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Author Topic: How do I open a new.... Basic Question  (Read 5801 times)

sanfairyanne

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How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« on: September 14, 2013, 01:59:27 pm »

I don't even know what it's called, I attach a screen grab. I have a ''folder'' called America 2013 which has dozens of other subfolders within, I want to add another folder separate from the America 2013. So the new one would be directly below. How do I go about it ?

Many thanks in advance.
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Robert-Peter Westphal

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2013, 02:32:29 pm »

Hi,

do a control + click ( right mouseclick on windows ) on the folder America and choose 'show parent folder' from the list. Then you will see the root-folder of America and you will be able to create a new folder next to it, so it is at the same level as America.

I hope this will help you.

Robert
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sanfairyanne

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2013, 02:49:32 pm »

Robert,

I am on a mac so I did a control click and it brought up this box, please forgive me as it doesn't say precisely 'show parent folder' I was a bit scared to play around.
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Robert-Peter Westphal

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2013, 05:25:34 pm »

I think in your case 'add parent folder' is the right item to click on.


Robert
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sanfairyanne

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2013, 05:35:15 pm »

I tried this, it's probably right but below are two screen grabs the first is the current state, the second one shows what happens after I Add a Parent Folder. It's appearing to just duplicate the original folder.

Sorry I just worry I will cobble my filing up if I play around.
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Robert-Peter Westphal

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2013, 03:09:40 am »

That's exactly what I thought you wanted : You see the parnt foldr of America in Lightroom and now you can create a new folder within pictures, which is in fact at the same level as America.

Or did I get you compeltly wrong ?

Now you can ctrl-click on pictures and create a new folder, and this folder is outside of America, but wihtin pictures.


Robert
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sanfairyanne

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2013, 03:40:46 am »

I got tempted to try a few things myself before I got your last message. I tried New Catalogue and named it Patagonia. It opened (although somehow it's called 2012). But now I can't see the America 2013. I know I haven't lost it but it sure would be nice to know what I'm doing. I understood you could have multiple catalogues.
I have Lightroom books but not with me.
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john beardsworth

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #7 on: September 15, 2013, 04:08:26 am »

Maybe you need to slow down and get to those books, or go through videos produced by Adobe's Julieanne Kost, LL , or George Jardine, to mention the three best series. Concentrate on what they say about catalogues and organization and try not to be distracted by stuff about Develop and Print.

Make sure you know where your catalogue files are and how many you have. By default they are usually in Pictures/Lightroom. They are crucial as all your Lightroom work will be in a catalogue file, and you need to be confident you know what they are. One shortcut is when you are in a catalogue - Edit > Catalog Settings > General > Show. Try it - it takes you into Explorer.

You can have multiple catalogues, but I'd strongly advise you not to do so. They are effectively breaking up control of your pictures and your workflow and as you've seen, you can't see or search in other catalogues. One catalogue can contains hundreds of thousands of pictures and performance isn't affected (the only effect is on time backing it up). Stick to one catalogue until you're confident you know what you're doing - and even then think hard before using more than one.

I'd also recommend not using your folders to categorise your work into countries or themes. Stick to one of Lightroom's default-date based folder structures, and use keywords to categorise your pictures with terms like America, Patagonia, Cowboys etc.
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sanfairyanne

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2013, 04:34:21 am »

I'm going to have to go back to this wifi so slow Julianne Kost is speaking 3 words a minute !

I ditched the new catalogue and restored the old one.

Thanks for you help, I think JK's info' should help me.
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #9 on: September 15, 2013, 01:20:15 pm »

Thanks for posting this. This is a new one to me after recently switching to Lightroom in the past month from working in CS3 for the last 4 years.

The level of complexity over something as simple as navigating a basic folder hierarchal system within LR's interface outlined here is the reason I keep going back to just working in CS3 and saying to hell with it.

I still can't figure out what the heck you just did and the nomenclature of that dropdown menu which is no where close to being intuitive or user friendly. "Parent folder?" what OS or user interface design has even used those terms within a hierarchal folder structure and why and how would a photographer know what it meant?

