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  1. Organizing Images

Organize Images

PreviousOrganizing ImagesNextStar Ratings in Luminar Neo

Last updated 2 months ago

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A key benefit of working with Luminar Neo’s Catalog is organization. Finding your best and favorite photos makes your Catalog more useful. Taking the time to organize in Luminar Neo is essential.

Folders are the primary organizational tool in Luminar Neo. Folders in Luminar Neo are directly connected to folders on your hard drive. In addition to organizing folders on your hard drive within Luminar, you can also organize your images virtually using Albums. Albums let you organize your images into groups without affecting their location on your hard drive. Let’s explore both approaches. Moving Images Between Folders Using Albums to Organize Images Moving Images from the Single Image Edits Shortcut to an Album

Organizing your images within folders in Neo is a great way to keep your photo collection in order. All changes you make to folders in Luminar Neo directly affect how the folders on your hard drive are organized and vice versa. If you create subfolders or add new images to folders on your hard drive, your Luminar Neo Catalog will automatically be updated to reflect those changes.

What Are Folders?

When you add a folder of images to Luminar Neo, you create a direct link to that folder on your hard drive, along with all the subfolders and images it contains. You should consider managing folders and their contents in Luminar Neo as an alternative to managing these items directly within File Explorer in Windows or Finder in macOS.

Master Folders

There are three ways to add a folder to your Catalog:

  • Click the Add Photos button at the top of the Catalog panel.

  • Click the Add Folder icon (the + sign to the right of the word Folder) in the Catalog panel.

  • Go to File > Add Folder with Images…

The folder you select will be added to your Folder collection as a top-level folder. All folders contained within that top-level folder will also be added as subfolders.

Using Subfolders

Any folders that already exist within a master folder you add to Luminar Neo are added to your Catalog as subfolders. If a new folder is added to a master folder from within the operating system, Luminar Neo will recognize that change and automatically add that subfolder to your Luminar Neo Catalog. You can also add subfolders to Luminar Neo. Subfolders make organizing images by client, location, or event easy.

Creating Subfolders

As you work in your Luminar Neo Catalog, you may want to create additional folders to get organized. You can quickly create subfolders inside any folder in your Catalog in two ways:

  • Right-click on a folder and choose New Subfolder.

  • Select a folder in the Catalog panel and choose File > New Subfolder from the main application menu.

A new subfolder called "New folder" will be created (you can rename it). This subfolder will also be created on your hard drive within the master folder.

Additionally, you can drag folders from one level to another to create nested folders. Simply drag a folder on top of another to nest it and convert it into a subfolder. The nested folder (now a subfolder) will be relocated both in your Luminar Neo Catalog and on your hard drive.

Please note that the nested folders feature doesn't work with the main folders in the Luminar Neo catalog. This means that you cannot move one main folder from one level to another when, e.g., there is also a main folder above and create a nested folder.

Renaming Folders

As you organize images, you may want to rename folders or subfolders. You might name folders to identify the status of images (such as “Selects”) or to split up collections by date or location.

If you rename a folder or subfolder within Luminar Neo, the name of the linked folder or subfolder will also be changed on your hard drive. If you change the name of a folder on your hard drive while Luminar Neo is running, your Catalog will automatically update to reflect the new name.

Note: Broken Links

Renaming or moving a master folder on your hard drive when Luminar Neo is not running can break the link to your images and cause the renamed or moved folder to no longer be available in Luminar Neo (it will be grayed out). If this happens, you can reconnect the folder by changing its name to the original name in File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (macOS) or by moving the folder back to its original location and relaunching Luminar Neo.

Moving Images Between Folders

You can move images and subfolders from one folder in your Catalog to another. When reorganizing your photos in Luminar Neo, you can select single or multiple images and drag them to master folders or subfolders. These images will be relocated on your hard drive to match their new locations inside your Catalog. You can also move an entire subfolder of images from one folder to another, which will also affect the folder structure on your hard drive.

Note: Moving folders

If you move folders from one disk to another within Luminar Neo, the images in those folders will be moved (not copied). This means they will be transferred to the new location and erased from the original location.

