Tim Armes has just released an update to his LR/Transporter Lightroom plug-in. This is hot off the press – it’s not even documented yet.

The new feature is for Lightroom 2 only. Many online ordering cart systems will provide a text file with a list of the files that the customer has chosen. Particularly for large orders like weddings, it can take a long time to manually select all of the images in Lightroom ready for ordering – but no more! LR/Transporter will now read that text file and mark the files for you.

To use:
Download LR/Transporter http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/lrtransporter.php A trial version is available to see how it works, and it’s well worth a donation to unlock it.

Installation instructions are here: http://www.timothyarmes.com/lrtransporter.php?sec=install

As with any plug-in that modifies the catalog, make sure your backups are current.

Open your catalog and select the files from the wedding in question.

Go to Library menu > Plug-in Extras > Mark Images using LR/Transporter

In the dialog, navigate to the text file containing the list. It just needs to be a basic text file, with 1 filename per line, and nothing else. (It’s also possible to use CSV files using the Import Metadata using LR/Transporter).

Choose the options you want – the examples below show which filenames will be matched as you change the dropdown lists.

Press OK, and the matching images will be marked.

To find and filter those images, select the Metadata filters from the Filter Bar and select Marked by LR/Transporter in one column. Your options will be Yes or No – yes being the ones that matched the text list.

[Warning - this is quite long. I had originally intended to split it over a number of blog posts, but it'll be easier to reference as one post.]

Who has never said “hurry up Lightroom”?  Speed is one of the most popular feature requests from Lightroom users everywhere, and no doubt the engineers will continue working on Lightroom’s performance over time, but for now, there are plenty of things you can do yourself.  Some are obvious, some not so…

Speed Tips in Library module
There’s a big difference between rendering previews that have never been built or that need updating, and loading those ready-built previews from disc.  How can you tell the difference?  The overlay in Loupe view will tell you exactly what it’s doing – and therefore what you can do to help.

“Rendering Preview…” means it’s rendering a preview for the first time – and you’re having to wait for it!  You could set Lightroom rendering the previews when it imports, by selecting your chosen preview size in the import dialog – it’ll slow you down initially but once it finishes rendering, it’ll be much quicker.  For files that are already in your catalog, select them all in Grid view and go to Library menu > Previews > Render Standard Previews or Render 1:1 Previews, and go off and leave it until it’s finished.  It’ll skip any that already have current previews, and you’ll find browsing much quicker when it’s finished.

So what size previews should you render?  If you want to quickly zoom into 1:1 view in the Library module (not Develop), then it’s a no-brainer – render 1:1 previews rather than Standard-Sized previews, either in the Import dialog or using the menu command noted above.  On the other hand, if you rarely zoom in Library module, you’re better off using Standard-Sized previews, as they’ll take up less disc space and be quicker to read from the cache.

If you see the “Rendering: Higher Quality…” overlay, it means the existing preview is too small or too low quality.   If you’re seeing that overlay in Fit or Fill view, you’ll want to reconsider your Standard preview size.  You’ll find those settings in the Catalog Settings dialog under the Edit menu (Windows) / Lightroom menu (Mac).  Generally speaking the Medium quality setting is fine, but you may decide to increase the Standard preview size from 1440 to a larger size if you have a high resolution screen and regularly see the “Rendering: Higher Quality…” overlay.

“Rendering: File Changed…” means, well, that’s the file’s changed since the preview was created.  That could mean that you’ve made changes in the Develop module, using the Quick Develop panel, or by applying a preset.  Using the Render Standard Preview menu command to update those previews while you do something else will speed up your browsing.

“Loading from Previews…” is the overlay you’re aiming for – that means your existing preview is being loaded from the preview cache, which is the quickest option.

Speed Tips in Develop module (or making Quick Develop changes in Library)

First, you need to understand the difference between Library module and Develop module.  Library shows you lower quality previews from the previews cache.  Develop, on the other hand, assumes you need an accurate view, so it first shows you the preview from the preview cache, then does a quick read of the raw file, frees up the sliders for you to start working, and then finishes loading properly, before it turns off the “Loading…” overlay.  You don’t have to wait for the overlay to disappear before starting work on the image – and if you find it distracting, you can turn it off in the View menu > View Options > Loupe panel > ‘Show message when loading or rendering photos’.

