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So you've followed our Lightroom walk-through and have a general idea of how the interface works, now it's time to get down and dirty with the individual "modules."
We're going to start with Library module, where you import, organize and sort your images. The Library is Lightroom's brain -- this is where you can tag your images, sort them, group them in folders, create collections, smart collections and more.
While there are some quick-editing tools that allow you adjust your images in the Library module, for the time being we're going to ignore them and focus on the organizational tools that make up the bulk of the Library.
== Folders ==
Earlier versions of Lightroom were not very smart in the way they handled folders on your hard drive. Fortunately that's one of the many things Adobe changed in Lightroom 2.0, so be aware that everything that follows is written with 2.0+ in mind.
lightroom-folder.jpg If you look at the left hand panel in the library module, you'll notice a "Folders" heading with a triangle next to it. Click the triangle to expand that header if it isn't already. That will reveal a list of available hard drives (probably just one, unless you've already told Lightroom about others) and then any folders you've told Lightroom to import.
In the case of the screenshot you can see I have a drive 'luxagraf' and a top-level folder "Negatives" with some date-based folders below that and then location folders below that. That happens to be my organizational preference, not something Lightroom imposes.
You can store and organize your photos on you disk however you would like. In fact, you can rearrange your photos outside Lightroom and all you need to do is select the folder, right-click it and choose "synchronize folder." That will tell Lightroom to update the list of images in that folder.
Want to add a folder? No problem, just right-click the folder you'd like to server as a parent and choose "Create folder inside...." If you want to add a new top level folder just use the plus button there at the top of the Folders panel.
Okay, you say, that's all well and good, but I added a folder and that folder actually has a parent folder that I've decided needs to be included as well, how do I do that? Simple, just right-click the child folder in Lightroom and you'll see an option that says "Add Parent folder." Just select that and presto, Lightroom is now aware of the parent and the original child folder.
Also note that in the screenshot I've chosen to have Lightroom display the number of photos it's aware next to my drive listing. By default this display actually shows the amount of hard drive space used and the amount available. To change that just right-click on the text and select one of the other options.
== Collections ==
Folders are a nice way to mirror the structure you're already using to organize photos on your drive. But folders alone would be a bit limiting -- after all what happens if you want to have the same photo be in two places are once? If you're using folders alone to organize things you'd end up with duplicate files, which isn't very smart.
That's where collections come in. Collections are essentially like an iTunes playlist -- they're groups of images that are wholly independent of where the actual files live.
In other words, collections are a way to organize, group and sort photos without actually moving them anywhere.
There are two types of collections, ordinary and smart. Again the comparison to iTunes playlists works well. Normal collections are static, to create them just click the plus button and choose "create collection." You can then manually add photos to your collection by dragging and dropping.
lightroom-collections.jpg While Collections are static, Smart Collections are dynamic and work just like smart playlists in media players. You define a set of criteria -- say, all your five star photos -- and the Smart Collection will show all those images. Later when you add some new photos to your library and give a couple of them five star ratings, head back to your Smart Collection and your new photos are automatically added.
In the screenshot above, you can see that I have the default Lightroom Smart Collections folder and then a normal collection called "top" which happens to hold some of my personal favorites from my library.
Smart Collections can be as complicated or intricately filtered as you'd like, just hit the plus button to keep adding criteria to the filter.
lightroom-smart-collections.jpg
But the collections fun doesn't stop there, you can also create Collection Sets, which are essentially folders to hold your various collections
== Adding Keywords ==
Okay, so now we know how folders work and we can define smart collections to display, for example, all our images that have the keyword "monkey." But how do we add such metadata, like keywords, to our photos?
For that we need to jump over to the right-hand library panel and open the Keywording sub-panel. This is the interface for adding keywords to your images.
