sevan pulurian
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splathrop wrote:
I just bought Lightroom 3, hoping to make order out of chaos. I have an existing collection of images, maybe 80,000 or so, some on line, some on drives sitting on shelves, etc. The important stuff is compulsively (but somewhat chaotically) backed up, with some backup images that have been subsequently edited sprinkled on offline drives. There are many duplicates and near duplicates in the collection.
Here are some questions:
1. I assume there are possible mistakes, chances to create rework, maybe lose images, and general opportunities to create "Gee, I wish I had done that differently..." situations. Does anyone know of notable things to avoid when undertaking a project like this one with Lightroom.
2. Can someone discuss the differences between catalogs and collections?
3. I have Scott Kelby's book, which looks pretty good, but I might like to complement it with another, if anyone has suggestions. Something with better organized advice than Kelby provides on structuring image collections might be helpful. He probably has everything in there, but the view from 10,000 feet seems lacking.
4. Early in the book, Kelby seems to recommend converting RAW images to DNG, for space savings and more efficient metadata handling, but the rest of the book seems not to mention DNG much. The examples generally assume RAW, JPEG, and TIFF. Can you use a DNG exactly as if it were a RAW file? Any cautions?
Any other input would be welcome. Thanks to all.
Yikes!!!
1. Pre plan how you want to have your images catalogs, meaning by location or shoot description, then with in that by date, client name etc. Use whatever system works best for you. My way of organizing my images might not work for you, so pick what’s suites your needs and organize by that.
2. Catalogs, you can have multiple of a single catalog in LR. For example I shoot wildlife, motorsports and events. Now I have a catalog for all my birding and wildlife images, then one for all my motorsports images and one for all my event images. Default for LR3 is Lightroom 3 catalog. No you can create new catalogs, and create as many as you want. I would not create a new catalog for every client if you do weddings or model shoots, just create a single catalog for weddings and so on. Now once you create a catalog and import all the images pertaining to that catalog you will only see those images when you open that catalog only, they will not show up in any other catalog. Within catalogs you can have your clients or subjects organized in folders and those are organized by drives, so you might want to have all your images in one location on a single drives and back up that drive as usual. Also backing up catalogs is a good thing as well. I would also relocate you LR catalogs to another location then what LR defaults them to. I have all my images and LR catalogs and back up on to a single drive dedicated only for LR and my images and back-up that drive to another so all my images and LR stuff is together.
Now, collections. When you are in any module in LR in the upper right corner of any image, you will see a little circle. Starts off clear with a dotted circle around it, if you click on it will turn grey with a black outer circle. When you do this it will put that image into a quick collection, you can but as many images in a collection as you want, and for example you are going through all your images of 2011 and want to make a best of 2011 collection. You simply go through your images and click the circle on all the images you want to put into that collection, then in the library module you will see a catalog section right under the navigator. In there you will see quick collection but you have to right click on it and say save as target collection or you won’t see images added to it. Once you have all the images in the collection right click on quick collection and then save quick collection, this will pop up a window and you save it as best of 2011 or whatever you want to call it, then you can have it clear the se quick selection once it saves it or not, don’t worry this will only clear the quick collection once the images are set into the collection you just created. Once you save, you will see your saved collection under the collections tab on the left side. Now your images are still in the original location on the HDD abut in LR you just created a separate collection. It basically means what it says it’s a collection of images and nothing else. You can right click on that collection and export it as a catalog and a lot more just try it out.
3. As per the Kelby book or any books at that, that are good but a waste of money IMHO! I bought the first LR and Kelbys book and look at the book once or twice then it sat on the shelf from then on, Google is your best friend of as on the forums, free advice is always good. There are plenty of extremely helpful videos on you tube and what not and much clearer at that.
4. I never use DNG, just import my CR2(RAW) files as they are then edit in Photoshop as needed, if you are worried about space you better start buying HDD’s cause that all photography takes up is SPACE and lots of it. I don’t know a lot about DNG so I can’t say if you can use it the same as a raw file.
Don’t forget you can sort you images by Metadata in the library mode. Press the \ key on a PC should be the same on a MAC and in the library mode (G) it will toggle the Library Filter, from there you can sort by lens, focal length in specific, date taken, camera body , f-stop, iso speed etc and by hovering the mouse just to the right of of the description you will drop down another window that has a lot mof other ways you can sort your images by. Also you can click on all photographs in the catalog section and search all you photographs in the library module by metadata as well of individual folders also. LR is capable of a lot of cataloging and sorting out you just need to understand how to use it.
Also tag your photos at the beginning of your work flow so you don't have to go back like I did and tag all 100k images. FML!!!
Hope this helps.
Sevan 
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