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Confessions of a Lightroom Addict

I thought I’d share some of my Lightroom confessions in the hopes that I would either a) get a quick laugh from you as you realize you’re not the only one that does something odd in Lightroom or, b) undermine my professionalism and credibility by showing you some of the silly things I do. Make sure you leave a comment here if you have your own confession or just want to second your favorite of mine. Here goes:

1. Whenever I go into Photoshop I set the bit depth for 90% of my photos to 8 bit instead of 16 bit. Yes, I know I could easier call some of your first born ugly as opposed to choosing 8 bit but that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

2. I don’t keyword my photos nearly as much as I should. I mean, I know the benefits of keywording. I keyword about 80% of the photos I import into Lightroom. But that’s not enough because you can bet whenever I search for photos, the ones I want to find end up being part of the 20% that I didn’t keyword. It probably has something to do with that 80/20 rule thing.

3. I’ve accidentally synchronized the develop settings on ALL 480 photos in a folder (on more then one occasion). While the settings I used may have worked on a few photos, the majority look really bad with the same develop settings. The worst thing is, that sometimes I didn’t know I did it and I’d later look through my photos cursing myself, wondering how the heck I could be such a bad photographer.

4. I hate metadata. I’m sorry, I had to say it. I can’t stand it when I look at feature lists for Lightroom (or any other product for that matter) and I see anything with the word “metadata” listed as a feature. It’s important stuff, I know, but it’s also very boring. I just assume it should be there but don’t try to sell it to me as a feature.

5. I love the benefits of metadata. The Metadata panel rocks and the benefits of good metadata support is very important. That’s what makes me feel bad about the #4 confession above. It’s an inner struggle I deal with daily 😉

6. I add an edge darkening vignette to everything. I think it’s safe to say I’m addicted to the Lens Vignetting setting.

7. I avoid the slideshow module at all costs. If I’ve got a quick slideshow to show a friend or client near my computer then sure I’ll use it. If I’m presenting in front of a group I use Fotomagico on the mac. (iPhoto on the Mac or Slideshow Pro on the PC are really good too).

8. I NEVER EVER EVER EVER use Lightroom’s noise reduction feature. While we’re on the topic of things I never use, I don’t use the Camera Calibration and the Snapshots panels either. Oh and I rarely use anything other then the 3 contrast presets in the Tone Curve panel. Hey… this is confessions right. I’m just bein’ honest here.

9. I have 3 backups of all of my photos. However, I just realized that I only have 1 backup of my catalog. So if I’m so paranoid about losing my photos you’d think I would be just as paranoid about losing all of the work I’ve done to them right? Well I just realized as I wrote this that my Time Capsule (my backup drive for my mac) is the only backup I have of my Lightroom catalog. If something happened to it and my laptop (which are both in my house) then I’d be in trouble. That’s going to change today though, as I’ve started another Time Machine (the backup program on a Mac) backup at work.

10. I get upset every time I find myself constantly hitting D to go into the Develop module with a photo, then pressing G to quickly get back to the Library grid to pick another photo. Then pressing D again, and then G again, and so on. Truth be told, I guess I’m paranoid because I feel like I’m missing something because I never hear anyone else complain about this. So I quietly keep doing it.

11. I have WAY too many Develop presets. 156 to be exact. But I love ’em so I don’t see it changing anytime soon.

12. Since I’ve gotten Lightroom, I’ve found I get just a little ticked when I have to take a photo into Photoshop for further editing.

13. Unless a feature is so good I just can’t stand it, I typically wait about 1 week before installing Lightroom updates.

14. It bugs me a little when people don’t believe that I didn’t “Photoshop” a photo. I may have Lightroom’d it, but I didn’t Photoshop it. And so what if I did! 🙂

I hope you enjoyed my confessions and leave one of your own as a comment here. Whether you agree or have a totally different one, go ahead and let us know.

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