# Unexpected sub folder added when importing



## mikecox (Jun 24, 2011)

This is the second time this has happened; a sub folder appears in my import folder ... for no apparent reason. 

What causes this to happen?

Here are my folders; after I imported Neck.  They are a mess 

My Places folder should have contain these places: SD River, Yosemite, Cheesecake Factory and Park Early am.

A SD River folder has been added to the Neck folder and I have no idea how it got there, and I have no idea why there are so many SD river folders.

I can't drag the places that are outside the Places folder; maybe it's not allowed, into the Places folder.

There is a 2011 folder in Park Early am; and I only created ONE 2011 folder, so I don't know how that got created. 

I'm baffled by all this :crazy:


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## clee01l (Jun 24, 2011)

It would help to see a complete snip of your Destination Panel especially the top 4 lines


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## Mark Sirota (Jun 24, 2011)

Right.  Most likely, you had the Neck folder selected when you told it to put that import in SD River, and similar for the other cases.  Be careful which folder is selected in the Destination panel -- any subfolders will be created under that one.


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## mikecox (Jun 24, 2011)

clee01l said:


> It would help to see a complete snip of your Destination Panel especially the top 4 lines


Sorry, I'll try to remember to include that if I experience more unexpected behavior.


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## mikecox (Jun 24, 2011)

Mark Sirota said:


> Right.  Most likely, you had the Neck folder selected when you told it to put that import in SD River, and similar for the other cases.  Be careful which folder is selected in the Destination panel -- any subfolders will be created under that one.


I don't expect anyone will be able formulate an answer for this due to the lack of information...but. 

 I went through each Import step very carefully reviewing each panel, one by one. 

As I recall, when I went to the Destination Panel the SD River folder was already in the Misc stuff folder; that I had created for the neck sub folder...and it already contained the SD River folder; with the plus icon.  I didn't put it there.

But wait... I just noticed a check mark next to the "into subfolder" field, which contains "SD River".  Could this be why SD River folder appeared  

It appears that I can't reorder folders using drag and drop; I tried.  So I guess I will have to recreated folders and move images into them, then delete the one that are out of place.

fyi Here is how my folders are arranged in both places.  How do I get Yosemite into the Places folder in Lr?

I moved the 2 images in the SD River folder to the SD River folder and deleted the subfolder.  So far so good.  But how do I mover the Yosemite folder in Lr into the Places folder?


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## clee01l (Jun 24, 2011)

mikecox said:


> ...But wait... I just noticed a check mark next to the "into subfolder" field, which contains "SD River".  Could this be why SD River folder appeared  View attachment 699
> 
> It appears that I can't reorder folders using drag and drop; I tried.  So I guess I will have to recreated folders and move images into them, then delete the one that are out of place.


 This is precisely the reason I asked for a look at the top of your Destination Panel.  It is a common user error.

As For drag and drop. The File/Folder Operations are handled by the OS.  Lightroom only Moves folders, and you can not move a folder into a folder if a folder by that name already exists.   In this case, you need to select all the files in the extra folder and drag them to the primary folder by that same name. When the duplicate folder shows zero file count, you can "Remove" it from Lightroom If it is completely empty it will be deleted from the OS folder structure too. 

Lightroom offers  several date named folder schemes that when used take most of the import burden off of the users shoulders.  Trying to use folders as collections and manage the names and hierarchy of these collections  is unnecessary since LR provides a more versatile collection model as a part of Data Asset Management organisation.


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## mikecox (Jun 24, 2011)

clee01l said:


> This is precisely the reason I asked for a look at the top of your Destination Panel.


I thought so 




> you can not move a folder into a  folder if a folder by that name already exists.


Yes, I saw the warning message when I tried to do that, then checked my HD and saw why.
I don't understand how that folder got outside the Places folder but no matter.



> you need  to select all the files in the extra folder and drag them to the  primary folder by that same name. When the duplicate folder shows zero  file count, you can "Remove" it from Lightroom If it is completely empty  it will be deleted from the OS folder structure too.


 now I know why I can't drop it into Places; from Lr.



