Initial Lightroom Setup

[Alan R Mason]

I have just purchased Adobe Lightroom and would like to know if there is an initial 'new-purchase' workflow setup that one needs to follow before one starts to use the app, or does one just download and begin importing?

What is the best method please?

[AxelMatt]

There's no initial workflow for Lightroom. You have to install the Creative Desktop Client first.

Download Adobe Creative Cloud apps | Free Adobe Creative Cloud trial

From this client you install Lightroom.

On the first start of Lightroom automatically a catalog will be generated.

After that you can start importing your photos.

[F. McLion]

In addition to Axel's response: Before starting with the catalog and importing photos, I'd think about the location of the catalog. LrC by default puts it in a subfolder in your picture folder. For lots of setups, this is not ideal.

Note that the catalog location has nothing to do with the location of your photos - This is completely independent. It's only the catalog (database), the previews and some other stuff.

[Jim Wilde]

If you are using Lightroom Classic, you should get this "Quick Start" guide which is free to all registered users of Victoria's web-site: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/shop/classic-quickstart/

If you are using the cloud-based Lightroom instead (there is no Lightroom CC), there's a Quick Start guide for that as well on Victoria's site: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/shop/cc-quickstart/ 

[dj_paige]

I have just purchased Adobe Lightroom and would like to know if there is an initial 'new-purchase' workflow setup that one needs to follow before one starts to use the app, or does one just download and begin importing?

What is the best method please?

By @Alan R Mason

No such thing as a "best" method. Lots of good ones and some really poor ones. Figure out, before you begin using LrC, what type of organizing you will do. One thing I advise always is to use keywords and other metadata (captions, titles, GPS locations) to organize, rather than moving photos into folders and moving photos from here to there later to achieve organization. Keywords and other metadata gives you better and stronger organizing tools than folders. Have Lightroom Classic import your photos into folders by file date (it will do this for you), and only use folders for that.