Moving Images from the Single Image Edits Shortcut to a Folder (macOS)

The Edit Single Image command is a great way to work with individual images without having to add them to your collection of folders. Any image you open is tracked as a recent file in the Single Image Edits shortcut.

Images that have been temporarily added to Luminar Neo using the Edit Single Image command can be permanently added to your Luminar Neo Catalog.

  1. Click on Single Image Edits in the top section of the Catalog panel.

  2. Select an image (or multiple images)

  3. Drag the image thumbnails onto any folder or subfolder in the Folders section of the Catalog panel. The images will be physically moved from their original location into the folder you specified on your hard drive.

Note: When you drag an image from the Single Image Edits shortcut to a folder in Luminar Neo, it moves the photo on the hard drive to the new location.

These images will still appear in the Single Image Edits shortcut even though they are now part of your Library. To remove them from the Single Image Edit shortcut, select them and just press the Delete key. The image is removed from the Single Image Edits collection. Though no longer in the Single Image Edits collection, the images are in the new location you added to your Library.

Using Albums to Organize Images

Albums let you organize your images into groups without affecting their location on your hard drive. Albums are a helpful way to sort your images into groups or categories, such as people, places, and pets.

What Are Albums?

Albums are virtual storage locations. Think of them as playlists for your photos. A song on your hard drive can live in a playlist based on the artist, the year it was released, or the musical genre it belongs to. So can a photo. One photo can be assigned to multiple albums. These might be named for the subject, where the photo was taken, or the event where the photo was shot.

How Are Albums Different from Folders?

Folders in Luminar Neo are directly linked to (and affect) folders on your hard drive. On the other hand, when you move an image between albums — or even one image into multiple albums — the folder structure on your hard drive doesn’t change as it does when working with folders. Also, if you delete a photo from an album, it remains in its original folder in Luminar Neo and on your hard drive.

Thus, albums allow you to organize your images inside Luminar Neo without affecting the structure of images on your hard drive.

Creating an Album

Creating albums is an easy way to organize your photos.

  1. To create an album, select a single image or a group of images in your Catalog.

  2. Click the Add Album button (the small + button to the right of the word Albums) in the Catalog panel. A new album will be created named “New Album,” and the image or group of images you selected will be placed in that album. You can also create a new album by selecting an image or images and choosing File > New Album, by right-clicking on an image or series of images and choosing Create Album, or by pressing Cmd+N (macOS) / Ctrl+N (Windows).

  3. When you create an album, its name will be highlighted so you can easily rename it. Give your new album a descriptive name.

Renaming Albums

You can rename an album at any time by right-clicking on it and selecting Rename from the pop-up menu. It’s possible to have two albums with identical names, so be careful when naming albums so you can easily find your images in the future.

Copying Images Between Albums

Dragging images from one album to another puts those images in a new album without removing them from the first album. For example, you may have photos of people in your Paris Travel album and want those photos in your People album.

Removing Files from Albums

Removing an image from an album is easy; after doing so, the image file will remain in its original folder on your hard drive and in your Catalog.

  1. Choose the album you want to remove an image from.

  2. Select the image you want to discard (hold down the Shift key to select a range of images).

  3. Right-click on one of the selected images, choose Remove from Album, or press the Delete key.

Your images will be removed from the selected album but live in other albums and their original folder(s). Removing an image from an album does not affect the original file on your hard drive.

Warning: If you select Move to Trash on an image in an album, all instances of that photo will be removed from any albums it has been assigned to, and the original file will be moved from its folder and placed in the Luminar Neo Trash shortcut.

Moving Images from the Single Image Edits Shortcut to an Album

Over time images in your Single Image Edits shortcut will accumulate. These images are considered temporary and do not reside in any of the Folders in Luminar. You can organize images you brought into your Single Image Edits shortcut into an existing Album or create a new album.

This is a great way to organize images you want to edit but not affect where they are located on your hard drive. When you remove an image from the Single Image Edits shortcut, it will also be removed from any Albums you have added it to.

Note: Moving single image edits [Mac only] If you drag a Single Image Edits image from an Album into a Folder, that photo will be moved from its original location into the corresponding folder on your hard drive.