Can I Track Physical Media Location In CC / Lightroom?

[Don___Julane_Crabtree]

I'm a Lightroom and CC novice and have been learning the apps and now need to take the next step.  I have, quite literally, thousands of unorganized photos, negatives, slides in numerous formats that I want to digitize and share.  I'm having good success with scanning and sharing but I'm struggling with how to "track" the location of the physical negatives, slides, prints etc. once I've scanned them.  Is there a way to do this within Lightroom or an add-on that would do this?  Since I'm starting fresh with no organization plan for the physical media I'm open to all ideas and I'm not against investing additional $$ if I need to do so.  Thanks.

[JP Hess]

I have a completely separate folder structure on an external hard drive for my scanning. I'm in the middle of scanning 50 years of photographs, slides and negatives. I group them according to subject and then scan them to a folder within my scanning folder structure. When I am finished scanning I open Lightroom and import the images using the Add option which leaves the images in their location. If I add more images to one of those folders I just synchronize the folder which imports the new scans. It works for me. In other words, I do my folder organization as I scan the images. I use Vuescan as my scanning software. Whenever I start a scanning session  I always make sure I have specified the right destination folder.

[Don___Julane_Crabtree]

I'm thinking of doing something along the same lines as you.  It's seems like it would be a good workflow.  How do you store/index/track your physical slides, negatives etc. so you can find them if you need to?

[dj_paige]

jcrabtree2  wrote

I'm thinking of doing something along the same lines as you.  It's seems like it would be a good workflow.  How do you store/index/track your physical slides, negatives etc. so you can find them if you need to?

This is one of Lightroom's great strengths. If you organize your photos via metadata (keywords, collections, GPS locations, captions, titles, etc.), then you can use these to locate your photos; you do a search in Lightroom to find photos (for example) with the desired keyword, Lightroom finds them (so you don't have to find them), and then you can perform any task you want with these photos (edit, export, e-mail, web, print, etc.​)

[Don___Julane_Crabtree]

I've watched  training videos from Lyda.com and Julieanne Kost. They've been really helpful with organizing by metadata. That's going pretty well.  The part that I'm missing is, once they are properly organized in Lr, how to use Lr to find the physical location of the original unscanned negative, slide or picture in case I need to go back to it.  I would like to have that as an integrated function instead of tracking with a separate application if possible.  There may not be a way to do in in Lr or CC  but since I'm just starting on this journey I'm looking for ideas.  Worst case, I can create an Excel spreadsheet but I'm looking to see if there is a better way.

[JP Hess]

You are going to have to spend some time in the metadata section in Lightroom. There is space where you can type in that information.

[Don___Julane_Crabtree]

I'm thinking that a keyword with something like RXXXX where R = the roll number and XXXXX = a sequence starting at 00001 might be a good way to go if there is no Lr specific way to track a physical location.  I'll give it some more thought and see if anyone has a better idea.  I just want to get it right the first time so I don't have to redo the tag later.

[john beardsworth · Accepted solution]

jcrabtree2  wrote

The part that I'm missing is, once they are properly organized in Lr, how to use Lr to find the physical location of the original unscanned negative, slide or picture in case I need to go back to it.  I would like to have that as an integrated function instead of tracking with a separate application if possible.  There may not be a way to do in in Lr or CC  but since I'm just starting on this journey I'm looking for ideas.  Worst case, I can create an Excel spreadsheet but I'm looking to see if there is a better way.

Just use a field that isn't used for much else. Ideally that would be one like Job because it can be searched very easily - so you might type in "Slide Box 59" as the job. Alternatively, use a parent keyword called "Physical Location" and add "Slide Box 59" as a keyword.

John

[dj_paige]

jcrabtree2  wrote

The part that I'm missing is, once they are properly organized in Lr, how to use Lr to find the physical location of the original unscanned negative, slide or picture in case I need to go back to it.

When you use the metadata to find the photo, Lightroom knows where the photo is located so you don't have to search for it ... in fact I would say, you don't even have to know where the photo is located. I don't know the exact location and file name of any of my photos (I do know I have them all stored under D:\Nikon Photos), and I can still do anything I want with them.

However, to answer your question directly, any photo in Lightroom can be found in it's physical location by right-clicking on the photo and selecting (Windows) Show in Explorer or (Mac) Show in Finder.

[JP Hess]

If you learn how to use keywords and collections then it really doesn't matter where the images are located.  You can always choose a keyword or a collection that will bring  all the images together regardless of where they are stored on the computer.

[Don___Julane_Crabtree]

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions.  I've settled on the following.

• BXXX - Keyword for the location of the original slide/negative where B=Box and XXX is the box number sequence including the leading 0s.  E.g. 001, 002, etc.  This will allow me to use Lr to locate a negative/slide easily.
• I've procured acid free negative/slide archival storage boxes and sleeves.
• As for the photos... Since they are being organized into albums I'm just going to organize them by subject in folders until they make it into the albums.

[JP Hess]

Seems to be a workable plan. There isn't a right or wrong way to do it. There is just the way that works for you.