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In this session, I’ll show you how I organize my images and edit down a series of images to just those that should be processed. You’ll also learn how I keep track of the status of each folder so I can tell at a moment’s glance if a folder of images needs more work, or is ready to be shown to a client. In the pro-cess, I hope you will get enough insight so that you can develop a similar system that is tailored to your specific needs. One system will not serve all photographers, so you’ll need to develop your own solution that meets your individual needs.

My general approach is to limit which images are stored in the base folder for any project so that: 1) they are optimized and ready to show anyone, 2) they have been sorted through to make sure there is only one image for each similar sequence of images captured (never four images that look almost the same, for instance), 3) the non-show-worthy images have been moved to a sub-folder so that additional effort is required to see them, 4) images that are not finished and might need additional work are easily identi-fied and are separate from those that are ready to show a client. Here are some of the ideas that go into my system. Use what you find to be useful and ignore anything that doesn’t align with your workflow:

Base Folder: I like to see my folders sorted by when the photos they contain were captured. That’s why I start each base folder with a four-digit year followed by an under-score, a two-digit month followed by a short descriptive name for the subject or location that was being photo-graphed. For example: “2015_05 Dutch Harbor AK”. I’d really like to enter the date as 2015/05, but using the / character can cause odd problems with many computer operating systems, so I avoid it.

In Progress Folder: When I start to process the images from a particular shoot, I create a sub-folder called “In Progress” and move all the files to that folder. This way, I can easily tell that work as begun on that folder. As I finish processing each image, I will move them from this folder into the base folder. I think of the base folder as images that are ready to be seen by the client or general public and images in the In Progress folder as being for my eyes only.

Outtakes Folder: At some point, I’ll end up creating another folder within the base folder that is called “Outtakes”. This is where I move images that I’d like to keep, but that I do not want to process or ever show a client. They might be images that could be useful if extensive retouching were needed on one of the more important images since I could use a tree and/or other elements from an outtake.

ORGANIZING PHOTOS WITH LIGHTROOM

PHOTOSHOPWORLD

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Moving Images After Processing: As I spend time processing the images in the In Progress sub-folder, I’ll end up moving them to either the base folder or the Outtakes folder depending on how successful I think the results were. If it’s a good image and worthy of showing a client or the general public, then I’ll move it to the base folder. If processing was not successful, then I’ll do one of three things: 1) If the image is a total failure and I never want to see it again, then I’ll press X to mark it as a reject. 2) If the image is not high enough quality to show a client, but I do not want to delete it, then I’ll assign it a rating of one star and move it to the outtakes folder. 3) If I think that spending more time processing the image might produce an acceptable result, then I’ll leave it in the In Progress folder and assign it a rating of 2 stars. 4) If it’s a great image, the processing is complete and it’s ready to show the world, then I’ll move it to the base folder. As more images accumulate in the base folder, I will start to assign them ratings between three and five stars. I usually reserve a five star rating for images that are what I’d call my “superheroes”, meaning that they are so good that I could use them in a portfolio of my best work regardless of subject matter. I’ll use 4 stars for the absolute best of this particular subject matter, and I’ll use three stars for good images from this shoot that are worthy of showing a client.

As a final touch, when I feel I’m completely done processing a shoot, then I’ll rename the In Progress folder to “Future Rescue” to let me know that any images that remain in the folder are there just in case a new feature in a future version of Photoshop or Lightroom might be able to improve the images. If there are no images that I hope to fix with future technology, then I’ll assign them a rating of 2 stars, move them to the Outtakes folder and then delete the now empty In Progress folder. I’ll also delete all the images that were flagged as rejects and make sure that every remaining image has a rating. If it’s not rated, then I know I never finished organizing the images.

Revisiting a Folder: If, at a later date, I’d like to view the images from this shoot, I first make sure that the Show Photos in Subfolders option is turned off in the Window menu and then I can click on what I’d like to see: 1) My best, ready for prime-time images are in the base folder, 2) Images that need further work are in the In Progress subfolder, and 3) Images that should be kept but gener-ally ignored are in the Outtakes folder. The numbers next to each folder will give you an idea of how many images are in each folder and the triangle next to the base folder name will be gray if no subfolders are present, which is your indication that none of the images within have been processed.

