December 12, 2007
Import by date. A change of heart.
This is an updated version of a recent post from my Lightroom Blog.
A recent near miss with serious data loss has me rethinking my current import by genre strategy. In a fairly recent post on Lightroom Forums.net, John Beardsworth argues for always importing by date and using metadata to create any other required structure. The background to this post by him is that I was touting a structure like Landscapes>Ireland>Connemara>Bunowen, rather than by date.
“Unless you use a strictly date-based structure, there is always the risk of your pictures either being duplicated or falling between the cracks and being controlled only in your imagination. Where, in Sean’s example, would one put a shot that fits more than one category – a portrait in a bleak Connemara landscape. In bands, or in Connemara? Why not in both? Or should it depend on the size of the person relative to the landscape. A second set of considerations is reconstruction – imagine a catastrophic system failure and what makes rebuilding easier. A subject hierarchy or simple date based folders? In other words, using your folder system to analyze your work is a dead end – that’s what metadata is for.”
My issue began when doing some backup. Somehow the power supplies of my archive drive and the backup drive became swapped and both drives crapped out (the somehow being my own stupidity, I suspect). I surmised that perhaps the 12v and 5v lines were swapped in each (they have identical connectors) and that by swapping the drives and the caddies, I might get one working. I was right and managed to avoid serous data loss through this. Needless to say I bought a new drive immediately and backed up the photos.
Now I did have most of the stuff on DVD also, but newer stuff wasn’t there because my DVD backups were monthly at the very least. Since I changed to using 2 drives for backup, I’ve been lazy about using this procedure. Also the Genre method makes it hard to save monthly. I’m back to importing by date now, but with one change.
I want to have my shoots in their own folder. Sometimes I might have 3 or 4 unrelated items in one day, eg portraits during the day, band promo shoot in the evening and a live gig at night. I don’t want these together in one folder, so here’s where a simple bit of typing can help.
Currently Lightroom only allows one set of metadata/keywords/settings at a time on Import. Because of this I tend to do multiple imports from one card if need be. So to decide my import location I now choose the 2005/December/17 style date import as per Fig 1. I could also use 2007/12/07, but I like seeing the month name. Others are saying that using the number is better, but editing is easy at a later date if needs be. In fact my original method, before Lightroom, used 01 Jan, 02 Feb etc. This might be the best compromise.
Fig 1.
To change the folder, I double click on the folder name that is being currently applied to edit it. This is to the right of the tickbox. I leave the date string intact as 2007/December/09 by pressing the right arrow, but I add to it with “/Lights”. The leading “/” forces Lightroom to create a new subfolder in the date folder. You can see the full string in Fig 2.
Fig 2.
With 2 shoots from that date imported in the same way, I have the shoots in individual, but date based folders.
Fig 3.
Of course now I need to consider how to get my older folders into this order. I have a few options: Use dates from the Metadata Browser to manually create dates and move the subfolders to these. I could simply save out all the Metadata and remove the files and reimport by date. I’d lose Virtual Copies and Collections this way though. Any option I choose forces compromise, so this will dictate the choice. As an interim option I could also simply make a date/month/subfolder option for now and add the date as time allows. I suspect the latter choice will be the easiest, with least loses.
And now John will get a chance to say ‘I told you so’.
Maybe for the virtual copies, one could simply render out a JPEG/PSD/TIFF of each, so at least you visual representation of the variation. This could prompt you to recreate in LR or if you aren’t too bothered about the space, keep the actual copy.
If LR could write a VC xmp file to go alongside the main XMP file or better if LR could write the VC data into the main XMP file, then the problem would be solved.
To go back to the main part of thread. I always file by date, simply as it’s programme agnostic and very robust. I can copy my data from PC to Mac or vice versa and still have all my date heirachy.
I will want to access my files in 20years time. So relying on my still using LR then is a bit daft, it could be replaced just as LR has replaced PS for many people today, which would have been inconcievable to many a few years back.
Though if my data is in date order with keywords, then I have the best of both worlds. As one shoud be able to easily import the folders and read the keywords with any decent library software.
I have folders labelled by day [2007 - 12 - 25 Xmas in Grenoble], So not only do I have date but information as to what’s in the folder, saves having to open it or reminds you what is in it. Much easier than using metadata at times. I may even have several folders for each day, if the contents vary enough [2007 - 12 - 25 Xmas Lunch, 2007 - 12 - 25 Post Prandial stroll, 2007 - 12 - 25 Xmas Present opening - a bit overkil for Xmas maybe, but when busy shooting more varied things, it's very handy]
I use this numerical label rather than 2007 – December-25 as otherwise that will be ordered before 2007-September-25, by the OS. So I also have monthly folders labelled with 2007 – 01 January, 2007 – 02 February…2007 – 12 December into which I then place my daily shoots.
I also prefer 2007 – 12 – 24 to 2007-12-24 as it’s more readable and way, way better than the 20071224 nonsense I’ve seen recommended by supposed DAM gurus.
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptA recent near miss with serious data loss has me rethinking my current import by genre strategy. In a fairly recent post on Lightroom Forums.net, John Beardsworth argues for always importing by date and using metadata to create any … [...]
I agree that the ideal folder structure is organized by date, but with a simple descriptor at the end of the folder’s name (eg, 2007-12-25-Xmas) as the previous reply stated. ATTENTION – ADOBE – Please put the ability to customize folder names on LR import!
What do you guys do when your set spans one day (such as an event that ran from 10pm – 4am the following day) or even more than one day? Do you still organize folder by date, and then let collections take care of the whole event set?
Pretty much.
Hey all, i realize this is an old thread, but…
i have no problems beating dead horses.
after many image mishaps, data losses and switching image management programs, i came up with my organization scheme…
i store my images using the following structure:
YYYY > YYYY_MM > YYYY_MM_DD > YYYY_MM_DD_XXXX.cr2
using the 4-digit number from the camera file (XXXX) and the full date, my images will always be in order (unless the camera counter wraps around from 9999 to 0001 during a shoot) and i will never have two images with the same name, unless i shoot over 10,000 images in one 24 hour period.
as for shoots that wrap from one day to the next (like every friday when i photograph local bands into saturday morning) it’s a non-issue….
if the photograph is made on friday the 14th, it goes in the folder for the 14th, if it were made on the 15th, it would go in the folder for the 15th… lightroom lets you select multiple folders and work on all the images in those folders seamlessly…. no issue… i don’t use collections, and if i’m shooting a model i use a seperate folder structure using the model’s name, files are named YYYY_MM_DD_II_XXXX.crs where “II” are the model’s first and last initials…
i keyword every image and use the keywords to further organize and find images at a later date, general keywords on import as they apply, and specific keywords are added image by image as i correct and rate them in the develop module.