2014? Already? Time to check your backups & copyright

Here we are in 2014, and the year’s rushing away already.

Laura Shoe has written an excellent post on how to update your Metadata presets for your 2014 copyright.* Did you remember to update yours? If not, you can update the metadata on photos shot so far this year. You’ll need to find the 2014 photos first, so go to All Photographs in the Catalog panel and then turn on the Metadata filters at the top of the Grid view. If the Filter bar’s missing not there, press the / key. Select Metadata along the top, and then in the Date column select 2014. That will then show you the 2014 photos, so select all (Ctrl-A for Windows, Cmd-A for Mac) and then head for the Metadata panel.

As with most things in Lightroom, there are multiple ways of updating the metadata. If you’ve already updated your preset, you could just apply the updated metadata preset. You can also type directly in the Copyright field, but there are a few other settings that might result in it only applying to the active photo (for example, Show Metadata for Target Photo Only, or if you’re no longer in Grid view). So we’ll use the way that’s guaranteed to work – press the Sync Metadata button below the Metadata panel. It might just be labelled Sync, depending on other settings.  That will show the Synchronize Metadata dialog, so scroll down to the Copyright field and enter your new copyright. Mine is © 2014 Victoria Bampton. Make sure the only checked boxes are fields you want to update.  Now press Synchronize and all of your photos will be updated. Great job!

Finally, a project for this weekend… CHECK YOUR BACKUPS. Every single day I hear of someone who has had a computer disaster and discover that their catalog backups weren’t up to date, or they’ve lost all of their precious photos, and I’d hate for that person to be you. Here’s the list of all the things to check you’re backing up but at a minimum, make sure you’re backing up your Lightroom catalog and photos on another drive, ideally in the same folder structure so it’s easy to restore. And then, would you know how to restore from your backups if a disaster happened? Ever tried a test run? Don’t put it off any longer. If you need some help, or want to check that your backup plans sound logical, drop me an email and I’ll be pleased to help.

* Rikk Flohr’s just dropped me an email to say that the date in the copyright, at least in the US, should technically be the date of publication rather than capture date. As with most things legal, there also appears to be plenty of confusion around the definition of published – are your photos posted online published or not? I have no legal training, so please check the legalities in your own country for the exact details.