Image Storage/Folders/Tagging etc

IanD

IanD

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Edit My Images
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Afternoon all,

I'm after advice on hour to storage my images, maybe a specific piece of software (free always good) and advice on tagging etc for searching at a future date

I have a Mac and use Lightroom (the last downloadable version) for my editing.

I've got a lot of images now and on my Mac, at the mo, I use 'photos'. I have to add images to this by storing on my Mac and inserting into photos after i've first save the to a folder in Pictures.

I'm not a great techy but is there another program about that lets me save direct to that from editing in Lightroom, that I can also view the images from any folder in full screen without having to keep previewing singularly on the Mac. Ideally it would need to be transferable, so that I could save to a hard drive and view on other machines, but still use the labels?

On top of that, how, if at all, do you tag/label your images so you can find them at different times. At the mo, mine are just saved in folders with no tags but I think I should be tagging/labelling to keep organised.

Sorry for the very long and boring post and I hope it makes some sense to someone
 
Apologies @j crossley - I missed one bit off my post and that was that i'd prefer anything but Lightroom for the storage/viewing/tagging as I only use the downloaded version and i'm sure down the line when that program eventually somehow doesn't work anymore, then i'd be stuffed as i'd have to use their subscription version
 
I've actually just come across Adobe Bridge CC which is free and doesn't mean I need to use their Photoshop & Lightroom programs, so i'm going to give it a try
 
I’m not 100% sure as I’ve not tested it but doesn’t the Lightroom tag add it to exif info ?
I believe macs can search keywords and pull up from that, if lightroom ever cancels, maybe try it ?
 
Cheers Scott. I've just tried adding a 'keyword' to a few files via Lightroom, then tried searching them through Bridge and it doesn't appear to work.

A bit of googling and I think there are differences enough between Lightroom and Bridge that I don't think the keywords pull through to be searchable in Bridge.

Bit annoying
 
IanD said:
Cheers Scott. I've just tried adding a 'keyword' to a few files via Lightroom, then tried searching them through Bridge and it doesn't appear to work.

A bit of googling and I think there are differences enough between Lightroom and Bridge that I don't think the keywords pull through to be searchable in Bridge.

Bit annoying
Click to expand...
Ah sorry mate, thought it was embedded for all to find, have you tried the normal search on imac (command+space one) ? That’s normally very good.
 
Cheers all for your help. There's a strong change i'm doing something wrong as i've asked the same questions elsewhere, and all i'm after is achievable.

I'll have a look later when I get home from work
 
Lightroom isn't expensive and what you want to do is one of the really powerful parts of it. It's not just an editing program but a full workflow program.

The Library module is incredible for quickly finding images, but you have to use it correctly when importing images.
Use relevant keywords on your imports.
Use the fact it imports into a folder in date format. I have top level folders by year 2018, 2019 etc, then import that years files into that.
Use the Catalogue system. I have top level folders such as Family, then sub folder with year, then sub folder with event.

All these make it really quick and easy to find images.

Or use the Library module, select all images, then use the metadata search...

Use some of the Adobe TV learning lessons to understand how to use the library module correctly.
https://tv.adobe.com/product/lightroom/show/featured/
 
Thanks for that Byker28i - I was looking at a few youtube clips late last night in bed and saw that i'm not doing things correctly.

The Bridge & Lightroom keywords facilities do really look a lot better than I thought I was seeing at first glance.

I have to say, from a personal point of view, although not overly expensive, I do object to the Creative Cloud subscription service and i'm hanging on to my Lightroom program until something forces me to do otherwise. I've just upgraded the memory on my Mac, so that should see me alright for many years, so I won't lose Lightroom in anyway by changing laptops (unless I go back to Windows).

So, the Bridge option, once I have a full understanding of Keywords usage, looks the best for me as it's free.

I don't tend to 'import' into Lightroom for the storage and filing side of things, more to get them into the section for my processing, so hopefully, when I export to my pictures folders, i'll see an easy way of taggng/adding keywords at that point :)

Of course, although i'm sure I have nowhere near as many images as many photographers, I still need to 'keyword' everything I have at some point :(
 
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