Why is Lr so difficult and confusing?

You’ve posted to a very old thread. It is highly unlikely that the issue described in this thread, though not impossible, is the same issue which you are currently experiencing. Rather than resurrect an old thread that is seemingly similar, you are better posting to a new thread with fresh, complete information including system information, a complete description of the problem and step-by-step instructions for reproduction. 

In the unlikely event the issue is the same, we will merge you back into the appropriate location. 

Thank you!

I've been using Photoshop for years.  Love it.  But everytime I try to dig back into Lightroom, it's handling of files is so confusing that I quit and curse Adobe one more time for making it so damn hard to import a file. It's rediculously unintuitive. Come on guys, why make it so hard?  And you're still charging money for this confusing software? 

This thread covers a lot of topics, my input is only about the file management part.  I have been using a program called RoboImport (PC-based) since the advent of cold water.  Essentially, I load an SD card, start the program, fill in the blanks for my template and, load the files.  My particular template comes back with a folder “[shot date]-subject” and labels each image with “same folder name – (xxx)” number index.

Bottom line is I get a local (cloud-synced) folder with my images.  Adobe was not involved up to this point, I get a regular run-of-the-mill folder with the images from the camera.  I am working on Bridge to do something equivalent for when I work on the Mac.

From there I import “[shot date]-subject” folder into LrC, pick-and-choose, do the slider thing, occasionally pop over to PS for fine-tuning.  Once the masterpieces are completed I “Export” from LrC to a “[shot date]-subject - Keepers” sub-folder to hold the edited images.

I end up with the as-shot images in the parent folder and the as-edited images in the sub-folder.  LrC catalogs are intact and function fine.  Collections are not affected if you use those.  You must keep your parent folders where LrC found them, not fair if you hide them under a rock and blame LrC for not finding them.

As a 32-year user of Adobe products starting with 2.0 on a MacIIfx, every iteration of Photoshop and now the latest and greatest "Lightroom CC Classic and Moble ransomware" are purposfully obtuse, redudndant and confusing - to no good purpose. Took me less than a week to get "good enough" at Photoshop back in the day, then another week with every "improved version". Menu hiding, feature deletion, purposeful changes to break plugins and actions, more obstacles. And every iteration was slower thatn the previous one! Time to buy the latest and greatest desktop supercomputer - $$$ - just to get parity with the previous version.
It was pretty clear from the beginning Photoshop was never built for photographers, it was for the downstream guys. What's followed was every maner of geedunk (that means superfluous for you chickenhawks) changes to the "prettiness" features, that then take half a day to undo (if Adobe allows) and just get back to editing photos.

I get it, the digital age makes everyone lazy and with anyone and everyone capable of blasting 1000s of images in a day, a cataloging front end/app was inevitable. I recall a good day being 40-50 film images, with 30 keepers. It's the same 30 keepers now, with 970 in the garbage. I suspect this is from the sheer mass of wedding photgraphers, street shooters, and snapshooters whining about handling all those redundant imges. Got no time to set up the shot like a real photographer.

I don't gang-process images, I do them one at a time - they matter to me. I charge by the hour, I'm good, I'm fast. When I use LR at all, I like to drag one image at a time into Lightroom for gross what-if edits. Cataloging was done when the images were shot then dropped on the server.

Photoshop still does most of my heavy lifting, because Lightroom flat ain't got the tools for hard stuff. I use GIMP for some images as well, and FIJI, because y'know not all the great plugins and scripts are in Adobe. I slide between Linux, Mac OS, Windows and VM w/o effort. It takes me 30-minutes to knock out a complex Python script for an image(s) in GIMP. Most of what native Photoshop can do is second or third-best.

Simply selecting an image in Lightroom takes multiple operations, and creates redundant files that are hidden in the User directory.  Who keeps their sh*t on the root drive or held hostage in the cloud?!

I guess I'm just educated, old, and stubborn. I like to know HOW things work, not just magic. I work on my own cars, my own house, my gardens, built a couple guitars. I like the vet to use big words, as well as my doctor(s). Those eight years+ of college and grad school meant something (the GI Bill, my own $). The draft and the war made a man out of me and ruined my personal life, so the taxpayers now pay me and my therapist to stay alive. Photography keeps me sane. Gratuitous change is not progress.  That Lightroom is now the norm doesn't make it good or the best or optimal, just tolerated by people who don't know any better. Don't get all huffy, I'll be dead soon enough.

I agree with you! It's not the editing - it's the file organization. Doesn't seem intuitive. This is me: Where is.....wut? Why?  I read that Lightroom is a "database" and makes it easier to catalog or organize your photos. I'm looking for the explanations of that aspect.

