Hey everyone. I posted this over on my Lightroom blog today, but it’s something that I really think can help some people out there so I decided to cross-post it here (not to mention that I’ve been really busy this week so it was a quick way to get both blogs taken care of) 😉 Anyway, I wanted to take a minute to give you a suggestion that’s helped a lot of people in my seminars. I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback from it – sighs of relief and just overall it seems like it’s helped a lot of Lightroom users out there.
A Question I Get All The Time
See, one of the questions I get asked quite a bit is how to bring in all of some one’s older photos that may be scattered among multiple drives and stored all over the place. Even worse, they’re older photos that may exist in another program like iPhoto or Aperture.
There’s really no trick to it other than following the same import process you normally would for your photos. You can do some tricks to help get things from, say, iPhoto in to Lightroom but there’s no direct import from one to the other.
Instead, Try Doing Nothing With Your Older Photos
Here’s what I suggest. If these photos aren’t crucial to your everyday work, and you don’t need the option to instantly access them, consider just working with Lightroom from now going forward. Maybe save a folder (or even a few folders) of all of your favorite photos, and import them into Lightroom so you at least have them in your library if you want to share or print them. But leave the old stuff where it is.
Here’s why. You may end up going through a ton of work to get those photos in to Lightroom. Depending on how many there are, you’ll have to go back and organize them all. Maybe even re-edit all of them. All that work for photos that you just don’t refer to often. Why? Just so you have them in your catalog with all of your newer stuff? It may not be worth it. For so many people I’ve talked to, these older photos aren’t mission critical and almost all of the people I ask say that they rarely every refer back to them. They’ve got some final JPEGs of their favorites and that’s all they ever need from older photo shoots.
Anyway, it’s just a suggestion. If you need quick access to your older photos then this may not be the suggestion for you. If not, give it some thought and just start using Lightroom the right way from today going forward. I’ve had many people tell me this tip saved them from many hours of work and that it’s really helped them out. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day!
Hi Matt,
Still no webinar on You Tube for Creating Extraordinary Landscapes in the Perfect Photo Suite with Matt Kloskowski. You started then something happened and You left, the girl took over and well not as good as you, she was ok. I kind of lost interest. I would watch it again if MATT K. was doing it in its entirety. If so, how soon and where?
Thank you, NAPP member.
Jean
Hey Matt,
Great post, I’ve been wondering about that. I still haven’t got LR5 yet…waiting on the boss to buy it. I’m a tight wad. When I do get it though, I’ll keep this in mind for sure. See you in just over 3 weeks buddy!
Mike
Sweet! See you in Vegas!!
Hi Matt,
Darn good Info! As you and I discussed a while back, it isn’t worth missing with older drives and catalogues. Since LR 5 came out, I’ve decided to use your method. I have several drives with photos and I can find what I want using your method. Thanks! I do have a question for you though. When using LR (no matter which version) when you use plug-ins or go back and forth to PS, we end up with several Tiff or PSD files. I stack them, but it that really necessary? Once I’m done editing, should I just keep the original and final tiff or psd, and then remove all the in between tiffs or PSDs? What’s your thoughts on this? Those extra photos take up quite a lot of disk space.
Thanks,
Dennis
Thanks! I’ve just bought Lightroom and was overwhelmed at the thought of tackling all the photographs on my drives. You’ve just made my life easier. 🙂
Try Google Picasa. It does a great job of looking for your photos on your hard drive and displaying them in a Lightroom Library Grid like view.
Freedom! That was my default situation anyway… and I have several catalogues from each and every LR upgrade EVER that I’d have to redo, plus multiple copies of folders from various drives, plus the jumbles of images to sort out from panic stricken rescues from dying harddrives (before I learned to backup several years ago). I knew it was useless but I’m glad you’ve come to this conclusion, too. There isn’t enough time in my world to sort it all.
I now keep a hard copy simple catalog in my Filofax notebook of which dates are in which drives, and favorite shots locations. I label each drive with a color or code and note that as well (colored nail polish, duct tape, whatever!) so I can tell which is which at a glance. I also label the USB and power cords to help with those awful tangles. While it is jury-rigged and primitive, it has saved me a lot of grief and cuts down on search time when I do need a pic. I keep my photos in chronological order but who can remember the exact dates of things years before?
I do wish I’d been better about exporting at least one representative image that was keyworded well and titled clearly from important shoots or family days because then I could more easily run searches on them from my operating system and wouldn’t be dependent on OLD versions of LR that no longer work (if I could find them). Oh well… live and learn and learn some more.