Lightroom for digital supplies and photo organization

I keep my photos and supplies in different catalogs because I wanted to avoid exactly that - having digi supplies pull into smart collections.

@scrappyjedi Melissa? Do you keep your Digi supplies in LR? I know you use smart collections.
Can you narrow down the folder that it pulls the collection from? So it's only pulling from the photo folder?

 

@cookingmylife you use 2 catalogs right? Not one?

 

@bestcee

I do keep my digi supplies in Lightroom, but I have a separate catalog for photos and supplies so I don't have a problem with digital supplies showing up in my PL week Smart Collections. I do all of my photo work (picking, editing, etc.) in my photo catalog, then export the edited images as JPEGs (because I shoot in RAW) to folders that are named with the dates of the week, and I import *that* folder into my digi supply catalog. I know that seems redundant, but for me it means that I can delete a photo or set of photos (because I just delete the edited images, which are copies anyway) when I've finished scrapping them, so the only photos that are in my digital supply catalog are the ones that I haven't scrapped yet. And everything is still safe and complete over in the photo catalog.

You can filter on lots of other metadata in a Smart Collection, but even if you used file type to filter out PNG, PSD, TIFF, etc., you'd still probably get digital papers in with your photos. Plus iPhone screenshots are PNG files, so you'd be filtering those out, too.

It's a bit of the long way around, but you could apply a keyword to either all of your photos or all of your digi supplies (or a different keyword to all of each), and then set that up as a parameter in your smart collection. You'd had to remember to apply that keyword to anything new that you imported, but it would definitely keep things separate.

But I think I'll just stick to my two catalog system!! I do have to switch back and forth between them, but I do like having the separation.

Edited to add: You can sort of tell Lightroom which folder to choose from, but you have to use words that the folder name can contain- you can't just choose a photo in the catalog. In the Smart Collection setup screen, you'd go to Source->Folder and then the best choice is probably "Contains All" in the drop-down menu, and then type the name of the folder into the box. That should get it to select items only from a folder with that exact name (or containing all of the words in the name).

 

I used to use LR for organizing both and had everything in one catalog. I cannot remember exactly how I did it (it's a couple of years ago) but my supplies never showed up in smart collections, so it can be done.

 

My system is pretty much a duplicate of @scrappyjedi (btw, my iPhone screenshots are all jpg. I don't know it that's a phone setting option - png or jpg)

Yes, I have a couple of catalogs...1. For all my photos that I now import week by week for each year so they are already sorted for PL. I edit them in LR also. Years pre PL are just by year and main events/trips within that year. 2. I also have a catalog for TLP and 3rd catalog for other stores. I import the digi stuff into LR each month, having a monthly folder on my desktop for all of what I buy. Then in LR I tag and move stuff to each designer's area. My tags are what's important for me as I don't feel the need to immediately use things I buy. I more often tag an item that has a name that gives no clue of what it is. grrrr. I do keep things I love for a long long time and reuse often.

While I do make Smart collections, it's mostly for an other store's designer's Previews. With TLP, I know mostly what each designer's stuff looks like and so it's often easier to just search in Finder. I hope this helps!

 

Yes, a smart collection will still pull in photos that are brought into Lightroom from a watched folder. I use the same setup for my iPhone photos!

I only delete photos from my digital supply catalog, not from my photo catalog, so just be careful where you are deleting from! The photos in my digital supply catalog are exported copies and live far, far away from my originals. Lightroom also has a couple of options when you delete- remove from catalog, or delete from disk. If you simply remove from catalog, then the images are still on your hard drive, just no longer visible to Lightroom. If you delete from disk, they are gone forever.

 

Yes!
I set up my Android to Dropbox, and Lightroom watches Dropbox. In fact, I let Lightroom move the photos from Dropbox to their permanent folder.
When I open Lightroom, it takes a few minutes to sync my photos, but all the phone photos automatically go to the smart collections they belong in.

And yes, you can delete from the catalog, but be careful like Melissa said. You don't want to delete from the disk, or it will delete your photo.

 

how do you set up a "different catalog" I have tried and can't seem to get it to work.

 

File - New Catalog. And then you pick a name so you know which catalog you are opening. So, maybe name one Digi? Or Photos?

 

I'm not sure what you are asking. When you set up the watched folder, it will need to be empty. So, what I did is move all the photos in Dropbox to a separate temporary folder (on the computer). Then set up the Lightroom watch folder. Then I moved the photos into the watched folder. I have Lightroom take the photos from Dropbox and file them into the year folder on my computer. When 2018 comes, I'll tell Lightroom to move them to that folder instead of 2017. I don't worry about my year folders being huge. I have split up a year when I had over 13,000 photos for the year.

Then, once the photos on my phone have been added to the Dropbox folder, and LR moves them to their year folder, I know I can delete them off my phone. (My computer is backed up with BackBlaze online).
I have Lightroom file them into the year folders because that's my photo system for my other photos (DSLR, friends and family, etc). The rule with Lightroom is once LR knows about the photo, only move it inside LR. I do know some people prefer to have LR bring photos into a generic folder (like Holding Room), and then the person moves the photos to their home inside LR. I think that's a personal choice, and what works for you.
As far as emptying the folder goes, because LR moves the photos from my Dropbox folder into the computer folder whenever I open LR, my Dropbox folder stays fairly empty. My phone folder doesn't, so I have to empty that one out about every 6 months or so.

Yes, my photos go to the smart collection based on the date taken because that's the parameter I set up in the Smart settings.

 

No worries about the questions! This is how we learn.
Thought on the previous discussion: When you set up a Smart Collection, you can add the folder. So, you could tell it to only pull from your photo folders.

This is how I did it. I know Lightroom prompted me to let me know that it had to be an empty folder to start. But that's exactly what I did - emptied Dropbox, set it up, refilled Dropbox.

This is what my auto import folder {watched folder} settings look like:


Then on the side where my folder list is:


Does the visual help?
I could have it go straight into 2017, but I don't. Not sure exactly why. I usually only look specifically there when I need a shot I know I took with my phone. When I look in the 2017 folder, it includes what's in the Dropbox folder too.

Yes, after I open Lightroom, my Dropbox Photo Folder on my computer is empty because Lightroom moved the photos to the E drive (my main drive. Long story).

 

Wow this thread has been so helpful! I am hopefully going to get around to putting my digi stuff into LR soon. These tips and Cheryl's LR series are going to make it so easy!!

 

Question - when you modify photo in lightroom how to you get it into Photoshop to scrap it? Do you save it back to your "storage location"?

 

I just drag the photo from the Finder into Photoshop*. But you can also open it from Lightroom. Right-click on the photo in the Library module and choose Open in Photoshop.

*If it's a raw file it will open in Adobe Camera Raw first so you can edit it if you want, but I usually don't because I've already edited it in Lightroom (and it "sees" those prior edits). I just click Open and it places it on my layout.

 

I don't see to have the option to "open in Photoshop" when I do as mentioned above. I also can't seem to drag photo from lightroom anywhere.