Suggestions on managing folders

Hey, thanks all for the helpful advice!  It sounds like...

• Lightroom keywords and folders...er, collections...are the best way to manage images within LR

• OS-created folders and filenames are helpful / necessary when working with other apps
  

I'm curious-- has anyone come up with a way for Lightroom to create actual OS-folders, and move photos to them?  Or to rename the files?

Seems like best of both worlds-- if the OS could be made to "take orders" from Lightroom

• pull up a group of photos by keyword-- or create and tag a new set of images.
  
• click a button/run a script, and LR aligns file names / folders
  
• since images can have multiple keywords, this would have to place aliases in some folders (or you'd need to accept having a lot of duplicates)

Thanks again

Don't put any time into folders. Use keywords as much as possible. If you have a specific name for a shoot (Blah Wedding, Sherwood Forest shoot) make that into keywords. Use collection sets and smart collections as basic tools to see groups of photos. Smart folders for a particular shoot in particular, makes it hard for images to "get lost".  Time spent trying to create and classify folders is a time suck and a mess as you have to settle on one view, whereas keywords allow you to work the way your brain does (statues, sunsets, architecture). That way you can easily group to your heart's content, along concepts that make sense to you.

I take it from your post that you are not using Lightroom yet. You are likely to get many opinions on your questions.

Hello.  Right now I'm consolidating tens of thousands of photos from external drives, internal drive, SD Cards, Google Photo.

Tens of thousands are not a particularly large number. Many Lighroom (LR) users have more than 100K images. I have about 186K referenced in my LR catalog. The catalog is a database of information about each image that has been IMPORTED into LR. That includes all the information that the camera puts in the image file and all the processing and file location information. The image files are not "in" the catalog. LR just keeps track of where the files are on your hard drives (local and network)

It's a time suck, so I want to get it right.  I could use some advice:  How much time would you invest creating/managing a folder structure on hard drive?

Depending on your definition of "time suck", getting your image file structure set up properly is a very important thing to do.

Most of my photos are in some kind of folder structure, but a significant number are not.  If I understand correctly...

All of your photo image files are in some kind of folder structure already, except possibly those that are in the root of the drive which would be "C:" in Windows or "Macintosh Hard Drive" in Apple OSX

• Lightroom will create a catalogue of my photos

Yes, as described above

• The catalogue will have pointers to the file locations-- so I shouldn't ever move them

Yes, but there are other reasons to have all of your image files in one top level folder as in C:\ Xxxxx Photos. Replace the Xs with your name. You can and should move the files in LR, except for very large folders. Do not move the files outside of LR until you know what you are doing and can tell LR how to find them again.

• I can organize by creating virtual "folders" within Lightroom

"Virtual Folders" in LR terminology are "Collections". Collections are very useful, but your folder structure will be recorded in LR before you use Collections.

• There are various apps/services that can work with the folder structure in Lightroom

Not in the sense that they will help with your file organization. Someone will probably chime in with some plug in here but you should learn the basics of LR first.

If that's the case, which of these makes the most sense?

1. Spend hours looking at every photo to create folder structure on drive. Do this before creating LR catalogue.

My answer to that is yes. It depends on how detail oriented you are. If you do that, as I said above, put all your images into subfolders of the Master Xxxx Photos folder

1. Dump all my existing folders and "orphan" photos into one big folder-- then use LR folders to manage

This is a workable solution. One images and folders have been Imported into LR, you can reorganize them in LR as long as you are not trying to do this to folders with masssive (1000s) of photos.

1. Get rid of existing folder structure completely. Everything goes in one big folder on drive, and I manage using LR folders.

    A number of LR users will probably recommend this. I find it to be a big mess, because I organize my image folders like this: C:/Ken Photos/2017-11-22-LaurensBirthday. By doing that, I can find and access all my image folders outside of LR to find JPGs, etc for emailing or buring to CDs, etc. This works well for me, I have 6TB of images on 2 4TB drives which LR handles fine.

1. Something else I'm not seeing

This subject is kind of like religion, you may get many suggestions.

Note: The big advantage of having all you photo image files under one master folder is for backing those images up. It also saves a lot of work when you upgrade to a different computer or want to move all those files to a new hard drive.

Joe(high)C  wrote It's a time suck, so I want to get it right.  I could use some advice:  How much time would you invest creating/managing a folder structure on hard drive?

As little time as possible. If you want to move all the folders with your photos to one drive, do that, but don't spend any more time on rearrange files or folders.

Most of my photos are in some kind of folder structure, but a significant number are not.  If I understand correctly... Lightroom will create a catalogue of my photos The catalogue will have pointers to the file locations-- so I shouldn't ever move them I can organize by creating virtual "folders" within Lightroom There are various apps/services that can work with the folder structure in Lightroom

There are NO virtual folders in Lightroom. They are collections. Don't call them folders because this will just lead to confusion. And furthermore, collections have different properties than folders, so let's call them collections. Furthermore, I do not consider collections to be a primary organizing tool in Lightroom. In other words, there are better tools in Lightroom to organize. The tools I recommend you use to organize are keywords and other metadata. These are more flexible and have more capability than collections in Lightroom, and much more capability than folders in your operating system.

I don't know what your last bullet means. Are you referring to plug-ins? Or something else?

Bullet 1 ... I quibble with the wording, Lightroom doesn't do anything unless you tell it to do so. Bullet 2 ... you can move the photos and folders if you know what you are doing; please ask if you really want to move folders or photos after they are imported into Lightroom. But really, any workflow that involves moving photos or folders from here to there should be avoided. Leave the photos in one place. (EXCEPTION: if you reach a point where you need to move them to a new drive or new computer, then you move them. Please ask for instructions)

If that's the case, which of these makes the most sense? Spend hours looking at every photo to create folder structure on drive. Do this before creating LR catalogue. Dump all my existing folders and "orphan" photos into one big folder-- then use LR folders to manage. Get rid of existing folder structure completely. Everything goes in one big folder on drive, and I manage using LR folders. Something else I'm not seeing

Regarding #1 — don't. An extremely sub-optimal use of your time and the tools you have available in Lightroom. As I said above, if you want to move them all to one disk, do that; but don't spend any more time or effort on improving the folder structure or placing photos into a folder structure

Regarding #2 — Horrible idea. Atrocious. Bleh. A huge mistake. Don't do it. (And there are no "Lightroom Folders")

Regarding #3 — Same as #2

Regarding #4 — import your photos into Lightroom from their  current folders using ADD (or as I said, before you import them, move them onto a single disk if you want, but really that's up to you, it's not necessary). Assign keywords and optionally other relevant metadata (captions, titles, GPS locations, etc.) to your photos in Lightroom. From that point on, you do not use folders to find your photos, you find your photos in Lightroom using the keywords and other metadata. This makes use of the strengths of Lightroom, and avoids making use of the weaknesses of your operating system. Use the strengths of Lightroom, after all, you paid for these features.