Export to New Catalogue by Date

[LewisCE]

Hi guys,

Run into a tricky situation and thought I'd come here for some help. I'm trying to organise an image catalogue with around 100,000 images, pulled from various folders set up by people working without asset management in mind, or indeed any knowledge of the existence of Lightroom, it's a total mess. Ideally, I'd like to export everything on to a new drive restructured into new folders by date, something like this:

2016 > 1602 > 160214 > 160214_Image_Name-Sequence.extension

Is there a way, or does anybody know of the existence of a plugin, that would export a large number of images into this structure based on capture metadata?

(The next issue being that a number of the cameras aren't set to the right time, day or even year in some cases. Also, many, many duplicates, some with different filenames, have been created whilst artworking documents. These also need to be taken care of to save space and avoid future confusion about which image to use based on resolution for print/web etc. but that's a whole other thread.)

Any ideas?

Any help or suggestions are much appreciated!

Lewis

P.S. Is it even worth doing? The collection is keyworded hierarchically so images can be found that way without too much trouble. Do I just begin the new structure as new imagery is created?

 

[Hal P Anderson]

Do I just begin the new structure as new imagery is created?

That's what I'd do.

 

[LewisCE]

That's what I'd do.

Looks like it's probably the most sensible and cost-effective option as well. Just thought somebody may have run into this and found a way to fix it.

 

[johnbeardy]

Plenty have hit this kind of situation and there are ways to approach it. For instance, you can create a new catalogue and then use File > Import from Another Catalogue, choosing to move or copy the files. But I'd agree the best approach is not to worry about the existing mess. Typically in these situations you'll have "fixed it", and then Joe comes along with more disorganised folders - and he's not sure if you already have them. So you'd then be into figuring out how your "fixed" folders correspond to his extra content in "unfixed" folders.

So instead of moving stuff around, just make sure it's backed up, add more relevant metadata such as keywords, group files in collections that make sense to you, and remember that the Library Filter panel always allows you slice and dice the catalogue by date.

John

 

[LewisCE]

Thanks for this, you're quite right, I have a drive full of images which seem to have been half added to the system and renamed before, but not entirely, so I have a bunch of images with different filenames even though they're the same images etc etc etc. So, I guess I'll make sure everything is keyworded and sorted into relevant collections, and be very strict with future image ingestion! I intend on creating a catalogue of derivate 'approved' jpegs for web and print content, so that'll take care of future confusion about image versions. Hopefully.

and remember that the Library Filter panel always allows you slice and dice the catalogue by date.

This has proved useful to some degree, and would be the ultimate tool if the cameras were set to the correct date in the first place. :banghead:

Thanks very much for your help and for responding so quickly.