Reorganize a big catalog in folders by date

I typically import my photo's from my camera and reorganize the photos by date.
However I just had several thousand old printed photographs scanned.
I have:
1. Imported the photographs into a seperate new catalog
2. Labeled all the photographs with keywords
3. Metadata->Edit Capture Time so that the capture time is now the correct date
Now I would like to reorganize the photo's into folders by date the usaual yyyy/yyyy-mm/yyyy-mm-dd by the capture time date.
I have tried to import them into another catalog either by either "Import Photo's and Video" or by "Import from another catalog" either way the new catalog has the folders by date that the photographs were scanned not by the capture time that I changed.
How do I do this change the folders to be by capture date?
Thanks for your help.

Do a test:
Open the catalog that contains your scanned images and - in Grid View - click on <All Photographs> in the Catalog Panel. Then do Ctrl / Cmd + "A" to select all images.
Now go > View >Sort > Capture Date. Will the photos now be
a) listed in the order of the "real" capture date, or
b) will they remain in the order of scanning date?
In case of a): Create folders named for the "real" capture date and select all photos with the first capture date and drag them into the folder. Do this subsequently for the other capture dates.
In case of b): I don't know. Maybe Lr doesn't accept your adjusted capture date in its "innards" ??? Just as when you change the file name of a photo the original file name is kept in the catalog.

Similar Messages

Reorganize catalog and folders

I have a large photo repository (40,000+ images).
Prior to 2011 I was using Bridge/Photoshop and organized the files by client.
In 2011 I started using LR and let it import new sessions using the year/yyyy-mm-dd folder structure. I now use LR exclusively 99% of the time, and would like to "re-import" my older images into the year/yyyy-mm-dd structure and do away with my haphazard prior organization for those images. Is there a way to get LR to reorganize the files (i.e. move all the old images into year/yyyy-mm-dd folders) while keeping all other catalog/editing metadata intact?
How does this sound for an approach:
Synchronize to make sure the catalog is up to date
Save Metadata so that all metadata is written to sidecar files or into the image files for formats that support it
In LR "remove" the folders
Import the folders with the "Move" option but disable renaming.

I pretty-much agree with dj - usually not a good idea to delete & re-import. Another thing you lose is published status, so you may have to republish everything.
On the other hand, there can be compelling reasons to restructure folders, and if you are willing to suffer the losses mentioned (and those not mentioned, if there are any), then why not knock yourself out...? - just make sure you are doing it for the right reasons. As dj said, just to isolate photos for clients may not be a good enough reason, nor just to re-arrange date format. Or, maybe those are plenty good reasons - dunno... (I confess, I like to have neatly organized folders, consistent across the entire collection, so I'm a big proponent of better restructuring capability in Lightroom, even if only via SDK/plugins).
But before you go to it (if you do), consider backing up your catalog, and all your photo files (in their original hierarchy), since if you abort before completion, both will be required to recover.
I really hope Adobe grants photo moving/renaming in the SDK so restructuring plugins can be written - if losses due to delete/re-import are too aversive, consider waiting a year or so for Lr5 plugins to assist.
Rob

Catalog backup folders empty?

I'm recovering from a crashed hard drive. All of my image files are restored and in place, now I've reinstalled Lightroom 3. The problem is that when I go to my catalog backup folders, they are all empty. There are dozens of folders that look like backups from different dates, but each and every one of them is empty. How is that possible and is there any way that there could be a backed up catalog anywhere else? Thanks for any help!

You probably want the Lightroom user forums, not the Lightroom SDK forums.

Is it possible to sort folders by date that is written in the folders name? eg. folders are named 26 May 2011 and so on

Hi,
Question as in the topic: Is it possible to sort folders by date that is written in the folders name? eg. folders are named 26 May 2011 and so on
Thanks
Karol

I sort mine 5.1.11, 5.2.11, etc. - that works (adding letters to the numerals does not work as well). Starting with the month will also work better because there are only 12 of them (rather than a repetition of days).

Reserved fields in the catalog record have incorrect data???

I inserted the orginal installation disk for the Mac mini. I ran the verify disk. Then nine of these messages in red showed - "Reserved fields in the catalog record have incorrect data." I then did repair disk and now it shows that 1 volume could not be repaired. I have the MiniStack as well. I am assuming that the Hard Drive is the one needing repair. Not the MiniStack which also has OS installed along with Classic. How can I fix the disk? How important is the message in red?

You have directory damage.
Use Disk Warrior to repair the drive: http://www.alsoft.com
Explanation of what directory damage is and what causes it: http://alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/details4.html
The other option is to wipe your drive and re-install everything.

