Organizing Lightroom

[katrinak]

I am Myra because I don't want to switch back and forth. Performance seems okay at this point. I love how quickly I can just scan through and move it to PS.

I think ultimately I'll move older photos out of my main catalogue and just keep a few months at a time along with the digi products.

[KerryMac]

Ack! There are so many ways to do everything! I'm still not up to speed on LR, but I do really like it a lot.
I hadn't thought about using it for my digi supplies before this thread, so....thanks, Katrina!
I just need about 27 more hours in every day to apply everything you guys suggest.

[sam ellis]

oh wow --I use LR to a degree, but never thought of looking at my kits this way ...... yay its such fun !!!!

Question : Do you then save it say called KITS : and then u can call it up quickly.???? Ok u can now see i do editing in LR and thats about it !

[sam ellis]

ok I created a collection set. Is this the right way ? Man I am now talking to myself cos all of you are ASLEEP !!!!

[Myra]

I'm awake now Sam!

I like the idea of creating a second catalog for my older photos, but I don't want to lose keywords and edits. Do you know how to do that?

Sam, I'm still learning about the organizing features of LR, so I'm all ears. If we can figure out how to visualize PNGs in LR, it will be such an amazing system!

[katrinak]

Sam there really are about 50 ways it could be done. I've not created a collection yet, but it could definitely work that way. At this point I just have keywords like Digi and then colors or styles.

My stuff is just in the catalogue.

Myra, in LR you can choose File/Export As Catalogue and your edits/keywords should not be lost. Moving anything outside of LR is when things get lost/wonky.

[katrinak]

Okay looks like no support for pngs which is poopy, but I can see the previews and then quickly search with the right name in Finder. It looks like Adobe has no plan of supporting png and it is a bit of a sticking spot for a lot of people. Aperture does support png which intrigues me...but I can't get involved in another program I'd feel like I was cheating on LR!

[Carol Elliott]

I have lightroom, but havne't used it much (need to get up to speed on it). I've started tagging all my digital supplies in bridge. Before I continue, which would be better to use ... bridge or LR?

[katrinak]

I'm going with LR Carol, just my personal preference. Bridge always frustrated me.

[hguenthe]

Katrina, do you know if LR is able to read metadata from files in terms of pulling in tags/keywords?

Carol, if LR can read in the metadata which I would think it should be able to do, continuing tagging in Bridge wouldn't be a lost cause. A feature of how Bridge does its keywording/tagging is that those keywords/tags are now written to the actual file instead of a separate database so that other programs which can read metadata can pull in that information without having to redo it. It becomes part of the file not part of the program you are using's database.

[anke]

I must be a blockhead because I only understand a fraction of what you guys are saying! I haven't used LR to organize or tag anything, not even my photos
I did download ECDSee Beta and it was sooo nice to see something familiar on my new Mac! I almost felt like I was home just being able to look at supplies the way I was used to

[katrinak]

Originally Posted by hguenthe

Katrina, do you know if LR is able to read metadata from files in terms of pulling in tags/keywords?

Carol, if LR can read in the metadata which I would think it should be able to do, continuing tagging in Bridge wouldn't be a lost cause. A feature of how Bridge does its keywording/tagging is that those keywords/tags are now written to the actual file instead of a separate database so that other programs which can read metadata can pull in that information without having to redo it. It becomes part of the file not part of the program you are using's database.

I'm almost certain when you import it gives you an option to pull the keywords. I'd need to double check. Off to make fried green tomatoes Be back soon!

[Aino]

You guys are so talking above my head....
First. I have never tagged anything in my whole life. And I don't think I am about to do it either.
Second. I love the idea to use LR for looking up scrapbook items tough. Too bad about the png.
Third. When I scrap I kinda know my supplies pretty well and go get them in their folders. I use bridge and am OK with it.

Fourth. This is fascinating. Let us know how it's workin for ya, Katrina. I might change my mind on the tagging issue. If I knew what it would do for me.....

[katrinak]

Aino you are so missing out on tagging! I tag all of my photos so if I want to see all photos of beer I can search BEER and bammm every beer I've ever shot Ian and Shea are popular tags as well

[AllynD]

I hate tagging, though. Hate it. I am going to read through this thread carefully, to see if I should do this. I probably won't do it anyway. Life is too short to tag scrapbooking supplies.

[kdif]

Katrina,
Definitely interesting thread. I have been using LR for years now and the more I use it the more I discover to love about it. My only hesitation about using it for scrap items is that I have found it to be a bit slow on opening things up in PS. I usually do all of my processing of pics in LR and then export them to a file on my desktop to scrap with in PS. I found that a lot faster than opening them directly from LR. But with digital items I think I would want to open them directly from LR into PS. Do you find it a bit slow? Do you open them directly into PS or do the work around as I mentioned?

By the way, the sync function for bulk processing/tagging absolutely rocks!

[katrinak]

I haven't found it to be slow. (of course because I just said that it will probably be next time I open it )

And as for my scrap supplies, I can drag and drop them from LR Library right into PS. Quick and easy!

