Lightroom Q&A Day
Hi everyone. Just got back from Photoshop World and I have lots of good questions that I got from the show to share with you. Let’s get started:
Q. Matt. Did you have a good time at Photoshop World and was there a lot of interest in Lightroom?A. Heck yeah to both questions! Photoshop World was awesome. Its one of the few times a year I get to get out and see the people that I work to train everyday. Thanks so much to everyone who came up and said hi. As for questions and interest in Lightroom, it was crazy. I know the name of the conference is Photoshop World but I’d say that 70% of the questions I got were about Lightroom. Great stuff though.
Q. Concerning the “Merging Catalogs” video you did last week, is LR smart enough to not duplicate the same RAW files once it merges the 2?A. Yes, Lightroom will not import if it detects duplicates. However its going to leave your library a mess. There’s really no magic bullet to rectify this situation other then good old hard work of you going through your photos and figuring it out yourself. Again, Lightroom will help alert you to duplicates but there’s a bigger problem here – you’ve set up your folders and catalogs so that the same photos exist in multiple places. No program is going to help you “fix” that per se. They’ll let you know you’ve done it but you have to fix it.
Q. Can you do a video on the easiest way to move photos from multiple hard drives to one in Lightroom? I have filled up several external drives and want to consolidate to a Drobo but don’t want to have Lightroom spend hours to create a new catalog if I just move the files outside of Lightroom?A. I’ll see if I can make a video out of it but here’s something to get you started. First, I did a video a while back on moving folders in Lightroom that kinda covers this but not totally. Next, try just moving them. Do all of the consolidation yourself. Then, since you’ll have inevitably broke the links to those photos when you open your catalog in Lightroom, just right click on the little folders with question marks (in the Folders panel in the Library module) and choose “Find Missing Folder”. Then point it to your new drive and everything will be good again.
Q. Can I export all my photos of the same catalog as JPEGs, but keep the same folder structure (basically I want to export the folders also not put them in just one folder)? A. Nope. Best you can do is put them all in a sub folder but they’re still going to be on the same level and not in a folder structure.
Q. Is it possible to use a Lightroom catalog made with the Mac version, with one made with the Windows version??A. Absolutely. It’ll work just fine.
That’s it for today. Have a good one!
Hi Matt,
Something came up on the NAPP Forum recently about the largest size image you can process in LR and Viveza2. Viveza2 is crashing when trying to edit the image out of LR. Can you help?
Thanks,
Don
Hi Matt,
Sorry for an offtopic. Please, could you tell about “Compare mode”? I am trying to learn it by myself and with first point of view this mode seems inconvenient to use in a while almost each day I have to compare hundreds of photos in develop mode jumping from one foto to neighbor.
Thanks a lot.
Anton
HI Matt,
Love your work!
I have a question about Lightroom. When editing an image in Photoshop from lightroom I choose a PSD file format at 300dpi (8bit). Photoshop CS3 cant read my original files from my Canon 5D Mark II (so this is how I edit my images in Photoshop). Is there a better way? I think the files that end up in Photoshop are smaller than my original files – how do I make them the same resolution that I originally shot? I hope this makes sense?
Thank you,
Nils.
Matt,
First of all, you’re doing some great work with Lightroom Killer Tips and Photoshop TV. I’ve learned lots from you. Keep it up!
I have a question that I haven’t found an answer to in this blog (and please correct me if I’m wrong).
I recently worked on keywording all my pictures. It took a really long time but I have one whole catalog (over 12,000 pictures) done. The thing that took the most time was creating my keywords and putting them in a structure that makes sense.
The issue is that I have two more catalogs and I’d like to use the same keyword structure from my main catalog. Is there a way to import the keyword list (including the hierarchy) from one catalog into another?
Thanks a lot!
Marc
Matt,
Keep up the good work…. Terrific info man….
