Just want to share a good experience with one-on-one Lightroom Help. I just finished a 2 hour Zoom session with Dan Hartford, Palo Alto, California.

LIGHTROOM HELP. I found his name in an Online Lightroom forum from a 2018 thread where someone else was looking for help.

Me: 74 year old casual family and bird photographer. Very comfortable with Windows computers and file structure, beginner with photography and Lightroom. Started Lightroom 2019 with birth of grandchild, dormant for 2 years, restarting. Photoshop Elements prior.

My problem: Entirely related to importing from old files, camera, scanner,then organizing and exporting (to flash drive). Assumed I remembered enough from 2019-wrong. Have multiple copies of same image, many folders outside of Lightroom, many photos unable to find. Deep concern over possibility of accidental deletion. Each effort I made to fix seemed to dig me into a deeper hole, loss of confidence. May have 50,000-100,000 images which should be condensed to about 1,000-2,000 photos I want to keep, then begin organizing a lifetime of print photos.

Previous efforts: Adobe Lightroom Classic Classroom in a Book: Very Good. Victoria Bampton LR Classic Missing FAQ- Good. Tim Grey "Cleaning Up Your Mess in Lightroom"-very good. These LR Queen forums very helpful. Despite all these aids, I was losing confidence that I would make correct choices on my own.

Work with Dan: 2 hour Zoom meeting, camera, microphone, speaker for both of us, screen sharing. All technically smooth. Dan was a very easy guy to work with. Feeling fragile and reading about some negative "help from expert" experiences in this forum, I was concerned that the "expert" would take over my screen, make a lot of changes that I didn't undersatnd, and leave me worse off. Dan was very easy to work with-he hung back, let me explain my points of confusion , and gradually got me from upset to "I can do this, I can follow this map".

I had originally thought that his 2 hour minimum might be too long, but it was just right and less time would not have worked. I thought his fee structure was fair, and will save me many hours of my own time flailing around blind, which was what I had been doing. I will likely take time to absorb all the advice Dan gave, then arrange another session in the future.

For any tutor, I recommend putting your problems in writing, and in priority of importance to you, and sending it to the tutor before the meeting. Just that step alone helped me understand what I wanted to learn, and helped create a structure for both of us through the meeting.