7 Powerful Tips to Organize Your Lightroom Folders

#landscapephotography ​​ #lightroom #lightroomtutorial

In this video, I share 7 simple yet powerful tips on how to organize your Lightroom Classic folders. We'll touch on some best practices when working with folders, how to find the best organizational method for your photography, and an easy and straightforward way to clean up and reorganize your folders in Lightroom Classic.

⭐️ LET'S CONNECT:

CHAPTERS
0:00:00 Introduction
0:01:39 Create a Parent Folder in Lightroom Classic
0:07:33 Use Alt/Option to Expand and Collapse all Folders
0:08:36 Organizing Lightroom Folders By Date
0:10:44 Organizing Lightroom Folders by Location
0:12:10 Organizing Lightroom Folders by Theme
0:13:33 Standardize Names and Use Folder Filter Bar
0:15:46 Easy Way to Clean Up Your Lightroom Folders

[kathleeneveritt]

Hi, I am in such a mess with all my photos and have looked at hours and hours of videos on organising but yours is the only one that gives me any hope of being able to sort them out, thanks for posting

[HudShot]

I love the "mess to organise" folder! Great idea.

[donriemer]

Wonderful video, and so, so helpful. Many thanks.

[Chris-]

This is the first time I have really understood how lightroom works for organising photos . And that also includes a paid course on udemy!! Thank you 🙏

[mikeestes]

Thank you, Chrissy -- strategies, rather than how-tos, for organizing photos was exactly what I was looking for.

[teadish]

Excellent video! Very concise and easy to follow. I do have one question: When I want to create a folder within a folder, I usually right-click and create a folder. But I see you're using the option to create a subfolder. I wonder what is the difference between the two and when would I want to use one or the other? Thank you so much!

[gregscarcella]

Excellent tutorial! Much Needed! Now I have lots of organizing to do....lol

[larrydance]

Simple to the point, one of the best videos, going to organize my Pics better before setting up new NAS

[colinmelhuish]

So well explained. Great walk through. Learned so many new processes. Thanks for posting Subscribed.

[draughonc]

Hey Chrissy! Hope you are doing well. For me, I've simplified Lr organization to 3 folders and a variety of Collections. Folders consist of 1: RAW files, 2: In Work, and 3. Finished Images. Collections consist of: 1. Workflow, and 2... dates, themes, etc. similar to your folder structure. The Collections consist of Smart Collections and regular Collections. Upon import, all RAW files are saved to the RAW Files folders and Smart Collection to the Workflow structure. Once selected for work, that RAW file is copied (not moved) to the In Work folder maintaining the OG file. Once worked, the final image is saved to the Finished Images folder and deleted from the In Work Folder, leaving me with the OG RAW and Finished Image. I now always have a clear understanding of which images are being worked, etc. Collections are maintained throughout the process using keywords and metadata.

[LadyJaneG]

So helpful…I’ve been trying to organize and this all makes sense! Thank you!

[howzchannel]

You are an awesome presenter... easy to follow and learn, thanks

[magnegrimen]

Great video, very useful! I'm about to set up a NAS for my photos, and plan to use the opportunity to reorganize (which is just a nicer way to say "clean up my mess"). I've been watching a lot of videos about how to organize, but this one was really good and kind of balanced. Thank you! 😀

[Jim_Mundy]

This might be the video I've been looking for.. looking forward to going through it again very slowly. Thank you... new subscriber here.

[andrewberriman]

Thank you for this video of powerful Lightroom tips. I've recently digitized thousands of historical family photos and have been considering the best way to organize them. Many other professional videos on Lightroom photo organization skirt organization by date by saying that it's not for them and how are you supposed to remember when something was taken in order to easily find your image. The photo's theme is what is typically pushed together with the argument that Lightroom can sort and find by date if needed. The main issue this brings up, especially if you are not a professional photographer with standard themes, is how to deal with overlapping categories in your folders: Travel, Family, and Holiday are not mutually exclusive! Furthermore, and for my case in particular, the dates in the metadata are meaningless having scanned all the images recently.

This video shows the power of organizing by date, which seems like a logical way to organize your collection if you are not a professional photographer. The thing that is guaranteed to be unique per image is the date that the original picture was taken. Images can still appear in Travel, Family, and Holiday themes by using smart collections of keywords and/or from using a naming convention. Since I now have family images from the 1940s and I don't take photos for a living, I have taken one step back and organised the first folder layer by 5-year period. As long as you are descriptive in the title of the secondary folder after the date, I find locating an actual image in finder/explorer mode remains relatively straight forward and the 'was this in 2017 or 2018' issue is mostly negated.

[Jude]

This is great. I’m in the process of reorganising over half a million photos, setting up an archive hard drive and culling many worthless photos. I have two catalogues on LR - one for my travel, landscape and nature photography and the other for my professional dog photography business plus all my general dog photos. I do use a process similar to yours but it is a bit messy so I’m looking forward to following your structure more diligently.

[Gidgetandmoondoggy]

Thanks, as a newbie who hasn’t even got Lightroom yet this will be great

[ZAFIA_VROOM]

Just what I was looking for. Thank you.

[ArunaMusicChannel]

Very good and helpful. Even after using LR for many many years, and found way to organize, this will take mine to a new level. Thank You.

[Barbara-qrgq]

Hi Chrissy, a great video, really enjoyed the content. Thank you for sharing👏😊