Filter By Ratings: If the base folder ends up with too many images to easily manage, then I can use the Filter Bar to further narrow down the number of images by only viewing the ones that were rated with 5 stars. To see more images, expand the view by filtering for four or more stars. You can even turn on the Show Photos in Subfolders option to also view the contents of the In Progress and Outtakes folders. Lightroom 6/CC offers the choice to filter by rating under both the Attribute and Metadata headings, the latter of which features a list.

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Stacking Similar Images: If you end up with a bunch of similar images in your base folder, then I sug-gest you select them and type Command-G to stack them so that only the top image in the stack is visible. You can always click the number that appears in the upper left of the stack to expand or collapse the stack if you need to view the rest of the similar images.

Working RemotelyIf you travel frequently and need to manage your images while you’re away from your main storage system, then you might need to modify how you think about folders, collections, catalogs and previews. Here are a few ideas that I find to be useful when capturing and adjusting images away from my office:

Smart Previews: This special type of preview allows you to adjust images even when the hard drive that contains them is not actively connected to your computer. You can create these previews in two ways: 1) when importing images into Lightroom, choose the Build Smart Previews option in the File Handling section of the Import dialog box, or 2) create them after importing your images by selecting the images and then choosing Library>Previews>Build Smart Previews. Since these previews take up more space than standard previews, you’ll want to get rid of them for your outtake images after you’re done processing a shoot. You can do that by selecting the images and choosing Discard Smart Previews from the Library>Previews menu option.

You can quickly determine if an image has a Smart Preview by clicking on the image and then looking just below the histogram in the upper right of the Library module.

When you don’t have a hard drive containing images attached to your computer, consider visiting the Filter Bar at the top center of the Library module, using the Metadata heading and setting it up as shown below, where I’m only viewing images that: 1) include a Smart Preview, 2) are at default settings adjustment-wise and 3) are not marked as rejected. This is a nice way to find images ready to be adjusted in Lightroom!

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Using Smart CollectionsCollections are similar to playlists in music soft-ware and allow you to organize your images without changing their physical location on your hard drive. You can create a collection based on a search by clicking the + icon to the right of the Collections heading on the left panel of Lightroom’s Library module. Here are some of the Smart Collections that I find to be useful:

In Progress with Smart Preview: This Smart collection makes it easy to find images that can be processed when the drive that contains the original images is not currently attached to your computer.

Outtakes with Smart Preview: This Smart collection is useful when your internal hard drive is get-ting full and you need to free up space. In that case, I view the contents of this Smart Collection, type Command-A to select all the images and then choose Library>Previews>Discard Smart Previews to free up space since those images are ones that I don’t expect to need to work on in the future.

Hero Images Lacking Keywords: This Smart collection displays images that are found in the base level folders that do not have keywords. Those are the only images in my lightroom catalog that I dedicate time to keywording.

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Avoiding Confusion When Managing FilesNow let’s back up a bit and think about some simple things like folders and file names. Your digital camera cre-ates file names that are not very memorable and that frequently repeat, especially when using the same cam-era for multiple years. That can pose problems if you ever decide to export a file as a JPG and later have to find the original. Sure, you can search for the file name, but if it’s something like “_MG_5983.CR2”, you might end up with multiple results and with a file name like that, it wouldn’t be a surprise if a client were to rename it with a more descriptive name. For that reason, I try to have every single file name unique, so that a single file would be the result of a search for the file name. I like to rename my files at the time I import them by creating a renaming template in the File Renaming section of the Import dialog box.

My personal preference is to use the same naming convention that I use for folders, which is a four-digit year, a two-digit month and a shoot name, followed by a six-digit sequence number. That way, the file name for any individual file lets me know which folder it would be contained within and the sequence number shows me where within that folder I should expect to find the image. By doing this, every file I import has a unique name, which makes it so I never run into a situation where I’m exporting multiple images for a portfolio and end up with identical file names.

