Basic Lightroom Organising Question

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taxboy

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I'm finally getting around to sorting out my Lightroom catalogue and spending some time trying to understand the best way to utilise the programme for me. Can I ask please how people are filing and then quickly finding images that have been processed and then printed or resized for sharing.
For example if I've printed an image and also made a smaller version for sharing via email how are people using Lightroom to quickly locate each version of the image
 
There are a lot of different ways to use LR Classic to organise your files, and a lot is down to personal preference.
What I do is when importing I have the files copied into a folder structure based on when the image was taken
So I have a set of 'year' folders, and within those a set of 'date' folders

EG A shot taken today would go in;
2022\2022-02-14\

When I export files I use one of two systems, depending on what I am doing
First, I simply put he exported files in a subfolder of the raw file location (I don't add exported files to the LR catalogue
EG An export for facebook of a shot taken today would go in
2022\2022-02-14\fb\

Alternatively, if I'm working on a collection from a number of days, I'll create a specifically named folder for the jpegs under the year folder
EG A collection of shots taken throughout last year, for a family Christmas calendar would go in
2021\Christmas Calendar\

This is enough (with keywording and collections to help find the relevant raw) for me to be able to fairly quickly locate images I'm after
 
Just have 1 [size] version of an image. It's easy to overcomplicate stuff in Lightroom.

For me....

Everything that's finished (processed & keyworded) gets a green label. If I'm making different edits of the same image (e.g. a B&W version and a colour version) I use virtual copies.

If I need a copy of an image for a purpose, I use the Export function. Within that, I have templates for 100, 1000, 2000 pixels & "full size" sizes so I can just export the same image in multiple different formats. If (for example) I'm posting an image here, I export at 1000px to my desktop, upload to here, then delete the image on the desktop. If I'm exporting a bunch of images for a zine or book, I do a full size export. I then delete the exports when the job is done.

As for finding images, I keyword everything with the type of photography (street, landscape, portrait etc), a person's name (if it's got family/friends in it) and then 3 words that describe the image. Occasionally I add project keywords (if I took the photo for a project for example) and camera make & film stock to allow finding/filtering on those too.

I have smart collections that automatically group based on keywords so I can find groups of images (for books or projects) easily also.

Using keywords to find images means that for me, the folder structure is largely irrelevant. Although all my photos go in subfolders under the current year as a "root" folder.
 
Thanks for the input. It's much appreciated. I'm going to use Faldrax's file system and take on Harlequin's idea of not retaining exported files but making presets
 
Your plan is pretty much what I use.

If you want to be sure to be able to get back to a particular version of a file, you can also create a snapshot at the time of export, although I rarely bother, as do not tend to rework images.
 
When I initially download the images from the camera/card I do this using the LR library module and put into folders by year and month. LR automatically created a sub-folder for each individual day. I then delete unwanted images, keyword, colour code and rate the rest. I have a fixed set of keywords which suits my needs (entering competitions). So if I require an image for a competition (e.g. a portrait dressed in red), I would search using the keywords "Portrait" and "Red" and select the relevant date range. So I would select all of my current catalogue over 30,000 images and LR would find the matching images in fraction of a second using the Library search. Fast and simple.

Dave
 
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