> Lightroom offers  several date named folder schemes that when used take  most of the import burden off of the users shoulders.  Trying to use  folders as collections and manage the names and hierarchy of these  collections  is unnecessary since LR provides a more versatile  collection model as a part of Data Asset Management organisation



Sounds like what your telling me to use the date scheme then create collections with recognizable titles. I'm beginning to see the merit of that argument now


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## clee01l (Jun 24, 2011)

mikecox said:


> ...Sounds like what your telling me to use the date scheme then create collections with recognizable titles. I'm beginning to see the merit of that argument now


Yes, each of your existing folder names is in reality a collection of images that have the same attribute.  The folder "places" is really a hierarchical parent keyword with SD River, Yosemite and Old Town being child keywords.

You can have a collection Set (i.e. parent folder equivalent ) for "places" with Smart Collections that will hold any image that have a keyword "Yosemite", etc.   You can have a single photo of a Cat in a Cheese Factory at Yosemite be in all three collections where as it can only be in on and only one folder.


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## mikecox (Jun 25, 2011)

clee01l said:


> Yes, each of your existing folder names is in reality a collection of images that have the same attribute.  The folder "places" is really a hierarchical parent keyword with SD River, Yosemite and Old Town being child keywords.
> 
> You can have a collection Set (i.e. parent folder equivalent ) for "places" with Smart Collections that will hold any image that have a keyword "Yosemite", etc.   You can have a single photo of a Cat in a Cheese Factory at Yosemite be in all three collections where as it can only be in on and only one folder.


 Guess I better get to work reorganizing my filing system; because what you say makes sense.

Thanks for pointing all this out


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## LouieSherwin (Jun 26, 2011)

mikecox said:


> Guess I better get to work reorganizing my filing system; because what you say makes sense.



Also easy to do in LR. I do this regularly as part of my workflow. I import all of my images in to a folder NewImages/ with sub folders labeled with camera and sequence range. I do my initial evaluation of the shoot here, Flagging rejects, adding ratings, updating metadata and keywords etc..

When I am done I select the NewImports folder and apply a filter the hides rejects and a metadata filter by date. Now I select by month and drag the images into my final date structure. I use a folder structure as follows. YYYY/MM-MonthName/. Sometimes I will create a special event folder instead of the MM-MonthName folder to hold shots from a specific shoot or event like my recent trip to France.

This leaves me with a structure on my hard drive that is easy to use outside of LR with Bridge for example. Also moving images around inside of LR is very efficient so long as they stay on one hard drive partition. The actual image files are not copied when you drag them from one folder to another. LR just uses the OS to update the filesystem directory to show it in a new folder on the hard drive. 

-louie


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## clee01l (Jun 26, 2011)

Louie, LR will do all of this for you with a lot less work effort on your part. There is no need to go tto the extra effort of Making a collection of 'New images'  You can just import directly into on of the Date Named Folder schemes that LR offers as a default.   There is an automatic collection called Previous Import that you can use to cull images for later deletion.  If the "Previous Import" collection does not have enough duration, you can do as I do and use a smart Collection .

FWIW, I usually start culling  in the "Previous Import" collection as soon as the first image appears and I am well into evaluating images by the time LR finishes importing.   "My Recent Trip to France"  gets identified with a keyword at import and collected in a Smart Collection  using among other things that keyword.   There is little benefit of accessing RAW files outside of a RAW file viewer like LR.  One of the "Date Named" folder schemes is easy to use , suitable with Bridge ( although Bridge functionality is for the most part replaced by LR)


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## LouieSherwin (Jun 27, 2011)

Cletus, Thanks for the input and I understand what you are saying and it certainly would work. Since my intent was to describe how easy and efficient LR is for reorganizing physical storage I left out a big piece of my workflow that I did not think was not relevant to the OP's question.

I am using ImageIngester Pro for all my imports. I was using it long before I started using LR so all my metadata presets and file rename etc. are already setup and being done in IIP. Each import is put in it's own folder inside the NewImports folder and then the new folder handed off to LR where it is then imported into the catalog. Although the "Previous Import" collection is now available there are a couple of reasons why I do not use it. 

The first reason is that I do quite a lot of bracketed exposures for HDR and quite a few large panorama shots. I use stacks to manage these and so I almost always need to have a folder as my source. So I just surrendered and based my import workflow on folders. 