That’s all well and good, but that’s still a lot of raw data to load and process each time you switch images.  Have you ever noticed, though, that when you adjust a file in Develop, move to another image, and then come back to that first image again, it loads much quicker than it did the first time?  That’s where the Camera Raw cache, also known as the ACR cache, comes in.  When Lightroom reads the data the first time, it adds it into the shared Camera Raw cache.  When you load that image into Develop module, where possible, it will load that cached data, which is much quicker than reading and processing the original raw file data.

By default, that Camera Raw cache is only 1gb in size, and when new data gets added, the oldest data is removed.  With only 1gb of space, that happens quite quickly, so you’re not seeing the benefit.  If you go to Lightroom’s Preferences dialog, and look in the File Handling tab, you can change the cache size to suit – up to a maximum of 50gb.  Bigger is better!  You can also change the location if you wish to – but make sure it’s on a fast hard drive.

Once that data is cached, it’s much faster moving between images in the Develop modules – almost instantaneous on high end machines.  Of course, that is only helpful when Lightroom has recently read the raw file, and added it to the cache – and there isn’t currently a menu command to pre-load the Camera Raw cache.  All is not lost!

There’s a trick to pre-loading the Camera Raw cache – in addition to actually viewing the image in Develop module, there’s another obvious time when Lightroom has to read (and therefore caches) the raw data – namely, when rendering previews.  If you haven’t already rendered previews for your files, simply using the Library menu > Render Standard-Sized Previews command will do the trick.  If, however, you already have current previews, you can force them to re-render by making a minor or reversible change to the images (i.e. by using a Quick Develop button) and then using the Render Standard-Sized Previews menu command.  Leave it to finish, and by the time you come back, even the Develop module should be moving through the images at a much more comfortable speed.

Dispelling the Catalog Myths

It’s true that large catalogs can be a little slower than small catalogs – but we are talking BIG catalogs.  It’s not generally a good reason (any more) to split your library into 300 different catalogs – that just defeats the object of having a DAM system like Lightroom.

If you find Lightroom is feeling a little sluggish, find the Catalog Settings dialog under the Edit menu (Windows) / Lightroom menu (Mac), and press the “Relaunch and Optimize” button to perform database optimization.  It’s worth doing regularly, and any time you make significant database changes like importing or removing large numbers of files.

Finally, Hardware Tips & OS Tweaks
There is no question, Lightroom loves good hardware, but it can still run nicely on older systems too.  Do make sure you’re running the latest Lightroom release (currently 2.3) as performance improvements have been made to each release.

The system requirements are listed as Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent (i.e. a processor with the SSE2 instruction set or later), with 1gb of RAM and 1gb of hard drive space.   Now let’s be clear – those are minimum system requirements.  It’ll run – well, it’ll walk!  But if you start trying to feed 5d Mk2 files into Lightroom with a computer that was in the Ark, don’t expect it to be fast, and don’t complain about the speed.  If you’re going to spend money on the latest and greatest cameras, bear in mind that your computer hardware may also require a helping hand with those new super-size files.  Yes, even those sRAW files. 

If you’re working with existing hardware on Windows, check your graphics card.  You don’t need a heavy-duty graphics card to run Lightroom, but you will benefit from the latest drivers that are available from the graphics card manufacturers.  If you haven’t checked recently, that’s your first port of call for a free and easy performance fix.

Next, if you have an nVidia graphics card (Windows again), a quick Google will bring up numerous pages of tweaks which can make a massive difference to Lightroom’s speed, particularly for sticky sliders, slow preview refreshes, and Adjustment Brush problems.  Most notably, disable the nView software which is installed along with nVidia drivers, as there are known conflicts.  Other nVidia tips can be found on these posts:
http://www.thejohnsonblog.com/2008/09/06/lightroom-2-and-nvidia-performance/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/adobe_lightroom/discuss/72157607074073712/

Hard drives are another obvious place to look.  For a start, you’ll want plenty of space on your hard drives, particularly the boot drive, as your computer will get slower as you start to run out of space.  If you’re on Windows, defragment your hard drives regularly too.

