In the “What’s New” window, I read about the enhancements to PhotoLibrary.
"Take full control of your library with new color labels, the option to organize Projects into Groups and additional Exif and IPTC fields".
In Photo Library, I find Recent Searches, then Folders, and under that Favorites. Is there any way to filter this list, so perhaps it might only show results for any given year?
Or, is there a way to get Photo Library to show only the much smaller sub-set of folders which I am using for my images edited with/in PhotoLab?
Here’s my current display, with lots more cut off at the bottom. This would be more useful to me if I could narrow the results to only the current year. In the image below, all I would need is what’s listed under the heading “Pictures”, and actually only what’s listed under 2022 April through 2022 September, and I could create empty folders for October through December.
Maybe there are now some new tools that I’m not aware of, that could include only images posted during any given year (currently 2022, but next year I’ll change that).
Maybe there’s a better way to do this than what I’m describing here?
If I were to create a folder inside of Pictures, and label it _2022 PhotoLab, I could move all my monthly folders into this new “yearly” folder, and I think that would be more organized for me - and I could do this for the other years as well, dating back to when I first got PhotoLab 3.
If I do this, will it completely confuse PhotoLab, or will PhotoLab simply display my new folder arrangement? This is probably the wrong forum to be asking in - and I should have thought of doing this many years ago. Oh well. I’m worried that PhotoLab might somehow expect everything to be where it is now, and if I make this change, PhotoLab will be just as lost as Lightroom when folders aren’t where they were expected to be…
Yes and yes… If you rearrange the folder structure in Finder, PhotoLab will be completely off its tracks. It will display the new structure, add images to its catalog, which will now be full of duplicate information…
I advise to cure your folderitis and do something consistent.
Let’s look at a few examples of structures for basic asset management. We can devise other structures, but possibilities to build a multidimensional structure in two dimensions are limited. Hint: It is good practice to create unique names for folders on all levels.
Structure by date: Year > Month/Week/Day > Occasion
e.g. Photos > 2001 > 2001-10 > 2001-10-Illinois
Structure by location and date: Location > Year > Location Detail
e.g. Photos > USA > 2001 > 2001-10-Illinois
Once you have reorganized your archive, Quit DPL, rename the existing database file, Start DPL and index the new structure. Click on “index” and point the dialog to the archive’s top folder and let DPL do the work while you do something else.
Beware: Indexing a new structure voids all metadata and image edits, unless sidecars are present or the edits were written into the files.
Yikes!!! The time to have done that was long, long ago.
Thank you for the time and effort, and explanation, and showing me what I could have done ten years ago, maybe earlier.
My next photos will go in a folder named _2022 October, followed by November and December. Then I’ll switch to _2023 January and so on.
Yes. I will have the “underscore” that keeps these at the top, followed by “year”, “month”, and “occasion”.
I agree; the best answer as I see it is to do nothing, and continue at least until the end of December this year. When January 2023 comes along, maybe I’ll do nothing, or maybe I’ll create a _2023 folder into which all the monthly PhotoLab folders will go.
I have something similar all inside my _Lightroom folder, and also for _Luminar (which I gave up on) and others.
Thank you for the advice. I will now try to forget about all this until the end of the year. No more “folderitis” !!
Yes, I still have “everything”, Lightroom, PhotoShop, Dark Table, Red Therapy, Affinity, Luminar, Photomatix, and others I can’t remember. The Adobe plan is so inexpensive that despite my lack of desire to use it, I keep it going “just in case”. Every so often I need PhotoShop. As for Lightroom, I guess I ought to open it, and make sure it’s still working.
I’ve got far too many things I need to learn about PL6 to “waste” my time on things I’ve been ignoring for years. I tried to use what used to be the “repair” tool in PL6, and got confused when I couldn’t do something very simple. One more thing to learn. The number one thing on my list is almost there - making acceptable B&W images using PhotoLab. If I like something I do, and you all don’t complain, then I feel good. My best critics are right here in this forum. Before I post stuff, I’m always wondering what you, @Joanna and @Wolfgang are going to suggest how to improve it.
By the way, in your opinion, is ViewPoint 4 worth upgrading to? I’ve got ViewPoint 3 right now.
I needed VP for perspective corrections mostly, did not use the other tools that much. Now, DPL6 incorporated perspective corrections and I’d only need the “flip” feature, but as long as I have Lr, I don’t need VP4 right now…
I was asking about you having Lr, because you could use it to get your images organized by it automatically…just in case you’re adventurous enough to straighten your archive once and for all…
Oh, and @platypus, I just started Lightroom - it took a while, but it’s up and running. I have the software in place for PL6 to work with Lightroom, and for Lightroom to work with PL6. I’ve got many years of photos there, until I made the switch to PhotoLab.
