The Easy Way to an Organised Photo Library

By Robin Whalley

Does your photography library feel out of control?

If you are like most photographers I know, your library of images is growing almost uncontrollably. Sometimes you try to organise them but it’s difficult to know what to do. After struggling for a while, you admit defeat and go back to ignoring the problem. But you’re left with a nagging feeling at the back of your mind. Your photography is a mess and it’s becoming harder to find the images you’re looking for. And what about that backup that you keep putting off because the backup drive is full? You know your hard drive will eventually fail and when it does, you lose everything.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Photographers everywhere are facing the same problems, and they feel out of control.

But what if I told you there is a better way?

Imagine that I can show you how to easily organise your photography using a method that could handle any number of images. That helps you sort and search for your best photos in seconds. Where you can make regular and automatic backups so that you don’t risk losing valuable images. And what if we can do all this using the existing features in Lightroom? Would you be interested?

Well, there is a way. Following the quick and simple workflow laid out in this book you will learn:
•How to use a self-organising and expandable folder structure to hold your photography.
•Create a bespoke workflow to suit your needs, whilst easily organising your photographs.
•Ways to sort and filter your images so as not to waste time.
•Tools to find the perfect image amongst thousands.
•What to do with all the finished images you produce when editing.
•How and why to use keywords, even if you don’t sell stock photography.
•Ways to move and reorganise an existing photo library that’s already in a mess.
•Storing and backing up your photo library so as not to risk losing everything.

Even if you have hundreds of thousands of disorganised images, you can quickly regain control following the simple steps in this book.

If you don’t feel confident using Lightroom, don’t worry. Everything you need to know is explained in the step-by-step instructions in a way that’s easy to follow.

This method works with both the latest version of Lightroom Classic CC and older pre-CC versions of Lightroom

Regain control of your photography today with this concise, easy-to-follow guide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robin Whalley
• Release date: Aug 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005002251

Robin Whalley

Robin is a Landscape Photographer with a passion for software, image editing and a skill for sharing knowledge. He has been honing his photography skills since 2000 starting first with film before moving quickly embracing digital. Whilst he is not widely known as a photographer, his work has been published and sold around the world. He has appeared in exhibitions including The Landscape Photographer of the Year and been published in the popular UK photographic press. He now speaks at Camera Clubs and Photographic Societies throughout the North West of England where he likes to share his insights into how to create engaging photography.

Book preview

Introduction

Several years ago, I published the book Adobe Lightroom Classic CC: Mastering the Lightroom Library Module. Whilst the title is long, it was packed with useful information (and is still available today). It delves deep into the many features of the Lightroom Library module, which despite subsequent releases of Lightroom, haven’t changed much over the years. One reason the Lightroom Library module is so stable is that it works extremely well. That’s why it’s become the benchmark to measure other software by when it comes to organising your images.

But despite having published what I believe was a detailed and helpful book, I continued to receive queries from people struggling to manage their photography. What became apparent is that it wasn’t the individual Lightroom features people struggled with, but how to piece them together into a usable system. To put it bluntly, people are struggling to organise their photos, not learn how to use Lightroom features. That’s why I decided to write this book to solve their and your problems.

What photographers everywhere need is a system they can use to sort, store, and organise their photography. They need it to be quick and easy to use. Not only that, but they need to understand how to expand their library over time, to cope with an ever-growing number of new photographs. And having invested precious time in organising their library of images, they require a robust storage and backup solution, so they don’t risk losing everything. In short, what most photographers need is a reliable system to manage their photography like a professional, but without huge effort or expense. As I’ve developed such a system myself, I thought why not share this.

If you’ve ever found yourself scratching your head about the many options in the Lightroom Library, wondering how you fit them together, this book is for you.

Whilst you may be able to apply elements of this book to other software, it is written specifically for Lightroom Classic CC. This is the desktop version of Lightroom which many photographers use to manage and edit their photography. If you have an older version of Lightroom Desktop (pre-CC), you can still use a lot of this book, although you may see differences depending on your software version.

If you are using Lightroom CC rather than Lightroom Classic CC, this book DOES NOT cover your software. Lightroom CC and Classic CC are quite different in layout, although they do share some similarities including the name Lightroom.

American/English Spellings

Many of the terms used in Adobe Products use American spellings which may differ from the English spelling. As I was born and live in the UK, I use the English spelling in the book, UNLESS it relates to a feature of the software which has an American spelling. For example, I may talk about the Lightroom Catalog. As the Catalog is a feature of Adobe Lightroom it uses the American spelling. But if I were to say Lightroom helps you to catalogue your images, I use the English spelling.

