Lightroom / Macs / Storing Photos

[Winterpaws]

I am having a little trouble (still) getting my head around the best way to store photos on the Mac.

I import everything via Lightroom and then just look at the photos through Lightroom. So all my photos are stored on my laptop.

I think I should probably be moving the photos off my laptop and onto a seperate drive? Does that mean I would then connect that external drive when I want to look at the photos in Lightroom (or any other software?).

I've also got a ton of photos in Iphoto and have no idea where the Mac hides those but assume I could move them from Iphoto and over to Lightroom - somehow???

If anyone can give me some dummy instructions I would really appreciate it. I don't quite understand LR as a storage tool - but I think it isn't one

[persephone]

does THIS help any?

[Winterpaws]

does THIS help any?

Thanks Pers it gives me a start. I think what he says then is that he has Lightroom and the photos on the external drive?

I wonder if he sorts the photos under that folder or just uses Lightroom and the metadata to find the photo he is after?

[KnucklesDutchnUs]

your Iphoto pix are in the 'Pictures' folder, the address should be:

Computer > Hard drive > users > username > Pictures

You should really be importing your photos from your camera using "image capture" found in your applications folder

and use "preview" just to look at your images if you are not processing them

When you are happy with your processing in Lightroom you should export them to a folder in your Documents folder, which means you don't have to open Lightroom every time you want to see an image - also you should have little to nothing on your desktop as Mac's are configured in a way that the RAM looks at everything on the desktop before allocating the RAM to your running programs, which can slow your computer significantly.

At the moment your images in Lightroom are probably being stored in a temp folder created by the program for easy access.

If you need an external hard drive you won't need it to view the images already in Lightroom, but it may help if you are running out of room on your laptop, to back up.

[kja]

Photo management is a nightmare if you don't set it up well in the first place

Here's what works for me (more or less):

I save my new files to a Monthly Folder (June_10, Mar_09 etc - so month then year...I would suggest doing it the other way around 10_June instead hehe)

They are also immediately backed up on import to LR to an external drive so I have two copies before I can even possibly write over the cards.

I dump them into subfolders:

-pets

-beach

-underwater

-red

-people

-Enid's Birthday

- whatever, just every big subject gets its own subfolder in a particular month

NOTE: if you use subfolders in LR you cannot rearrange the images by drag & drop!! If you need to rearrange, make a dedicated folder. Every client job gets its own folder as i do drag and drop to rearrange images a lot in those instances.

All of the above happens as soon as I stick my card in the card reader.

In Lightroom I try (really, I do) to tag them with keywords. Life is so much simpler later if you do this immediately - I have zillions of images that should have been coded but weren't. Every now and again I'll sit down and attack a folder or two. I will never catch up

Then I go in and colour code (you could rate or flag or whatever works for you) everything I know I want. I use green for total keepers, yellow for something like a series where i need to choose the best expression or sharpest from a similar set, red for keepers that I know I want to Photoshop or something. Things I know I don't want get an X flag. At the end of the initial run thru, I select all my Xs and delete them from disk. Right away or they just sit there. Sounds complicated but I can code 1000 images in less than 20 minutes usually.

I keep all active images that I will be working on in the next few weeks on my main drive. Anything that is a long term project will likely be moved off the main to a secondary hard drive and I'll work from there instead of moving it back to C drive. Helps me keep my C drive cleaner.

Lightroom doesn't care which drive you use as long as it's attached to your computer when you try to use LR and that file. Moved your file? you'll get a "?" and if you click it LR will let you show it where you've moved the files to - easy.

Edited June 14, 2010 by kja

[Winterpaws]

Photo management is a nightmare if you don't set it up well in the first place

Here's what works for me (more or less):

I save my new files to a Monthly Folder (June_10, Mar_09 etc - so month then year...I would suggest doing it the other way around 10_June instead hehe)

They are also immediately backed up on import to LR to an external drive so I have two copies before I can even possibly write over the cards.

I dump them into subfolders:

-pets

-beach

-underwater

-red

-people

-Enid's Birthday

- whatever, just every big subject gets its own subfolder in a particular month

NOTE: if you use subfolders in LR you cannot rearrange the images by drag & drop!! If you need to rearrange, make a dedicated folder. Every client job gets its own folder as i do drag and drop to rearrange images a lot in those instances.