Hard drive connections can also slow down Lightroom, due to the amount of data transfer when working with large files.  Internal drives will usually be quickest.  If you have to work from external drives, eSata and Firewire800 will be much quicker than Firewire400 or USB.  Ideally your catalog (and the previews alongside) will be on a different physical drive to the image files themselves (just another partition of the same drive won’t help).

If you’re looking for new hardware, you may be wondering if Lightroom can make use of multiple cores – and yes it certainly does.  I’ve seen it use up to 650% of my 8-core machine when running processor intensive tasks such as multiple exports or rendering previews.

Lightroom also loves plenty of RAM, but bear in mind that you’ll need a 64-bit operating system to really take advantage of large amounts of RAM.  If you have more than 4gb of RAM, you’re most likely to see improvement in the responsiveness of Develop module by using the 64-bit version.

And finally, a little logic.  Virus protection constantly scanning the same files that Lightroom’s trying to use will slow you down.  Consider excluding the catalog (*.lrcat), the previews file (*.lrdata next to the catalog), and the ACR Cache (check the Lightroom Preferences dialog for the location) from the live scan, and perhaps the images themselves.

The less junk you have running in the background, the better, particularly on older slower machines.  That includes those fancy little system tray programs that load on startup.

That’s all for now – if you have any favorite speed tips, feel free to drop them in the comments below!

Lightroom automatically chooses its own primary External Editor, based on registry entries on Windows and preference files on Mac.  It’ll generally default to the newest version of Photoshop, and if it can’t find Photoshop, it’ll use Photoshop Elements instead. There’s an old TechNote which explains further: http://www.adobe.com/go/kb401629

However, what if you want to use an older version of Photoshop, for example, to use plugins which are unavailable in the latest version?  It’s really simple – open that version of Photoshop yourself.  If Lightroom sees a Photoshop open, it’ll ignore its own preference, and use the open version instead.

It’s a question that comes up over and over again, because people expect it to be complicated.  It’s not really!  Even moving Windows to Mac is a straightforward operation.

First, a bit of preparation will go a long towards preventing headaches…

1. Make sure your regular backups are up to date.
2. Set Lightroom’s folder panel to show just a few top level folders, to make it easy to relink them if they get confused in the move.  Instructions are here: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/2008/12/17/i-have-a-long-list-of-folders-can-i-change-it-to-show-the-folder-hierarchy/
3. Install Lightroom (the program) on the new computer.  No need to install off the cd and then install updates, as each update is the entire program, so just skip along to the latest update which can be downloaded from Adobe’s website.

Now we’re ready to move.  Think about how you’re going to move the files – an external hard drive is the easiest option.

If you’re switching from Windows to Mac in the move, remember that OS X can’t natively write to a NTFS formatted drive, so either format as FAT32, or remember you’ll need to copy the data off and reformat again once you’ve finished moving.

You’ll want to transfer all of your presets, which are entirely cross-platform, over to the new computer, and possibly your preferences file too, if you’re moving Windows to Windows or Mac to Mac.  Don’t forget any plug-ins, and custom DNG profiles that you’ve created too.  You’ll find all of the file locations here: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/2008/12/15/default-file-locations-lightroom-2/ Bear in mind that these are hidden locations on Windows, so you’ll need to turn go to Start menu > Control Panel > Folder Options > View > Advanced Settings and turn on ‘Show hidden files and folders’ in order to find them.

You have 2 options for the catalog and images move – either moving and relinking, which is generally my preferred option, or using Export as Catalog, which is handy if data is scattered across your computer.

Option 1 – move and relink

1. Find and copy your catalog to the new computer.  If you don’t know where to find it, go to Edit menu > Catalog Settings (Windows) or Lightroom menu > Catalog Settings (Mac) and it’ll be listed there.
2. Find and copy your images to the new computer.  Personally I like to use File Synchronization software to make sure I don’t miss anything.
3. Open your catalog on the new computer – double clicking on it is the quickest way.
4. There may now be question marks all over the place, if it can’t find the files.  It’s just a question of relinking those top level folders with the updated folder locations.  Instructions here: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/2009/02/21/lightroom-thinks-my-photos-are-missing-how-do-i-%ef%ac%81x-it/
5. Double check everything is up and running before you delete the old computer!