I'ld love to get some answers from the authors of LR why they had to make folder navigation so complicated. I'm still confused and having a hard time keeping straight in my head the differences between the terminologies "Catalog" and "Library".

Thanks for giving me a catalyst to vent! It feels so good!
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john beardsworth

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #10 on: September 15, 2013, 01:38:45 pm »

Most photographers aren't so stupid they can't guess what a parent folder may be.
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #11 on: September 15, 2013, 01:40:30 pm »

After cooling off and rereading what you're trying to accomplish I might have an easier solution.

Understanding how complicated LR deals with the OS folder structure, I go directly to the folder in question within Mac OS interface and make my changes there and then go back into LR and select the folder that contains the change and choose "Synchronize Folder" in the same drop down menu you posted.

I think that's far easier than rereading the suggestions in this entire thread which took me several rereads to figure what "Parent Folder" does which I'm still not sure about at the moment.

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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #12 on: September 15, 2013, 01:42:07 pm »

Most photographers aren't so stupid they can't guess what a parent folder may be.

Most smart photographers aren't stupid enough to assume they can speak for all photographers.

This is my backup plan until I figure out just what the heck LR is doing between Catalog and Library and my stored CS3 edits to 3000 Raws and about 500 jpegs...
« Last Edit: September 15, 2013, 01:57:20 pm by Tim Lookingbill »
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sanfairyanne

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #13 on: September 15, 2013, 02:27:06 pm »

Tim,

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, so it's not just me. I finally got through a tutorial with Julianne Kost and am still none the wiser. She starts off with a wonderful looking image of her filing system showing two folders, one for Australia and one for Singapore.

This is what I want, I just want for instance a folder for Europe which when you click on that folder it opens to show France, Spain etc.

But below Europe I want a folder that says America, when you click on that it's broken up into folders saying California, Washington etc.

When I go to shoot in Hawaii all I want to be able to do is click on America > new folder.

I may just ditch Lightroom and go back to Bridge it's annoying the hell out of me.
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sanfairyanne

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #14 on: September 15, 2013, 02:42:00 pm »

Just like Tim after calming down and re-reading everything I feel I may have worked things out. I guess a Parent Folder is the Pictures folder, the one that has the ''children'' or further sub folders. If I right click on the Pictures folder I can select an image that I want in my new sub folder.
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john beardsworth

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #15 on: September 15, 2013, 02:54:17 pm »

Most smart photographers aren't stupid enough to assume they can speak for all photographers.
Which is why I wrote "most". Clearly "parent folder" is beyond the wits of a few, but you obviously worked it out.
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sanfairyanne

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #16 on: September 15, 2013, 03:01:09 pm »

Yes but it's still not working for me. I have created a new folder below America 2013 called test, yet when I try to import into Test from the desktop L5 just dumps the files into America 2013. I honestly despair with this, I know I'm just one check box short of getting it right but it's so damned frustrating.
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john beardsworth

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #17 on: September 15, 2013, 03:09:02 pm »

In the Import dialog, look at the top where it says Copy / Move / Add. If you're importing from the hard drive, only Add will be available. Add means register them in the catalogue where they are. So if they are in America in Lightroom, that's because they are in the America folder in Explorer.

From what you say, the other possibility is that Library > Show Photos in Subfolder is ticked. What this does is when you select America in the Folders panel, the grid/filmstrip shows photos in America and in its subfolders. Untick it and you get a view more like Explorer.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2013, 03:12:10 pm by johnbeardy »
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sanfairyanne

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #18 on: September 15, 2013, 03:30:26 pm »

Well just like a dumb fool I'm confused still but I have got this far. See image :
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john beardsworth

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Re: How do I open a new.... Basic Question
« Reply #19 on: September 15, 2013, 03:59:14 pm »

You know that you can click those little triangles to open up the subfolders? You can also hold down Alt while clicking, and all levels of the hierarchy will open/close.
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