The second reason is that since I am not a working Pro (I have the luxury of self-imposed deadlines),  my work in process is often (read usually) lagging way behind my shooting. I find that having separate folders for each shoot makes it very easy for me keep track of my pending work as separate sets of images. It also means I don't _have_ to do anything special to preserve pending work on a previous import before importing the next as I would if I were to rely on the "Previous Import" collection which I can't use anyway because of reason one.

I am in essence doing the same what you propose except that I am using folders instead of LR collections. As far as the extra work of moving my images out of the WIP area into my main library, I find this to be a useful process. It forces me to really evaluate my images and only promote those that reach my standards into my permanent collection. All the stuff that gets left behind  eventually gets deleted from the library and the file system. 

-louie


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## mikecox (Jun 27, 2011)

I am following all this with interest and I think you both for your input but it's all a little daunting; at this point. 

 I am currently in "Chapter 5; Organizing and Selecting" in Lr 3: Classroom in a Book.  

Right now I am just trying to work out the difference between Copy and Add.  I can see that Copy provides a "Destination" but I am going to run some trials to see just what actually happens when I select these options.  

In the meantime I will mark this thread for reference; I'm sure I'll understand it better, later


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## b_gossweiler (Jun 27, 2011)

Mike

Just a brief explanation:

*COPY*:
LR copies the file from it's current location (the source location, i.e. your memory card) to the location you specify in the destination panel. It then registers the location the file was copied to in the catalog, so the catalog then points to this location.

*ADD*:
LR does not do anything with the image file itself, it just registers it's current location (i.e. some harddisk folder you manually copied it into) in the catalog, so the catalog then point at its current location. You cannot ADD images from a memory card or your camera directly, as LR wants you to copy the image files off the card to somewhere else so the card can be reused.

Beat


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## LouieSherwin (Jun 28, 2011)

Hi Mike,

Sorry to make things sound confusing. Let me see if I can clarify a bit.

I was just trying to explain, using my own workflow as an example, that it is very easy to use LR to reorganize your folders since you are headed in the direction of using dates as your physical folder structure. First create your new folders in the left panel. Then it is simply a matter of using date filter in the Grid view, selecting all the images for a month or month/day and dragging them into a new folder on the left panel. Your system hard drive will be updated with the new organization. 

Cletus was pointing out that LR's import function will help out by creating date based folders in several formats for you. When you use "COPY", it will move your images from your card to the newly created or already existing folders, thus saving some steps. Additionally that LR helps you keep track each import with the "Previous Import" collection so that is a good tool to use when doing your initial evaluations.

My response was to explain that since I use stacks to organize my HDR and panoramas I can't using a collection as a source. I have to use a folder as source. Therefore, I create a new folder for each import and use it in the same way as "Previous Import" except that I can mow use stacks. The down side is that I have to manually move my final selected images in to their permanent date based folder. 

Thanks for the feedback, I will endeavor to be clearer in the future.

-louie


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## mikecox (Jun 28, 2011)

b_gossweiler said:


> Mike
> 
> Just a brief explanation:
> 
> ...


Thanks for that very clear explaination; it makes sense now.


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## mikecox (Jun 28, 2011)

LouieSherwin said:


> Sorry to make things sound confusing.


I'm sure it's only me.  I'm still trying to get oriented.  I feel like a patient who gets confused by the simplest explanation; only because I don't understand the basics.



> since you are  headed in the direction of using dates as your physical folder  structure.


I still struggling with this.  The other day I was looking for some images and when faced with dated folders I felt rather frustrated.  I guess I just need to create collections to avoid this; right?




> First create your new folders in the left panel.


 Ok, now it's my turn to apologize; for being so thick Let me parse this out...

Creating new folders in the left panel will create these folders on my HD; I get that.  So I'm creating a dated folders hierarchy into which I am moving my miss filed images.  Right?



> Your system hard drive will be updated with the new  organization.


 I am clear on that point, at least!



> I use stacks to organize my HDR


I do too, and it's often a frustrating process; since it doesn't look like you can do operations on a stack, but that you have to Expand the stack and add attributes to each.  




> can't using a collection as a source. I have to use a  folder as source.