Note that by keywords I mean tags. Adobe chooses to call them keywords, so I'll stick with that terminology to avoid confusion, but if "keyword" doesn't make sense to you, try reading this section with the word "tags" instead of "keywords" -- same concept.
lightroom-keywords.jpg In the screenshot you'll notice that the selected image has the keywords "2006", "city", "Laos", "market" and "round the world trip" applied to it. To add more keywords you can click that dark grey box and type them in directly using commas to separate them. However, the better option it use the box below that where it says "Click hear to add keywords."
Here's a tip: The nice thing about using the smaller box is that it will stay selected when you move between photos using the shortcut CMD-right/left arrow (CTRL-right/left arrow on Windows). It makes for a nice quick way to add keywords to multiple photos without ever taking your fingers off the keys.
Now below the keywords box you'll see the Keyword Suggestions area. Adobe touted this quite heavily when Lightroom 2.0 launched, claiming that it would be really smart at suggesting related keywords based on a whole series of criteria.
If by smart they really meant "the single worst keyword suggestion tool you've ever used," then I'd be inclined to agree. Maybe your luck will be better, but in all the time I've been using Lightroom 2.0 it has yet to suggest a keyword that made sense to me.
However, just below Keyword Suggestions is another tool that actually is very useful -- Keywords Sets. The idea behind keyword Sets is that you probably want to apply the same keywords to different photos quite frequently, so why not save them as a reusable set that can be applied with a single click?
That's exactly what Keyword Sets allow you to do. There are some default options, like Outdoor Photography, which has some common keywords you might want to use on your landscape images. But the real power here is in defining your own sets and then applying them to your images. Any time you've assigned keywords to an image you can always save them as a set.
Of course the simplest and quickest way to keyword your photos is when you import them. The trick is to apply the more general tags -- location names for instance -- at this stage and then apply more fine-grained keywords, like say "sunset" or "beach" to your individual images.
== Filtering Images ==
Okay, so you have all your photos imported, organized the way you want and tagged, er, keyworded, now what? Well, now we're going to look at the main library view to see how we can use all that data to find the images we want.
First, let's take a quick tour of the Library module's two views -- Grid, pictured below, and Loupe, which allows you zoom in on your images. To change what's displayed in either view, just right-click on an image and select "View Options..." That will give you a preference pane that you can use to customize the Library module just about any way you like.
Also note that to quickly jump to grid view you can use the keyboard shortcut G and for Loupe view it's E (no we don't know why it's E either, but it is).
lightroom-grid-view.jpg
Now notice the filter bar across the top of the screenshot, this is where our keywording and other metadata filtering happens. To enable a filter, just click it, to disable it click it again.
Between the three types of filters, Text, Attribute and Metadata, you should be able to see just about every possible combination of images you can imagine. Of particular note is the metadata browser, which allows you to filter on every criteria your camera records.
Now that's all fine and well, but I don't want to jump through the hoops of filtering every time I want to find a particular image. Well, that's why there's the custom filter tool over to the right hand side of the filter bar. Use the custom filter tool to save your filter criteria so you can quickly jump back to it whenever you want.
The other element of note in the main Library Module is the toolbar along the bottom of the Grid view. This is where you can change settings like the sort order, switch between views (including two we haven't covered yet: Compare and Survey), adjust the thumbnail size and even apply keywords and metadata using the painter tool.
== Odds and Ends ==
Other things we haven't covered include the keyword browser, which lives in the right side panel. The keyword browser has the same effect as typing a keyword into the text filter in the filter bar, but in this case you see all your keywords so you don't have to try to remember a specific term you used two years ago.
In the left panel we also ignored the catalog sub-panel, probably most notable for providing quick access to your last import, and the Navigator sub-panel, which is useful in loupe view since it shows you at a glance, where you are in your zoomed view.
== Conclusion ==
Adobe likes to provide more than one way of doing most things in its software. The result is that Lightroom 2.0 is very flexible, but also somewhat daunting. Hopefully this tutorial has given you some insight into how the Library module can help organize your images.
So go ahead and try out some of the things we've covered -- import some images, move them around, create collections, add some keywords, sort by metadata and so on until you're comfortable.
Then jump on over to our next lesson where we'll walk through the basics of the Develop Module.
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