Is Your Lightroom Catalog a Freaking Mess? Fix It Like This (VIDEO)

It’s time for some belated spring cleaning if you waste time struggling with a disorganized Lightroom catalog that’s difficult navigate. If you’ve skipped this one-time housekeeping task because it requires a bit of thought and effort, think about all the frustration you’ll avoid by having all your images at your fingertips in logical folders where they’re easy to find.

Instructor Austin James Jackson says that “most photographers don’t have the best habits when organizing their catalogs and, unfortunately, this is one of the last things they consider when learning to use Lightroom.” His goal for today is to demonstrate how he increases efficiency and speed by doing things right.

We refer to this as a one-and-done process because once you’ve established a clean framework that works best for you, keeping track of future additions to the library will be a piece of cake. The lesson also discusses the implications of working with an external drive, and the benefits of converting image files to the standardized DNG format.

There’s also a few timesaving tricks for importing photographs to a new Lightroom catalog. The entire process is far easier to follow by listening to Jackson with his illustrations on the screen, so we’ll forgo our usual overview and let the expert demonstrate the best way to clean up your act.

Jackson’s instructional YouTube channel is full of shooting techniques for landscape photographers, along with  post-processing advice that’s appropriate for beginners and experienced Lightroom users alike.

And be sure to watch the tutorial we featured recently with another popular image-editing instructor who demonstrates how to use Lightroom’s Generative Fill capabilities to clean up his photographs and eliminate unwanted objects and other distracting artifacts.