DAM

Digital Asset Management

Lightroom: Catalog Size

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 15. May 2012 - 5:23

You can the size of your current catalog by going to Edit > Catalog Settings on a Windows, or Lightroom > Catalog Settings on a Mac on the General tab.

Lightroom: Catalog Size

Lightroom: Catalog Size

Here is what's included in the SQLite database file aka the Lightroom catalog:

Lightroom 4: The Brushes

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 11. May 2012 - 5:32

Not too many people use the brushes, they are either afraid or don't know how to. The brushes compensate for the lack of layers in Lightroom vs. PhotoShop. The brushes can do the vast majority of the everyday use of the layers. The brushes do not have the advanced power of the layers in PhotoShop, but for everyday use…

When using the brushes, I recommend being at 2:1 or even higher, so you can see the details.

  1. Press on the Brush at tag #1. BTW, to me, this doesn't look like a brush but it looks more like a match that is about to be lit.
  2. This opens the brush/local adjustment panel.
  3. The first thing to deal with is the size and the feather of the brush. The size, tag #2, is big or small in pixels. The feather, tag #3, is the edge and how big it will be and is an additional softness to the brush. The feather shows as the second outer circle. A hard brush has a feather of 0 and displays as a single circle.

Lightroom: Searching For… And… Or…

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 20. April 2012 - 5:31

Lightroom uses SQLite for keeping tracks of “things” in the catalog. In the Lightroom world, it's called a catalog, in the computer world it's called a database. Databases are like rolodex on steroids. You can ask all kind of questions, aka queries in the computer world, aka filters in the Lightroom world, like: show me all the photos that have dogs and are a family pet… or show me all the photos that I have NOT sold to customer…

The library module is “just” a front-end to ask questions about the information in the catalog.

  1. Lightroom supports AND and OR conditions in “regular” and smart filters.
  2. Lightroom supports some NOT conditions with the smart filters.

This post is about the “regular” filters

AND

“Show me all the photos that have ALL the keywords:” Granville Island AND motorcycle

The SQL query would be:

  SELECT photos
  FROM catalog
  WHERE keywords = 'Granville Island' AND keywords = 'motorcycle';

Lightroom: Why Use Virtual Copies?

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 17. April 2012 - 5:50

Lightroom 4, box cover

Now that Adobe has changed how Lightroom 4 treats the flags, labels and ratings, virtual copies have become much more important.

To create a virtual copy, select a photo, then: Menu > Photo > Create Virtual Copy or Ctrl-L / Option-L

What’s a virtual copy?

It’s an “almost” copy of a photo. It's not a copy of that photo, it's a different version of that photo. You can have many virtual copies/versions of the same photograph. Personally, I prefer the term “version” to “virtual copy.”

Lightroom 4: Finding the Virtual Copies

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 11. April 2012 - 6:11

Adobe changed the flags and ratings system in Lightroom 4. The flags and ratings used to be local to a collection in Lightroom 1, Lightroom 2 and Lightroom 3. Now in Lightroom 4, they are global. This means that if you rate a photo as a 4 stars, this photo will become a 4 stars in all the collections. For example, a family photo could be a 4 stars in the family collection but this photo could be worth only a 2 stars in the portfolio collection. The current solution is to create a virtual copy (until Adobe fixes it but letting use choose if we want the flags/ratings to be Local vs Global).

The new problem is that if you want to make changes to one virtual copy, you may need to make the same changes to the other virtual copies. So the question is: “How to find the virtual copies?”

Ctrl-F/Option-F > Attribute > Kind: Virtual Copies

Lightroom 4: searching for virtual copies

Lightroom 4: Searching for Virtual Copies

Lightroom 4: Adobe Broke the Collections

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 15. March 2012 - 6:15

In the good old day of Feb-2012, aka Lightroom 1, Lightroom 2 or Lightroom 3, you could flag or rate a photo without worrying. With LR4, a photo can only belong to one collection! In LR1, LR2 or LR3, a photo can belong to many “regular” collections, with just drag and drop. Then you could decide on ratings or flags. For example, one photo can go in a customer collection and be rated as a 5 star, the best for that customer. I like that photo and want to add it also to my portfolio collection. In my portfolio collection, it should be only a 3 stars. I have much better photos than that, but that photo should be in the portfolio collection and if I find a better idea of what to do with it, it could even go up to 4 or 5 stars. Can't do that now anymore in Lightroom 4.