 I'm not quite sure I understand why this is.  Something about only one image showing in a stack?

btw, we're practically neighbors


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## dj_paige (Jun 28, 2011)

mikecox said:


> I still struggling with this.  The other day I was looking for some images and when faced with dated folders I felt rather frustrated.  I guess I just need to create collections to avoid this; right?



Keywords, keywords, keywords!

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you use Lightroom organizing tools, like keywords and other metadata, then you should stop searching your folders as a method of finding things.



mikecox said:


> Creating new folders in the left panel will create these folders on my HD; I get that.  So I'm creating a dated folders hierarchy into which I am moving my miss filed images.  Right?



I haven't read this whole long thread, so I apologize if I'm out of line here or missing the point.

But ... *you do NOT want to spend your time and effort creating a dated folder hierarchy, if you don't have one already*. This is a huge amount of work, and doesn't provide the benefits of my previous suggestion: keywords, keywords, keywords. 

If dated folders are created by default (like on import into Lightroom), then great, use them! But don't create dated folder hierarchy manually! (Also, if you must search by date, the Lightroom Filter Bar allows you to do this, even if you do NOT have dated folders)

Use Lightroom tools to help you achieve organization; do not put effort into organizing your folders other than perhaps to put them all under a single master folder for ease of backup.

Mike ... I have said this often in the past ... Lightroom requires you to change the way you are thinking about Organizing. It requires a mental change of directions. With Lightroom, you no longer organize your photos using folders. You only use folders as storage location, not as a means to find your photos. Put your energy into keywords and other metadata. Please give great consideration to this paragraph and my suggestions.


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## mikecox (Jun 29, 2011)

dj_paige said:


> Keywords, keywords, keywords!
> 
> 
> *you do NOT want to spend your time and effort creating a dated folder hierarchy, if you don't have one already*. Put your energy into keywords and other metadata. Please give great consideration to this paragraph and my suggestions.


 Thank you :hail:

That makes it so much more simple, and makes perfect sense :nod:  I will stop worrying about my file structure and start focusing in Keywords and other metadata.


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## LouieSherwin (Jun 29, 2011)

Hi Mike,

I wrote most of this before your recent reply to Paige's post and was just about to send it when I noticed your response. Just so you understand the sequence of events.



mikecox said:


> I'm sure it's only me. I'm still trying to get oriented. I feel like a patient who gets confused by the simplest explanation; only because I don't understand the basics.


No worries everyone here has struggled at one time or another trying to wrap our heads around how to use this tool. It has a lot of features and some limitations and setting up a workflow that suites your own style just takes some trial and error. 



mikecox said:


> I still struggling with this. The other day I was looking for some images and when faced with dated folders I felt rather frustrated. I guess I just need to create collections to avoid this; right?


I did too for quite a while. For me the important thing to understand is that LR itself does not store any images. It is a database and application that helps you organize and find your images. The physical storage is your folders on your hard drive. As a convenience LR bundles the database access and the physical storage access together in one user interface to make it easy to access your images in different ways. 

Now Paige is absolutely correct in saying that you can just leave all your existing images and folders in one top level folder and then use the keywords and collections and the filter bar to do all your logical organization of your images. However, I personally think it is a good idea to organize my physical storage as well. And while strictly not necessary it just appeals to my sense of order. 

I finally decided that for physical storage organization a folder structure based on date was the simplest to create an maintain. One really nice feature of this is that regardless of how you set it up, each image has one only one place where it belongs. There is no ambiguity as to which folder it should be placed and once it's there you never will move it again. 

I respectfully disagree with Paige that reorganizing your library is too much work. Once I finally decided on what to do it only took me one afternoon to reorganize 8 years worth (15K images) from my previous unorganized folders into a nice neat YYYY/MM folder structure. I did do a full backup of my image library and LR database onto an external hard drive before I started just incase. It was also a little tedious creating folders and then dragging and dropping the date selections into the new locations, however, as I said this is a one time operation and now every image has a permanent and easy to understand location. 

It is also true as Paige suggests that make the best use of LR you need to start to change your thinking. And the pathway to making that change is to start applying and using the searchable metadata, all the IPTC fields, keywords etc.. The richer and more complete your metadata is the more power you have to search and find images across your whole library. 



mikecox said:


> Creating new folders in the left panel will create these folders on my HD; I get that. So I'm creating a dated folders hierarchy into which I am moving my miss filed images. Right?


