Reorganising my photo folders on my hard drive

[petern23254457]

now that I have organised my photos in Lightroom I feel that the order on my hard drive is chaotic. The way I have understood is that it is complicated to move folders around because then lightroom will not be able to find the original file. So what is the easiest way to create order on my hard drive and still keep all the added key words in lightroom?

[AxelMatt]

Take a look here: http://photoshopcafe.com/lightroom-catalog-mess-organize-photos-lightroom/

There are a lot of other tutorials in the web. Ask Google after "organize, pictures, Lightroom" and you'll find tons of materials.

Axel

[richardplondon · Accepted solution]

First, it makes no technical difference so far as Lightroom is concerned, what the physical organisation of your images is on disk. This only makes a difference, in terms of how logical and easy to navigate YOU find the Folders panel to be.

Collection membership, keywording and metadata searches etc don't depend on the physical locations of the images; only on what each individual photo's characteristics are.

It is only complicated to move folders and images around or rename them, if you do that outside of Lightroom (using Finder / Explorer); especially if you do that piecemeal. Because then LR's records about where all these images are, would be invalidated in ways that would be time consuming to rectify.

However, to externally change in one operation the location of a whole grouping of folders, leaving the internal organisation and naming of that alone, is quite straightforward to fix even if you have done this outside of LR. Alternatively you can simply make the change from inside LR instead, and then there is nothing to fix: if LR is involved in the change, it is aware of the change.

The best advice I can offer, is to first work out how you would ideally like to operate with new photos that you take in the future - set that up as needed - and begin using that consistently for entirely new imports.

I like to have LR Copy files from camera card into the computer using an "organize by" option to auto-file these into dated folders, named (one can optionally rename the files too) in a systematic and neutral way. This task can be entirely delegated to LR which carries it out hands-free and pilot error free. And save all the settings governing this, into a named Import Preset which can then be re-used 100% consistently and repeatably going forward.

Then you can gradually transfer the prior photos into line with this same scheme; by moving stuff around in the LR Folders panel if you need to do this piecemeal, otherwise it's OK to move and re-connect a block of stuff for a wholesale change; as/when you find the time and the inclination.

[dj_paige]

petern23254457  wrote

now that I have organised my photos in Lightroom I feel that the order on my hard drive is chaotic. The way I have understood is that it is complicated to move folders around because then lightroom will not be able to find the original file. So what is the easiest way to create order on my hard drive and still keep all the added key words in lightroom?

Agreeing with @richardplondon, that you ought not consider moving photos and folders around, you should organize by keywords and other metadata.

Also agreeing with him that its not complicated to move folders around; but as I stated above, it is completely UNNECESSARY, there are more powerful (and less error-prone) tools available to you — organize by keywords and metadata, leave your folders alone. Use Lightroom's strengths instead of using the weaknesses of your operating system.