*** Please Note: as of March 1, 2012, I will no longer be supporting the content of this class. This is a cutting (really bleeding) edge way of organizing supplies. After over a year of helping students do this, I no longer know if it is a workflow I would recommend. It is complicated, and there is great potential to lose files/work. For now I am leaving the information up for those who want to try it, but please know I no longer have the luxury of supporting this class. I am currently looking at other easier alternative solutions that are not as high risk. ***
Wow – the day is finally here! I have lots of content to share with you and I also need to set a few ground rules.
1. Q&A: if you want to ask me a question, email me at Lightroomlady at gmail.com – the past few weeks I have been overwhelmed with emails – so if you want an answer, please email me at that address. You can also leave comments on the individual posts and I will reply or answer the questions in a separate blog post.
2. Content: I know some of you are chomping at the bit waiting for content, while others want to take it one day or week at a time.
Deciding on how best to share content has been quite the dilemma – do I throw it out there all at once or take it one small step at a time?
The first week we will be working on the conversion process.
In the second week we will be talking keywords and answering questions.
From there we will just keep going as I can get the content out. Keep in mind that while you all are working on supplies, I am jumping forward and working on the future segments of the class while trying to answer questions and help.
I can I can tell you from experience that taking on supplies is going to be a HUGE project. To be successful, you will want to make significant progress on your supplies before moving on to photos.
Another note on content: I will be waiting until I get my photos completely organized to share the photo organization segment. I know some of you are waiting just for this segment and I appreciate your patience. I am hoping the photo organization segment of class will be available in April-May. I will also be sharing the non-destructive photo editing and creative projects in between the digital supplies segment and photo organization.
4. Speak Up: As you all know, this class is FREE. I’ve had a lot of people ask me what they can do to help me. So here it is – as you go through this class and apply the things I’m teaching you I want you to share your experience on your blogs (please link to your posts in the comments of the relevant DS101 post and also please link in your post back to the relevant post here).
If you don’t have a blog, share your experiences in the comments as I am sure others will learn from your comments as well. What I want to create is a community of voices where one can read the post with the lesson and then read comments (some with blog links) to see how it is working for you. It will be like having a recipe and then comments of different ways people tried it – which will be so helpful to others who come after you – please pay it forward by speaking up!
This class will be so much more if you join your voice with mine and participate instead of just grabbing the information and running away with it. In the very process of speaking up and sharing, you will help more people than you know. 
Also, Before you do anything further in this class, make sure you have completed THIS ASSIGNMENT.
One last thought: one of the things I have learned in this process is that organizing happens in layers. It is always a work in progress – no matter how well you get organized – there is always room for fine tuning. The KEY is getting to that happy medium where it flows for your workflow and is easy to maintain. It is my hope that the things I share will help you in your workflow of preserving memories for future generations.
Barbara Garrett
Awesome, Kayla! I’m pretty happy with PSE’s Organizer for my digi supplies, but I’m really looking forward to organizing my photos in LR. Plus, I’m sure that I’ll pick up tips and knowledge as you go through the process of organizing supplies, so I’m looking forward to this! I think you’re a gifted and amazingly knowledgeable woman. Thanks SO much!
Roberta Frederick
Thank you for doing this. I am new to digi-scrapping, actually new to scrapbooking period even though I’ve been thinking about doing it for years! I purchased a few supplies in the last year but not done much with them because organization made it really hard for me to get started. I found trying to locate stuff and then figure out how to use it pretty frustrating because I like to have things organized first and foremost. The good thing about being so new is that I didn’t have tons of stuff to put into folders! This class is going to be so helpful.
Beverly Mascara
Hello, and thank you for this training for Lightroom. I am finally able to purchase Lightroom in about a month and have been following each and every session you post. Question 1: Can I begin @ the beginning with your training and still get help When I need it?
Question 2: The pre-work- putting all kits in designers. That is going to be very hard for me since I have been set up in IPhoto and already have 9 librarys set up Like Library of Memories subjects. I want to follow your training exactly but cannot do that designer set up. I keep a TOU from each Designer in each kit though.
Question 3: I was advised to get this software from an expert in IPhoto since he felt I had too many digi files and photos that Iphoto would be too slow.
Thank you so much for being so thorough – even though I didn’t and don’t have Lightroom yet, I read and save every post and have been trying to use it is IPhoto when I got stuck and began to research with IPhoto what to do. They advised Lightroom! Surprise Surprise. Thank you again for YOU! I think like you and desire to have my digi files in sensible, useable order.
Beverly Mascara
I also need to know if I can run LightRoom from an EHD?
Kayla Lamoreaux
You are welcome.
1) I’m getting questions daily via email and on the blog for everyone at their different stages so yes I can help you where you are. The only exception to that is during my spring break April 9-17th and after I finish all the materials I will be much slower to respond as I plan on taking an extended creative hiatus. However, that said, there should be enough people here doing this that we will create a group somewhere that you all can share information and help one another.
2) Your pre-work in iPhoto. I would quite simply add the name of the kit and designer as keywords in iPhoto. Then you can export them out in original format with the keywords attached. This will save you a significant amount of time when you get into Lightroom.
3) Glad you have Lightroom – I switched from iPhoto over a year ago and I’ve never looked back – love it. Hope you enjoy it as well.
Kayla Lamoreaux
Do you want to run the actual catalog from the EHD or just store your items on the EHD? If you just want to store your catalog and files on an EHD, you can definitely do that.
Kayla Lamoreaux
I think you will find this post helpful – it is a step by step how to of a guy running Lightroom on two computers using an external hard drive – http://churchillphotographer.blogspot.com/2008/03/running-lightroom-on-more-than-one.html
Hope that helps!
Xnomads
Hi Kayla, I do not know how I missed this information before! I’m so excited to find it. I switched to LR from iPhoto just under a year ago and I LOVE it! That said, I know there is so much more that the program offers that I am not using, not to mention, I do not use it to organize my digi supplies – YET, so I am looking forward to sitting down with all of this info and pouring over it and soaking it all up. Thank you so much. You are wonderful (for many other reasons besides offering this class for free)!
MonicaB
I just found your website and I’m looking forward to working through this free class. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I’ve organized my supplies twice in ACDSee and lost the information when I had computer problems, so I’m hoping using Lightroom will save me from doing this again. Again, thanks for having this information available.
Jill Lyman
I am obsessive about organizing my digi stuff. But, I need a system that is a lot less time consuming. As I was going through your tutorial I was getting all excited about Lightroom but was apprehensive about spending the $ that I might only use for organizing… I am a huge PSE addict and purchased version 10 right when it came out. I have never used the organizing part of the program before because of the whole lack of a “prenup”. BUT, with version 10, the program will write all of your tags to the metadata and it worked! And, as I am progressing with the organizing, it seems as if it is working similar to your Lightroom tutorial! I am having to convert all of those nasty PNG files, but from what I experimented with, it seems to be right on track and if it is, what a great find for those PSE users! If I am wrong, please stop me, but if I’m right, please spread the word, because to me, this is an amazing breakthrough! Thank you so much for the lessons and digi help! I found you through The Daily Digi:)
kayla
Awesome! I love that you are making this your own. As long as you are converting your png files to tiff format so they have closets for the metadata you should be great!