In Lightroom 1, Lightroom 2 or Lightroom 3, all the flags, pick…, and the ratings were local to the collection. Now in Lightroom 4, all the flags and the ratings are global to the whole catalog.

Lightroom 4: Why Bother With The 2012 Process?

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 13. March 2012 - 6:45

The “almost” big thing with Lightroom 4 is the new 2012 process. The 2012 is an improvement on the 2010 process and a giant leap forward on the 2003. When you open an older photo in Develop module that uses either the 2003 or the 2010 process, you are given the opportunity to upgrade to the new 2012 process:

Lightroom 4: 2012 process before and after screen capture

LR4: 2012 Process: Before on the left, After on the right

Lightroom 4: I Really Like

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 9. March 2012 - 6:20
  1. In LR3, importing images that are on a network drive, was very slow. Even when the setting Include Subfolders was off, it took “forever” to scan the folder and show the thumbnail previews. Now it's very fast, almost instantaneous.
  2. In LR4, the import is now significantly faster. Without an actual timer, just the clock on my desk, it's 4 times faster than under LR3. The 1:1 preview generation seems to take the same amount of time under LR4 as it did under LR3.

Lightroom: Rearrange Keywords

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 24. February 2012 - 7:10

Some people are very good at making decisions and at sticking to them. These people immediately decide on some keywords and that's it, no more changes. I can't. I often have to go back to add more keywords, to change some keywords or even to delete some keywords. Lightroom does not have an automatic way of changing, rearranging and reorganizing keywords, but it is only a 2 step process.

Lightroom: reorganizing the keywords

Lightroom: reorganizing the keywords

If you need to do change more than one keyword, you should do it one keyword at a time. All the operations should be done in the Grid view.

Lightroom: Getting Good Prints from Costco

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 10. February 2012 - 6:10

Everybody is bashing Costco because their prints are cheap. I use Costco, not by choice but by necessity. I have a custom lab, but anything as next day service is very expensive and same day service, we are not talking 1 hour service here, cost an arm and a leg ($39 for one 5” by 7”.) I could print my own but I can never get it right on the first or the second print. There's always a tweak here and a tweak there, I want/need to change the print one more time…

I use Costco for most of my proofs, to show the customer before the final prints, even for myself to see if the concept will work.

Lightroom: Kind Of

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 3. February 2012 - 6:10

A vacuum cleaner is something that uses a fan to push air out to create some vacuum to suck up dust and dirt. So what's that got to do with Lightroom? You see, Lightroom is a software that runs on a computer.

Most computers have many fans, my workstation has five fans. Four of the fans pull air out and the fifth fan push air in.

Lightroom: Smugmug Publishing Plug-in

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 2. February 2012 - 6:10

One of the least used feature, but very powerful feature of Lightroom, is the Publish function. Basically, Lightroom will export the photo to the destination if there's any “important” change to the photo. The important change could be the description/caption, the title, the keywords, the Develop treatment…

I use Smugmug for my photo “back-end.” I chose Smugmug over Zenfolio because Smugmug is integrated in Lightroom (I didn't know then, what I know now.)

  1. I'm not saying that Smugmug is better than Zenfolio. It's your personal choice. Each one has its good, its bad and its ugly.

Lightroom: Remember the Why of a Virtual Copy

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 16. December 2011 - 9:16

Lightroom has this wonderful concept of the virtual copy. A virtual copy is just a set of adjustments that is stored in the catalog, it's not an actual file. The beauty of the virtual copies is that it's possible to have hundreds of virtual copies of the same photo but with different adjustments, crops, colors, black and white…

Some people are amazing, years later, they remember every single detail of why they did… and then, there's me. I need to see some notes, then I can remember the tiny details. That's why I need to keep track of why I created the virtual copy.

