Alan321
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 p.1 #5 · Make Folders In Lightroom Mimic Folders On Hard Drive | |
ohsnaphappy wrote:
Please help, I can't figure this out and I know there must be a simple solution. I have a dedicated folder system that I've always used. I want those folders to appear in LR3 exactly like they appear on my hard drive.
Be careful what you wish for in case you get it.
At first Lr will display in the left hand panel any folders that it knows to contain images that have already been imported but it sorts them alphabetically or whatever without what looks like the correct structure that you find on the hard drive. The problem is partly that Lr does not show the empty folders and partly that it does not show the parent folders of the folders that do contain images. To get around this limitation first backup your catalog in case you mess up what follows because the only way to undo it seems to be to revert to an old catalog. Then right click on one of the folders that you know should have a parent folder and click on Add Parent Folder. The parent folder will appear in the list (sorted correctly) and the present folder will appear under it. Other sister folders might also be rearranged so that they too appear under the parent folder. You can process all of your orphaned folders this way. The risk is that if you go too far then you cannot hide parent folders and your folder list is then stuck with any excess folder levels. That doesn't break Lr in any way but it pushes the names of the image folders too far to the right and they don't get displayed unless you widen the left panel, which then reduces the image display area.
If you have an folder called "photos", for example, and under that is a whole structure of image-bearing folders then you can display that structure as I just described. But what if there are say six folder levels above "photos" that you don't want to see ? Once they're shown you are stuck with them unless you revert to a previously saved catalog that did not show them. You can make extra backups of the catalog as you progress just in case.
Also, when I create an image in LR3 I want it to appear on my hard drive in Finder.
This is automatic. So long as the correct folder structure is being displayed you should have no trouble seeing it in Finder - but be aware that Lr and Finder (which is effectively Windows Explorer, for the non-Mac readers) may be sorting the files differently and a file that is there may be found in a different sequence.
I also need images I star in LR to retain that star so that they display properly in Bridge.
Someone else told you how to that using the XMP files. Personally I don't like using the xmp files because it slows things down and not all other software keeps the xmp files with the corresponding image files. I just rely on my Lr catalog to hold the metadata and edits, and I keep it backed up often. However, I do not use Bridge.
Basically, I want LR3 to operate like Bridge, where everything happens in real time. For example, I add an image to a folder in Finder and I want to instantly see it in LR.
Here the trouble is that Lr is not like Bridge. In many ways that's a good thing too. Bridge has to look at the folder to find changes every time you use it. Lr already knows what it has changed because that info is in its catalog database - no searching required. If you use an external editor to create or delete files then Lr has to be told to synchronize folders but it may not know what changes are made to edited files. It can be told to synchronize metadata too but that can also slow things down. And it may have conflicting changes - some made in Lr and some made outside Lr, but which does it keep ? It will choose one lot or the other but will not take image changes from one program and keyword changes from another, for example.
This is important because we have multiple people working on multiple computers and we need everything to look the same to everybody in real time. I mean when we star something in Bridge, and import it to LR the image retains the star. But right now, when we star something in LR and open it in Bridge later the image is no longer starred.
I don't know how this can work safely. Lr is not a multi-user database, is it ? You want a single change in a single Lr catalog to be reflected in the Bridge used on different computers. Those users may have opened Bridge at different times and the data will not be updated in real time but when the user refreshes it. I'm pretty sure that you can't all be using the same files at the same time - or at least not writing to them at the same time. Even if you could there is scope for access conflicts that could result in lost data.
I don't profess to be an expert on multi-user network access with Lr, but I raise these issues so that you have something to think about and follow up on.
- Alan
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