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Photo organization

RebeccaH

RebeccaH

Life is exciting, yes it is!
Joined
Jul 12, 2009
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In an effort to get a grip on my photo organization, I've just downloaded a trial of Lightroom. I'm playing around with importing and tagging photos, making collections, etc.

Tell me, what are the key words / collection approaches you have found work best for you? I'm debating whether or not to tag each photo with the people in it? Seems like a lot of work if it's not beneficial in the long run.

Tips? Advice? I could use some pointers!
 
I have been using LR since LR1.....so for over six years. I don't tag very often, unless it's for a vacation or specific school function. I keep my folders in date order, starting with year-->month and then subfolders for raw files, iphone, and processed jpegs. I think tagging by person would be tedious.

So I have folders that look like this:

2014
-2014-01
--RAW
--iPhone
--JPEG

-2014-02
--RAW
--iPhone
--JPEG

etc. etc. I start over each year.

I use collections for printing if I am gathering photos from multiple months, or a school project, etc.
 
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I don't use Lightroom.

I do tag the people in the photo, unless it is a group /family shot.
Why? For me, I can usually remember a photo based on who was on it and the general time period. Plus, I often scrap by person, not event. Or I'm scrapping a relationship (me and Matthew) and want varied time periods.

I would say, think of how you scrap, and tag/organize that way.
 
I do what Molly does. I don't typically tag things. I did start tagging stuff at one point, but found most of the tags to be irrelevant (1st birthday, last day of school, etc) because I correlate those with the day/month.
 
In the past, I have used tagging in LR mostly for specific things. Like the first year my boys played soccer, I took a TON of photos and at the end of the year, I actually burned a disc for all the families that had their boys in them, so when I was looking through photos, I would add a keyword for each boy that was in the photo and then when I went to make them a disc, I simply sorted by that child's name and exported to a folder.

I also did a big project from my boys' first year where my husband took a face shot of them every single day of their entire first year (!!!) and he was a big fan of just holding the shutter button down and so we would have a ton of photos from every single day. So, when I was going through those photos and culling them down, I would obviously delete some, but not all of them would I delete, but I would keyword for ones I wanted to use in the album I ended up making.

I actually don't make folders or collections in Lightroom at all--this may or may not be the most effective use of it, but it is how I have figured it out for me. When you are in the Library module, at the top of the rows of photos, there is a Library Filter: Text, Attribute, Metadata, None. The default is none, but whenever I am working on my Project Life stuff (or anything really, because I almost always go by date), I click on metadata. That brings up some menus where you can select which pictures to view based on date (you can do year, month, or day), camera, or lens. This is most helpful to me when I am doing my PL pages because I can see at a glance how many photos I took that particular week.

Does that help?
 
I'm a tagging nazi (when it comes to photos) and I tag as soon as the photos are imported so it's just part of my process. I tag by everything I can think of and LOVE being able to search by tag. Of course they are in a pretty elaborate folder system as well. Nothing in my life is as organized as my photos, hehe.

The other day, I saw a kit I wanted to use with the WA that had to do with laughter. I searched my LR for "laugh", "laughter" and found several laughing kids/people staring back at me. I also label each batch with stars so if there are 3-4 in a series, I know w/o looking closely, which one is the best (based on my ***). I ALSO label by color once I have scrapped with a photo (yellow), as well as when I KNOW I want to scrap with them (red).

So, if I need inspiration, I'll just choose all of my RED pics and chose one. Just b/c it's been used, doesn't mean I won't use it again necessarily, but it tells me that it is, at least, on a page already.

I LOVE my LR. I LOVE my tags.

And I don't even edit much in it (sadly). Mostly in PS or Radlab. I need to get on that.

ETA: I make smart collections for each week for my PL. This has been a huge time-saver for me. Other than that, most of my collections are temporary (like a collection for a project that I will delete after).
 
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I have mine done by year, then event and a separate folder for mobile photos. I burn each year at its end and they are also backed up on EHD. Not fancy but it works lol.
 
I upload by year/month/day and don't tag holidays or events that have the same date every year, but have been going back through to tag holidays that end up on a different day each year (Easter, thanksgiving, etc) so I can find them when I have a great kit to use - also helps since those are two holidays when we see a lot of family.
 
bestcee said:
I would say, think of how you scrap, and tag/organize that way.
Click to expand...

This.