Correct.



mikecox said:


> I do too, and it's often a frustrating process; since it doesn't look like you can do operations on a stack, but that you have to Expand the stack and add attributes to each.
> 
> I'm not quite sure I understand why this is. Something about only one image showing in a stack?


You can only manipulate stacks when your source (the selection on the left panel) is a folder. This is an unfortunate limitation of LR. Also when a stack is collapsed and you select the image shown on the top, the hidden images are not selected (a bug or feature depending on your  point of view). So ratings, metadata, etc. are not applied to the hidden images. These are just things that you have to deal with when working with stacks. 



mikecox said:


> btw, we're practically neighbors



We are... I'll PM you with my contact info and maybe we can get together for a shoot or coffee sometime.

-louie


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## dj_paige (Jun 29, 2011)

LouieSherwin said:


> I respectfully disagree with Paige that reorganizing your library is too much work. Once I finally decided on what to do it only took me one afternoon to reorganize 8 years worth (15K images) from my previous unorganized folders into a nice neat YYYY/MM folder structure. I did do a full backup of my image library and LR database onto an external hard drive before I started just incase. It was also a little tedious creating folders and then dragging and dropping the date selections into the new locations, however, as I said this is a one time operation and now every image has a permanent and easy to understand location.



Other than this appeals to your sense of order, can you state any benefit to having your photos in YYYY/MM folders? 

I don't see any, and I don't have the same sense of order that you do; my sense of order is very pleased that I can find my photos quickly.


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 29, 2011)

dj_paige said:


> Other than this appeals to your sense of order, can you state any benefit to having your photos in YYYY/MM folders?


 It appeals to my sense of order too - and I tend to use those dated folders in my optical backups (easy division, to say this is the Jan 07 pics).  It's clearly not required, with LR's organisational skills, but I still think there's something to be said for good old-fashioned tidiness.


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## b_gossweiler (Jun 30, 2011)

Victoria Bampton said:


> It appeals to my sense of order too ...
> 
> ... but I still think there's something to be said for good old-fashioned tidiness.



+1 from a order freak (at least on computers ...)

Beat


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## mikecox (Jun 30, 2011)

dj_paige said:


> Other than this appeals to your sense of order, can you state any benefit to having your photos in YYYY/MM folders?
> 
> I don't see any, and I don't have the same sense of order that you do; my sense of order is very pleased that I can find my photos quickly.


I'm glad there is someone here who, like me, isn't so date oriented.  I like order, in fact on more than a few occasions I've been called "anal", but I just don't relate to my images in terms of that day I took them.  To have a folder for the year then the month then then the day requires too much digging; for me.  

Besides, I do a huge amount of bracketing, which produces hundreds of images, all of which must then be stacked.  Fortunately that process can be automated!  

 But I'm finding it very difficult to work with them in collections and have even had trouble managing them (expanding and collapsing them) when they have been sorted by tags or labelsl or ratings.

The least constraining place to work with them appears to be when they are in folders, but when the the folders are dated I get lost; and a little crazy :crazy:; because I have to remember the day I took them!  

It is clear that there are some things I need to learn about Stacks, because I can't image that it is as difficult as I am making it.

I checked the index of my CIB and there is no reference to Stacks; guess that's too complicated a subject for a book like this.  So I've been reviewing the Help screens, but I haven't; yet, found any definitive discussion on the topic.  

I think I will search this forum then start a new thread on the topic.


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 30, 2011)

mikecox said:


> So I've been reviewing the Help screens, but I haven't; yet, found any definitive discussion on the topic.



Give this a shot... http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/3.0/Using/WS520C7E3C-E707-4072-BB8A-F7448BDB406D.html
and http://www.digital-photography-school.com/stacking-images-in-lightroom
and a little more http://www.focalpress.com/Content.aspx?id=5958

That said, how do you see Stacks fitting into your plan?


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## mikecox (Jun 24, 2011)

This is the second time this has happened; a sub folder appears in my import folder ... for no apparent reason. 

What causes this to happen?

Here are my folders; after I imported Neck.  They are a mess 

My Places folder should have contain these places: SD River, Yosemite, Cheesecake Factory and Park Early am.

