Automatic/date subfolders when import/export

[Patricio Jovani]

Hi there.

I'm new to this Lightroom and Adobe in general, however I have used a couple of other software to work with RAW photos and all of them allowed me to import/export photos while creating a date-based subforlder system.

Is it posible to do the same in LrC? If so, how? I can't seem to find anywhere a prompt list or an option to do so, and I would be very grateful to get some advice so i can keep my workflow.

[JohanElzenga]

Yes, that is possible. Look at the Destination panel in the Import dialog. There you can select where the photos are copied to. At the top of that panel you can select a folder structure. Right now, you will probably see 'Into one folder'. Click on that and you can select a dated folder structure instead, and also define how that folder should look. Note: the Destination panel will only be available if you have chosen 'Copy' or 'Move' at the top center of the Import dialog, not if you only add images to the catalog without moving or copying them.

[richardplondon · Accepted solution]

As already explained, there is an option at import to auto-file images into a dated folders system.

"Import" sometimes confuses people since commonly this works in one of two ways for newly taken images:

either you copy them from the camera card into the computer storage folder scheme first - by whatever means - and then import these to the Catalog in-place ("Add" import), or else you combine those steps and have LrC "Copy" image files directly from the camera card, into the computer storage according to your choice of folder scheme while at the same time importing those to the Catalog.

Certain kinds of folder scheme can be directly implemented by a LrC "Copy" (or Move) import and IMO this is the more productive way. Even if that requires slight adjustments to your pre-existing scheme, for the longer term this makes everything simpler and more robust IMO.

In LrC a folder scheme does not need to express anything about the content or purpose of the photos; using dates does just make some practical sense besides being a fixed fact for each photo, about which the requirements are never going to get reconsidered, unlike for example a subject based scheme. Everything that's meaningful otherwise about a given photo can be more fluidly and portably expressed by characterising that stuff in metadata.

Exporting images, there are various tactics available. First, it is not a given that every image must be exported at all, and it is not a given that any image export will be exclusive: there may be multiple varying reasons for these exports (using different specifications as well as occurring at different points in their editing history). Many exports will be immediately disposable, some will be made directly into an online gallery (say), and multiple varying exports may happen from the same basic Raw because different virtual copies have been made showing different edit treatments, etc. 

That said, there is an option to create exports into the same folder where the respective imported files live, hence inheriting whatever folder scheme those use; plus there is an option to contain this export batch within a subfolder. It is possible to also have the exports auto-imported back into the Catalog but personally I would discourage this (for several reasons).

Another option is to use a plugin called "Folder Publisher" to maintain a quite separate tree of folders just for exports (technically, published versions since this is an enduring relationship that just needs a click to bring up to date) whereby the folder arrangement of that output 'mirrors' the same folder arrangement in which the imported images are seen. 

I feel it makes better sense to altogether separate 'derivative' exports from their imported master images. It's not hard to as you go along maintain a more intentional and informatively named set of output folders reflecting not only the capture dates of the underlying photos but also their content / purpose and perhaps the particular reason for exporting - let's say, for print or whatever.

Again, making logical sense to arrange that in a dated way but Lightroom Classic does not offer any option to automatically file exports into a strict date scheme in quite the same manner as it does when importing.