Lightroom Folder Structure Explained

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This is Janine from Pangolin. Thank you for joining  my Lightroom course for wildlife photographers.   Today I want to speak to you about the underlying  structure of Lightroom. It's hierarchy. I know we are   all super keen on getting started with our editing,  getting our images imported, and looking at them...   However, if you do not understand the underlying  structure of Lightroom, you will not be able to   use its organizational skills to the best of your  advantage. So, let's get started and dive straight into Lightroom. Welcome to Lightroom guys. This is my Adobe Lightroom Classic and I have my private   catalogue open. Generally Lightroom is set up in  a way that on the left hand side, you have all the   organizational structure. In the middle, you always  see the images, and on the right hand side is what   you can implement in those images...depending on  which chapter, library, develop, map you have open.  Today we're going to focus on our underlying  structure within our library...and we're going   to have a look at the three split hierarchy of  Lightroom. Lightroom usually goes chronologically.   It's very intuitive. So, we're gonna start with  the first structure, which is our catalogue.   Our catalogue is the overall umbrella structure of  our entire filing system. You will see that all my   images in my catalogue are just over 30,000 images. That is of the past five years...and it doesn't   matter where these images sit. If you have them  sitting on different hard drives. On your computer.   If they're maybe on some back-up disk of yours. All  images are registered within your catalogue. Your catalogue is also the key to read all the changes  that you make to your images, and implement them in your photograph. Whether that means your keywording, your editing, you are organizing them through flags...  all these little changes are read by and implemented by your catalogue. What is your catalogue exactly? You will see   it sits within your folder structure, whether  that is your finder on a Mac, or whether   that is your folder structure on a Windows  computer, it doesn't matter...and I have got my   catalogue saved straight on my computer. Under my  pictures, and you will see Janine Photography...   the CAT file here. That is my catalogue. An incredibly  important file, without which you will not be able   to read and operate the photographs that you have  imported into Lightroom. Because it is such an   important file, I suggest you do regular  back-ups. You can do that the old-fashioned way   by simply copying and pasting this file onto a  different hard drive, where you can keep it safe...   however, Lightroom also does automatic back-ups.  You'll see I have an automatic back-up folder set   up here. My latest backup was on the 28th of April,  and to make sure you always keep the newest, latest   updates, I suggest you back-up your catalogue on  a regular basis...depending on how often you shoot.   If you go into your Lightroom Classic tab,  and you go down in your drop down menu   under catalogue settings, you have the option under  the general tab to choose how often you would   like your Lightroom catalogue to be backed-up. I  currently have it set to once a week, so when I   close down my Lightroom, you will see that it  automatically asks me whether I want to quit...   and afterwards whether I would like to back this catalogue up. Now that we have a rough understanding of our catalogue, i want to go further down in the hierarchy  and speak about our folder structure. Our folder structure is basically where our  photographs are located, and it's the most   intuitive of all of them, because it's very similar  to how we would file images on our computer. So, this folder structure replicates a folder  structure that is actually set-up either on your   computer, or on an external hard drive. I would  generally suggest that you keep your images   on your external hard drive if you work on a  laptop, because images are large. Laptop space   is restricted, and you really don't want to jam  up your laptop with an enormous amount of data...   because it slows it down incredibly. If you have  a set desktop, and you have a large enough hard   drive space, you can have this folder structure  mirrored in your desktop. So, my folder structure   is set under my jk photos, which is my external hard drive... and is set up chronologically. You will see that I have my year 2020. I have my month, and underneath my month,   i have every single day. So, this folder  structure is mirrored in my document system   on my computer. You can see I have my year, my month, my day...and in here I have all my images, where they   actually physically sit...and not just that, I also  have little .xmp files. Those .xmp files are   the files that hold all the changes, so my changes  are not written directly into my original CR2 file,   they are written in a separate text file, that  will only be implemented once you merge these two,   and export the image again. So, to sum it up, our folder structure is where our images live...  and you never want to touch an image through your  actual folder structure, or finder on your computer.  Whenever you change, rename, delete, or edit any  of the files that sit on your computer, or your   hard drive directly, lightroom will not be able  to follow the link anymore...and not find the   image. What you then see is those nasty little  question marks sitting next to your folder,   saying that they cannot find them. What you can  do is find the missing folder and try and re-link   the folder to the images, to wherever you have  them shifted. Much easier, however, you can shift,   rename and do whatever you need to do straight in  your fold structure in Lightroom. I can right click.   