[farabee]

Okay, what have I missed? What is this "sync function for bulk processing" that kdif mentioned?

[katrinak]

Library Mode
Right hand side bottom
Edit a photo
Select photos to "synch"
Press synch
Bam...edits applied to all

[kdif]

Like Katrina said, "bam!". If you have a bunch of photos that all have the same problem. . .maybe a bit of dust on your sensor that shows up on every picture you took. .. or the same color corrections needed, then you make sure you are in the library mode and do the correction on the first photo and select the other photos that need the same correction and press "sync" and voila all of your other photos have the same correction.

It took me awhile to figure out that I had to be in library mode to make this work. If you are in the develop mode you can copy your corrections from one photo and then "paste" them into another photo but you can't do multiple corrections except in the library mode.

You can see how you could sync metadata for your keywording too.

Katrina, I read how you said "drag and drop" into PS. I always did the commands to open files in PS and never even thought of dragging and dropping. Maybe it's faster that way. I didn't know you could do that.

[katrinak]

I didn't know you could either, one day I just tried it and it worked! You don't want to try it with photos you've made edits too as the edits won't follow.

[kdif]

Hi Katrina or anyone else,

I just thought I would bump this thread back again to see if anyone has any more thoughts about using LR as your digital organization tool. I'm thinking about taking the leap and transferring my stash over into LR but wondered about the size of my catalog. I already have 11,280 pics in LR and if I add all of my scrapbook goodies (esp including all the stuff from yesterday's wonderful chats and shopping) I can't even imagine the size of the catalog. Katrina, I know you mentioned you liked to have it all on one catalog so you could view it all at once. I guess it would be impossible to have two catalogs working at the same time? Could you just have two windows open (one with one catalog and the other with the digital catalog)?

Also I tried the "drag and drop" method Katrina was mentioned before, of just dragging pic from LR into PS and I couldn't get it to work for me.
Were you in the Develop Mode or Grid? Did you drag from filmstrip or the loupe?

Anyway, just wanted to see what else people may have done with this whole topic as I think it is a brilliant idea!

[katrinak]

Glad you bumped this!

Can you have two catalogs open at once - I don't know a way this can be done. You would need to have two copies of Lightroom running and I don't think that is possible. I currently am working with a catalog containing 22,293 photos and am not seeing any performance issues. (of course, now that I've said that, it will crash ) Since it is pointing to the photos and not really managing that number I think you can go big. (I need to confirm that with the experts though)

Drag & Drop Method - It works in the Library Mode in both loop and zoom view from either location. I'm working on a Mac, but I don't think that should change the drag & drop on a PC

I hope this helps!

[quilter422]

thank you for bumping this thread, kdif.

I have about 50k digi items all cataloged in PSE Organizer. They are extensively tagged. Apart from not being able to see .png files in Lightroom, does anyone know if the Organizer tag metadata would transfer to Lightroom? There is no way on God's green earth that I'm retagging everything.

[angie wags]

Yay for the bump. I don't have the time to think about organizing my scrap supplies this way, but I am so excited to learn about the sync!!!! Thanks!

[cheska99]

Those of you using LR to organize your digi supplies: I tried that last week in my furious attempts to get away from Bridge (which is so undersupported and undocumented that if you ever lose your keyword list, no one in the whole wide world has a clear explanation of how to rebuild it), but I found--and confirmed--that LR doesn't recognize .png files and that Adobe has no plans to include .pngs in the LR 3 that they is currently in beta. This made it absolutely useless for me as my .pngs are really important for my scrapbooking. Now please tell me--was I wrong? Because I went out and bought ACDSee finally even though I own Bridge and LR because it's the only program that would see my .pngs and .abrs. And I would rather have spent that money in the DD sale if I didn't have to buy ACDSee!

[kdif]

Cheska,
I feel your pain. I am on the fence about acdc. I just don't want another program but the fact that it makes pngs and abr viewable is great. Originally all of my digital stash is on shoebox. I know so many people have had problems with it, but I able to keep my working ok by doing cmd-s everytime I tag a new group. The thought of retagging my huge supply stash is what is keeping me from buying acdc. I just can't face doing it.

I am a huge fan of LR and use it almost exclusively for my photo processing. I could see myself eventually using it to tag my dig. supplies. Someone mentioned yesterday about a program for macs that views abrs called photo pilot (??not sure about the name). It costs $12 and lets you see your abr on a mac. I may look into that.

Katrina, have you used the web module much? I have a mac account and would love to figure out how to use the web galleries from LR aND upload them to my mac account. Unfortunately .mac is interfaced to work with iweb, so I haven't really figured out the work around. I've read up on it online but wondered if you have done it.

[katrinak]

I don't use the web module much. I've played with it but not enough to be of help! I stick with the Library/Develop/Print

[iUma]

I just used the web module in the LR Beta 3 to upload to our Flickr site. Sweet, easy, quick. LOVE THAT!

[anke]

did you guys ever try Picasa to organize your digi stuff? It seems really easy and it's free and it works on Macs