A SD River folder has been added to the Neck folder and I have no idea how it got there, and I have no idea why there are so many SD river folders.

I can't drag the places that are outside the Places folder; maybe it's not allowed, into the Places folder.

There is a 2011 folder in Park Early am; and I only created ONE 2011 folder, so I don't know how that got created. 

I'm baffled by all this :crazy:


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## mikecox (Jun 30, 2011)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Give this a shot... http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/3.0/Using/WS520C7E3C-E707-4072-BB8A-F7448BDB406D.html
> and http://www.digital-photography-school.com/stacking-images-in-lightroom
> and a little more http://www.focalpress.com/Content.aspx?id=5958


Thanks for these, I've read through all of them and not found anything in them that I wasn't aware of; which was encouraging (-:. 



> how do you see Stacks fitting into your plan?


I have discovered HDR :twisted:
So the first thing I do with my imported, bracketed, images is stack them.  That's when the trouble starts 
Once they are stacked it is difficult, for me, to keep them together.  I can't use collections because I can't expand the stacks inside collections to add ratings, or flags, or color labels. Filters only deliver the top image, so it appears that I can only work out of folders, where I can expand/contract stacks to apply attributes.

Maybe I just haven't gotten deep enough into the sorting process to understand how to work efficiently with stacks.


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## b_gossweiler (Jun 30, 2011)

Michael,



mikecox said:


> Filters only deliver the top image, so it appears  that I can only work out of folders, where I can expand/contract stacks  to apply attributes



Filters apply to all images in a stack, as long as the stacks are expanded and all individual images match the filter criteria. I suspect not all of your photos in the stack contain the criteria you filter on.

There are two very useful PlugIns written by John Beardy you could use for handling stacks:

Search Replace Transfer
Its Parse&Audit function lets you build metadata to enable filtering on stack position
Syncomatic
It lets you synch metadata from selected images to all images stacked with the selected image
Beat

P.S: John, I'll pick up my sales commission next time I'm in your area


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## mikecox (Jul 1, 2011)

b_gossweiler said:


> Filters apply to all images in a stack, as long as the stacks are expanded


Yes, I understand that part, my problem started when I found the expand/compress option grayed out.




> There are two very useful PlugIns written by John Beardy you could use for handling stacks:
> 
> Search Replace Transfer
> Its Parse&Audit function lets you build metadata to enable filtering on stack position
> ...


A ray of hope :hail:  
I will definitely install these.  Many thanks for bringing them to my attention:wub:



> P.S: John, I'll pick up my sales commission next time I'm in your area


yes John, you own him


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## Bruce J (Jul 1, 2011)

mikecox said:


> I'm glad there is someone here who, like me, isn't so date oriented.  I like order, in fact on more than a few occasions I've been called "anal", but I just don't relate to my images in terms of that day I took them.  To have a folder for the year then the month then then the day requires too much digging; for me.



Michael - Here's another option that you might consider.  Like you, I don't really relate to the actual day that an image was taken in terms of finding it again.  But, I do like to keep images that were taken together, stored together.  I work on two computers at different locations, so some storage organization helps a lot with syncing and backup.  I also find it much easier to do all of the initial processing of images from the folder view.  So, here's what I do.  

In my image data area, I create a new folder for each year.  Within that folder are a number of folders for individual "shoots".  A shoot can be anything from an entire vacation to a few images I took on a local hike.  They vary from 1000+ images to a hand-full.  Shoot folders have names like this:  24-France-Oct or 33-Leatherstocking_Falls.  I use the leading numbers so that the folders sort chronologically, both in the OS view and in LR.  I use a trailing month name for locations that are likely to be repeated w/i a year.  I also use sub-folders (w/i the shoot folder) to separate images taken w/ multiple cameras when appropriate.  My process is pretty simple, I copy all of my images from camera cards to the new folder using a card reader.  Then, I import into LR without moving them.  At the cost of a small amount of manual folder creation initially, I think I now have the best of both worlds; I have a structure on disk that makes sense to me and is easy to sync and backup, and I can easily get to shoot-based groups of images in LR folder view.  I also do a lot of keywording and make use of filters and collections for other groupings.  Works for me, and I see very little downside.  I don't recommend it for everyone, but it's another possibility to think about.  Cheers,


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## mikecox (Jul 4, 2011)

Bruce J said:


> Shoot folders have names like this:  24-France-Oct or 33-Leatherstocking_Falls.