I do encourage you to contact me with any errors you find (some always make it through), but please be sure it is a genuine error and not the use of American/English variation for a reason. If you do find a genuine mistake, please let me know by emailing [e-mail].

Note for Windows Users

This book was developed using an Apple Mac computer and the Mac version of Adobe Lightroom Classic CC. If you are a Windows PC user, you may notice some differences between the screenshots and what you see on a Windows computer. The good news is that Adobe products are standardised across both operating systems and any differences are minor. You should have little difficulty following the book whether you use an Apple Mac or a Windows PC.

Trademarks

Throughout this book I have referred to various organisations and their products. Where reference is made to any trademarks or product names it is purely in an editorial capacity. There is no intention of copyright infringement, and all trademarks are recognised and respected.

Disclaimer

Whilst I have made every effort to ensure the information in this book is accurate, up to date and factual, it does represent my views and approach at the time of writing. Some may disagree with the information I present but I have not intentionally made any omissions or errors. If you do find something you believe needs correcting, please contact me by email using [e-mail].

Thank you and I hope you enjoy this book.

One

The Essential First Step to Being Organised

Often when I’m asked by a photographer how do I organise my photo library they are surprised when I recommend that they don’t start with Lightroom. By that I mean there is a more important part of the jigsaw puzzle that needs to come first. Remember, Lightroom is only a tool and to use it effectively, you first need an organised structure for your photography.

Now think about this question carefully (and be honest with yourself): How do you currently organise the photos on your computer hard drive?

Many photographers have somehow evolved their library structure over time. They have never sat down and taken the time to design an approach. Let me give you an example of how I managed my photography before Lightroom was released. It will give you some idea of how not to do it, but it will also help you to understand the origins of my current method.

When I first switched to digital photography, I found myself with far more images from each shoot than when I used film. Rather than having 3-4 rolls of 12 to 35 images (depending on which format film I was shooting), I would have 400-500 photos. Then within a short time, this volume increased rapidly. To help me manage the increase in volume I would copy these files into folders on my computer hard drive. I would name each folder with the date and location where I shot them. I then placed these folders in another folder which I called Holding because I had yet to process them.

In addition to this I had a second folder called Processed. Once I had completed the processing of my RAW files, I would move them into this folder. But this wasn’t me processing RAW files into images, it was applying keywords to the RAW files and selecting which images were worth submitting to stock libraries.

At the time, Lightroom wasn’t even a twinkle in Adobe’s eyes and the available photo library software cost thousands of pounds. Fortunately, I discovered ACDSee which was an affordable option, and which included a library manager with the ability to keyword images. Unfortunately, whilst I loved this software, I began bumping into organisational problems and eventually switched to a competitor software called iView thinking that would fix things.

The iView software was more flexible and came with many more features than ACDSee at the time. That’s when I began to organise my growing library differently. I did retain my two-folder system of Holding and Processed images but now the processed images were placed into sub-folders with a sequential name. Each subfolder would hold around four hundred images (or 4Gb of data) which allowed me to back-up the folder to a DVD. At the time, storing the backup on a hard drive wasn’t an option because of their small capacity and excessive cost.

The folder structure of my Holding area then evolved as I acquired more digital cameras. Now I was adding a subfolder for each camera I was using. I would store the images from those cameras in a subfolder using the date of a shoot.

This worked well for a couple of years, but then two things happened that changed this:

Microsoft bought iView

Adobe released Lightroom

The first release of Lightroom Library module wasn’t particularly good and lagged well behind the iView software I was using. Although I could see the potential, I had no need to switch. I had purchased a lifetime license for iView which meant I continued to receive updates and support for as long as the company existed. But then Microsoft bought them out. To their credit, the did provide the first release of their new Expression Media product for free but after that, it was £299 for the upgrades. My original license for iView only cost £89. On top of the price increase, the new product was terrible. Microsoft changed many of the iView features to add bells and whistles and in the process broke some of the best features.

Microsoft eventually sold Expression Media to Phase One who fixed the issues and integrated the core features into Capture One. This came too late for me because the damage had already been done. When Adobe launched Lightroom 2, I immediately switched and have been using it ever since to manage my photography.

Whilst this is a lengthy story, you can see that my system of managing photos has evolved over time and I suspect yours may have as well. Today, my approach looks quite different to the system I was using back in 2004 but I have never migrated my old files to my new system. Because of this, my photography library is spread through different structures which isn’t efficient. I can cope with the poor organisation, but