is it safe to delete libraries folders in LR?

[Tim Lookingbill]

I had the same thought. So are these guys merely the "selfie crowd" that Adobe were supposed to be "dumbing down" Lightroom for? Or are they fellow photographers whose "motivations share the same motivations as people who already love Lightroom"?

Not everyone is a retired engineer, lawyer, doctor or downsized film lab imaging technologist/specialist who have time and money to burn learning and functioning under such complexity when there are so many more people enjoying picture taking of rare moments in life that get enormous amount of attention over what is being produced by the aforementioned according to YouTube hits.

Again, it's just a picture, folks! What's with all the complexity? Whatever happened to just getting it done and making the software get out of the way?

[Tim Lookingbill]

For most users, the Lightroom view of files is identical to the Explorer / File manager view.  See a couple of screen scrapes for my LR catalogue from a couple of years ago:

The only difference is that the LR view contains only folders and images you've chosen to import. 

As others have suggested, your comments suggest that you don't really understand the function of the Lightroom catalogue.  If you don't want to understand it, then just use something else.

Simon, 30 years from now could you find one image located in that densely packed folder directory if all you had to go by was a print from someone wanting a copy? That person wouldn't know or remember the date it was taken so you have nothing to go on in a search.

In addition can you remember any image and what it looks like taken in 2007 and know what search terms to use but didn't know for sure it was taken in 2007? Out of sight is out of mind. If you don't know the image exists because you can't remember what it looks like, how does one search for it in that directory?

Has anyone conducted a thorough efficacy test randomly searching for images using an organized by date folder structure tabulation of thousands of photos as Simon illustrated? And can you find everyone of those thousands of images on a random search? Any YouTube demos showing how easy it is?

I don't think anyone in this thread is thoroughly thinking this through and is more hell bent on defending a piece of software instead of offering real POV's to solutions and usage efficacy.

[Tim Lookingbill]

I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about.

I just conducted a normal American guy "attention span" experiment where I had to rely on my memory of a news blip I caught on TV. The channel I was on I can't remember. All I could remember is the line a shirtless guy said to a blonde, hotty, news reporter..."Hey! You're super pretty! Want to go out on a date?"

I went straight to YouTube and entered that saying. Didn't get anything. Entered "shirtless guy asking reporter on a date"...got a large selection of this video of various time lengths and media outlet sources.

Here's the video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEwF27TjU6M

I then asked myself how would I find a photo using similar description parameters and reliance of sparse information? Would I find it as fast using YouTube's search indexing system over a user generated LR indexed keyword system? Or would I need to be more specific in my search for an image no one knows or cares about except me. How fast do you think you could find it?

[Ken Bennett]

If you don't know the photo exists because you can't remember it, why are you looking for it?

Yes, I personally and professionally believe that proper captions and keywords make my photos recoverable, even though I organize them by date shot. I prove this on a weekly basis when somebody asks me for a specific photo, either with a general description, or by sending me a web thumbnail from which all the metadata has been stripped. I can lay my hands on the file within a few minutes. But then I am totally OCD about adding captions and keywords to everything that I shoot at work.

(And btw very little of this is within Lightroom itself. I started cataloguing with LR about two years ago, but my digital files go back to ~2000. I can use our online DAM product, or I can use Spotlight to search my server with all the raw files.)

At home I do have all my personal digital photos catalogued in Lightroom. I'm not quite as obsessive about captions and keywords, but of course I have many many fewer files. I also make extensive use of collections and especially Smart Collections, and I do spend time going through older parts of the catalog to re-edit and re-apply metadata. Even there, I can find a photo within a few minutes.

[john beardsworth]

Would I find it as fast using YouTube's search indexing system over a user generated LR indexed keyword system?

Yes - if you had only taken the trouble to add a few keywords, and maybe a title or caption. See the Library's Metadata Filter (the 4 columns) or create a smart collection - which lets you save those search criteria for use next week / year etc. Think of it as a bookmark.

[Tim Lookingbill]

If you don't know the photo exists because you can't remember it, why are you looking for it?

Yes, I personally and professionally believe that proper captions and keywords make my photos recoverable, even though I organize them by date shot. I prove this on a weekly basis when somebody asks me for a specific photo, either with a general description, or by sending me a web thumbnail from which all the metadata has been stripped. I can lay my hands on the file within a few minutes. But then I am totally OCD about adding captions and keywords to everything that I shoot at work.

(And btw very little of this is within Lightroom itself. I started cataloguing with LR about two years ago, but my digital files go back to ~2000. I can use our online DAM product, or I can use Spotlight to search my server with all the raw files.)

At home I do have all my personal digital photos catalogued in Lightroom. I'm not quite as obsessive about captions and keywords, but of course I have many many fewer files. I also make extensive use of collections and especially Smart Collections, and I do spend time going through older parts of the catalog to re-edit and re-apply metadata. Even there, I can find a photo within a few minutes.