Option 2 – export as catalog

1. Open Lightroom and go to File > Export as Catalog.
2. Select a location on your external hard drive, and ‘include preview files’ and ‘include negative files’ so that everything is taken along.
3. Press Export and let it run.  It will take some time.
4. Now on your external hard drive should be a catalog, with an Images folder containing all of your negative files.  It should warn you if it couldn’t transfer some files.
5. Transfer the external hard drive to the other machine.
6. You could transfer the catalog itself (the *.lrcat file and *.lrdata file) to the new machine’s internal hard drive if you wish.
7. Double-click on the catalog to open it.
8. If you move the images, the drive letter changes between machines, or you’re moving between operating systems (i.e. Windows to Mac) you may still have to do the relinking listed in option 1.
9. Double check everything is up and running before you delete the old computer!

You’re all set!

Excerpt from Adobe Lightroom 2 – The Missing FAQ

Missing files are usually a result of files being moved or renamed outside of Lightroom, perhaps in Explorer or Finder.  In this case, Lightroom loses tracks of the files.

They can be identified by a little question mark in the corner of the grid thumbnail.
If the entire folder can no longer be found, the folder name in the Folders panel will go grey with a question mark folder icon.  They used to go red in LR1.

When you go in to the Develop module, Lightroom will tell you that the file is offline or missing.

If the whole folder is missing and the folder name has turned grey, you can right-click on the folder and select ‘Find Missing Folder…’.  Point Lightroom to the right folder, and it should update the links for all of the files contained in that folder.  That’s the quickest option!

If the folder is still showing as recognised, you’ll need to relocate individual images, but Lightroom will try to help where it can.

To locate a missing file, click on the question mark icon, and the following dialog will appear.

Click Locate to find the missing file.

Locate the missing file and press Select.  Check the ‘Find nearby missing photos’ checkbox shown in the dialog above in order to re-link other files in the same folder.
If you have renamed the files outside of Lightroom, each file will need linking individually.
If Lightroom appears slow to re-link related photos, restart Lightroom to force a search for file locations.
A few preventative measures, to avoid missing files in future:

1. Rename any files before importing into Lightroom, or use Lightroom to rename them.
2. Set Lightroom’s folder list to show the full folder hierarchy to a single root level folder.  If all of the files are moved from their expected locations, they can easily be updated using the ‘Find Missing Folder…’ command in the top level folder right-click menu, or by using the ‘Update Folder Location…’ command even if they’re not yet marked as missing.
3. Move any files or folders within Lightroom’s own interface, simply by dragging and dropping around the folders panel.  Folders can only be moved one at a time.

Since the Photoshop User magazine came out, I’ve had a number of emails asking about my own workflow for DNG files and backups, so let me run through it quickly.  There is no right or wrong workflow – this is just what works well for me.

I want the best of both worlds – I want smaller file sizes, no sidecars and updated previews on my working drive so I use DNG for my main working files, but maybe one day I might want a proprietary raw file for something, so I keep one of my offline backups as a proprietary raw format.  I want the files to have matching names and folder structure, so converting on import doesn’t work for me, so this is my current workflow:

1. Import with backup turned on – this is a temporary backup, just in case something goes wrong before I finish sorting.
2. Rename files – the proprietary raw files now have the new names
3. Use the OS or File Sync software to copy the images to my offline backup structure.  Export as Original format to the other drive would do the same.  That drive is then disconnected again.
4. Select all in Grid view and go to Library menu > Convert Photo to DNG with ‘delete originals after successful comversion’ turned on swaps my proprietary raw files in the catalog for new DNG files, and removes the proprietary files from the hard drive.
5. That leaves me with DNG files in the catalog, complete with all of the settings that were previously attached to the proprietary raw files.  The proprietary files are safely backed up on my offline drive, with matching file names and a matching folder structure, just in case I ever need one.  Ok, I’ll admit, I’ve never been back to them yet, but you never know! 

NO!  Lightroom’s backup just backs up the catalog, and it doesn’t contain your photos – only references to where to find them and the data about them.  You need to back your photos up separately.