I like this part, with the leading number being the date to facilitate sorting in both the OS and Lr.



> I use a trailing month name for locations  that are likely to be repeated w/i a year.


I notice you use both month and location.  Not sure I see how that works. :hm:

 How do you work both into the file structure and remain consistent?


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## erro (Jul 4, 2011)

I'm with the date-storage-guys....

One single photo can only have been taken on one date. It's the only thing that is consistent and unique about a photo. All other aspects of a photo can be multiple.

What about a photo taken on a vacation trip to Paris, that shows the flowers in front of the Eiffel tower? In what named folder would you store that? In the vacations folder? In the France folder? In the architecture folder? In the flowers folder? No, I store it (or rather let LR store it automatically at import) in the YYYY/MM/DD folder according to the date it was taken. Then I add keywords to describe "Paris", "Eiffel tower", "flowers" and anything else I may want to search for.


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## Bruce J (Jul 5, 2011)

mikecox said:


> I like this part, with the leading number being the date to facilitate sorting in both the OS and Lr.
> 
> I notice you use both month and location.  Not sure I see how that works. :hm:
> 
> How do you work both into the file structure and remain consistent?



Michael - My system is a very simple list of folders within a 'year' folder.  It's basically a sequential list of shoots.  So, if I go to France in January, I may have a folder named 03-France.  The 03 only indicates that it is the third shoot of the year, and has nothing to do with the month; France is a brief name to remind me of what the shoot was about, often a location name.  If I go back to France the same year, I may have another folder named 24-France, indicating that it was the 24th shoot of the year and it was also located in France.  I may at some time rename the first folder to 03-France-Jan and the second to 24-France-Oct, just as a reminder to separate the two shoots, but it's not actually necessary as the folder names are already unique.  I use this system because I like to keep all images from a shoot together, I like to keep them in chronologic order both in the OS and in LR folder view, and I like to be able to look at the folder name in folder view and have some idea what the images are about.  A strictly YYYY/MM/DD folder structure doesn't do this for me.  In fact, it makes the folder view nearly useless for me.  I realize this doesn't work for everyone, but I like to offer it up as an alternative that has worked very well for me for a number of years.  Glad to answer any questions about how I use it, but not particularly interested in getting into any religious wars about it.  Cheers,


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## Kiwigeoff (Jul 5, 2011)

There sure are many ways to name folders and isn't that great!!
Personally I use this method which has for me the visual reference on the hard drive of the date and the shoot, sorts well too!!


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## Bruce J (Jul 5, 2011)

erro said:


> I'm with the date-storage-guys....
> 
> One single photo can only have been taken on one date. It's the only thing that is consistent and unique about a photo. All other aspects of a photo can be multiple.
> 
> What about a photo taken on a vacation trip to Paris, that shows the flowers in front of the Eiffel tower? In what named folder would you store that? In the vacations folder? In the France folder? In the architecture folder? In the flowers folder? No, I store it (or rather let LR store it automatically at import) in the YYYY/MM/DD folder according to the date it was taken. Then I add keywords to describe "Paris", "Eiffel tower", "flowers" and anything else I may want to search for.



Actually, there are a number of unique metadata attributes for each image besides the date it was taken on, location being but one of them.  I have no images that were taken in more than one location, nor do I have any images that were taken on more than one shoot.  I think you mis-understand what I'm doing and are thus battling what someone else might be doing.  I don't have any folders named 'vacation', 'architecture', or flower'.  I make extensive use of keywords for those attributes and I'm quite happy using the LR search tools for finding all of my orchid pictures, for example.  But, if I want to look at all of the images from France in January of 2010, I find it easier to just go directly to that folder instead of doing a metadata search across location and dates.  It's really as simple as that.  Sure, I could make a bunch of Collections, one for each of my shoots, but I don't need to do that as I already have those collections in the folder view.  My folder view is neat, simple, relatively short, and readily useable.  And, the bonus for me is that I have a much better handle on what I'm moving, syncing, or backing up with these descriptive folder names in the OS.

