Lightroom 3

Von Luck

Von Luck

Von Luck

Soldato
Joined
24 Nov 2005
Posts
2,508
Oh....my....god. How awesome is LR3? Just started using it and after being a bit overwhelmed I've watched the beginners videos on adobe.com and wow, fantastic.

It's already knocked two separate software packages/steps out of my workflow (renaming based on creation date & tagging) and I've only scraped the surface

Don't know if anyone can help with a couple of newbie questions:

1. It's located my catalogue in c:\users\name by default. I prefer to keep all useful data on a separate partition - is it possible to move the catalogue or do I need to recreate it?

2. I've only just started using RAW files and can't decide if I should retain both the RAW version of a picture plus the processed jpeg, or just keep the jpeg. The amount of space consumed by the RAWs is making me lean towards deleting them. What does everyone else do?

3. Oh and does anyone know where it sticks catalogue backups?

Thanks!
 
Von Luck said:
Oh....my....god. How awesome is LR3? Just started using it and after being a bit overwhelmed I've watched the beginners videos on adobe.com and wow, fantastic.

It's already knocked two separate software packages/steps out of my workflow (renaming based on creation date & tagging) and I've only scraped the surface

Don't know if anyone can help with a couple of newbie questions:

1. It's located my catalogue in c:\users\name by default. I prefer to keep all useful data on a separate partition - is it possible to move the catalogue or do I need to recreate it?

2. I've only just started using RAW files and can't decide if I should retain both the RAW version of a picture plus the processed jpeg, or just keep the jpeg. The amount of space consumed by the RAWs is making me lean towards deleting them. What does everyone else do?

3. Oh and does anyone know where it sticks catalogue backups?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Hi, im relitevely new to Lightroom too so cant really help with your catalogue questions however, if I were you I'd not shoot in RAW + jPEG. Seeing as lightroom has its own viewer etc, there is no need for jpeg's. Its just using wasted space which you will have to end up manually deleting. Just shoot RAW. :)
 
Von Luck said:
1. It's located my catalogue in c:\users\name by default. I prefer to keep all useful data on a separate partition - is it possible to move the catalogue or do I need to recreate it?

2. I've only just started using RAW files and can't decide if I should retain both the RAW version of a picture plus the processed jpeg, or just keep the jpeg. The amount of space consumed by the RAWs is making me lean towards deleting them. What does everyone else do?

3. Oh and does anyone know where it sticks catalogue backups?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

1. lightroom has a built in catalogue backup which should auto-run every week. you might have to enable it in preferences and you can set it to backup to an external drive

2. keep RAW files, they are your digital negatives, you don't need to keep the jpegs as lightroom retains all the changes itself.

3.where you tell it to in prefs
 
You can move the catalogue to wherever you want (except onto a network drive) and just double click it to open it and then select 'open this catalogue' when starting lightroom

Keep the RAW files, don't keep the jpegs. You can just 'export' to creat a new jpeg whenever you want, or print, based on the adjustments saved with the RAW (Also, you can create virtual copies so you can have several versions of the same image - this takes up virtually no more space as all you are doing is creating another set of adjustments for the same RAW file. If you delete the RAW you are severely limiting any change of mind later on. Hard disk space is cheap.

Look in preferences and it will tell you where the backup is being saved. You can change this to wherever you want. You can also change how often backups are made. I have mine set to every time Lightroom closes - you can always click skip if you want. Don't forget to delete backups every so often.

... and yes, it is a great programme, don't know why the whole world isn't using it. I can pretty much guarantee that you will be discovering amazing things that it can do for months to come.

Try here: http://lightroomkillertips.com/

and here:http://www.lightroomqueen.com/lrqshortcuts.php
 
Excellent, thanks. I'd managed to move the catalogue but was confused by the Backups - the location wasn't shown anywhere. Turns out that as the backup hadn't yet run, I hadn't seen the dialogue showing the location, all now sorted.

It's a very different way of working with images when you're used to a point and shoot + jpegs.

Am I right in saying that all the work done in Lightroom post-processing images doesn't actually modify the content of the RAW files at all? Instead the catalogue keeps details of all the changes applied to a specific image and re-applys them each time you view the image?
 
Correct :)

You can even make 'virtual copies' of a RAW file where it seems you have two seperate images you can edit, but they all come from the one RAW.
 
Von Luck said:
Am I right in saying that all the work done in Lightroom post-processing images doesn't actually modify the content of the RAW files at all? Instead the catalogue keeps details of all the changes applied to a specific image and re-applys them each time you view the image?
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Also, for safety sake, I would suggest setting lightroom to write your changes/settings to .xmp sidecar files. Edit > Catalog Settings > Metadata. By default, this switch is off and all settings are just saved in the Lightroom catalogue. By switching on, all your changes are also saved in a sidecar file, so if you do lose your catalalogue for any reason you still have your settings and these can always be moved with the image. Each file is roughly 10kb so no biggy as far as space is concerned.
 
mhk1058 said:
Absolutely. Also, for safety sake, I would suggest setting lightroom to write your changes/settings to .xmp sidecar files. Edit > Catalog Settings > Metadata. By default, this switch is off and all settings are just saved in the Lightroom catalogue. By switching on, all your changes are also saved in a sidecar file, so if you do lose your catalalogue for any reason you still have your settings and these can always be moved with the image. Each file is roughly 10kb so no biggy as far as space is concerned.
Click to expand...

That's interesting - I don't have LR setup to produce the sidecar files currently, I quite like that it's 'clean' without them. Do many people use this function? I guess I'm trying to gauge whether the additional safety is worth the extra clutter with files. I see advantages and disadvantages and need to weigh up the decision. Has anyone actually had a problem with LR catalogues corrupting? I assume it's a rare occurrence.
 
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I've had a corrupted catalogue on a few occasions, usually due to computer crash. I backup regularly so no great shakes but you still lose adjustments made since last backup - with a sidecar file changes are written on the fly to this as well as the catalogue. If you have to revert to a backup, Lightroom recognises there is a mismatch and asks you which settings you want and you can just update the catalogue from the .xmp.

This article may help your decision:

http://thelightroomlab.com/2009/05/the-mega-important-automatically-write-changes-into-xmp-switch/
 
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mhk1058 said:
Absolutely. Also, for safety sake, I would suggest setting lightroom to write your changes/settings to .xmp sidecar files. Edit > Catalog Settings > Metadata. By default, this switch is off and all settings are just saved in the Lightroom catalogue. By switching on, all your changes are also saved in a sidecar file, so if you do lose your catalalogue for any reason you still have your settings and these can always be moved with the image. Each file is roughly 10kb so no biggy as far as space is concerned.
Click to expand...


+ 1.....Wise words !


Regards Simon
 
Im trying to find the massive lightroom presets file i downloaded from here a while ago. ive just formatted and would really like it back.

Can anyone point me in the right direction ?
 
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