Can you believe it? We've made it to the photos! I was going to wait to share this, but then as we worked through the supply module, quite a few of you emailed me saying this was THE part of class you were waiting for.
With my plans to take a creative hiatus this summer, I figured now is the best time to get all this out there so you all can start learning now and get most of your questions answered while I'm still checking email and comments everyday. 
So we start.
Since we are talking about photos and I get the liberty to say whatever I'd like, I really want to ask you all a few questions – answering them is not required – thinking about the answers is essential to the process of this class. So here goes:
- How many digital photos do you have in your photo collection?
- How many photos do you have that need to be scanned and preserved digitally?
- How many photos do you take every week, every day, every month, every year?
- Out of the photos you take what percentage do you keep?
- What does "organized photos" look like to you? (You may want to write this down – think of how it will change your scrapbooking – the process of making a layout, finding a photo for something you need, etc.)
- When you think of your photo collection, what is the ONE thing you want to accomplish with your photos in this class? (I would really love the answers to this last question in the comments to help me if you please.)
I'll be back tomorrow with more information tomorrow. As always, if you have questions or run into any difficulties, please feel free to email me: lightroomlady at gmail.com.
Barbara
Yay! Photos! What I was waiting for! Thank you!
Sarah
I’ll jump in and answer Question 6. The one thing I want to accomplish is having ALL of my photos organized within LR by who, what, when, where, and why (although what/why might end up being the same thing).
Kayla Lamoreaux
It’s funny I have been cranking out tutorials and I was thinking you had a jump ahead into the class content!
I hope you find the info helpful over the next couple of weeks. 
Linda
Kayla,
I have two photo albums to scan and label before everything is in Lightroom. Those album photos are all pre 1977. I have 16900 photos in my Lightroom catalog dating from 1940 to the present, but 8765 of the photos were taken last year. That’s too many for one year to be usable. I don’t even have that many scrapbooking supplies. But I’m not sure how to decide what to delete now that I’ve labeled them all. I’m trying to be more deliberate and thoughtful as I take photos, but I really need to cull out last years’s collection. Any ideas?
Kayla Lamoreaux
I love that you know what you want to do. I am excited to hear about your progress in class
As far as how to cull out last year’s collection? Work on it in fifteen minute segments – I think you will find the upcoming workflow videos helpful – the X key and auto advance will soon be some of your favorites!
Karen S.
Thanks so much for this class! We just recently purchased Lightroom and I really want to start with the photos although I have lots of digital kits to organize too. Right now I’m just taking it all in…so much to learn!! I have thousands of digital photos on several different hard drives/external drives and cds. I scanned a lot of older pics when preparing 50th anniversary slide shows for both sides of our families so that is a start but there are many more to scan. I hope to someday soon have all of my pictures in lightroom where I can easily find any picture I’m looking for with a quick search.
ksharonk
I have about 30,000 photos taken since 2003 … and they are in LR and are already keyworded, as I did this a few months back. (I have scanned photos too, but I haven’t imported them into LR as I am waiting to learn about the best way to do this.)
It is fabulous being able to find my photos by date and keywords. One thing I am keen to find out about is how to edit some of these photos, as LR has put them in wrong folders, e.g. not the correct date folders. I’d like to fix this …
Kayla Lamoreaux
I hope you get everything organized too! It is overwhelming to think of doing it all – I have learned over the years that 15 minutes or so at a time allows me to accomplish volumes! All the best to yoU!
Kayla Lamoreaux
You are amazing! Wow! I hope you enjoy the photo module of class!
Michelle
I have about 23000+ photos in LR. I took LOM when you included the Organizer tutorials in that class. I used a lot of those ideas to springboard to where I am today.
I have scanned pre digi photos from both mine and my mom’s collection. I have photos going back to the late 1800′s based on our estimated dates. I have worked through making sure my dates were close to correct (when), and set up my keywords to mirror my LOM categories and workflow of who and what. All my photos are tagged the way I want them to be.
I am now refining my rating system and working to pare down those 23,000+ photos. As I worked through my first steps I found many photos that were duplicates that don’t need to be kept or that were rated higher than they should probably be. I want to get this last piece in place before I incorporate more scanned photos from my Dad and in-laws.
Looking forward to what you are going to cover. Thanks for this class!
whimsylady@comcast.net
I have been following your writings on Lightroom and have purchased the program and installed it on my Mac. The problem comes when I think about the “first” import. There is the concern I will do something wrong that cannot be corrected. At this time I have photos and scrapbooking supplies on an external hard drive. Some photos are in iPhoto as well. I do backup everything to another external hardrive plus creating a contact sheet and CD for all. This is a laborious procedure and I am afraid I am getting lost ergo deciding to buy Lightroom. Now, if I can just get past the fear of the first import.
I have literally thousands of digital photos, a couple thousand old slides now scanned and saved, plus thousands more actual photos along with negatives in albums. I just turned 76 and am trying my best to get all in one place so they can be enjoyed and used by family. I have been learning to use Photoshop for years now and am making good progress but it would be more fun if I could do all this faster.
Your emails and blogs are inspirational and educational for me. My heartfelt thanks.
Kayla Lamoreaux
You have made amazing progress – kudos to yoU! WOW! I am excited to see where you go with this.
Kayla Lamoreaux
I relate to the fear of the first import. Refer to this video again http://www.digiscrap101.com/2011/03/lightroom-class-first-import.html. Remember that you have a backup in place – disconnect it from your computer. Don’t worry about your first import because if something goes wrong – you have a backup to replace all your files.
I guess that is why I am such a backup freak now – it gives me the peace of mind to run forward and do. I hope it can do the same for you.
Hattie Myers
I have 43k items in my photo folder, which would include subfolders & some videos. I have some old photos scanned which include heritage & pre-digital photos, but have probably 10 storage boxes of others to scan. I’ve decided to send them off to be scanned or it won’t happen! I’ve done some keywording, and not enough culling. Sigh! It helps not to look in that closet but think of it one photo or box at a time!
Kayla Lamoreaux
You can do it! I cant wait to hear about tour progress!
elseepe
I thought I would share this for anyone else that may be moving from PSE organizer with their photos. Please move this if there is a more appropriate place.
If you have a tagging system that works pretty well already in PSE Organizer, you can upgrade your PSE catalog to LR. This works much better than just importing your photos from their folders. I first did it with importing from my folders, but tags didn’t keep their hierarchy and I lost some of my albums from organizer.
Duh, didn’t pay attention to that little item about upgrading my PSE catalog at first launch. So, I thought what have I got to lose? I started a new catalog and did the upgrade path, and, guess what? All my tags and hierarchy stayed in tact and all my albums transferred over as collections.
I guess I was just too anxious and didn’t pay close enough attention to what LR was asking of me. Hope this will help someone else.
Kayla Lamoreaux
Awesome to know – thank you!!