Start afresh by deleting everything in Lightroom Classic ?

[Flyingkiwi747]

I seem to not be able to follow along as photos dont go into smart collections or folders and I think I need to clear the slate and start afresh. I bought Lightroom Classic in July 2021.  I have been on holiday and have at least 1,000 photos to sort. Most won't be keepers. I want an overall Catalogue? of Iceland  then I think smart collections of volcano, waterfalls. etc.  But I dont seem able to add into any of these. I have spent 2 days trying to sort it out and maybe I can clear the whole of Lightroom Classic and start again. Any advice appreciated.

[JohanElzenga]

There is probably no reason to start again. You do need to read a book about how this works, however. Smart collections are like saved searches. That means you have to define a smart collection like "keywords contain volcano", and then you have to add the keyword 'volcano' to your volcano images. That will make them automatically appear in the smart collection. Lightroom Classic does not have image recognition, so it can't detect a volcano image if you do not tell it that this is a volcano image.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/members/free-membership/classic-free-ebook/

[Flyingkiwi747]

Ok thanks I have just subscribed to Lightroom Queen which may have the
answers. I've never had a problem with similar sites before but this just
doesn't seem to start from the basics.

[DS256]

As someone who started over a couple of years ago (and still working on it), better to just work with what you have and use LrC to move files around. Use the tips in the Lightroom Queen books but as @JohanElzenga  suggested, look at the LrC features like collections. Also, as he suggested with keywords, make sure your metadata fields are up to date. You can store location information in the photos to make find 'Iceland' pictures easy.