All of the above happens as soon as I stick my card in the card reader.

In Lightroom I try (really, I do) to tag them with keywords. Life is so much simpler later if you do this immediately - I have zillions of images that should have been coded but weren't. Every now and again I'll sit down and attack a folder or two. I will never catch up

Then I go in and colour code (you could rate or flag or whatever works for you) everything I know I want. I use green for total keepers, yellow for something like a series where i need to choose the best expression or sharpest from a similar set, red for keepers that I know I want to Photoshop or something. Things I know I don't want get an X flag. At the end of the initial run thru, I select all my Xs and delete them from disk. Right away or they just sit there. Sounds complicated but I can code 1000 images in less than 20 minutes usually.

I keep all active images that I will be working on in the next few weeks on my main drive. Anything that is a long term project will likely be moved off the main to a secondary hard drive and I'll work from there instead of moving it back to C drive. Helps me keep my C drive cleaner.

Lightroom doesn't care which drive you use as long as it's attached to your computer when you try to use LR and that file. Moved your file? you'll get a "?" and if you click it LR will let you show it where you've moved the files to - easy.

Forgive the numpty question.......

So when you go to lightroom you can easily pick any photo you have ever taken? They are all there in lightroom? But if you wanted to edit them in another piece of software then you would just open the file by opening the software and finding the file name? (I have photoshop on this computer but have never used it).

I have photos on an old hard drive that was from an old computer, then I have some in Iphoto. I want to try and centralise them all I guess and tidy up the mess so I can find what I want

Thanks everyone for all your comments, trying to get my head around it!!!!

[kja]

yes, as long as you have imported them to Lightroom and are in the correct catalog, you can find any photo. If you have entered keywords it makes finding them far easier.

you can open into your program of choice from lightroom. So you are in LR in develop module, you go to the Photo tab and select Edit In - there is a drop down menu and you can then choose whichever program you want. If it's photoshop, you can have photoshop put the edited version right back in LR with no extra steps (just save it in Photoshop and viola, there it it in LR already).

The very best thing you can do at this point, from what I am seeing, is get all of your images on ONE drive in folders that make sense to you. Then, even without any programs, you can simply open that folder and see what's there in Windows (or whatever you use).

Personally, I'd then make sure my imports to LR were done and I'd try to at least give them broad keywords even if I didn't specifically tag each individual image. You can select them all in LR (from whatever folder you have open) and keyword the lot in one go - that's what I do for my underwater stuff, for instance. Import them all, select all and keyword "Ningaloo Reef" "underwater" etc. Then I select all the images taken at a particular site and keyword all of those "Blizzard Ridge" "Love Shack" etc. And then I'll grab all the "eels" or "sharks" or "turtles" etc. Keywords pop up as you start to type so you don't have to type the whole thing each time...or you can choose them from a list. It doesn't take much time if you do it right away. It's when you let folder after folder of images build up that sucks LOL

[Linda K]

I always backup immediately once thy are downloaded from my camera onto 2 different external harddrives, that way if my computer crashed (which it has done), or if one harddrive crashes (which I have also had occur), all is not lost - if I lose 1 harddrive, I immediately get another, then copy the first harddrive to the 2nd - have learnt the hard way after losing an entire year of personal photos not to just trust stuff on the PC only

[Winterpaws]

I've managed to move all the photos from my Lightroom folder onto a hard drive and have reorganised them into categories. Still have all the photos from another two hard drives to do.

But had no luck getting the Iphotos out onto a hard drive, the folder shadows itself and I cannot do anything at all, when I try and click on it, it just takes me into Iphoto? I even tried importing them into LR but again it shadows out the folder and will not let me touch it

[kja]

Where is the iphotos folder? Find the whole address and then go to lightroom and point the import dialogue box at that folder, ADD and make sure your TO location (where you will save them) is on the drive with your others and pointed to the right folder (or make a new one Ifoto_old or something so you know you need to organize those properly once they are imported). Then all of your images should be in the right place.

[Linda K]

I think you can also export them from iphoto can't you? If so, create a folder and save them to that,m then you should be able to do whatever you want with them (haven't used it for quite sometime, as I use Bridge & Photoshop only now, and dump my cards directly into folders, do not use iphoto at all anymore)