Comments on: Import by date. A change of heart.

By: inerlogic

inerlogic — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:06:47 +0000

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.

By: Sean McCormack

Sean McCormack — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:53:41 +0000

Pretty much.

By: oz.arcilla

oz.arcilla — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 04:58:37 +0000

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?

By: ddungan

ddungan — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:01:44 +0000

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!

By: ily » Import by date. A change of heart.

ily » Import by date. A change of heart. — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:19:18 +0000

[...] 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 … [...]

By: jjj

jjj — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:46:24 +0000

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.

By: jjj

jjj — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:50:18 +0000

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.