I'm glad that you are happy with using a strict YYYY/MM/DD folder structure and I wouldn't suggest that you change.  I just get a bit tired of the assumption that there is only one way of organizing images that works, so I like to offer an alternative to people who seem to be looking for one.  Peace bro,


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## Bruce J (Jul 5, 2011)

Kiwigeoff said:


> There sure are many ways to name folders and isn't that great!!
> Personally I use this method which has for me the visual reference on the hard drive of the date and the shoot, sorts well too!!
> View attachment 762



Thanks for posting that Geoff.  It's very similar to what I do, although I dropped the date information from my lower level folders as being a bit redundant.  But, I do have a question for you.  It appears that your lowest level folders are named:  YYYY-MM-DD name.  If that's the case, how do you name a folder for a shoot that carries over more than one day?  Or, do you define a shoot as being no more than one day in length?  Just curious.  I agree that it's great that there are many ways to organize images and that LR is tolerant of so many.  Cheers,


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## Kiwigeoff (Jul 5, 2011)

Hi Bruce, I use what I do so that each folder name is unique, no chance of say having two "35-Ballooning folders" in differing years, etc.
If a shoot or project extends over more than one day (and they do) the files still go into the usual folder structure and the shoots are collated using keywords and collections. For example, the local balloon fiesta is held over 5 days and hence there will be 5 dated folders but all files have the keyword "balloon fiesta" for organising within Lightroom as collections, etc.
I do sometimes create two or more folders per day to split shoots if there is more than one shoot in a day.

Hope that helps and feel free to ask any more questions.


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## Bruce J (Jul 5, 2011)

Kiwigeoff said:


> Hi Bruce, I use what I do so that each folder name is unique, no chance of say having two "35-Ballooning folders" in differing years, etc.If a shoot or project extends over more than one day (and they do) the files still go into the usual folder structure and the shoots are collated using keywords and collections. For example, the local balloon fiesta is held over 5 days and hence there will be 5 dated folders but all files have the keyword "balloon fiesta" for organising within Lightroom as collections, etc.OK, I see how you are organizing. A bit different from my approach, but interesting. Thanks for another approach to think about. Cheers,I do sometimes create two or more folders per day to split shoots if there is more than one shoot in a day.Hope that helps and feel free to ask any more questions.


OK, I see how you are organizing.  A bit different from my approach, but another interesting idea to contemplate. Thanks,


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## mikecox (Jul 7, 2011)

Bruce J said:


> I just get a bit tired of the assumption that there is only one way of organizing images that works, so I like to offer an alternative to people who seem to be looking for one.  Peace bro,


He did sound a bit strident and determined to press the "one and only" way to organize. I tried it and found myself trying to remember what I shot on a given date. 

I am with you on this, I can't get past naming my folders by topic, by location, or People, or Cats, etc.  All the pictures I took in France are in one folder named "France". The metadata associated with those images allows me to find "flowers" across all my folders; including France. But the images I took in France are collected in a singe location, and if I were to return I would add my new images to that folder/collection.


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## Jim Wilde (Jul 7, 2011)

Guys, there really isn't a 'right or wrong way'....just use whatever system meets your specific needs. The way I shoot, a theme/shoot-based scheme would be a  waste of time, hence my evolution over several years to my present date-based folder scheme (which is identical to Geoff's apart from the extra shoot identification after the date)....but that doesn't make my system 'better', it just means it's right for me. If you have a different system and it's right for you, then that's good isn't it?


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## erro (Jul 7, 2011)

I was merely offering my view on the subject. If others have systems that work for them: fine! But if others are allowed to present their view, then surely I can also present mine? In the end, nobody is forcing anyone to use anything. It just shows that there are many ways to skin a cat, and all have different pros and cons for different people.


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## Bruce J (Jul 8, 2011)

TNG said:


> Guys, there really isn't a 'right or wrong way'....just use whatever system meets your specific needs. The way I shoot, a theme/shoot-based scheme would be a  waste of time, hence my evolution over several years to my present date-based folder scheme (which is identical to Geoff's apart from the extra shoot identification after the date)....but that doesn't make my system 'better', it just means it's right for me. If you have a different system and it's right for you, then that's good isn't it?



Amen & peace be upon you


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