Lightroom (catalog) and other questions

[IPT]

So, it finally happened. I have so many images spanning such a long period of time I am having trouble finding stuff. I am gonna finally use LR I bought a while ago and get some organization going on. a few questions for those of you who are familiar with it.

I plan on using an external 3TB HD. That will be the master. I'll only use that drive and then have a back up program to a second one that will update any files I change.

I also have two computers. One for internet that I use a lot, and one for pure editing. I hope to be able to swap the hard drive on and off each desktop and keep lightroom functioning the same on each. As long as I store the catalog on the external HD that should be no problem correct?

I want one catalog so if I search for a specific image it will scan all of them. I plan on having divisions within broken down into year, and then again into locations. Is there anyway to optomize this?

My beef with LR in the past (either 1 or 2, can't remember) was that it was so slow. I have well over 60,000 images and with the digital era this is growing rapidly. There is a small part of me feeling like I should have two catalogs. One with all images that are the top picks (say 4 and 5 star) and then a seperate catalog that has all the images (you know, the ones where the head is a slightly different angle, or the wave pattern captured is not as good as the 5 star, but you want to keep it because in 5 years that might appeal more to you).

So, aside from the specifics I posted above, if anyone has a any suggestions on how to get the best use from LR (especially when it comes to organization and maintaining speed) I am all ears.

One last thing, as of now I do all my editing in PS. This might change I guess as I use LR more. However, if I export from LR to PS to edit is there a way to save so LR still keeps all the tags and searchability for the images?

I know Doug is a big user so hopefully he'll chime in - but I expect a lot of people here use it so the more the merrier.

Some eye candy from a while back .

 

[Misled]

Just loaded it yesterday myself so I'm listening!!!!!

 

[BlueCorn]

You're making more work for yourself than you need to. Put them all in one catalog. The images can actually be on any number of drives, the catalog just stores metadata.

 

[Reef Bass]

Just picked up LR myself, so I'm tagging along. If the implementation of metadata is decent, one catalog should work, and an image could have multiple tags. Thus it could be part of "mooses / meese" and "my smokin' pics", for example.

 

[BlueCorn]

One last thing, as of now I do all my editing in PS. This might change I guess as I use LR more. However, if I export from LR to PS to edit is there a way to save so LR still keeps all the tags and searchability for the images?

Just saw this part.

If you use the program as it's intended, this isn't an issue; i.e. right click image in LR, and open in PS.

If you export, edit and then import, you'd loose your LR metadata.

 

[BlueCorn]

One last thing, as of now I do all my editing in PS. This might change I guess as I use LR more. However, if I export from LR to PS to edit is there a way to save so LR still keeps all the tags and searchability for the images?

Just saw this part.

If you use the program as it's intended, this isn't an issue; i.e. right click image in LR, and open in PS.

If you export, edit and then import, you'd loose your LR metadata.

 

[BeanAnimal]

The sidecar is really the only reason I have not adopted LR. With NX2 (as bad as it is in other aspects) the non-destructive changes and meta data are stored IN the RAW data and there is no sidecar. That means moving images from one folder or drive to another has no effect on meta data.

I keep trying LR but just don't like the fit (though I have not found anything that fits better either).

 

[BlueCorn]

The sidecar is really the only reason I have not adopted LR. With NX2 (as bad as it is in other aspects) the non-destructive changes and meta data are stored IN the RAW data and there is no sidecar. That means moving images from one folder or drive to another has no effect on meta data.

I keep trying LR but just don't like the fit (though I have not found anything that fits better either).

The reason NX2 can do that is the RAW file is proprietary. Abode has to reverse engineer the file to convert and use any proprieatary RAW file (Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc....). If the camera makers shared that information it would make everyone's lives simpler.

The solution is really simple. I convert to DNG during import. All my metadata lives in my 'master' file. No sidecar and complete portability and compatibility; no matter what OS, or application. Easy peasy, lemon squeeze.

