 cat in LR 5.it said it needs to upgrade, but in the middle of the prosses i had this messege: "lightroom encountered problems when trying to update the format of the catalog file and cannot use this catalog in this version of LR"
i saw that there is an option to export all my LR4 catalog as a new catalog and than import it into LR5.i haven't tried that yet since i'm worry that i might loose some info. will this process (of exporting and importing) keep all my LR settings? like develop user presets, keywords and collections?
I only want ONE cataglog. Today I installed and upgraded Lightroom from v. 3 to v. 4.3 which was OK.I wanted to upgrade my ONE and ONLY existing catalog keeping the same name.LR created a second catalog and added a - 2 to the name and it's a .ircat.
How can I return to having only ONE catalog and library?
