Pixiq

I cannot stress enough how important it is to create some type of naming convention so that your folders and file names are all unique. And this is something you need to do before you get too far along in working with your digital images. It may not seem like a big deal now but poor file and folder naming can become a nightmare later on if ignored.

The reason I bring this up is that in Lightroom when you import images from a folder it will use the folder’s name to reference those images. Hence, if you organize your images into subfolders and have all of your raw files in a subfolder that is labeled RAW IMAGES for every shoot then when you import multiple shoots into Lightroom you’ll have a bunch of folders all named "RAW IMAGES" and it will be a difficult to figure out what is what.

The easiest way to create unique file names is to use the date – it will never again be January 7, 2011. I use a naming convention that includes my name_ location (or State and Location)_monthyear_image num­ber (e.g. mclark_utmb_0406_1436.tif). I include my name first because many photo editors are overwhelmed with images and having my name in the filename makes their life a little easier. I know many photographers put the date first as in 20110107_france_032.tif.

I also use a similar naming structure for my folder names. I label the main folder wyoming_devilstower_0907 and all of the raw and xmp files are in this folder as in the screenshot above. I have subfolders with the same naming convention except they have a jpg, tif, or psd ending telling what type of files those folders contain:

wyoming_devilstower_0907_psd
wyoming_devilstower_0907_tif
wyoming_devilstower_0907_jpg

I just use the month and year since it won’t be September 2007 for another hundred years and I don’t think I’ll be here to see that date again. The nice thing about this file naming convention is that just by looking at the name I can tell the specific location, date of the shoot and the file type. And when I import my folder wyoming_devilstower_0907 into Lightroom it shows up in the Folders menu with that same name. 

I share my folder and file naming convention as an example. This may or may not be the ideal system for you but nonetheless renaming your image files with a unique file and folder name is a critical step in the workflow. If you don't do this then you'll most likely be pulling your hair out at some point here in the future wishing you had read this blog post a bit closer. I see it all the time in workshops that I teach on digital workflow. In every class there are at least three or four people who can't find their images and have a rats nest of images that need to be organized and renamed so they aren't overwritten. If you don't rename your digital files when you import them, then I would say the likelihood that you have lost images is extremely high, i.e. very close to 100%!

If you are interested in developing a complete workflow of your own using Lightroom, I would recommend checking out my Lightroom Workflow e-book Adobe Photoshop Lightroom: A Professional Photographers Workflow. You can purchase that eBook for the low price of 24.95 on my website.

This e-book presents a complete workflow which includes my in-camera settings, how to determining the optimum white balance and exposure, color management, working with Lightroom, web galleries, Noise Ninja and much, much more. A sample table of contents isavailable for download on my website if you want to see exactly what is covered. The e-books is also up to date and covers the latest version of Lightroom and Photoshop.