Either that or just use LR to move the images. It's not LR that removes the metadata, its trying to move a file that's under LR control, outside of LR's scope.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I was aware of the proprietary RAW format and the fact that the vendors keep a tight lid on many of the format details. I think that is what makes it more frustrating, Nikon is very slow to develop their Capture NX product and at the same time does little to support 3rd party functionality.

Thank you for the insight on the DNG format, it is something I have been fully ignorant of.

I tried using both LR (V2) and NX in conjunction but ended up frustrated with the workflow. I will give LR another try with DNG files. Do you do any pre-processing before conversion to DNG?

 

[BlueCorn]

Nope. I just use the Convert to DNG import option. I trust it because I've been doing it for years, so I don't embed the original RAW but you have that option.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I am going to give it a try. My workflow is in limbo with years of images that continue to pile up with cryptic camera assigned file names and no identifying date other than the folder they are stored in.

I really like the idea of no sidecar! I see that I can get some of the NX control point functions with the Viveza plug-in.

 

[xtm]

I plan on using an external 3TB HD. That will be the master. I'll only use that drive and then have a back up program to a second one that will update any files I change.

I also have two computers. One for internet that I use a lot, and one for pure editing. I hope to be able to swap the hard drive on and off each desktop and keep lightroom functioning the same on each. As long as I store the catalog on the external HD that should be no problem correct?

Correct, but in my experience, the .lrcat runs way faster when it lives in your native drive (same drive where the OS resides). But to answer your question, yes you can put the .lrcat in your external drive, along with the photos and you can work on them on any computer.

I want one catalog so if I search for a specific image it will scan all of them. I plan on having divisions within broken down into year, and then again into locations. Is there anyway to optomize this?

You can definitely segregate photos into dates, and then use collections or smart collections to group them in categories.

My beef with LR in the past (either 1 or 2, can't remember) was that it was so slow. I have well over 60,000 images and with the digital era this is growing rapidly. There is a small part of me feeling like I should have two catalogs. One with all images that are the top picks (say 4 and 5 star) and then a seperate catalog that has all the images (you know, the ones where the head is a slightly different angle, or the wave pattern captured is not as good as the 5 star, but you want to keep it because in 5 years that might appeal more to you).

Not sure what platform you're on, but I could never get LR (2 and 3) to run fast on any Windows machine. If you're on OS X, make sure LR is running in 64-bit mode, as I found this to be faster than if it was running at 32. I have more than 200K images, and they are all being kept in one catalog with no issues. Unless you shoot for different clients, I would stick with one catalog.

So, aside from the specifics I posted above, if anyone has a any suggestions on how to get the best use from LR (especially when it comes to organization and maintaining speed) I am all ears.

Make sure you're running at 64-bit, and have plenty of RAM. Put your catalog file in your main drive if possible. Also another thing to note... when I was running dual displays, I realized that it ate up more memory compared to when I was only using one display. Shared video memory might have something to do with it.

One last thing, as of now I do all my editing in PS. This might change I guess as I use LR more. However, if I export from LR to PS to edit is there a way to save so LR still keeps all the tags and searchability for the images?

I'm pretty sure the tags are kept when you choose "Edit in Photoshop" photoshop opens up, you do your editing, and hit save. PS will save it as a TIF file, right next to your original file. As far as I can remember, it retains all the tags..... but even if it doesn't, you can simply use Sync.

 

[IPT]

Correct, but in my experience, the .lrcat runs way faster when it lives in your native drive (same drive where the OS resides). But to answer your question, yes you can put the .lrcat in your external drive, along with the photos and you can work on them on any computer.

.

Hm, I have 8GB or RAM (I'm pretty sure). I could run it off the internal drive and mirror it to the external. Then as long as I run the back up before I swap it to the other system I should be good.

Any good (free?) programs that you recommend to run backup? Especially something that will be able to scan and only change updated files (faster) rather than re-write everything?