Renaming a virtual copyLightroom has this wonderful concept of the virtual copy. A virtual copy is just a set of adjustments that is stored in the catalog, it's not an actual file. The beauty of the virtual copies is that it's possible to have hundreds of virtual copies of the same photos but with different adjustments, crops, colors, black and white…I use the `Copy Name` to type in my explanation of what I did and/or why. For me, a large number of the virtual copy are the balck and whites and that's obvious. But I also do virtual copies for printing the different size that forces me to crop such as 8½ by 11 vs 11 by 17 vs … That way I know what's what.lightroom-virtual-copy-name.jpg — ©2011 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

Lightroom: Renaming A Virtual Copy to Remember the Why of a Virtual Copy

Lightroom: Where is the Selection Criteria: “Description”

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 13. December 2011 - 6:00

I use Smugmug for my photo back-end for photos.foto-biz.com. The problem that I have is that I wanted to make sure that all the photos have a description.

The proper way would be to use Lightroom with a smart collection. If the description is empty then display the photo in the collection. Should be simple. Yes? No!

Lightroom: Selection Criterias I want to find the photos in Lightroom that do not have any description.The question is where is the description selection criteria?Nowhere to be found.

Lightroom Available Selection Criterias

Lightroom: Don't Import Suspected Duplicates

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 30. November 2011 - 6:10

Usually, when importing photos into a Lightroom catalog, the Do No Import Duplicates is checked on. The question is what's a duplicate? Everybody in their right mind would assume that 2 duplicate photos are 2 identical photos. It turns out that for programmers, 2 identical photos are not the same as 2 identical files.

What Lightroom really mean is 2 identical files. What are identical files?

  • The same name like: charlie-20111129-1234
  • The same file extension like: .cr2

This means that charlie-20111129-1234.cr2 and charlie-20111129-1234.jpg are not identical files.

Lightroom: The Case Against DNG

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 23. November 2011 - 6:24

Adobe created the DNG format: Digital NeGative, we are at version 1.3. According to Adobe:

Key benefits for photographers:

  • DNG format helps promote archival confidence, since digital-imaging software solutions will be able to open raw files more easily in the future.
  • A single raw processing solution enables a more efficient workflow when handling raw files from multiple camera models and manufacturers.
  • A publicly documented and readily available specification can be easily adopted by camera manufacturers and updated to accommodate technology changes.

Lightroom: Importing 100 Thousand Photos — My Summary

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 22. November 2011 - 7:21

After a few major crashes, I decided to start from scratch, almost (I had saved all of my XMPs.) I created a new catalog and imported 93,259 photos. I was able to import all of them in less than 5 days!

Here's my summary for the:

Lightroom: Importing 100 Thousand Photos — Part 3

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 18. November 2011 - 6:40

In this blog post we will discuss the crux of the matter when it come to importing a large amount of photos like I had to do, 93,259 photos.

The “standard” advice is to:

  1. Render Previews 1:1 so that you don't have to wait when you are scrolling through the Develop module or browsing at 1:1

Lightroom: Importing 100 Thousand Photos — Part 2

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 16. November 2011 - 6:50

In Lightroom: Importing 100 Thousand Photos — Part 1 I spoke about the importance of checking vs un-checking the Include Subfolders on the performance. Now we'll look at the basic import operations, the different ways of getting the photos into Lightroom:

Lightroom: Import Options

  1. Copy as DNG
  2. Copy
  3. Move

Lightroom: Importing 100 Thousand Photos — Part 1

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 14. November 2011 - 6:25

Importing photos in Lightroom is very easy to do, just like any the other camera processors. Click the import button, select the photos, press OK and some time later you are done. This works without any problem when you import only a few hundreds photos. If you want to import a thousand photos at a time, now we start to talk as much as 6 hours depending on your settings. Now try to import 10 thousand photos in a weekend, wish you good luck. A 100 thousand photos and now we are talking at least a month.

1.

Improve Your Photography with Lightroom

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 20. October 2011 - 5:53

In the “good old days” aka before digital aka film, if you were a professional, you would take your photos, process the film, make a contact sheet of the film and file the negatives in a PVC free plastic sheet. Finally, we would print a few of the photos.

Now we have to import everything into Lightroom before reviewing the photos. This photos are automatically placed in the Previous Import collection and in the All Photographs collection at the same time. They will stay in the Previous Import until the next import.

My steps

1.