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KeywordingThe Keywording and Keyword List panels on the right side of Lightroom’s Library allow you to tag your images with special text that you can later search for to easily find the image at a later date. We could spend multiple hours talking about this subject, but due to the limited amount of time we have available, I just want to cover some fundamental concepts that will be of use to anyone to keywords their images.

Entering Keywords: There are three different areas where you can enter keywords: 1) By entering them in the text field that’s labeled “Click here to add keywords” , 2) in the field directly above the one mentioned above, but only if the Keyword Tags pop-up menu is set to Enter Keywords, 3) You can also assign an existing keyword to the selected image by clicking in the left-most column of the Keyword List next to the keyword you’d like to assign. When using one of the text entry methods above, you can enter multiple keywords by separating them with commas (you can use other separators if you change the settings found in Lightroom’s preferences).

Synonyms: After entering a key-word, you should find it somewhere within the Keyword List. You can then double-click on the keyword to spec-ify synonyms so that the same image will show up in search results for vari-ous terms that have the same general meaning like Cat and Feline, Dog and Canine, or Car and Automobile.

Non-Exporting Keywords: It’s up to you if you’d like your keywords to be attached to images you export from Lightroom, or if you’d like them to be stripped upon export. You control that in Lightroom’s export dialog box under the Metadata section. You can also specify your choice for individual keywords by double-clicking on the keyword in the Keyword List and changing the Include on Export setting. I use non-exporting keywords for all sorts of things such as: 1) marking an image needing a particular type of processing such as advanced retouching, 2) tagging images that I have model releases for or have usage limitations, 3) keeping track of who has licensed an image, 4) keeping track of which photo contests an image has been submitted to and much more.

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Parent and Child Keyword Hierarchy: After assigning keywords to hundreds of images, you’ll find that your keyword list will become cluttered and difficult to manage. I often create non-exporting key-words to serve as simple organizational categories through which I organize the rest of my keywords. For instance, when you look at my keyword list, you’ll only find the following categories: Details (for keywords that relate to image-specific details like licencing rights, processing status, print sales records, etc), How (for details on how a photo was captured or processed such as HDR, Panorama, Black & White, etc.) What (for keywords that describe the content of the photo such as cat, dog, lion or truck, car, ship) When (for keywords related to the season, occasion or time of day when the image was captured) Where (for location details such as country, city, or name of the museum or park were it was captured) Who (for the name, age, or gender of who appears in the image or the role the person was playing)

You can create a hierarchy of keywords as deep as you’d like. For instance, the keyword “Roy’s Cafe” could be located under Where>Continent>North America>United States>California>Amboy. That might sound crazy and difficult to manage or comprehend, but it actually helps a tremendous amount and here’s why: When you assign a keyword to an image, all its parent’s keywords are automatically associated with the image. That means that just entering “Roy’s Cafe” to any image in the future will automatically have it show up in search results for any of its parent keywords! If you happen to market your photo-graphs through stock photography companies or online print sales web sites, then those are all search terms that can be attached to your image and make it easier for your potential customers to find. You just have to be sure to set any organizational keywords that would not be useful search terms set to not export. In the example above, Where and Continent would be keywords that should not be exported.

You don’t have to set up a fancy hierarchy all in one sitting. It is usually done over months or years of time. Just periodically review your keyword list and see how cluttered and disorganized it feels. When that happens, start to create non-exporting keywords and then drag related keywords on top of that one so that they appear indented below the one you dropped it on. You could call the keyword that contains other keywords a parent and the keywords inside of it child keywords. That means that if you find the keywords Bedroom, Garage, Interior and Bathroom sitting on the base level of your keywords, just create a new non-exporting keyword called Room to serve as a container and then drag the other keywords on top of it and things should start to look cleaner.

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Keywording View: You can set the Keywording area to display different types of information depending on what you choose from the Keyword Tags pop-up menu in that area. Leaving it at its default of Enter Keywords will cause it to display the keywords that the selected image has been tagged with and will allow you to enter additional keywords, or select and delete ones that are already attached to the image. The Keywords & Containing Keywords setting will display not only the keywords that have been assigned, but all the par-ent keywords those keywords might be contained within. Setting the menu to Will Export will only show keywords that are set to export and will exclude all the ones you might have set up to organize your keywords (assuming you set them up to not export when you created them).