And how much time combined have you spent keywording all those images going back to 2000? What did it come out to if paid by the hour? Factor in the time searching for said images based on those keywords.

[Jeremy Roussak]

And how much time combined have you spent keywording all those images going back to 2000? What did it come out to if paid by the hour? Factor in the time searching for said images based on those keywords.

How do you think the clip on YouTube was found? YouTube doesn't have software which recognises blondes being asked out on dates. The clip was found because someone tagged it with some or all of the words you used to search for it, and YouTube has sophisticated search algorithms. Tag your photos in LR like that and you stand some chance of finding them. The searching won't be as good as YouTube, but it's not that bad.

Jeremy

[john beardsworth]

And how much time combined have you spent keywording all those images going back to 2000? What did it come out to if paid by the hour? Factor in the time searching for said images based on those keywords.

A few minutes with each set of new pictures. More, if you want, but it soon builds up.

[Simon Garrett]

Simon, 30 years from now could you find one image located in that densely packed folder directory if all you had to go by was a print from someone wanting a copy? That person wouldn't know or remember the date it was taken so you have nothing to go on in a search.

In addition can you remember any image and what it looks like taken in 2007 and know what search terms to use but didn't know for sure it was taken in 2007? Out of sight is out of mind. If you don't know the image exists because you can't remember what it looks like, how does one search for it in that directory?

Has anyone conducted a thorough efficacy test randomly searching for images using an organized by date folder structure tabulation of thousands of photos as Simon illustrated? And can you find everyone of those thousands of images on a random search? Any YouTube demos showing how easy it is?

I don't think anyone in this thread is thoroughly thinking this through and is more hell bent on defending a piece of software instead of offering real POV's to solutions and usage efficacy.

When I'm tryng to locate an image, I find the date, location and the event or shoot are the most likely things I remember.  That's why I include the date (year/month) and location or event in the folder name.  In addition, when I import into LR, I rename to include something meaningful in the name (shoot name or whatever).  I also add keywords when I remember (or when there's something relevant not in the shoot name, e.g. names of people).  And often stuff goes in collections.  It's pretty rare that I can't find an image (out of 70k in my catalogue over the last 15 years) within a minute or so. 

LR has the advantage that a text search (for any text field) is very fast.  I don't think it really matters how you put images in folders so long at you put relevant information in folder names, file names, collections or metadata somewhere - anywhere that LR can search.  For me, date structured folders work well.  It's easy: all images from a shoot go in the same folder when they're imported, and they never move thereafter.  Any subsequent organisation is by means of collections or searchable metadata.

[Ken Bennett]

And how much time combined have you spent keywording all those images going back to 2000? What did it come out to if paid by the hour? Factor in the time searching for said images based on those keywords.

1. It's my job. Full captions, with names of the people in the photo, are an industry standard in photojournalism, and I carried that over when I took a university staff photog job.

2. It takes a few minutes to caption and keyword everything from an assignment using Photo Mechanic when I first download the images and do the initial edit. It's trivial. I never had to go back and do this to fifteen years of photos, it was done all along.

3. Factor in the time it would take me (or a web team member, or a graphic designer, or a news writer) to find a photo if it DIDN'T have any caption or keywords. They would literally be imopossible to find. I guess that's a time-saver. 

[Rick Popham]

...I don't think anyone in this thread is thoroughly thinking this through and is more hell bent on defending a piece of software instead of offering real POV's to solutions and usage efficacy.

On the contrary, I think many of us have struggled with keeping track of increasing numbers of images.  Before LR ever existed I had my photos organized in a folder system similar to Simon's -- a system that makes sense to ME and which makes it likely I'll be able to find an image I'm looking for. 

But Lightroom has made this much quicker and easier.  It works with my existing folder system, not changing it, but referring to it by creating a catalog to which I can add keywords and other metadata that make it even easier for me to locate images.  When I import new work directly from CF cards, Lightroom is flexible enough to allow me to continue with my existing folder system while adding those keywords during the download.  It has really worked well for me.

So... I have thought it through.  I've been thinking about it since I organized my slides by categories and dates and ran a separate database to tell me which file drawer I should look in.  I'm not hell bent on defending Lightroom -- I'm describing why it works for me.

But I haven't seen anything from you "offering real POVs and solutions to usage efficacy" -- just that it's too complicated.  How do you think it should work, Tim?

[AFairley]

GEE! All I wanted to do is open the file in LR so I could do a little editing. Why does the catalog have to get into the middle of this simple task? End of rant! Maybe.

That's what Bridge/ACR is for.   

[msongs]

spent 15 minutes deleting single images and checking the original folders to make sure the original images were still there and they were. So deleted all those mystery folders. all those unnecessary folders that is.