Hi all!
I don't post very often, but love reading all the tips, advice, and knowledge on the board.
There are many on here that mention they love Lightroom, especially the organizing features. My question is, what does Lightroom do differently to organize photos? I am trying to get my photo library under control. I am a little nervous of Lightroom because the description from Adobe mentions it is for the professional or advanced amateur!
Does Photoshop Elements 8 include any organizational tools? If so, how does that compare?
Thanks for the help!
I've got Lightroom, so I can speak to its strengths. Unfortunately, I don't have Photoshop Elements 8, so someone else will have to chime in about PSE8.
Organizing photos is one of Lightroom's biggest strengths. In fact, it's got one entire module devoted strictly to organizing your library of photos (there are 5 modules in Lightroom).
In Lightroom, there are several different ways to organize your photos. You can use any one or a combination of these features to organize your photos:
- place photos in different folders
- place photos in different "collections"
- apply keywords to photos & create a hierarchy of keywords (ex. Disney World > Magic Kingdom > Fantasyland > It's a Small World)
- apply star ratings (ie. rate photos from 0-5 stars)
- apply color labels (ie. label photos as "red", "blue", "green", etc). You might do this for different parts of your post-processing workflow, like blue = do some post-processing for these photos, yellow = these have been post-processed and are ready to be uploaded, green = these photos have been uploaded, etc.
- choose "pick" or "reject" for photos
In Lightroom, "collections" are photos that have the same theme, but might be located in several different folders. For example, you might have a collection called "hot cars" which might contain the best-looking car photos that you've taken over the past several years. Even though these photos may be located in several different folders, you can "collect" them in a common collection. Lightroom makes it very easy to see these photos that are organized in one collection.
Once you've organized your photos, it's easy to access them later on. Let's say you want to find all Mickey Mouse photos that you've rated as 4 or 5 stars that were taken at Epcot between 2009 and 2010. You can enter these parameters into Lightroom, and you'll quickly be shown the photos that match your criteria.
If you have thousands and thousands of photos, then consider trying Lightroom to organize your photos. Plus, Lightroom does so much more than just organizing your photos. What I've described is just 1 of the 5 Lightroom modules. The other major thing I do in Lightroom is edit / post-process my photos in the "Develop" module.
There are other similar programs out there, such as Aperture, Bibble, etc.
I hear that PSE8 does have a good photo organizer, where you can organize photos into different albums and add keywords.
Both Lightroom and Photoshop Elements 8 have a free 30-day trial that you can download directly from the Adobe Web site. You can give both a try.
You can also go to your local bookstore and browse through some of the Lightroom and PSE8 books to read specifically about the topics of photo organization.
Hope that helps.