If more than one image is selected, you might find that an asterisk (*) appears at the end of some key-words. That asterisk indicates that a keyword was found on one or more of the images, but not on all of the selected images. It’s only the ones that don’t display an asterisk that were found on all of the images.

Searching Via the Keyword List: The number shown to the right of each keyword in the Keyword List indicates the number of images that have been tagged with that specific keyword. Clicking the arrow to the right of the number will search your entire photo library for images tagged with that specific keyword and will also show you any images that were tagged with keywords that are contained within (or you could say are children of ) that keyword.

Searching Via the Filter Bar: Clicking the arrows mentioned above will always search your entire photo library. If you need more flexibil-ity than that, try first clicking on a folder you would like to search and setting the Text heading in the Filter Bar at the top center of your screen to search based on Keywords and then enter one or more keywords to search for. Choose View>Show Filter Bar if the filter bar is not already visible on your screen, or type \ to toggle its visibility.

You can further narrow your choices by turning on more options in the Filter Bar such as filtering by rating or date. Or, you can clear out the current search by clicking None in the Filter Bar and then search-ing for keywords under the Metadata heading. That’s where you’ll find a list of all the keywords that have been assigned to the images that are contained in the folder you are viewing. You can then scroll through and click on a keyword to limit your view to images that have been tagged with that keyword. You can also hold Command and click on additional keywords to further narrow your results to images that contain more than one keyword.

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Filter BarNow that we’ve gotten onto the topic of the Filter Bar in our talk about keywords, let’s explore a few more ideas for finding images based on keywords and then let’s expand our discussion to general tips for using the Filter Bar.

Double Keyword Searches: You can get as crazy as you’d like. For instance, you can start with a Text search for the keyword “California” and then add a Metadata Keyword search to see a list of other key-words found on images that were tagged with California.

Finding Untagged Images: To find images that have not been keyworded, use the Metadata heading, set the left pop-up menu to Keywords and the right one to Are Empty.

Locking a Search: The lock icon on the far right of the filter bar determines if the search will be cleared when you switch to a different folder or collection. Locking it will keep the search active until you click the None option in the Filter Bar.

Alternative Rating/Label Search: Ignore the flag, rating and label choices that are found under the Attribute heading. Often, it is more useful to choose the Metadata heading and set the search columns to: Flag, Rating, Label, Keyword because you will then see a count of the number of images that match each attribute and you can shift or command click on them to select multiple choices. This is a new feature in Lightroom 6/CC

Stacks & Searching: Images that are contained in collapsed stacks will be ignored in search results. You can use that to your advantage by stacking a stitched panorama on top of the individual images it was stitched from to prevent those individual shots from showing up, or stacking individual exposures used to make an HDR image with the merged result. I also like to stack any similar shots so that only the best of the group is on top of the stack. If you need the images inside a stack to be included in a search, click on the folder you want to search, type Command-A to select all the images and then choose Photo>Stacking>Expand All Stacks.

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Finding Containing Folder: After finding a image, right-click on the image and choose Show in Library to find other images from the same shoot, or choose Go to Collection to see a list of all collections that contain that image

Face DetectionLightroom 6/CC now has the ability to automatically recognize faces. Let’s take a look at how this new feature works so you can start using it right away.. You can either enable the face recogni-tion for the set of images you are currently viewing or for your entire catalog. To turn on facial recognition for your entire cata-log, click on the identity plate that appears in the upper left of the lightroom interface and then click on Face Detection to enable the feature. If you’d rather not have lightroom work on your entire catalog, then browse to the set of images you’d like to work with and then click the People view icon that appears in the toolbar at the bottom of the thumbnail grid in the Library module. Now let’s take a look at how the People View works.

Entering People Keywords: When you enter the People View for the first time, all of your images will appear under the Unnamed People section. Each per-son that appears the set of images you are viewing will be temporarily cropped so that all you can see is their head. You can enter their name in the light gray space that appears directly below their head. When you enter a name, that photo will be moved into a section titled Named People. Repeat this process until you’ve named each person that appears.

