How do you organise Lightroom for Film?

Steven001

Steven001

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Steven
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Hi folks,

I was wondering if you have a separate catalogue for your images shot on film or whether you combine it with your digital image catalogue? At the moment I only have the one catalogue with years with of photos in it. It's organised as:

- Year
- Month
- Date and location
- Raw Images
- Edited images

I've just started shooting film and a roll of film can last a number of weeks, locations and events. What method do you use to store and organise your film scans? I know this might seem like a silly question, but I want to keep things as organised as possible.

Thanks!
 
Folder for film, and a folder for digital, both organised in the same way with a sub folder for each location or theme. I can tag the images on import with the film type, dev type or camera if I could be bothered
 
By Folder named along the lines of MMM-YY-FilmType-Camera and the file has the same name but with a counter. So a roll of FP4 in my RB67 shot this month would be May-17-FP4-RB67 and the file within would be May-17-FP4-RB6703.jpg
 
My negatives are stored in ring binders. For 35mm and 120 film, my scans are named RingBinder/page number/negative number and the directory holding them has the Binder/Page followed by a description e.g. "MFC07 Scotland Fallen tree Glen Nevis" where "MFC" (= Medium Format Colour") is the binder and the film is the eighth in it. The individual scans run MFC07-001 upwards.

This lets me track a scan back to the negative quickly and easily. As to clever stuff like online catalogues, the nearest I come is for the large format scans, where I have a set of four to a page index sheets. My 5x4 negatives are stored four to a page but I number each negative rather than page, so LF01-001 and LF01-004 are on the same page.
 
I file mine by year then month then location, eg 2017-4 Glencoe. (If you use dd-mm-yy, they won't sort in date order).
I also add tags such as:

Camera:Mamiya RZ67
Film:Ilford FP4+
mono
Scotland
Glencoe
FilmDeveloper:HC110
Boat

The tags will also exist in any images exported from Lightroom and published to flickr, so you can use them to search for subsets of your images on flickr, just by clicking on a tag.

I also put the camera name and film name into the Exif data, using ExifGUI, although this duplicates the tags and isn't really necessary - I just like to have it display in flickr the same way it would for a digital image.

I don't use a separate folder structure for film or digital because they are almost all film anyway, but if the tags above are used in all cases then a search on "film" will find all the film images.

I wish I did have a system as organised as StephenM to link the digital images back to the negatives but I've not been that well organised so far.
 
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i have a separate folder in the library called imaginatively enough "film shots" then sub folders based on the subject of whatever came off the roll. Almost nothing has been tagged so i cant tell what make of film other than large or medium format
 
I don't bother with all that malarkey.

If I import from a digi card it does its thing.

I scan a film to a folder and on LR import it does its thing.

Clueless me.

:)
 
I use Aperture rather than LR but guess the principle's similar. I have folders for each camera then folders per year, then "projects" for each roll of film or digital download, whatever. But there are a few other top level folders for "General", "Old film scans", etc. Aperture also gives you tags, which I rarely use, and albums, which I use for selected shots, eg candidates for FPOTY, the "nice" shots from a film meet, etc. These are virtual copies.
 
When I scan my negatives, the raw files go in a big folder called "scans from film". From there, I import them into Lightroom and then export into date-named folders. I should really get round to tagging everything though, if I want to find e.g. photos from a holiday in Egypt, I have to guess what the date was...

Hard-copies are (now!) in a big ringbinder of negative sleeves, not yet ordered by rough date.
 
Thanks guys! I like everything to be in chronological order, but because each roll might be shot over several weeks that wouldn't work. I decided to create folder called "35mm Film" within my 2017 Folder. Inside that I created folder for each roll I shoot that month, including the location e.g 05-2017 - Glencoe.

I never actually thought about storing my negatives, do you use special poly pockets to hold them in place?
 
Kevin Allan said:
I file mine by year then month then location, eg 2017-4 Glencoe. (If you use dd-mm-yy, they won't sort in date order).
I also add tags such as:

Camera:Mamiya RZ67
Film:Ilford FP4+
mono
Scotland
Glencoe
FilmDeveloper:HC110
Boat

The tags will also exist in any images exported from Lightroom and published to flickr, so you can use them to search for subsets of your images on flickr, just by clicking on a tag.

I also put the camera name and film name into the Exif data, using ExifGUI, although this duplicates the tags and isn't really necessary - I just like to have it display in flickr the same way it would for a digital image.

I don't use a separate folder structure for film or digital because they are almost all film anyway, but if the tags above are used in all cases then a search on "film" will find all the film images.

I wish I did have a system as organised as StephenM to link the digital images back to the negatives but I've not been that well organised so far.
Click to expand...

I have all my sub-folders in American date format; MM-DD-YYYY, that was it sorts all my folders in date order!
 
Take a look at this page on the SIlverprint site. I'm not specifically recommending any specific brand, just showing the sort of thing that's available. I use ring binders (mainly because I have done since the 1960s); if starting afresh I'd probably go the box route. With 35mm and medium format films, I insert a contact sheet next to the negatives (and note that Silverprint sell adhesive strips to make inerting them into ring binders easy - I used ahole punch on my 10x8 35mm contacts).
 
2017-month-film and/or digital then if film a folder that includes camera, film and subject or if digital then just subject.
 
Steven001 said:
Thanks guys! I like everything to be in chronological order, but because each roll might be shot over several weeks that wouldn't work. I decided to create folder called "35mm Film" within my 2017 Folder. Inside that I created folder for each roll I shoot that month, including the location e.g 05-2017 - Glencoe.
Click to expand...

I've used 'Collections' in Lightroom in the past - I like to have everything in chronological order too but then I create a set of collections to easily locate the film shots. They are sort of like virtual groups of images - if you're interested there's a good tutorial here
View: https://youtu.be/d-rF5O6kqog
 
simon ess said:
I don't bother with all that malarkey.

If I import from a digi card it does its thing.

I scan a film to a folder and on LR import it does its thing.

Clueless me.

:)
Click to expand...

At least you actually use LR...Mr clueless :D


I just don't get all this import/export double hard tagging cataloging business.
I mean, its not like your transferring 5000 digi images to your Weddings database or anything.
I can't even be bothered with scanning really, I weed out everything not worth a fart with my eyes, that leaves only a small percentage that I may or may not choose to boil my brains scanning.
Out of 120 negs, so 10 rolls I'm probably looking at 30 worth a second look and probably only 15 worth scanning and only 10 I'd bother scanning....how much cataloging do you need to do for 10 frames...:ROFLMAO:

Now negs....that's a different thing altogether, I need Stephen to come round and sort that out
Mebbe I should just chuck everything bah the 30 that are worth a second look..:cautious:
 
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