Every time I hear someone say ‘I deleted the photos because I thought Lightroom backed them up’, my heart sinks.

I can’t say this loudly enough – back up your photos as well as letting Lightroom back up its catalog.  Lightroom doesn’t do that for you.

Thanks to Dan Tull, Adobe Engineer, for making an excellent point… you’re not keeping your backups with the original catalog, right?

Ok, by default, the catalogs are backed up in a ‘backups’ subfolder alongside the original catalog.    If you don’t regularly back up that whole drive to a second drive, what will happen when your main drive dies?  You’ll have dutifully run Lightroom’s backups – and they’ll be on that dead drive along with the original catalog.  That’s not much help!

So what are you going to do?  You really need to have a backup system that very regularly backs up your entire hard drive contents to another hard drive (not just another partition) AND you still need to run Lightroom’s backups.  Lightroom’s backups are a safety net against catalog corruption, and the hard drive backup protects against hard drive failure.  You definitely want both.

If you haven’t got that set up, at least in the meantime set Lightroom’s backup to back up the catalog to another drive, otherwise all your hard work could be gone with that nasty click click click of a dying drive.

So how do you change the backup location?  Here’s the instructions from Adobe Lightroom 2 – The Missing FAQ:

How do I change the backup location?

The backup directory is changed in the Back Up Catalog dialog, which appears when a backup is due to run.

If you need to show the Back Up Catalog dialog to change the location when a backup is not normally due, you can run a backup on demand.  To do so, go to Catalog Settings > General panel and change the backup frequency temporarily to ‘when Lightroom starts’.  Restart Lightroom so that the backup dialog comes up, and then you’ll be able to change the backup location.

Don’t forget to then change it back to your normal backup schedule.

All you NAPP members out there, check the Lightroom section of your latest Photoshop User magazine (March 2009) for MY article on DNG!

For those of you who aren’t NAPP members, you’ll want to sign up now!!!

In the meantime, here’s the main bullets points directly from Adobe Lightroom 2 – The Missing FAQ

File size
DNG files are generally 10-40% smaller than their original proprietary format, depending partly on the size of the preview that you choose to embed.

XMP Sidecars
Proprietary raw formats have their XMP data stored as a sidecar XMP file, whereas DNG files have that information embedded within the single DNG file.  The question is, do you find sidecar files a pro or con?

Long Term Storage
The DNG format is openly documented, which means that it should be supported indefinitely, whereas proprietary formats such as CR2, NEF, RAF etc. are not openly documented.  Will you be able to find a raw converter in 20 years time that will convert a proprietary format when that camera model is ancient history?

Manufacturer’s Software
Most manufacturer’s own software will not read a DNG file, only their own proprietary formats.  Do you ever need to open a file in the manufacturer’s own software?  If so, you’d want to embed the proprietary raw file – it can be extracted use the DNG Converter tool, however it does negate the file size benefits.

MakerNotes
While there is DNG support for MakerNotes, some manufacturers don’t stick to the rules, and therefore MakerNotes embedded in an undocumented format can’t always be carried over to the DNG file, however if you’re not sure what the MakerNotes are, you probably won’t miss them.

Check the Photoshop User article for lots more pros, cons and how to’s.

Adobe Lightroom 2.3 is now available as a release candidate from the Adobe Labs website here: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Lightroom_2.3

ACR 5.3 is also available from: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Camera_Raw_5.3

The release candidate status it’s one step up from a beta version – it means that it’s been through some testing, but it would benefit from additional testing on a variety of different machines.  It’s your opportunity to catch any bugs before it goes final, but it shouldn’t kill your machine.

New cameras: Nikon D3X, Olympus E-30.

It also fixes the Canon 5D MkII magenta shift on sRAW fileswhich was introduced with the Canon 1.0.7 firmware.

There’s a list of bug fixes in the readme file, but particularly notable are fixes (hopefully!!) for the memory issues that appeared in 2.2 for files with local adjustments.

There are also new languages supported: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, Italian, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish & Swedish.  There’s a little more work to do on the translations yet.

If you find any bugs, the Official Feature Request/Bug Report Form is just here.

Enjoy!