I can rename them. I can remove them. I can drag and drop files within my 2020 folder, to anywhere else I would like to sit. That way, Lightroom will  automatically know what you have done to the   images, and there is no need to re-link them. Last  in our hierarchy structure are our collections. Our collections, is the virtual space in which  you can group or organize your photographs... Collections would be very similar to the folder  structure you might have had previously. You can   have collections to find images for competitions.  You can have collections to find images for trips   you do, such as Coba, Galapagos. You can have  collections for your Facebook or social media   posts, or you can have collections set-up under  wildlife species, in order to find them more easily.   Collections give you all the freedom in the  world to group your images, as you want them.   While your images will still be housing  in your folder structure, you can   group them into as many collections as you  want, because it is only a virtual link to   wherever your images originally sit. So, if  i have a look at my Galapagos collection...   I can see my first image here there's a beautiful  tortoise, and I want to know where that image is   actually placed. I can right click. Say, go to folder in my library... it will lead me straight back to February 2017,  where I have shot this image of a tortoise.   Another option you have, is to right click on  it, and to actually find this in your finder, or   in your folder structure on your computer...or hard drive, but I suggest you only work   on your images through your Lightroom. You do  not touch your images anymore on your computer,    on your hard drive through previous methods that  you might have used, and therefore you really need   to find your image in your finder structure. What you need to remember about collections, is   that they do not jam up any more space on  your hard drives, because it doesn't matter in   how many folders you have these elephants sitting. You can have them in your elephant folder, your   Facebook folder, your Chobe 2019 folder. It  is irrelevant. The file only exists once...   and that one time it exists, it sits in your  library. The collections are only there to   help you find your images more easily. How do you  create another collection? You would press on the   + sign here, on the top right hand side. You can  create a collection. Name it. You can choose whether   you want this particular image already to be part  of this collection. You can set it as a target   collection, which means you're currently working  in this collection. This is your hit collection...   or you can sync it with your Lightroom. You can set  any of these collections as your target collection.   If I would take my Facebook folder as an example,  I can right click on it, and set it as a target   collection, creating a little + sign behind  it, and therefore I know this is the collection   I am currently targeting, or working with. To extend  this a little bit further, we can also create smart   collections. Smart collections work according to  a set of rules, so you don't need to populate them   yourself, by drag and dropping files into these  folders. You can set-up any sort of rule you want.  That you need to have a rating of your images, that  is greater or equal to a certain number of stars... that you could have a certain label. That you  can have a certain text. A certain file name,   or a certain date. Certain meta data, such  as a certain shutter speed, or a certain ISO.  All of these things can be used to organize  your pictures automatically, so that Lightroom   will file them into specific collections without  you having to lift a finger. How handy is that! To begin with, your Lightroom will automatically set-up a set of smart collections for you. You will have   your video files in one folder. You will have all  your recently modified images in one folder. All your best rated images in one folder, which will  give you 1. an idea what you can do with   smart connections very easily and 2.  gives you a much easier time to find the most   recent most, and important images, you have worked  on. While we've talked about smart collections,   we can go back to our catalogue one more  time, and see that we also have a quick   collection in our catalogue. Our quick collection,  is a collection we have quick access to. That is   always up there in the catalogue to be found. Our quick collection, is a collection that   we have easy access to. So, if you have specific  images you want to find quickly, you don't want to   search through a number of collections, down below  here. You can have them in your quick collection,   under your catalogue. To sum it all up for  you guys... 1. We have a catalogue.   which is our umbrella structure, sitting over  all our images. The catalogue is able to decipher,   and implement, everything we do in our folder  structure. 2. Our folder structure is the second   bit of the hierarchy that holds all our images. 3. Thirdly we have our collections, which are there to   fine-tune our organization within our collection. We can create virtual copies, and group our images   in whatever thematic scheme you would like to. That  is our overall Lightroom structure. I hope this   module of my Lightroom course gave you a better  idea of what Lightroom is capable of. So, now we   need to start thinking...how do we want to organize  our pictures? See you again in my next module...
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Channel: Pangolin Wildlife Photography
Views: 35,431
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Keywords: lightroom folder structure, lightroom folder structure best practice, lightroom folder management, lightroom folder organization, lightroom folder vs collection, lightroom catalog, lightroom catalog vs collection vs folder, lightroom cc, lightroom collections, lightroom folders and collections, lightroom folders vs collections, lightroom for beginners, lightroom tips, adobe lightroom, free lightroom course, lightomm course, organize photos, pangolin photo safaris
Id: 3K6GV3ymQkc
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Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)
Published: Tue Dec 22 2020
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