okay today is all about organization in fact in this video we're going to talk
about how to import and organize our photos in Lightroom
welcome to my
channel here I talk about photography and I make videos just like this one
where I share some organization tips so if you are here for the first time it
might be a good idea to subscribe this video is like an appendix to my
lightroom miniseries that ended last week and I understand that this should
have been the first video nevertheless because I received a lot of requests
from you guys I decided to do it now so there you have it it's better late than
never if you didn't see my Lightroom keep it
simple miniseries I will link it right here and also in the description below
but you don't need to watch that first you can actually watch these first and
then eventually go back to that maybe that could work better but you do you
also for those of you that watched the entire Lightroom keep it simple
miniseries I would love to know what is the best tip or the most valuable
information that you got from those videos because I really like to
understand what is the average level of Lightroom skills of this community in
order to be able to decide which other lightroom videos i could do in the
future for you guys so please write me a comment below that will be very helpful
by the way a quick follow-up on the Lightroom challenge I'm really happy I
am seeing so many photos really good work
I'm happy to see that a lot of you decided to take part to this photo edit
assignment and if you're still thinking to participate you can today is
Thursday you have time until next Sunday which is November the 11th at that point
I will pick the images and I will make this review video that will be published
next Thursday enough of that now let's talk about importing and organizing our
photos in Lightroom some of you might think that this part because doesn't
really involve any creative process might be a little boring at the same
time I noticed that when my work is nicely organized I am able to free my
creativity it's like having a clean desk if my desk is a mess I'm not able to get
anything done so I see this as a necessary step that will help me to
release my creativity sure to start fresh I have created a new catalog which
is very simple you go on file select new catalog click new catalog decide a name
and a location and you're done I usually don't create a new catalog every time I
import photos at the same time I wanted to have a clean screen for you so that
will be easier to see every step now we can start the import process and this is
actually perfect timing for me because I just came back from Yosemite where I
recorded a couple of videos that you will see on this channel very soon and
of course I took a bunch of photos which I downloaded into this superfast super
small portable hard drive which I will link down in the description if you're
interested and I connected it to the computer I also use another or Drive
when I'm on the field so that I can back up my images in 2
places this is less fast hard drive but a very robust one so I want to make sure
that I don't lose my photos anyways I might do a video about my backup
system later on so once my source is connected to my computer I can start the
import process and I will click import and I will need to select the source the
source in this case is called Atti T5 which is the name of my hard drive I
will select the folder which is Yosemite I will select photo photo you can see
it's written in Italian anyways Lightroom is very intuitive and has a
very easy workflow to follow so if you go left to right you will see that the
first options on the very top of your screen
is either copy as dmg copy move or add what I usually do is selecting copy as
dmg which basically means I'm not deleting the images from my hard drive I
always want to make sure that the transfer from hard drive to computer is
perfectly executed then I will eventually delete those images and I'm
copying these images in a DNG format which is basically a universal digital
negative RAW format every camera brands has his own way to name raw files Nikon
for instance uses NEF so we need to convert the photos in a DNG format in
order to work them in Lightroom our next step will be to select the destination
where do we want to have these photos there are different ways to do this what
I usually do is that I will select the destination panel as you can see in the
destination panel I have already the from folders that correspond to
different years I have already a folder dedicated to 2018 at this point because
I want this photo to go into that folder I will toggle on into subfolder and I
will name the new folder my criteria usually is to put year month day if all
my photos are taken in one single day in this case is multiple days I will just
use the month and then I will put as well the location in this case so it will
be 2018 10 Yosemite this is done as simple as that let's work now on the
file handling panel you can see that there are different options the minimal
previews are smaller and of course the import process will be a lot faster the
one-to-one previews will take a lot more space and will be a slower import
process but then it will be easier and will be faster to edit you have different
options and what I usually use is standard you can decide to let Lightroom
build a smart preview which will allow you to work on your images even when the
originals are on a different hard drive let's close the file handling panel and
open the file renaming I usually don't rename my photos because already in my
Nikon d810 I customize the name of the files as you can see my file names are
starting with ARP which stands for Attilio Ruffo Photography so I don't do
anything here and the last step before importing will be to decide what
Lightroom could do to your images while importing as a matter of fact in the
panel apply during import you can decide if you want to Lightroom
to apply specific settings in my case I always want Lightroom to apply the lens
Corrections in fact if you saw my first video of the Lightroom miniseries
I always have removed chromatic aberration and enable profile
Corrections on so I click on lens Corrections and then I can decide what
kind of metadata I want embedded in my images the
metadata are data related to the author of the images and you can create your
own by clicking new and then I can add some keywords but in this case we'll
there will be very generic keywords because of course they will need to
apply to every single image I have in this case I will write Yosemite
California Fall nature very generic keywords once this is done I can import
and of course this process can take a few minutes but little by little your
library will be populated with the new images so once the importing process is
done you will see your photos are in the library and something else you can do
you can go into maps and be as precise as you want I can either decide to put
all my images in Yosemite or let's say I want to be more specific I can select
images taken in in a specific place let's say like the first three images
which are actually very bad were taken at tunnel view and then I will write
tunnel view and Here I am so I can just drag and drop my images in the exact
point where
I took them and I can see the three images on the map right there let's go
back to the library so here I can decide to see my thumbnails as big or small as
I want I can rotate my vertical shots I can give a specific rating and I have
the possibility to give one to five star this case maybe this will be a a three
star photo this way it will be easier later on to find my best photos from a
specific trip click G to go back to the entire folder and to see all the
pictures together something else you can do if there are specific photos that you
want to use for a specific reason or photos that you want to print you can
label them with a specific color and it is very easy to find your photos through
labels or rating by clicking on the very top you can actually customize what you
want to see in this case I have a rating but I could decide to have something
else I have camera here I have lens and I have the label so I right now I just
rated one photo three stars and by clicking on the three stars I will find
immediately the photo that I have rated a very easy and intuitive process that
you can apply to your organization workflow so in this face I will need to
screen and rate all my images and the first selection that I will do is
basically using the pick or reject tool when I see an image that I don't think
has a lot of potential I will select it and I will click on the X and you can
see in this case I have a little flag black flag here and the image is set as
rejected while if I see an image that might have potential then I will click
the P and I will have a white flag here on the bottom that will indicate this is
a pick and then if I will go on the attribute I can immediately click on the
white flag and I will see the images that I picked so if you use a consistent
destination criteria and as well a consistent labeling or rating system it
will be very easy to find your photos and develop a very fast and quick
workflow I hope this video will help you to organize your images in a more
efficient way in Lightroom at the same time I'm thinking you might be
interested in a Lightroom exporting video because as you possibly know depending
on the use that you're going to do of your photo either is sharing on social
media printing use the image on your website
there are different export format let me know if you interested in a video about
that because of course I could make a video fairly soon couldn't I and and if
you like this video you need to let me know so hit that like button write me a
comment I love to read your comments share this video with your friends and
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thanks for watching and I will see you in the next video