How do you organize photos in Lightroom?

[stipok]

As the thread says, how do you keep track of your pictures in lightroom?

I have started to create an album of my sons first year and quickly realized that i have a lot of pictures of him and it is already a problem to find the good pictures from the rest. It is also an issue that will escalate with time.

I have tried two methods but neither will help me find the keepers in the long run.
*First i assigned pictures with stars where one star meant "good enough to post process". That was fine in theory but with a lot of pictures, its not ideal and not all one star pictures get a second culling for no star or more stars.
*Secondly i started with a harsher culling where i rejected as many pictures as possibly and then deleted them. What was left was fewer photos but that still doesn't help me to find the good stuff in retrospect.
*I have always been careful to assign all pictures relevant keywords and sort them into folders named after the occasion. This helps to some extent but not all the way.

Given that ymmv and we all have different workflows, how do you go about to ensure that you can find the pictures you really like?

Cheers!

 

[djh]

Keywording is my first search criteria.
Assigning a star rating is next.
Harsh editing is really what this is all about. If you have 3 pictures which are essentially the same, you should be able to discard 2.
Adding the best to a Smart Collection as you go along will help you to quickly get the pictures which you want.

I only have my photos in date heirachy folders and don't bother with grouping them into events etc (that is what keywording is for IMHO).

 

[Edcculus]

I'm probably doing it wrong, but I organize by folders on import from the camera, and label the folders according to what the pictures are of. Then I import into lightroom, which keeps my folder structure

 

[stipok]

thanks for the input!
For the album, I've done something similar; i have a smart collection that searches for images with a keyword combined with star rating larger than one and specific collection for pictures that will go into the album. -Perhaps the star rating is the easiest way to select pictures after all?

Do your star rating have a specific meaning (e.g. 3 stars is good enough for public display) or is it simply a ranking from better to less good?

When i import pictures to lightroom, i copy them from the memory card and let lightroom create a folder that i name during import. That gives the same control over the folder structure but takes less work.

 

[djh]

The star rating for me is simply one step in the editing process. Although I don't want to discard anything worthwhile, I also don't wish to keep photos which will never see the light of day.

As much of my work is done in analogue, I have different needs to other photographers when it comes to import/cataloguing etc. With no EXIF data available on scanned files I need to be even more specific with keywording.

As long as you are happy with your file set-up, then all is ok. The more you use LR, the easier and better it becomes IMHO

 

[jumper]

I've been using Photoshop Lightroom since v 1(beta) and I started off with one way of organizing and now it is too late to change but it works well. My catalogue has a folder for each year which in turn has a day folder for each shoot (eg. Oct 3 2014) I keyword the shoot on import then do a quick cull with a star rating and more key wording if required. This way I know I was on Vancouver Island in May of 2011 so I can easily find the photos. So my shoot today will get imported. creating a new folder of my mac as Oct 03 2014, with keywords. Then I fly through those images and rate them. Good ones get edited and others simply stay in that folder.
The second stage is using collections and smart collections. If I hand a file off to Photoshop or Photomatix or Perfect Photo suite I save it as a Tiff then I can create a smart collection with the data I want based on the metadata of the edited file. Explore the 'smart collection' strategy as it will really pare down the shoots to easily managed photos. I might have a smart collection hooking the keyword 'cruise' and the filetype Tiff so I only get edited files with that data. If I go back to the original folder and edit another photo in that batch it will automatically go into that smart collection. Manual collections are simply drag and drop. (bobby/mom, bobby/auntie. bobby/birthday etc) The files never really move just the hooks.
I can imagine that baby photos could get unweildly quickly and so the trick is to find a solution for sorting.
I rarely 'toss' a photo unless I really miss the focus or a tree is growing out of somebody's head, I just leave the images in the original folder and only work with my collections.
My best advice is to find a sorting strategy that you like and understand and tune is as your library/catalogue grows. Good luck and take lots of photos of your son.