29
Video – Importing the Exports
Happy video day. This one comes directly from a question I got earlier this week and a question that I get every single time I teach Lightroom. It has to do with what you do with the photos you export from Lightroom (using File > Export). Lightroom 2 beta actually has a new feature that deals with this but let’s face it – it’s not ready for prime-time production work and I strictly use it for “Play” purposes as I know most of you do too. So what about Lightroom 1? How do you manage the photos that you’ve exported for a client if, say, you need to keep track of them? Well I’ve got a solution in this video.
Click here to watch the video. (16Mb)
Oh yeah, make sure you listen to the end where I pose a question about if/how/why you do this and post a comment here on the blog. Thanks!
No Comments to “Video – Importing the Exports”
Leave a comment
Lightroom Killer Tips
Get your weekly dose of the coolest Adobe® Lightroom® tutorials, tips, time-saving shortcuts, photographic inspiration, and undocumented tricks with Matt Kloskowski from Kelby Media Sites
You can also set up an auto-import watch folder, and use it as the export folder. Then the photos are automatically re-imported, and you have the option when setting up the watch folder of assigning metadata to the imported photos. In this case, “delivered”, “exports”, “processed” etc..
I don’t do this though, I use a parallel derivative folder structure.
As to why.. I do this when I take a shooting job at a lower rate, in exchange for not doing editing work. I use the auto-imports + LRG FSS select web module to create a simple web based client selection system. The #1 reason is because clients are ALWAYS losing the original shots, and asking me to resend them. The shots that I re-import frequently have some post, spotting, skin-shine, panos, skin softening, not even mentioning set problems like scrapes on walls, seams in floor panels, etc.. that I really don’t want to do again.
Other uses:
I manage the photos on some peoples sites, and use the exports as my pool of photos to upload, to keep fresh content, without waiting for processing.
I might bulk export a variety of “styles”, and review them to see what I like best.
etc.. etc..
This is a pretty old post, so I’m not sure if comments are still being monitored, but here goes…
While I like Matt’s idea, it doesn’t always work for me.
For starters, a single RAW/DNG can result in *multiple* exports (e.g. a low quality JPG for email and a high quality JPG for SmugMug). Also, I may put want to put copies of an exported JPG into “special” directories (screen saver, school projects, for syncing to a photo frame memory card, etc.) So I don’t just have a single export of an image, I have multiple exports that reside in multiple directories.
So what I’ve had happen is I realized in Lightroom (my “master” collection) that I used the wrong keyword on an image or decided to tweak develop settings or whatever. After I make the change in Lightroom, the question becomes how to keep *all* the derivative images in sync?
Ideally, Lightroom would keep track of every export you did – what were the settings, where was it exported to, etc. – and have a “Sync Exports” button that would re-export your current image to all your derivatives using the original export settings.
But it can’t (at least not in my 1.3 version).
My solution is to use LR to store my master images, but use Picasa to watch my exported folder and its subfolders.
Picasa will automatically watch for updated images, and update its catalog immediately.
If you tell LR to monitor/watch a directory, it will, but will only import when it finds a file. Not what I need.
I could create a catalog pointed to my export directory, and manually do a “Sync”… that works but a) it’s manual, and b) it’s SLLOOOOOWWWWWW……
I hate that my freebie Google Picasa can do things my fancy, expensive Lightroom can’t, but I can’t find any workable solution in LR.