Keep your requests coming! Continuing my series on Adobe Lightroom I go over how I manage my photos. There are a few steps which are super easy and keep your photos easy to find.
Las Vegas Skyline at Dusk by Cazillo, on Flickr
Here are a few more Lightroom videos, enjoy!
- Copy your photos from memory card to the computer in a new folder (inside of your folder archive folder/drive)
- Name the folder YYYYMMDD_clientname_phototype
- Clientname could be location if it is a scenic photo
- phototype is scenic, portrait, wedding, product, etc
- Import into Lightroom adding your metadata preset
- Go through your pitctures for ranking and deletion
- X key for delete, set as reject
- 0 stars for keep photo but don't delete
- 1 star to show client
- 2-5 stars for varing degrees of excellence
- Delete the rejects
- Rename YYYYMMDD_clientname_001.nef
- Keyword
- Develop/edit
- Export.
There you have it! Questions? Ask in the comments!!
Comments
I commented on one of your other videos a couple of weeks ago, you did respond, not sure if you remembered.
But I asked about the image editing data, and how you store it?
The "Lightroom" folder in "My Pictures" has all the data for your edits as I understand, and if I import Wedding after Wedding, that folder will eventually become too big.
What I've been doing is copying my RAW's to my D:, then Importing Pictures, once edited, I Cut and Paste that "Lightroom" folder into the same folder as the RAW's to keep that data with the RAW's. When I want to revisit, re-edit, or re-export the images, I Cut and Paste that Lightroom folder back into My Pictures.
Is there a more efficient way of doing this? I'm a Lightroom noob... don't just me! lol
Not sure what you are asking, sorry. As you noticed from the video all photos are stored on a separate hard drive and editing data is in Lightroom. I only use a separate folder for temporary storage of the jpeg images that will be uploaded to the web or sent to a client/processi ng lab. Does that answer your question?
Thanks a lot, keep it up, love it.
If I were to mainly edit my RAW files at home on my main computer. But I'm away for the weekend and I decide to edit on my laptop.
I copy the RAW's to my laptop and edit them, then I export them to JPG's and submit them to the client.
I copy the RAW's from my laptop to my computer, and then import them into Lightroom, and they are now back to their unedited RAW form.
What files/folders do I need to copy from my laptop (where I originally edited them) to my main computer?
Not sure if that makes it any clearer on what I'm trying to ask... sorry if I'm not making sense...
You should be using the export function from Lightroom. Export the photos as a catalog, copy all of that data (raw files included) to your laptop. Then edit on the laptop. Finally reimport the catalog to your master on the desktop computer. It will know that the images are already in the catalog and just import the changes, not another set of images.
You should consider buying an external hard drive or a really big flash drive. That would save alot of copying back and forth.
But you're scaring me into buying more HDD's when you said "Your HDD's WILL fail" lol...
Thanks for the advice... So I just need to export as a Catalogue... I'll give that a go...
If it's not too much trouble, in your next Work Flow Video (if there is a follow up to this one), could you demonstrate this?
On my list!
I've commented in the past, but I will comment again. Your videos are top notch...
Your pictures are quality!
Thanks again, Jim
Many thanks for the tips, that was just what I'm looking for.
One simple question, What do you recommend for Storage? I found Drobo is pretty expensive for. What do you use now?
Warm regards,
ALI
By 2, 3 or 4 external hdd's ( what you need, 1 or 2 TB ) They are very cheap these days. Plug them in, use a program like SyncBack ( free, easy to use backup and synchronisation software ) and make a mirror of your files on the external hdd's. Put 1 hdd with your parent's, girlfriend, workplace and swap them out say once a week ( depending on how much work you have ), you could also put another hdd with another person foor extra backup.
Once the external hdd's are back-upped, all you need to do is Sync and it only writes the new files on the external drives. If your computer files, your ext. hdd will have the backup, as well as the one with your mother, work etc. So if they steal your computer, burn the house, the external hdd's on other locations will have your precious files ready.
Simple, cheap, and easy.
Didn't I mention that a few times in the video?
That's almost exactly what I do but only making backups once per week isn't good enough if you shoot a lot of photos like me!
I'm going to work on a series of posts on my computer setup as well as backups. Check comment #15, its pretty close...
Once the images have been copied to the proper folder from the card there should be no need for copy so choose add.
Microsoft Camera Codec Pack http://goo.gl/IGgEW
Is saving the catalog file enough as having a backup of the photos and the edits? I want to re-install my Windows, but I'm afraid of loosing my edits in Lightroom. How can I keep the edits?
BTW, Thanks for the videos
You need to backup you catalogs too. Find out where they are stored in the catalog settings box and make a copy.
Thumbs up for that tutorial.
I dont know if you heard about this one,
When u have to select photo´s by stars, or when u want to keep them or not by pressing the x button, when u turn on you´re CAPS, you dont have to use the arrow buttons anymore (or mouse), to select the next photo, it automatically goes to the next photo.
Keep up the good work.
Grtz, from the Netherlands.
Yes, its called auto advance and I don't like it. Many times I go back and forth between images and prefer to use the arrows.
Right now I am using Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 to record and Adobe Premiere to edit.
Yes. Google "windows raw support" and you will find the links to Microsoft's updates. Hopefully you are using Win7, not sure if other OSs are supported.
The advantage is that you don't have to advance to the next photo and it is especially more convenient when you select a section for the compare view.
After this the flagged photos are my keepers and I iterate over them again to rate them or unflag with U. This is for the shots I have second thoughts.
I might go over them again to reject or accept in case some are missing from the rated series. Only after this is complete I delete the rejects.
Thanks, Perry