Lightroom: Fast or Slow, it's Up to You

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 4. October 2011 - 5:53

Did you know that you decide whether you make Lightroom zoom along or crawl as a slug?

By now, you must know that Lightroom is a non-destructive editing software. What most people forget is what it means and how it affects Lightroom's speed.

Let's review the process.

  1. You start Lightroom
  2. Lightroom loads the catalog, that's the .lrcat file. It's just 1 file
  3. Lightroom loads the ancillary files, overlays, plug-in, settings

Lightroom – Correcting Existing Misspelled Keywords

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 20. September 2011 - 6:05

It's very easy and simple to correct existing keywords that are misspelled. Right Click on the keyword in the keyword in the right panel → select Edit Keyword Tag or Rename and type in the new spelling. You are done!

What about all the existing photos? It's already done. How?

None of the photos are actually associated with the keywords. Here's the table that configures the keywords. Each photo is associated the various id_global.

Pirated Lightroom

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 12. September 2011 - 5:06

A friend and customer recently spend “muchos dinaros” on a top of the line laptop. iCore 7, a real ATI video card… By the time it was all said and done with Microsoft Office 2010… $2,000+ Whew! Lots of money. Andrei asked me how he could move his Lightroom/Photoshop and his data from his computer to the laptop.

  1. Backups, backups and backups
  2. Install Photoshop
  3. Install Lightroom
  4. Restore the photos
  5. Restore the catalog (without the previews)
  6. Install the many plugins

And that's where the problems really started.

Renaming a Lightroom Catalog

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 8. September 2011 - 5:28

Rename a Lightroom catalog is easy, it's simply renaming 1 (one) file and that's it. The problems is where is the catalog located? Why hasn't Adobe provided a menu function for renaming the catalog?

  • The catalog is named (the catalog name).lrcat

So you have a few choices for finding the catalog:

  1. Do a straight search from the OS (Windows or Mac) and look for: (the catalog name).lrcat
  2. In Lightroom on a Mac: Catalog Settings / Edit → Catalog Settings → General Tab
  3. In Lightroom on Windows: Edit → Catalog Settings → General Tab

Lightroom: The Quick Collection

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 1. September 2011 - 5:30

The Quick Collection is the equivalent of a scratch pad. You can add group of photos, delete, change/process, keywords…

The Quick Collection is the collection with the + after it, it doesn't have to be the collection named Quick Collection.

Lightroom: The Other Backup

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 25. August 2011 - 21:11

Everybody knows or should know by now that you should backup the catalog and the images to another drive, so if something happens, you can restore your Lightroom catalog.

If in your catalog settings, you have enabled to Automatically write changes into XMP, you should have both the photo and the XMP sidecar. The XMP sidecar has most of the data that is stored in the Lightroom database:

  • All the EXIF data about the camera/lens/photo
  • All the ABOUT data: that's the date/time, title description, location, IPTC…
  • All the CRS data: the Lightroom Develop module changes.

Lightroom: Finding Which Collection does this Photo Belongs To?

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 20. July 2011 - 13:22

Lightroom's strength is supposed to be its Digital Asset Management, meaning organizing and finding photos. The 2 basic ways of organizing the photos in Lightroom:

  1. Collections: either static or smart collections
  2. Keywords

Occasionally, I have a photo and need to know which collection it belongs to:

  1. Select the photo
  2. Right click on the photo for the pop-up menu
  3. Select Go to Collection

It will show all the static collections that the photo belongs to.

Lightroom: How To Find Virtual Copies

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 11. May 2011 - 8:57

Lightroom has the concept of virtual copies. If you want change a photo to Black and White, that photo will be in Black and White in all the collections. If you can to change a photo only in one collection then you can create a Virtual Copy.

What about the existing virtual copies? Where are they? You need a Smart Collection to find them. The problem is that Lightroom doesn't have a filter for the virtual copies.

Lightroom: Virtual Copies

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 11. May 2011 - 8:16

In Lightroom, you can very easily add photos to various collections, by just dragging and dropping the photos in the collections. The problem with that any change that you do to a photo is also done to the photo in all the other collections.

So if you change a photo to Black and White, that photo will be in Black and White in all collections. The solution is: Virtual Copy

The virtual copy allows Lightroom to deal with different processing for your taste.

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