Catalog missing captions and dates

Hi,
I've been using various versions of the Organizer for about 7 years, but version 9 has my catalog all messed up. I recently installed elements 9, and when I moved in my catalog about 3000 of my 9000 or so photos are missing their dates and captions. Most of them are ones I scanned in years ago from older family members, not camera pictures. Did elements 9 somehow overwrite all my captions and dates? I've turned off auto analyzer but it was probaly running when I first put the catalog into the trial version of 9. I now have the purchased version running on windows 7 64 bit. I need to fix this somehow, since some of the elderly relatives who helped me date and caption the photos are no longer available to help me redo everything!
I have older catalog psa files saved 3 or 4 years ago but when I try to open these in 9 I get wrong file type messages
I've reinstalled 7, but still get the wrong file type message on my older .psa files
I've tried to open the psa files with Access, but that doesn't work, and so I tried Sqlite studio, but it doesn't recognize my .psa file as a valid database. Can I change an extension somehow to see these old catalogs as a db?
What does write keyword tag and properties info to file command do? Does it write all my captions and dates into a file attached to each photo so I'll never have this problem again?
Is there some sort of utility that would print out my catalog with captions and dates so I can have a hard copy to re enter dates from if this happens again?
Any suggestions on how to get my older catalogs open? Thanks, Lynn

Showing 196 apps in the catalog instead of the 600 plus. For example, Pandora was a pre configured app on phone. It is missing. When I search APP Catalog it doesn't show up, only 196.
Doing a partial erase to see if it works. Working with Palm support.

FYI DU error:"Reserved fields in the catalog record have incorrect data"

I had a very perplexing problem...
My iMac G5 was shutting down by itself so I took it to Apple and had the power supply replaced. After it was repaired I was concerned about the hard drive health after the unexpected shutdowns. So I ran Disk Utility and encountered the following...
The iMac G5 is running OS 10.4.6.
I ran "Repair Disk Permissions" from Disk Utility and encountered no errors.
I ran "Verify Disk" from Disk Utility on the drive and I get these results (copied from DiskUtility.log):
Verifying volume “TheDisk”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Reserved fields in the catalog record have incorrect data
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume TheDisk needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
Disk Utility stopped verifying “TheDisk” because the following error was encountered:
The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
This occurs whether I run it while booted from the hard drive or the restore disc. While booted from the restore disc, running repair disc indicates that the failure could not be fixed.
Booted from the hardware test disc and all tests passed.
Booted from TechTool Pro disc and all the tests passed.
Booted from Disk Warrior (had to get the "free" update to boot my iMac G5) and rebuilt directory. No errors reported.
Still same error reported in Disk Utility. ???
Booted iMac in 'safe' mode. Rebooted iMac normally.
Disk Utility now reports success!

Sorry but this is not assistance to you but an additional request for help from someone!!!
I had the same thing occur just now!!!! I have used everything in site and keeps returning............
Hope someone has an answer as to why this occured....

Catalogs? Folders? Collections? vs. Aperture Projects

Forgive my denseness. I'm an Aperture user who is looking at Lightroom 4.
One of the features that I like best about Aperture is the very simple Project paradigm. I'm an advanced amateur (I don't market my stuff, but once in a while a publication will stumble across one of my pics and license it. Like this one <http://www.flickr.com/photos/primeval/5829530628/sizes/o/in/photostream/>, which appeared in a nature guide recently). I photograph a wide variety of things--from tiny creepy-crawlies to birds to architecture to astrophotography to garden-variety family snapshots.
TMI there. My point is that I like the uncluttered list of Projects in Aperture's left column; it could hardly be simpler. Projects: Arachnids. Chicago Astro-Imaging Seminar. Product photos for Mr. NNNN....
Catalogs? Folders? Collections? Which of these, if any, is the equivalent of Aperture's simple list of Projects?
This one little bit of info will get me off to a good start. Thanks!
David Illig

