File management

[FWG99]

Appologies for a longish post. I have used LR (with Bridge and PS) for many years (now on CC) and have built up a photo collection of some 20000 photos, some original photos (RAW format), some scanned from very old (pre 1890 in a couple of cases) family pics (mostly copied as jpeg, tweaked with PS and saved as PSD's) and some "donated" by other family members. Over time some family members have asked for copies (tweaked versions resaved and some have been tweaked in PS and resaved in a different format (PSD / TIFF). The result is I have in a significant number of cases the same photo in different formats and in different folders. To make matters worse I am building collages of groups of photos with the ultimate objective of building a pictorial family history which is tending to generate even more variants. 

I need to rationalise the storage of my photos but I am at a loss to know where to start. I have had a couple of attempts at consolidating folders but that tends to make mattters worse. Any advice on where / how to start would be gratefully recieved.

[Malam]

I am also new to Lightroom CC, but here is what I have gone through so far.  Photos imported into LR CC are uploaded to the cloud and arranged into folders according to the year each photo is taken.  Your several re-edits may show up as duplicates which may be a problem. Duplicates are not uploaded, but you are giving the opportunity to review them and decide to add them anyway or delete them.  Your photos are also presented to you as faces, recognized by the software.  This may be a useful tool for you since you can identify the faces and add names to them.  LR CC will then merge the photos with each of the faces.  This might be useful for you to create your own albums and folder collections.  You also have the option of selecting where  a copy of your original photos are kept on your drive.  My suggestion is to start with a couple of your current folders first to test drive how LR CC works.  One word of caution, with your large collection you will need a large storage space on the LR CC Cloud.  Be aware of this as you may have to prioritize what you can upload.  Lastly, this community has a lot of experienced users that will help you.

Good luck.

[FWG99]

Thanks for those tips. I am a bit wary of the Cloud as I have a lot of data. However I have a lot of local storage so I could do much the same on a separate drive.