basic workflow

[mjmcrae]

OK - here goes.

From my intro, I was encouraged to just ask a question.

Basically, I have absolutely ZERO experience with ANY kind of digital post processing, so referring to how something may be 'just like in photoshop' or whatever is totally meaningless to me.

I downloaded a trial version of LightRoom about a month ago and two weeks ago got my purchased version.

I have read the manual, and looked at the menus and am a bit overwhelmed.

First, is there a basic outline of a workflow that a newbie should be aware of.

What I have done is this. I shot a wedding and loaded my images from the camera onto my computer hard drive.

Then I opened LR and imported these images. I tried to assign them to a collection but when I did some minimal post processing, I found that all my corrections had been lost. I am sure there must be a very basic procedural step that I skipped in "saving" whatever mods I had made that I was unaware of.

Them I just worked with the images in the import folder. I had a lot of other instances of work being lost when I moved to another image.

What I did was resort - maybe this is the 'right' thing to do? - to making a snapshot of each modification as it was made. This seems a bit overkill, but at the time it was the only way I could be sure to save the corrections I made.

I would really like to have some very basic workflow process that works, so that I could become familiar with the basic process of importing, cataloging, modifying, and exporting images. After that, I may well adjust the workflow for my particular preferences, but I feel as though I am doing things very awkwardly at the moment and wasting a lot of time.

thanx in advance

 

[Gene McCullagh]

Hi mjmcrae! Welcome to the forums!

I am a bit concerned when you say that your corrections get lost when you change images. There is definitely something wrong there. There is no "save" button in LR. It keeps track of what you are doing as you go along. I'd dig into this a little more. Perhaps try an uninstall reinstall?

Anyway, LR is set out to kind of suggest the workflow to you. The VERY BASIC scheme is you work from left to right and top to bottom. So you start in the LIBRARY module. The left side is WHERE (folders, collections) the right side is WHAT (keywords, metadata) Library is where you import and organize.

The DEVELOP module is next in line. Left side is WHEN (presets, history, snapshots) and right side is HOW (how do you want the image to look). If you look from top to bottom on the left here this is the suggested flow. Adjust the white balance and exposure then tweak the tone curve the tweak color and saturation then... But don't be surprised if you bounce around since one adjustment often knocks out another so the suggestion is only that.

After that the next three modules are sort of equals in that you go to whichever is your intended destination Print - Web - Slideshow.

That is the bare bones BASIC workflow. There are many interesting and useful "side trips" you can make along the way. Like any other tool you'll have to get a feel for it. Once you do I think you be very glad you decided to take the LR plunge!

 

[mjmcrae]

OK - that is basically what I tried.

I'm glad to know there is no "save" feature in LR - I am known for my ability to overlook a simple menu item - when I ask my friends something simple, they first roll their eyes and say the equivalent of "did you save the file?" before they waste any time trying to answer my question. I searched and searched for a "save" option to no avail.

OK - I looked at each image in sequence and made some minor exposure type adjustments by looking at the histogram and the images. I was able to select a number of images taken under similar conditions and "synch" the identical settings to them - that all worked well.

When I got out of LR for a minute, and came back, all the edits I had made had disappeared. When I clicked on the thumbnail of an image, what came up was the original version. All the histogram curves were the original straight lines.

After playing around with that for a few minutes, I just went to the import folder and worked on the images again there. I noticed that sometimes when I selected a new image to work on, the system jumped to the last image of the folder instead of the image I selected. Whenever this happened, when I came back to look at the image I was working on, the adjustments I had made were gone.

To combat this, I started saving a 'snapshot' of whatever I had done before I ever changed images.

You suggest uninstall/install.

I think I will try that before I do anything else. I presume that everything in my catalog now will remain as it is after the new install - correct? or do I need to do something before uninstalling??

thanx

morris

 

[Gene McCullagh]

Hey Morris! As always it is best to backup before doing a reinstall.

The behavior you're describing is not normal. If you make an adjustment and leave LR it should still be there when you go back in.

Before you go through the uninstall/reinstall process try one thing first. Open your catalog then open the Catalog Preferences. Go to the General tab. At the bottom will be a button that says "Relaunch and Optimize". Perhaps your catalog is having a problem.

Another thing to try is to create a new catalog and import one or two of your images into it and see if you are having the same issue. If not then it may just be a problem with your original catalog and there's no need to uninstall and reinstall.

 

[mjmcrae]

ok thanx - the computer that has my LR is out of service at the moment.

I will try that when I get it back

 

[Replytoken]

Morris,

While there are many good books on LR, including the one from our own Victoria, I would suggest Scott Kelby's book. Despite his poor sens of humor, Kelby walks you through the program in a very logical and orderly fashion, and uses the "cookbook" approach to teaching you how to use the tools within LR. You may find this style helpful as you begin to learn how to use LR.

--Ken