Elanorc, This discussion is about "Lightroom Classic". It used to be called Lightroom when this thread was initially active. Adobe changed the name to "Lightroom Classic" a couple of years ago which has caused a great deal of confusion. Some still incorrectly still use that term. From your comments, it sounds like you are using the new "Lightroom" which is a separate web based application. While Lightroom Classic has some web connectivity, it never puts your images in the cloud unless you specifically do that through a function called Collections. With Lightroom Classic, you have total control of where your images are saved on your local drives.

This is a good video on YT by Theresa Jackson explaining the differences in Lightroom Classic and Lightroom:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAdfOyZFGCk

I have tried LR twice now and I am totally confused. I have used PS since 1.0 and bridge. over 30 years. I really dislike LR. I am confused as to where my images are and I especially dont like that they sinc to the cloud. I prefer all my images to be stored safely on my own computer. I don't get what good libraries are. I have all my files in folders just how I want them using bridge. I an keyword and do evverythig I need in that as far as organizing and opening into PS or RAW. I don't get all the hype about LR at all. I hope theynever get rid of my old faithful Brige an PSCC.  And why cant I open from bridge into LR? Totally confused and frustrated. I dom't have time to learn something so complicated it is slowing down my production time. So I am sticking with the great and awesome PSCC and Bridge.

One other thought, LrC can only now be acquired by subscribing to the "Photography Plan" with Photoshop / Bridge / Camera Raw as the premium applications and LrC, Lr gratis. This is a great deal.

The question is does the plan need both Camera Raw / Bridge and LrC, which one will survive?

My "gut" says LrC.

Ok, there is lots of info in the thread to explain why Lightroom Classic is where it's at, and I basically agree that Lightroom is more efficient than ACR/Bridge. However, I think I understand your position and it's no different from the core users of Adobe Photoshop back in 2006/7 when Lightroom was being prepared for release in Feb 2007.

I was involved in the Beta program as a user of the application, and it was clear from comments posted in the forum that lots of current users (maybe a majority) were not inclined to adopt the application. To wit, they already had ACR/Bridge for free.

As far as I can recall Lightroom release was US$300 for new users. I cannot recall what was the offer price to existing users of Photoshop CS.

The launch name of the program was "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom", I was in the Beta forum and while I was not in favour of the name because it functions completely different to Photoshop. Anyway, this was a marketing decision. The name is still marketed as a Photoshop app.

Remarks in the forum suggest that proficient users of Photoshop / Bridge / ACR have difficulty adapting to the Application. 

I have used Lightroom from inception and my favourite feature is the Catalog database and the fact that I no longer have to deal with XMP sidecars.

Bridge / Camera Raw can suffice for the Library and Develop Modules but there is so much more in Lightroom.

I know this sounds strange to some, but Lightroom now represents what is normal in photo processing. It is not weird or unusual or crazy.

That will seem even stranger the longer someone has been using photo applications, but that’s because the entire digital photo processing universe has moved away from what photo processing was 20 to 30 years ago. Back then, all photo applications worked like Microsoft Word: You open a document from an operating system folder, you edit the pixels, you save a document back into a folder.

But about 10-15 years ago, things started changing because of digital cameras. The Microsoft Word model of editing photos in individual document windows (which Photoshop still uses) was no longer enough. It was especially inefficient for bulk processing the large volume of images that came out of digital cameras. Adobe came up with Bridge and hooked up Camera Raw to it, but that wasn’t enough either.

Lightroom went down the same road as Apple Aperture and many of the newer photo applications since then:

• Images are tracked in a database, which allows easy bulk editing and allows preserving undo history across sessions, and a long list of other benefits.
• One of the biggest benefits is applying edits without you having to save, and the edits are kept separate from the image (in the database), so that the originals are never altered.
• Metadata tagging and filtering allows far more flexible handling and organizing of photos, but it means understanding how that is different and better from organizing only with folders.
• If you want an edited image, you have to export a copy since the original was not altered.

This is now the one hundred percent normal way that many photo applications work now. Apple Aperture worked that way. Apple Photos, Google Photos, and I think Microsoft Photos does too. Luminar, Darktable, Lightzone, they all work that way… The new Lightroom (not Classic) goes even further down that road in that it is totally cloud connected so that you can get to any photo on any device at any time, like Apple Photos and Google Photos.

The reason I’m explaining all that is as soon as you understand the general model that Lightroom follows, a model so general that it’s extremely common, the sooner you understand why things work the way they do in Lightroom: Database-tracked, nondestructive edits, metadata-driven, etc. Once you get that, a whole lot of other newer photo applications will make sense to you too. So it’s worth the time to study and understand it.