Edit a file in Lightroom using the new local adjustments – the gradient tool or adjustment brush – and then open that file in Photoshop CS2 via Edit in Photoshop or Export…. and if you try to save it as a jpeg, Photoshop will complain with an error message which says “Could not complete your request because of a program error”.  Why?

Ok, it’s a bug… but for once, it’s not a Lightroom bug.  Photoshop CS2 trips up on some perfectly legitimate metadata that Lightroom saves into the files when you’ve used local adjustments.  CS3 and CS4 behave nicely with this metadata, but CS2 is no longer updated and so the bug will never be fixed.  What can you do about it?  You have a few options:

1. Update to CS3 or CS4.
2. Check the ‘minimize embedded metadata’ checkbox in the Lightroom Export dialog, which will strip ALL of the metadata.  It solves the problem, but leaves you short of any metadata in your files.
3. Use Jeffrey’s Metadata Wranger to strip just the problem metadata from the file.  By far the best option!

How to use Jeffrey’s Metadata Wrangler

To use Jeffrey’s Metadata Wrangler export plugin, you’ll first need to download it from: http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/metadata-wrangler and install it using the instructions here: http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/plugin-installation/

Then select the plugin in the lower left of the Export dialog, and you’ll see the additional section appear in the main Export options panel – scroll down if you can’t see it.

The only part you want to remove is the ‘crs’ block marked in red in the screenshot – all of the rest of the data can stay.

Any images exported with the ‘crs’ block removed will quite willingly save as a jpeg even with Photoshop CS2.

If you’re just starting out with Lightroom, there are a few CRUCIAL bits of information which will save you hours of headaches and untangling. They’re the kind of thing that just make you say “I’d wish I’d known that before….” These are my top ten gotchas, direct from the forums.

1. Lightroom is all about non-destructive editing – so don’t try to save over your originals.
2. Lightroom doesn’t ‘contain’ files, it just holds data about them – so don’t go deleting your originals thinking that they’re safely stored in Lightroom.
3. Lightroom’s backups don’t back up your originals – you still need to do that.
4. Lightroom’s catalog is just a database, and databases can become corrupted – backup regularly, and keep older backups for a while.
5. Lightroom needs to know where the files are – don’t move or rename files outside of Lightroom, i.e. in Explorer or Finder, otherwise you’ll have a long job fixing all of the links.
6. Lightroom will not match your cameras rendering when working with raw files as it’s just raw data, but you can use the new profiles to emulate the manufacturer’s look for some cameras, or you can build your own profile to match.
7. Lightroom offers a choice of different colour spaces when you output, and AdobeRGB/ProPhotoRGB will look odd in programs that aren’t colour managed (like web browsers). Use sRGB for screen output like emailing or uploading to the web.
8. Lightroom’s Grid view behaves differently to other views – anything you do in Grid view applies to all selected images, whereas other views only apply to the most selected image.
9. Lightroom has 3 different levels of selection, not 2. Notice the difference, otherwise you could accidently apply a setting to multiple different images.
10. Lightroom’s Flags are local to the folder or collection, whereas star ratings and labels are global. This means that a photo can be flagged in one collection but not flagged in the folder.

Any more gotchas or blinding flashes of the obvious that you wish to add? You know, the things that make you go ‘Duh!’

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.  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.

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.

As we said in the last post, Lightroom’s integral backup simply takes a copy of your catalog and places it in dated subfolder, so restoring is a simple matter of opening that backup file.

However let’s exercise a little more caution… you wouldn’t want to risk damaging your last backup, so first, you’ll want to duplicate it and put it back in the right place.

Let’s assume your main catalog is stored at My Documents\My Pictures\Lightroom\Lightroom 2 Catalog.lrcat, and your existing catalog has somehow become corrupted, or you’ve deleted photos accidentally.

By default your backups would be stored at My Documents\My Pictures\Lightroom\Backups\dated folders\Lightroom 2 Catalog.lrcat.

First rename that main catalog, rather than deleting it, just in case you want to go back to it.  We’ll call it ‘Old Catalog.lrcat’ for the moment.

Now go into your last dated backup folder and select the Lightroom 2 Catalog.lrcat file (or whatever your catalog is called).  Copy it (Ctrl-C for Windows, Cmd-C for Mac) and go back to your main catalog folder where your catalog usually lives.  Paste your copy of the backup catalog (Ctrl-V for Windows, Cmd-V for Mac) into that main catalog folder.  Doing that copy/paste has left your backup catalog exactly where it was, but created a copy in the normal location.

Double click on that catalog to open in Lightroom.  If it works correctly, you can now delete ‘Old Catalog.lrcat’, and carry on working.

