I genuinely appreciate your having taken the time to write this post and shared your method. Your post has come as a blessing to me.

I think Denni missed the point that you have said constantly this is your workflow and it may not work for anyone else however it is what you do.

Fo the record, I still organize by date because I’m very OCD and like my files organized at the folder level on my computer. And because I originally learned that method from you at one of your seminars years ago. LOL

I import by date and name each folder “YYYYMMDD Short Description” and then rename each photo “YYYYMMDD_Sequence#.dng” I might add a few keywords but don’t get too in-depth.

I’ve never really used Collections, but I’m strongly considering adding Collections so I can sync my favorite photos (Picks) to Lightroom Mobile. Anyway, always appreciate your insight and your willingness to share your ideas and workflow. I’ve picked up far more than I’ve ignored over the years!

Thanks, Scott , will definitely check out your post from the other day.

Maybe.

But the filenames are pretty much irrelevant since I keyword.

I have no idea what the file name would look like if the words Oakland, zoo, animal, elephant, female, M’Dunda, quadruped, and mammal all had to make it into the file name for me to be able to use a search to find all female elephants, or even just the one named M’Dunda. If I had to change the file names for every set of shots, it would be a major hassle. Keywords are easier. At least, for me they are.

I get that keywording takes time, but I have a special smart collection that warns me if the keywords include zoo and animal but don’t include the species. I can then go back and remember to finish until that collection is empty.

Keywords are also handy when getting shots ready to sell for stock.

But for headshots, I only use “Headshot” and “People” so the file name can simply be the person’s name.

But that has always been one of the advantages of using Adobe products. We can all have our own opinions, and do it our own way, and yet still use the same product.

I apologize if I came across as trying to be critical. That was not my intention. I wanted to understand how you would do a use case that I run into quite often, so that I could better understand your workflow.

That would be easy – I don’t have any photos of green herons. LOL!! 🙂 Most photographers don’t need that level of organization – stock photographers do, journalist do, engineers do – but not most regular folks. Most folks can skip keywording altogether. I did it for years and I wasted all that time, because I don’t need to pull up green herons, or individual items like that across any group of images, and if I did once or twice or year, since I name everything with descriptive names, it would only take me a few minutes to fine them, maybe once or twice a year. Let say it took me 10 minutes (it wouldn’t take me nearly that long, but for example sake, let’s say it did). I would have saved hours upon hours by not keywording in the first place, so if it takes me 10 minutes a year, versus many hours, I’ll go that route. Also, you can see Adobe is moving away from keywording by adding AI to help you find images by their subject automatically. I could probably do an Adobe Sensai search for “Green bird” and have it find all the green herons for me without me ever having to keyword anything. That’s where things are going, just so you know.

Tom, the name of the article wasn’t “Three reasons why YOU should not organize by date.” But clearly, that’s how you took it. Go watch my course at KelbyOne on my “SLIM SYSTEM” (Simplified Lightroom Image Management” System) where I do a timed search for images just like you’re talking about, and you’ll see how much faster I can find the images I need without having to keyword every image. There’s a whole section on why this system works for me, and thousands of Lightroom users around the world. If my system doesn’t work for you, don’t use it – simple as that. Also: I don’t have situations where I need to find all my photos of green herons, or anything like that whatsoever. If you do run into situations like that often, this system might not work for you, and that’s OK. I was sharing MY workflow, and why I don’t organize by date. I didn’t say that YOU have to organize that way – I just shared my own workflow. I’m allowed to share my workflow here on my blog, right? In the post above, near the bottom, take a moment to read the paragraph after the word “NOTE:”.

Since I mostly shoot birds, the way Bob formed this question resonates with me. Because I use keywords, I can find all of the photos I have taken of any given species, no matter what date or what location. But the question can be generalized as to how do you find ALL of the photos you have taken of any given thing, no matter what date or what location? How, for example, would you find all of your photos of a specific professional football player, no matter what season or what team they were on? Or how would you find all of your photographs of the Eiffel Tower?

I use keywords extensively for exactly these types of inquiries or searches, so I’m really curious how you would go about it.