Thanks again for your time.
I'm not certain that we are working very differently from each other, you in LR and me in Aperture (and in LR if I decide to stay with it), but you have nonetheless added to my understanding of LR. The answer to your question is keywords. I will find all of my snow photos that way, if I want. But a Collection might save me a bit of time if I remember that our historic two-meter snowfall occurred in 2010—and I if I forget that I will probably have also forgotten how to make a photograph by that time and it won't matter. It seems to make sense for me to have Collections in addition to keywords for other singular or rare events—my trip to Chicago for a seminar at the Adler Planetarium on a particular astro-image processing application, for example—and, apparently, you do the same thing. The Collection is named Adler Trip and the photos also have the keywords Chicago, Adler, Planetarium, Pixinsight... It's just a matter of having more than one way of performing a task, I think.
I also have a smart collection (or the Aperture equivalent at this early stage of using Lightroom) of my five-star photos. I'm somewhat fickle, however, and I sometimes look at a five-star photo and decide it's not as good as I once thought, and I demote it.
I should also confess that I'm a browser and a dawdler. I have that luxury by virtue of being retired. If I'm looking for pics of the fascinating and beautiful spider Neoscona crucifera, for example, I might prefer to take a detour through my Arachnids Collection instead of using the keyword. One may stumble across half-forgotten treasures that way. That luxury derives from not having a client breathing down my neck waiting for a photo.
I'll bet that you don't have the keyword stung to identify individual wasps that have stung you while you were trying to photograph them .
Many thanks,
David
Neoscona crucifera <http://www.flickr.com/photos/primeval/6064379518/sizes/o/in/photostream/>

No Catalog or Folders in workspace

Along the left hand side of the LR4 work space there is usually seen:
Navigator
Catalog
Folders
Collections
Publish Services
In my LR4, Catalog and Folders disappeared. Where did they go?? ... and how do I get them back?
Chuck

They haven't gone anywhere, you've probably inadvertently hidden them. Each of the 4 panels below the Navigator can be individually hidden or displayed. Simply right-click on either the Collections or Publish Services headers and you see the option to select or deselect those 4 panels. So simply click once on the Catalog line, then repeat for the Folders line.

How do I organise my folders by date in iPhoto photo library?

Hi - Within the PHOTOS section in the source list I have created 200 folders which I have given a title based on a date. For example, 2013 12 10 for today. The thing is, I can't get them all to file in date order within the PHOTO section. All fine within EVENTS but not PHOTO. I guessed this was because iPhoto files within its library not by title of folder but by the date on which images were taken. This would figure as quite a lot of them are very old and have only recently been scanned in, thus making iPhoto assume that the scan date was the date the images were actually taken. So.....I have experimented with changing both the date and the time of various shots within a few folders. This works (I think!) for some folders which then file as I'd wish, but not for others. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Simon

Hi Terence
I may be using the wrong terminology! I am able to group images in PHOTOS in what I've described as folders. Ther are the folders imported from Windows into iPhoto and thae appear in the PHOTOS section pretty much as they appear in EVENTS apart from date (which is the title of each 'folder.) order.
If I turn off titles all my images appear individually in tagged date order in a big list, but ideally I like to continue to organise and view them (when I need to) in the same way as I view them within EVENTS. PHOTOS can cope with all that neatly enough, but the folders/albums will not file in date order.
Does that help?!

Power Failure caused all Catalogs and Folders to go Missing, LR3.4

Running LR 3.4 on a PC with Vista 32 bit when there was a power failure in the area. I switched off the 'power' to the PC.
When the power was restored I restarted the PC and LR and all the catalogs, folders and files have all gone missing
and LR wants to start importing like it has just been installed. The last time the lrcat was backed up was on 20th June.
Wondering whether there is a more up to date lrcat hidden somewhere in the PC as it is running fine or is there any other
way to recover my last two days' work and restore back to the point just before the power failure?
Appreciate any suggestion before I recover from the 20th June back up.

Jasonized, you are my saviour. I cannot thank you enough for getting me back to where I was just before the power failure. Everything that had gone missing have now been recovered except the enhancements to the last photo that I was working on at during the power failure. The lrcat file plus the lock and journal files were not in the recycle bin but was somehow saved into my LR V2 backup folder in E: drive ! I systematically searched all my drives and found it there.
This forum rocks ! I am smiling again.
Thank you ! Thank You ! Thank YOU !
ben

Can't read big name of folders by script

It happens once in a while that the images we had edit and are ready to save give us an error saying that the File I want to saveAs can't be found.
So, in this case, we had to save manually each image, rename the folder to a shorter name mannually, re-open the images and apply the script again.
This solve the problem.
To avoid this, or at least to warn automatically that some encoded folderName.length is too big.
I HAVE FOUND THAT ON WINDOWS7 THE ERROR BEGINS ON FOLDERS LENGTH >188
I had the ideia of making a 'thumbsPreview' event on Bridge where a big folder warning would be generated so I could add a button on bridge where automatically we rename that folder to only the first 188 caracters. But this is for Bridge forum. I leave here only the idea.
PROBLEM:
So, on photoshop, reading a folder name larger then 188 caracter encoded name by script, give us a shorter version of the real name.
This is an real example:
Real big folder name of an active image ( encoded length = 211):
_d_10416472-ACNE.ASKIN.DARK.BROWN.COGNAC.Calf.Leather.BASICON.BS08ANCORA.COCCIO.Cotton.Spa ndex.Elastane.Calf.Leather.Calsssf.Leather.FS0526G8WF0EQW.F0EQW.Cotton.SW.Cotton.Spandex.E lastane.Cotton.Spandex.Elastane
Name red by script ( encoded length = 12):
_D_104~1.LEA
Resume:
So, the result is an error on saving the file to a folder that doesn't exist ('_D_104~1.LEA').
The problem is that if I cant read it, I can't rename it by script to force it to rename to 188 length.
I have to use bridge and do it mannually
Middle prevent sollution:
Anyway of detecting that a folder name has been shortened by script so I could use that to make an specific alert???
I have tryed by I couldn't.
Curiosity:
By script I can easly create() new folders larger then 188 length name! But then I can't use them - not even to put files in (error)...

