How To Organise Travel Photos In Lightroom To Save Time Later
I have a dead simple way of organising my travel photos in Lightroom. This is what I do.
Import the photos
Apply some processing on import.
Quickly go through the photos and delete the ones that I just do not want.
Select the photos that I like the look of quickly – hit P
Create a new folder
Create a new sub-folder called Picks
Add the picks
Create a new sub-folder called All
Add the rest
Add all the photos to a collection and sync with Lightroom Mobile
Backup and format the memory cards
And that is that. I use this process on every trip and it means that I never have a backlog of hundreds of images to go through.
Hi and welcome to Episode 85 of the Photography Explained podcast.
I’m your host Rick, and in each episode I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes (ish) without the irrelevant details. What I tell you is based on my lifetime of photographic experience. And not Google.
You can listen to the episode here
Or you can read on - it’s entirely up you!
Let's look at these one by one quickly.
1 Import the photos into my import folder.
This is where I import every photo, which I sort before filing. And there is a reason for this.
2 Apply some processing on import.
This is done automatically using an import preset. It is things that I do all the time to pretty much every photo. Now I can’t really explain this properly in an audio podcast, but check out my website rickmcevoyphotography.com and you will find some blog posts where I tell you what the settings are.
I also start the backup process on import but that is one for another time.
3 Quickly go through the photos and get rid of rubbish, duplicates, and photos that I just do not want.
I do this quickly. Well, you would hope so having done this for more years than I care to remember, wouldn’t you?
The quickest way to do this is for each photo that you do not want is this. I go through the images using the right arrow key, not the mouse. With the image selected hit the key X. The photo is designated as a reject but not removed from the catalogue.
4 Select the photos that I like the look of quickly
As above but using the key P for pick.
This is anything that I like the look of that has potential. And my first pass is many, many times all that I work with. If I am not sure I hit P. This is a quick first pass to narrow things down a lot.
5 Create a new folder in the Worldwide section
I have 10 main folders in my Lightroom Catalogue. One is called Worldwide. And I create a sub-folder for each trip I go on.
For my last trip to Paxos, the folder is called Paxos 2021.
Yes, it can be that simple. Every trip I have ever been on has a sub-folder in this section.
It has taken me many years to get to this level of simplification. I came up with this file structure some years ago and have never needed to change it. One for a separate episode I think.
6 Create a new sub-folder called Picks
There is a reason for this which I will come onto.
7 Add the picks
8 Create a new sub-folder called All
This is for the photos that have been rejected or have not been picked.
9 Add the rest
Now if you are confident with what you are doing you can delete the rejected photos now, which means fewer photos to move. Or you can move them and delete them later.
It just depends on how confident you are in doing this.
I delete them at this point and let me tell you a little secret – I have never had to go back to a backup set to find an image that I deleted.
Never.
But then again I have the experience of many many years of doing this.
If you would rather keep the rejects for now that is fine, just remember that they are taking up hard drive space.
So now you have two sub-folders, one with picks and one with the rest.
10 Add all the picks to a collection and sync with Lightroom Mobile
The picks were a quick pass of anything with potential. I do this so I can look at the photos on my iPad at my leisure and decide which images I want to work on. I will reduce the number of images by removing some of the pick flags. Once I have done with this I will go back to Lightroom and move these photos to the All folder.
I will not have many photos in my picks, all I will have in there are photos that I am prepared to invest the time to edit properly. The number will also vary with the purpose of the photos. If there are just holiday photos that is one thing, but if they are for a specific website that is another.
11 Backup and format the memory cards
Once my backup process is complete I format the memory cards for next time.
And that is how I sort my travel photos from a trip.
What about phone photos?
There is more work to do. And to be honest I am not that good at this. I should add my phone pictures to Lightroom too, but I only use photos taken with my camera commercially, so for now, am ok with this.
And what about metadata?
I am talking keywords and all that stuff. Now I don’t bother with any of that until I am sending the photos somewhere outside of Lightroom. Up until that point I don’t need keywords to find photos as my file structure has that sorted for me.
What do I do?
This is what I do.
The talky bit
I have been using Lightroom for many years, well since 2007. And I have spent many years complicating things.
But for the last few years, I have been simplifying things, including my Lightroom workflows and my Lightroom Catalogue structure.
I know that this is dull but if you are in the position that I was once then you have my sympathy.
I had thousands of unsorted photos in folders.
I had loads of great photos but I did not know this as I could not see them, literally. It was when I could not find some photos that I had the realisation that I needed to do something.
And the solution was so simple. I just created a file structure the same way that I have done on my PC for my other stuff. At the end of the day, photos are no different from Word Documents – they are things that need organising.
And once I got my nut around that and sorted this once and for all I have never looked back.
And knowing that my catalogue is super well organised I do not want to clutter it up so I sort things after import.
And I have never gone back to an All folder to get back an image that I did not pick. I have sent photos from the Pick folder the other way loads of times.
These days I have a folder for a trip with a small number of photos that I can edit, which is great.
I used to get back from trips and never get around to editing the photos – how bad is that?
But not any more I am very happy to report.
One line summary
Organise your photos in Lightroom as soon as you can when you get back from a trip and save yourself loads of time and give yourself the luxury of being able to enjoy all those lovely photos.
What’s next?
Photography Explained Podcast Episode 86 – Help! How Do I Choose Which Travel Photos To Edit?
Shout out
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I’m done
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I’ve been Rick McEvoy, thanks again very much for listening to me and for giving me 10 (ish) minutes of your valuable time, and I will see you on the next episode.
Cheers from me Rick