If you remember photos by who's in them, or you think "I want to scrap so-and-so today" then people tags are what you want. If that's NOT how you think, it could be a waste of your time. Tag by how YOU wi'll be looking for photos. We all think about it differently so someone else's system may not help you at all.
 
lorryfach said:
This.

If you remember photos by who's in them, or you think "I want to scrap so-and-so today" then people tags are what you want. If that's NOT how you think, it could be a waste of your time. Tag by how YOU wi'll be looking for photos. We all think about it differently so someone else's system may not help you at all.
Click to expand...

Yep. It took me awhile to come to that conclusion. I am a chronological scraper overall, but usually for challenges I want to scrap *that * photo. Plus, it drive me nuts that a vacation is in a bunch of different folders based on the day.
 
thanks ladies!
i'm finding my groove pretty quickly and am pleasantly surprised at how quickly the tagging and collection-making is going. i feel so organized already!!
 
jenevang said:
I'm a tagging nazi (when it comes to photos) and I tag as soon as the photos are imported so it's just part of my process. I tag by everything I can think of and LOVE being able to search by tag. Of course they are in a pretty elaborate folder system as well. Nothing in my life is as organized as my photos, hehe.

The other day, I saw a kit I wanted to use with the WA that had to do with laughter. I searched my LR for "laugh", "laughter" and found several laughing kids/people staring back at me. I also label each batch with stars so if there are 3-4 in a series, I know w/o looking closely, which one is the best (based on my ***). I ALSO label by color once I have scrapped with a photo (yellow), as well as when I KNOW I want to scrap with them (red).

So, if I need inspiration, I'll just choose all of my RED pics and chose one. Just b/c it's been used, doesn't mean I won't use it again necessarily, but it tells me that it is, at least, on a page already.

I LOVE my LR. I LOVE my tags.

And I don't even edit much in it (sadly). Mostly in PS or Radlab. I need to get on that.

ETA: I make smart collections for each week for my PL. This has been a huge time-saver for me. Other than that, most of my collections are temporary (like a collection for a project that I will delete after).
Click to expand...

I could kiss you! Do you want to come tag for me? I'm in love with the intricacies of your system and want one just like it when I grow up...
 
sm_amber said:
I could kiss you! Do you want to come tag for me? I'm in love with the intricacies of your system and want one just like it when I grow up...
Click to expand...

I know, this is what I thought! and it made me want to go right into LR and start tagging away. Then, I looked at my LR catalog that has approx 4000+ photos and immediately got discouraged. Maybe I will try to get in the habit this summer with current imports.
 
sm_amber said:
I could kiss you! Do you want to come tag for me? I'm in love with the intricacies of your system and want one just like it when I grow up...
Click to expand...

:giggle

I did mention that my house is not NEARLY as organized as my Hard Drive, right? hehe
 
bderby said:
I know, this is what I thought! and it made me want to go right into LR and start tagging away. Then, I looked at my LR catalog that has approx 4000+ photos and immediately got discouraged. Maybe I will try to get in the habit this summer with current imports.
Click to expand...

When I got LR, I started with current photos, then started tagging past pics a little at a time. I still don't have anything before 2010 tagged, but I will do a month at a time when I need something mindless to do, usually with a book in my ears :).

ETA: I have 23, 079 photos currently in my LR catalog. All tagged and labeled. Perhaps I have a photography problem.
 
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a photography problem, she says!!
:rofl bwaaahhh!!!

i LOVE the tagging system! and i think i might borrow your color coding idea! i have always struggled with a way to keep track of what i still want to scrap.
 
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I use LR, but I'm mostly an event type scrapper since I don't have kids at home and am taking pics of people on a daily basis. I have my events in folders by year, then my files are labeled by (year)(month)Event. I change the file names on import with the year first then month, event/trip, then original file name. So my photos will be labeled like 2013-06 Ireland 7435.NEF. That way I know where any specific photo file lives without searching too hard.

I also tag my photos on import, but mostly just general terms like where we are or whatever. Then I will go in and tag based on specific locations we are traveling in so I can find all photos from say Dublin easily. I will also add tags for specific sights if important enough that I think I might need to locate them, like the Eiffel Tower or something of that sort. Nothing too involved and it goes pretty quickly. I don't tag specific people in shots though for the most part. I have in the past imported my jpegs into iPhoto and let the facial recognition software do it's job. It really does a great job and makes it super easy to find pics of specific people.
 
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