Beginner with Lightroom 5

I have received Lightroom 5 with my Leica and would like to use it as a replacement for Photoshop 7. However I

seem to have got my catalog in a mess. Can I delete everything from Lightroom and start again? I have not done

any developing so I am not worried about my images.

Lightroom is an asset management tool and is not like

Photoshop. Any changes you make are completely virtual

and nondestructive. It is an important concept to

understand. I would recommend an online course to get

the fundamentals down because without it you may not

fully realize the software's amazing potential.

Thanks Rob. I have looked at a couple of tutorials since acquiring LR 5 and can now see what I have done wrong. What I want to do is clear out all I have done and start again. Can I do that ?

I don't think you have to delete anything; you can just start all over with a new catalog and forget the present one or

delete it later.

<p>You could just remove the images from your current catalog and re-import them to the same catalog, if that helps. But understand there is a huge difference between "removing" and "deleting." If you remove an image, Lightroom just forgets about it and any edits you have made. You could then import it again to the catalog. If you delete an image, Lightroom deletes the image from your hard disk and it's gone forever. Make sure you don't do that. </p>

<p>I would do as Jos said, create a new catalog, import your photos again and set things up from the start the way you want to. When/once all is OK, you can simply delete the old catalog-files (this will not remove any image files at all).</p>

Keep in mind that LIGHTROOM calls it a catalog for reason -it is just an organization tool and its separate from your

image library. Make sure that if you delete anything you only delete the catalog and not the individual image files.

<p>Just to add a related question. I use Lightrroom 5 and have my photos on the C drive. I've just used LR's import and that is where LR has been filing them too.<br>

But I notice my C drive is getting full up. There's a D drive with nothing in it. (I don;t think this is a separate hard drive, just a second virtual section.) Can you add images to the D drive and keep LR and previous catalogs and images on C. Or can I move LR program to D incluiding old images and add new images? Are there different suggestions to how to set up where LR resides and where to keep the images and catalogs to get the best performance? I'm running Windows 8.1 64 bit. </p>

<p>Be careful with that D: drive on single hard drive systems, Alan. On some Windows PCs that's reserved for the operating system or some parts of the OS, or for restoring the PC to default factory state after other recovery efforts have failed. It may not be empty, but Explorer may show it as "empty" depending on which files it's told to look for by default.</p>

<p>Alan, it has nothing to do with where the LR program runs. Assuming the D drive is accessible and not a backup drive, you can just tell LR on import to add from the D drive instead.</p>

<p>Lex and Jeff: When I open <strong>This PC, Devices and Drives</strong> labels are: <strong>OS © 49.5GB free of 229GB</strong> There's an icon attached that shows a hard drive with a little Windows icon. The next icon is labelled: <strong>Data (D): 1.81TB free of 1.81TB</strong>. There's an icon of a hard drive without a little Windows icon. When I open the D drive, I see three folders none of which shows any bytes used but labeled,<strong> $RECYCLE.BIN, SYSTEM RECOVERY AND SYSTEM VOLUME INFORMATION</strong>.</p>

<p>So the question is, should I just let Lightroom decide where to put the images, catalogs, etc as well as other program when they have to store info, will they use the D drive automatically? Or should I start telling LR to drop images in D? I seems that it''s silly to have 1.81 TB free of 1.81 TB in D Data, and only 270GB total bytes in C, and not use D. Please clarify best options.</p>

<p>If you are using Lightroom to import the images, it will put them into some default directory until it's full. I don't know what it does once that's full. However, it's far better to have a directory on the D drive called "Images" or something similar, and import them all into there via Lightroom. If you want to put the images there on your own, you can do that also, although you lose some of the capabilities that Lightroom gives you. </p>

<p>This all assumes you can create a new folder on the D drive. If you can't do that, you are better off getting another physical drive and using that for all your images.</p>

<p>I created a folder on D called Images and copy one photo into it -no problem. I also imported a photo using LR - no problem. So I'm still confused between why C and D???</p>

Alan, from the size of your drives I'm willing to bet that C: is an SSD (solid state drive), while D: is a large empty disk. You may want to move all your images from C to D, as this will leave more space for programs on C. To do this, you should move them within Lightroom. Make sure that Lightroom is showing you the C and D drives. Simply take the folder (or folders) that Lightroom shows you under C and drag them over the D drive.

 

Next time you import images, tell Lightroom to place them under the Images folder you created on the D drive. Lightroom will remember this setting for future imports.

<p>Fernando: You're very clever! Of course. The computer has 256GB SSD and 2GB HD. So what you say makes sense. C must be SSD and D must be the HD. So, I want to reserve the SSD for processing as much as possible.</p>

<p>One question. If I move the images to the HD "D", will LR slow down? Are there any other down sides to this move? <br>

Also, should I move other documents, videos etc to D? Which would you recommend.</p>

<p>How do you move files from C to D? I tried dragging one of the folder to the D lines, but nothing happens.</p>

<p>Lightroom won't let you move the files directly into the drive's root. You must first create a folder under D, and you can then drag your image folders into that one.</p>

<p>You will get a slight slowdown by moving the images to the D drive, but for the most part it will be negligible. Lightroom caches the thumbnails, and also builds a cache of full-size images. You may see a slight delay the first time you zoom in or edit an image, but after that it will be quick.<br>

Since C is your system drive, you want to make sure that you leave as much free space there as possible, or the whole system will slow down.</p>

<p>I moved the photo files to the D disk.<br>

1. There's still a folder called Lightroom in the Pictures folder. It contains the Lightroom 5 Catalog.ircat, various Import and Temp data and Preview and Lightroom Catalog folders. <br>

Should I leave them in the C drive? Should I set up anything new in D drive or just leave the picture files there?</p>

<p>2. The LR folders in C still shows all the folders but with 0 photos. Can I just delete the folders from the Catalog in C?</p>

<p>3. Should I also transfer Documents, Videos, Music, etc to the D drive? How do you create and make these folders the default on the D drive?</p>

<p>Alan, you are best off leaving the Lightroom catalog and previews on the C drive as this will give you the best performance.<br>

As long as the folders on C are truly empty, you can safely delete them from Lightroom (check in WIndows Explorer first just in case there is something).<br>

It's up to you whether you want to transfer Documents, Videos and other folders to D. This will give you slightly less performance, but a lot more space, and less risk of filling up your system drive. If you are using Windows 8 you can create new folders on D, move the folders, and then in WIndows Explorer right-click on the new folder, and choose Include in Library -> Documents (or whichever it is). Be sure to select it as the default location for new files.</p>

<p>I'm confused as to what is Libraary. I set the newly names Image folder in D as a Library-Pictures. But what does that mean. The folder is still labeled D:/Images. How do I set it as default? Do I do that in LR?</p>