I don't think it's odd at all. For whatever solution I've come up with to do almost anything since I've known you, you've come up with a solution which is almost always the exact opposite. LOL!
I use LR to work the organization of file on my hard drive for me automatically, and use IPTC information to establish categories, much of it automatically embedded into the metadata on import. If I then need files grouped by category (ie: by customer, or by job, or by project), I can find all the categories I want and move the files into such named directories inside LR efficiently and quickly, retaining the date organization .. or not .. according to my needs. Absolutely all of my original image file manipulations are on external volumes too, without exception. I use ONE working drive as fundamental repository, and two archive drives to secure and back that up ... period. This way I always know where everything in the working set, and the archive sets, is, primarily by date but also by subgroups in the file system as well as by metadata descriptors like keywords, camera type, etc. Constantly renaming and changing parts of the original file storage system externally is most likely why LR does what it does in your case. How you want to manage your workflow is your business, I know many different ways to do it. I do what I do because I find it most useful, outside of LR, to locate things by the dates I remember, not by whatever "category du jour" I dreamed up at the time I imported them. I also arranged this setup so that if I dumped LR tomorrow and moved to another image processing toolset, I could do so without any losses other than my image processing/rendering efforts on unfinished work … the IPTC metadata is readable by almost any good image management software, and I save that into the files every time I do an import. My goal in responding was to explore what MIGHT be the issue that you are running into, not to tell you how to run your workflow. I don't really care about that. G > On Jan 2, 2024, at 10:30 AM, Larry Colen <l...@red4est.com> wrote: > > > >> On Jan 2, 2024, at 6:19 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi <godfreydigio...@me.com> wrote: >> >> Hmm. I have, at present, three physical volumes comprising the media that LR >> Classic 13.1 has imported original files from in that list in the Folders >> panel. They never change place on the Folders panel. > > Oddly, you and I seem to have different workflows. I import files into my > "photos_fresh" directory on my SSD. I then organize them into topical > subdirectories when processing. You aren't interested in the full directory > tree methodology, but this way if Lightroom ever goes away, I have a nice > logical way of finding things in whatever I use next. > > Once I have finished processing, or at least sorting, the files they get > copied onto long term storage, an external case with my entire catalog on a > couple of drives. And every so often, I do a "catchup", where I "export to > catalog" all of the files I have edited since my last catchup, and then > import those changes to my "everything" catalog. > > Since I mostly only use the external drives when I'm archiving files, or > occasionally reworking old files, I don't usually even have it plugged in or > connected to the trashcan, protecting it from anything that might go wrong > with the computer. > >> >> The reason for this is probably because, when I set them up, I drilled down >> through the directory hierarchy on the volumes to the root of the photo >> storage directory trees and then told LR to "Hide Parent Directory" on all >> folder hierarchies above (or below, per your perspective) that point. So I >> don't see, in LR, all the other directories on the volumes; only the entire >> directory of original image files starting at its local root. Any other >> directory/file manipulations on these volumes is therefore invisible to LR >> Classic, and cannot reorder the placement of the volumes in the Folders >> listing. There's no need to see the entire directory tree structure of the >> import volumes, only the directory trees from which you have imported files, >> which should always have a single root.. that's my logic behind setting it >> up this way. > > Hmm, interesting, it is convenient for me to know where certain directory > trees are. Some years are on one of the external drives, other years on the > other. There are other branches as well. I suppose that I could add some > meaningless directories "above" the ones I'm interested in, but even so I > don't believe I show all of the way to the root of each external drive > >> >> That's my conjecture anyway. Try it. :D >> >> G >> >>> On Jan 1, 2024, at 8:59 PM, Larry Colen <l...@red4est.com> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Jan 1, 2024, at 8:55 PM, Larry Colen <l...@red4est.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> I'm running Lightroom Classic 13. Over on the left side there is a >>>> "Folders" panel, with the highest level of hierarchy being the hard >>>> drives. I've got three drives Mac SSD, photo_ba, and photo_bb. The >>>> problem is that whenever I change something on one of the drives, it's >>>> position in the panel moves to the top. So, while I'm going through, >>>> cleaning up my catalog, moving folders from the primary drive to the >>>> longer term storage, the order of the drives in the panel keeps shifting >>>> around. My google fu is just not strong enough to figure out how to get >>>> it to JUST STOP THAT. >>> >>> Edit, it's even worse than that, it will also collapse the display of a >>> drive when it makes a change. So things keep changing out from under me, >>> and moving around, often when I'm trying to move a folder to them. >>> >>> Arrrgghhhh! Why do they insist on having software "help" me, when I don't >>> ask it to? -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to pdml-le...@pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