Re the library topic. In the past I’ve outgrown my internal drive, then an external drive and I’m now on a disk array. To aid the transfer process I’ve always kept my drive mapping, on a PC, the same. i.e. My external drive was mapped to ‘P:’. When I upgraded to an array I just copied all my files across, unplugged my external P: drive and renamed my disk array to P:. LR didn’t even blink…
My number one tip for anyone setting up their catalogue and library structure is to think and develop a storage strategy for ‘tomorrow’. It arrives sooner than you think.
Jon C
CINDY,
I would just copy all your images (include the xmp side car files if your using raws, dng has the adjustments baked in) and as long as they are in the same subfolders and such as they are on your mac, you can re-import the main folder and sub folders in one import.
I recommend this direction because of the lightroom prefrences that are going to be different on your mac. Best to start fresh on a new system.
All the adjustments you made will be there if you include the XMP files and
the folders will be there as well.
you can copy your catalog and paste it into your new system also and load it, as long as the drive letter and file locations match what you have on your mac it should work also. but nothing beats a fresh import on a new system. lots of work I’m sure and if you have collections you will have to make em over.
Hey Matt, It will probably be awhile before you have another question answer, day, but here is my question. I have a MacBook pro laptop. Just got a PC desktop setup. I want to transfer all of my folders over to Lightroom. I keep regular backups. Can I just transfer my image folder on the Mac harddrive (users/csmith/pictures/photos) to the PC and then use a lightroom backup to load all settings? Or do I need to export/import all catalogs individually?
Perhaps also in the future, you could give a lesson on the correct way to use your back-up catalog when necessary.
Thanks again for such great information with open access,
Cindy
Hi Steven,
try making a collection of your selected RAW files
I would name it the shoot “RAWS” for quick finding later
Ron
How about the best way to filter only the RAW or only the JPEG versions when shooting/importing both? For example, I’ve imported, and I’m making my selections for retouching from the jpegs (faster previews and as visual reference). I have my preferences set to show jpegs alongside their raw counterpart. But once I make my picks, I want to view only the RAW versions for retouching…short of hand deleting all the jpegs, how can I filter them out so I don’t accidentally start working on a jpeg file.
Know what I mean?
Hi Matt,
Sorry for an offtopic. I tried to acces the video you talked about saying “I did a video a while back on moving folders in Lightroom “. But it shows WordPress error and says “You do not have permission to preview drafts.”.
Would you fix it for a new user like me 🙂 I follow your blog regularly
Thanks for being such a great help
Ether
Shane,
There may be a better way, but in this situation I usually apply keywords on import that fit the bulk of the images, and then once I’ve got all the images into the LR catalog, separate them into their own folders, and change the keywords for those images what needs changin’ from within the library module.
Jon
Hey Matt,
Loving your work here, but after a bit of searching there is one question that I have not seen addressed:
When I import to LR, Iregularly have multiple image sequences (kids’ birthday party followed by photos of the dog, followed by product shots. etc). I have yet to find a way that I can do one import sequence and add different keywords to a subset of the import.
The way I do this now is to select a group of images, set the keywords and import, then go back into the import module and import another subset of images from the memory card. This is pretty clunky.
Am I missing something? Is there an easy way to manage this in one import?
@Christer… I thought Adobe recently announced LR2.5 update. We probably won’t see anything really new until v3, perhaps next year?
Still works great, though. Cheers!
So there was not a single announcement regarding Lightroom from Photoshop World?
Amazing!
Adobe had absolutely nothing to report? Or am I missing something?
About LR2/TreeExporter too: I just used it to export some 15’000 DNGs as JPGs keeping the paths (Up to 4 levels deep). Takes a hell of a lot of time but works like a charm.
Just about to tip you off to LR2/TreeExporter too but Klaus beat me to it. 🙂
Keeping the same folder structure.
This should be possible with the “LR2/TreeExporter” plugin (i haven’t tried it):
http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/lr2treeexporter.php