Help me to get a useful working cataloging system with Lightroom please

[ianKmcallister]

I’ve been delighted with Lightroom functions, though the cataloguing has been a minor nuisance, but now its become a major problem. I’ve wasted many hours now trying to get the catalogue to work usefully.

Recently I created a catalogue in my O:\ drive (the root folder in that drive) for my stock photos called “StockPhotos” and exported photos from many parts of my hard drive into the new drive. Today, I wanted to add keywords to the files in the new folder, so would have to import them into LR to do so.

So, I went to the root folder O:\ and right-clicked to create a new folder called “Stock”. Then I right-clicked in the new empty folder and imported into that new folder. LR created an enormous mass of sub-folders and sub-sub-folders, nested inside Stock, but left that folder empty of photo files. That is useless to me.

If I can’t establish a good work-flow, I’ll have to find an alternative to LR, which I believe is the best – as far as the photo manipulation is concerned.

Here is what I want to do.

Procedures	Memory Blocks, e.g. files&folders	Stock Photos memory
Take photos make straight copy to Temporary	1. Camera card reader RAW files Temporary files
View in LR and trash faulty ones. Delete camera card memory after safely copied to Holding. Copy Temporary to Source in sequentially numbered files Double-check that the copy is good, then delete Holding folder.	2. “Temporary” folder
It is important never to change these files in case something goes wrong.	3. “Source” unchanging – use working files for making changes. e.g. 1,2,3,4,5,6…
These files would normally be in groups of 3 to create HDR. Create LR, and third-party HDR files labelled LRHDR and XHDR Don’t delete original 1,2,3 etc. files but copy only LRHDR photos to Panoramas, and Stock Photos and either format of HDR to Stock Photos	4. “PrelWork” e.g. 1,2,3,4,5,6… give 1-LRHDR and 4LRHDR and 3rd party 1-XHDR and 4XHDR
3rd party software plus LightRoom Stitch four photos into “panorama”, return to LR to patch out the photo of the tripod as “patching” returned as “patched” once modified. Create final VR panorama as 1-VR.jpg Use LR to give the virtual reality punch and call the result 1-globe.jpg	5. Panoramas: e.g. join 1-LRHDR, 4LRHDR, 7LRHDR, 10LRHDR form ‘1-LRHDR for patching’ and LR creates ‘1-LRHDR patched.’ Final panorama would be 1-LRHDR-globe.pdf	6. Stock Photos: Use EXCEL file to keep track of the photos, creating my own reference number and recording stock company reference number. This folder must be all in one so that I can track down every photo that is sold by the stock company. If I want to put in extra keywords, I’m out of luck, because these files have been exported from LR – not imported.

There are cataloging problems with Adobe Premiere Elements but I haven’t struggled with them very much yet. I do know that when I tried to import one folder from one drive it imported the whole drive, including the LightRoom Catalogue and my Excel file.

I can avoid using LR to import from the camera card by doing a windows copy to my destination (1-2). I can use windows to view each of the copied files and delete faulty ones, still without using Lightroom. (2) Then if LR will condescend to cop (2 - 4) into one file instead of twenty, I could use Windows to copy the result into the Source folder (4-3) without involving LR.

But from then on Lightroom would need to be involved - I  don't see any way to avoid it.

[john beardsworth]

"But from then on Lightroom would need to be involved - I  don't see any way to avoid it."

Lightroom is designed as an end-to-end solution. By that, I mean importing from the card, adding keywords and other metadata, adjustiing, and exporting to stock or printing or other output. Other applications may have roles, performing specialist tasks, but that is the goal with Lightroom. It's designed to be the centre of the workflow.

So you shouldn't need to avoid it, use Excel files, "export photos from many parts of my hard drive into the new drive", and it doesn't make sense to say "I wanted to add keywords to the files in the new folder, so would have to import them into LR to do so."

One detail stands out. "LR created an enormous mass of sub-folders and sub-sub-folders" - when you import or register files in the catalogue, you have the choices of Add, Copy or Move. If you had chosen Add, the files would have been left where they were. You've probably chosen one of the other options.

Managing stock submissions depends on precisely what you need to do. Some people use keywords (non-exporting) to record reference numbers etc, others use plugins provided by the stock agency, and I've seen people who have learnt to create custom fields. There are other hybrid methods too, so my own ListView plugin allows people to export lists of files and other metadata to Excel. But whatever the precise workflow, it's always using Lightroom as the centre of the hub, working with it as it is designed, rather than fighting against it.

[ianKmcallister]

Hi John,

Thank you for your answer, but it didn't help.

I found the answer while reading an eBook about Lightroom.

During import, you can set up how you want the files to be sorted or tell it to put them all in one folder. I had accidentally told it to sort the files, with the resulting bewildering mass of folders. It works fine when I tell Lightroom to put them all in one folder.

Ian