Thanks Michael
So that means I can't have too much folder/subFolder/subFolder/... organization.
I was trying to detect when a path is larger then 255, at the moment I try to saveAs. To do so, I have put a try catch when execute the action and on the error code I manage to do this:
- read the name truncated of the last folder on the path (it is, in my case, allways the larger one);
- I don't know if I could trust on this: if the end of the truncated name is == ".LEA" then i means that the folder must be shortened and give the user that precise information.
Can I trust this?

Catalog settings and meta data is there a better way.

HI
I have adobe cs4 and light room 2.2 I do my editing in LR cropping exposure web galleries and so on on, thats all well and good but any modifications i make will not show up in the bridge unless i go into light room and apply save meta data to files. I have about 400 light room catalogs as I store the catalog in the folder that contains the original image. Is there a way to have light room automatically apply meta data changes to each catalog in stead of going to catalog settings or saving the meta data to the file. its a pain in the *** to have to go into a catalog and apply all those settings if i want to do some editing in the bridge

> ...is there a better way ...
Might I humbly suggest that your multiple (400!!) catalog strategy is flawed? You have defeated the benefits of having a single database. (And those that argue a database is bad concept and a possible single point of failure are ... well ... simply wrong.)
Lr can automatically write XMP data so that Bridge can read it. But the reverse is not true. Any changes that Bridge/ACR make will have to be imported into Lr with manually initiation.
The point and beauty of Lr is that you make the majority of adjustments in Lr. It's possible to make adjustments in Bridge and have them imported into Lr but as you discovered it is not automatic. And your workflow choice makes it doubly (or 400 times) more troublesome.

Is there a way to sort iPhoto folders by date taken?

Hi
I was using iPhoto for a long time, and recently I got a new Mac and I'm trying to better organise all my pictures.
And what I've realised was that the iPhoto, in its Library content package, creates folders for pictures according to the date imported, and not the date taken.
What I liked about iTunes is that you have the option of sorting the library with folders of Artists, and Album names, and the folder names change accordingly when I change the names of the artists inside iTunes.
The question is, is there any way that I can start sorting the pictures in iPhoto Library package by the date I actually took the photos?
I have to import all my pictures now, and I really wouldn't like if all the pictures were sort in one folder of today's date.
(note that I'm not talking about the 'events' within iPhoto, but the actual folders in the package content.)

No
And since is never any reason to go into tho library and do anything with the photo files there is no need to ever see the structure
and if you ever make any change to it you will destroy your library and lose data and maybe your photos
If you want to manage the photos files then do not use iPhoto, pick a different photos system
The simple answer is that tiPhoto totally replaces the finder for the photos you import into it - you only access those photo using iPhoto or the media browser - see How to Access Files in iPhoto
LN

Web Catalog - User Folders

We currently are in the process of including the domain name in the OBIEE account name so jsmith will become Domain/jsmith. This is has been changed in the RPD using the UDML script. My question is with the current users folders in the Web Catalog. My first question would be is there any thing that any of you have used to be able to figure out who has requests or dashboards saved in their personal folders/my dashboards.
In regards to moving the contents, the only thing I could think of doing right now is create the folder in the Web Catalog and move the objects under the users folder (jsmith) into the newly named folder (Corp/jsmith) then apply the applicable permissions and ownership. I was wondering if there is any other way those on the forum have done this?
Thanks to all for any suggestions.

There is no easy way to do what you want I think. By default Administrators don't have access to use folders. You can change this but you will need to do this manually for each user folder because if you do it recursively at the /root/users/ level then all the user's permissions are removed. You could do a script that checks the contents of the user's personal folder looking at the file system Web Catalog [Web Catalog Path]/root/users/[user name]/ to see if they have any requests saved or not. They are a few standard items in the user's folder so if you ignore all those plus all the .atr files (permission to items) then you should be able to get a list of users that have saved reports.

Reorganize a big catalog in folders by date

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for