Lightroom is designed around a database, and all databases are at risk of corruption.  Lightroom’s catalog is no exception.  There are plenty of preventative measures in place, but these things happen.  Backups are absolutely essential.  You’d hate to lose all of your changes!

Hopefully you already have a sensible backup facility in place, but unless your backup system keeps different versions of each file, it’s still worth letting Lightroom’s integral backup run too.  Why?  Because otherwise you could end up accidentally overwriting a good copy of your catalog with a corrupted copy.  If you let Lightroom’s backup run too, then you’ll have uncorrupted copies of your catalog too.

Lightroom’s integral backup simply takes a copy of your catalog and places it in dated subfolder.  We’ll cover how to change the backup location, and how to restore backups, in future posts.

Don’t forget, Lightroom’s backup does NOT back up the photos.  You need to do that yourself.  My personal preference is for File Synchronization software – Vice Versa for Windows or Chronosync for Mac are my favourite.

This one catches all of us out at some time or other…

The white balance is perfect on photo A, so you sync the settings to photo B… but it doesn’t change.  So you try it again… and it still doesn’t change.  Why?

As Shot is the key.  If photo A is set to As Shot white balance, photo B will also be set to As Shot, not the same numerical values.

To solve it, select ‘Custom’ from the white balance dropdown, or shift the values slightly, and THEN sync with photo B, and your numerical values will then be copied.

Excerpt from Adobe Lightroom 2 – The Missing FAQ

Usually a mismatch in colors is due to either incorrect color profile settings or a corrupted monitor profile.

For example, a ProPhoto RGB photo mistakenly rendered as sRGB will display as desaturated and flat.

This is a ProPhoto RGB photo correctly displayed as ProPhoto RGB:
This is a ProPhoto RGB photo incorrectly displayed as if sRGB:

First, check your color settings.
In Photoshop, go to Edit menu > Color Settings to view this dialog.

The RGB Working Space is your choice, but whichever you choose to use, you are best to set the same in Lightroom’s External Editor preferences and Export dialog. We’ll come to that in a moment.  [Which color space to use is a subject for another post!]

Selecting ‘Preserve Embedded Profiles’ and/or checking the ‘Ask When Opening’ for Profile Mismatches in that same dialog will help prevent any profile mismatches.

‘Preserve Embedded Profiles’ tells Photoshop to use the profile embedded in the file regardless of whether it matches your usual working space. ‘Ask When Opening’ for Profile Mismatches shows you a warning dialog when the embedded profile doesn’t match your usual working space, and asks you what to do.

You also need to set your External Editor settings in the Lightroom Preferences dialog. It is simplest to use the same color space as you have chosen in Photoshop.

You’ll also want to check the color space that you’re using in the Export dialog, and again, choose the same color space for photos you are going to open in Photoshop.

As long as your Photoshop and Lightroom color settings match, or you have Photoshop set to use the embedded profile, your photos should match between both programs.

Other mismatches when the color settings match correctly can also be due to a corrupted monitor profile, which you’ll remember from a previous post.

A corrupted monitor profile is often to blame for Lightroom preview issues, whether that be a mismatch in colours between programs, or simply blank grey previews.

Lightroom uses the profile differently to other programs (perceptual rendering rather than relative colorimetric), so corruption in that part of the profile shows up even though it is not noticeable in other programs.  It often happens with the canned profiles that come with many monitors.

Ideally you should recalibrate your monitor with a proper hardware calibration tool, however not everyone has one to hand.  To confirm that the profile is the problem, you can remove it and replace it with a standard profile.

How do I change my monitor profile to check whether it’s corrupted?

Windows XP

1. Exit Photoshop Lightroom.
2. Choose Start > Control Panel > Display.
3. Click the Settings tab.
4. Click the Advanced button.
5. Click the Color Management tab.
6. Click the “ADD…” button.
7. Choose a standard RGB color profile, (i.e. sRGB IEC61966 – 2.1. )
8. In the “Color profiles currently associated with this device” field, select the new profile you just picked.
9. Click the “Set As Default” button.
10. (Optional) Select the old profile.
11. (Optional) Click the Remove button.
12. Click the “OK” button.

Windows Vista

1. Exit Photoshop Lightroom.
2. Choose Start > Control Panel > Color Management.
3. In the “Profiles associated with this device” field, select the default monitor profile.
4. Click the Advanced tab.
5. Click the Remove button. or Change the Device Profile to a standard RGB color profile, such as sRGB IEC61966 – 2.1.

Mac OS X

1. Go to System Preferences > Display
2. Select the Color tab
3. Press the Calibrate… button and follow the instructions.  Turn on the Expert Options and calibrate to gamma 2.2.

Excerpt from Adobe Lightroom 2 – The Missing FAQ