Suggested Names: After a while, you may find that Lightroom will start to suggest names below some of the faces that appear in the Unnamed People section. If you move your mouse over the suggested name, then two icons should appear, allowing you to accept or reject the suggestion.

Expanding Stacks: If you see a number in the upper left of a face, then that means that Lightroom thinks that multiple photos contain the same face. You can click on the number to expand the stand to inspect all the faces.

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Drag/Drop Faces: You can drag any faces that appear in the Unnamed Faces section onto one of the faces in the Named Faces section to assign the name of the person you drop the images onto. You can also select and drag multiple images by using the Shift and Command keys just as you can to select multiple images when viewing your images as thumbnails in Lightroom.

View Uncropped Image: After clicking on any face image, you can press the Spacebar to see an uncropped version of the image. Each face will be marked with a rect-angle that includes the People keyword that has been assigned.

Delete or Add Face Region: When viewing the uncropped version of the image, you can click on any face rectangle and press the Delete or Backspace key to remove the rectangle. You can also click and drag on any area to define it as a face.

Show/Hide Face Regions: Click the face region icon that’s found below the uncropped image to toggle the visibility of the face regions within the active image.

Organize People Keywords: You can designate any existing keyword as the parent keyword under which all new people keywords should be stored. To accomplish that, right-click on any keyword that’s found in the Keyword panel on the right side of the Library mod-ule and choose Put New People Keywords Inside this Keyword. Once you’ve done that, the parent keyword will have an astrict (*) displayed next to it to indicate that this setting is enabled.

Exit People View: Once you’re done tagging names to the faces that appear in People view, either type G or click on the grid icon that appears at the bottom of the people view to return to normal image browsing.

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Map ModuleThe Map Module has a few tricks up its sleeve that are not all that discoverable without a bit of guidance:Reverse Geolocation Autotagging: If you turn on the top checkbox under the Address Lookup section of the Metadata tab of the Lightroom Catalog Preferences in the Lightroom menu (Mac), or Edit menu (Win), then any photos that include GPS information will gain additional useful searchable metadata.

That will cause Lightroom to look up the GPS coordinates on the internet and auto-matically enter the City, State, Country and Sublocation into the Metadata panel that is found on the right panel of the Library and Map modules. All entries that are automatically created will be shown as dark gray entries. Any entries you manually enter will be white. To approve an automatically generated entry, click on its title (City, State, etc.) and choose the top option from the pop-up menu that appears, which will cause the auto entry to be displayed as white. You can also click on the text field and enter an alternative setting if you don’t like the automati-cally generated value.

Manually Adding Map Location: Many cameras (such as the iPhone or a DSLR with attached accessory GPS module) will automatically tag photos with GPS location data. All images that include GPS coordi-nates will appear in the correct location when viewed in the Map module. You can manually add a GPS location by dragging one or more photos onto the proper location on the Map.

GPS via Tracklog: If your camera does not offer the option of directly tagging your images with GPS information, then you can use another GPS device (an iPhone with an app such as gps4cam for example) to keep a record of your location while you’re shooting and produce a tracklog file in GPX file format. As you shoot, the GPS device will keep a record of the current time as well as your GPS coordinates every few minutes. Once you’re done shooting and you’ve imported your images into Lightroom, select the images you just captured, click on the Tracklog icon at the bot-tom of the Map module and choose Load Tracklog and choose the file your GPS device produced. The GPX file you just fed Lightroom has the time recorded in GMT time zone. If your camera’s clock was set to anything other than GMT time zone, then you’ll need to choose Set Timezone Offset from the Tracklog icon at the bottom of the Map module and adjust the Offset slider to specify how many hours different your camera’s clock was set compared to GMT, which is easier than it sounds since it will show you the time range of the selected

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photos and the tracklog so you can easily compare them. Finally, choose Auto-Tag # Selected Photos to have Lightroom tag those photos with the GPS location from the tracklog file.

This handbook is copyright ©2015 by Ben Willmore and DigitalMastery.com