Lightroom File Organization Questions (Previous Aperture User)

Hi all,
I have a few questions regarding moving files around from Lightroom. I'm a creature of habit, and my workflow has been set in stone using Aperture, now I'm trying to figure out the most efficient way to do things the same in Lightroom.

What I did in Aperture:
I did all my edits for a project with the file stored on my local hard drive. My local hard drive has a file structure setup with a folder matching the name for every project. For example, if I take pictures today of a flower, I would import the RAW pictures into Aperture in a newly created folder called "2014-06-29 Flowers". That folder would be located at C:/Pictures/2014/2014-06-29 Flowers. When I was finished with my edits, I would export all the final JPEGs into a new sub folder called "Final JPEGs". Then, I would highlight the project folder, go to "File/Relocate Originals for Project", and place them on my external hard drive. When you do this in Aperture, it creates a copy of the folder structure on my external drive that matches the file naming on my regular hard drive, and moves only the RAW files (Not the JPEGs). It does not delete the now empty folder on my local drive. I liked this because even if my files aren't available on my local hard drive, I have the original file structure still setup with the final JPEGs still located on my local hard drive.

In Lightroom, if I drag the project folder where the originals are located, it ends up MOVING the folder onto my external hard drive and gets rid of it from my local drive. It also moves any sub folders (my Final JPEG folder, and all jpegs within) even if those jpegs haven't been imported into Lightroom. The only way I've noticed I can avoid this is if I manually go into a Finder window, and create the same file structure one at a time, and instead of dragging the whole folder from Lightroom, I select the files individually instead, and drag them into the new folders I created on my external hard drive. Then it leaves the file/folder structure alone on my local hard drive and only moves the original RAW files.

This is an extra step that I don't like, because there are often times I'll get 7 or 8 projects behind in transferring to my external hard drive, and in Aperture you just highlight all the projects at once and move them over, but I shudder at the idea of having to manually recreate all the folders if I get too far behind. Is there some other trick or way to move files from within Lightroom that I'm not aware of, that will leave my Local Hard drive file structure alone but still move the original files?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Many of us Lightroom users actually prefer another structure and workflow, so I can't myself give you specific help on how you might maintain what you describe. Instead, I'll describe what I do, but maybe others can help you keep your system if that's what you decide you want!

In my Lightroom Library and my "working" file system, I have the Raw files (only one copy) and then any "project files" if, say, I need to do special work in Photoshop or another external editor or plug-in that I can't do in Lightroom alone (we can keep tiffs or psd files of those projects). I do make back-ups of my library on an external "back-up" drive, along with back-ups of the Lightroom catalog, but those are outside of my Library. I have no need or wish to have duplicates of all my photos taking up "space" in my working library.

So, my workflow:

I Import a shoot from the card into my internal "data" drive. I have a "parent" folder for current shoots, and each shoot goes into its own subfolder with a date/description subfolder name and the files are renamed as they are imported with the same "base name" and a sequence#.

I do my short-term processing then: both my Raw edits and keywording as well as assigning images to Collections, and any external work can be done, and I will note that there are times when you want to work with different "versions" of your original Raw file and Lightroom makes this great by allowing you to create Virtual Copies that are stored it the LR memory, so you can work with them without having copies cluttering up your hard drive.

Then if I want to Export for a specific purpose, whether for the Web, printing, emailing to someone, I'll export jpegs typically to folders in a separate external hard drive (the parent folders are by the Year, the subfolders are for each shoot so I'll typically name them accordingly).

These jpegs/exports don't appear in my Lightroom Library, again no "duplicate clutter", in fact, many folks just delete the jpegs after doing whatever they want with them, although I do typically keep them as an archive.

When I'm done with my short-term work, I'll use Lightroom to move the folders onto the same external drive into their own year-designated parent folder, and Lightroom keeps the reference/location active in the Library for the folders and files and all editing/metadata is intact (keywords, collections and such.

So, my file system shows both my "Shoots" (Raw files and "project" files) as well as my jpeg archive, whereas my Lightroom Library doesn't care about the exported jpegs, so it just shows the shoot folders in the Folders panel.

As I said, the Lightroom catalog gets backed up regularly, but the actual files get backed up separately.

This system works well for me. Because the original Raw files are both in my file system in an orderly way and also keyworded and in collections, it makes it pretty quick to locate a photo, which is nice because I have about 50,000 pics taken over the years, mostly digital/Raw but then especially film pics I've scanned as well as jpegs from when I started with digital back in '01 and they all "fit"!

Like I said, this differs from your approach and I for one don't know what the most efficient way would be in Lightroom to try to manage duplicates and such, although I know there are some options, for example you can set up the Import process in different ways, and also you can Export an actual copy of your Raw files, although I haven't messed with that stuff, hopefully others can chime in there. However, I'd encourage you to take a look at how I do things.

Thanks for the response Tony!! Just to clarify, I'm not actually trying to maintain duplicates of the RAW files themselves, only the folder structure! In Aperture when you relocate the original files, you have an option to have Aperture create them in new folders that are named after the project (which is the same name I give my "parent folder" on my internal HDD), and when Aperture does this it also keeps the parent folder on the HDD, but it will just be empty. I like this because that same parent folder is also where I store my exported JPEGs.

It seems you store your exported JPEGs on a separate HDD, whereas I store them in the original parent folder. I'm rethinking my need to keep an empty folder of the original parent folder now, and I do actually like the idea of having a small portable hard drive that would contain all my JPEG exports.

Anyways, thanks again, it's interesting to see how other photographers do their workflow.

David, yeah, discussions about workflow are pretty common and can be interesting and helpful!