• Welcome to the Lightroom Queen Forums! We're a friendly bunch, so please feel free to register and join in the conversation. If you're not familiar with forums, you'll find step by step instructions on how to post your first thread under Help at the bottom of the page. You're also welcome to download our free Lightroom Quick Start eBooks and explore our other FAQ resources.
  • Stop struggling with Lightroom! There's no need to spend hours hunting for the answers to your Lightroom Classic questions. All the information you need is in Adobe Lightroom Classic - The Missing FAQ!

    To help you get started, there's a series of easy tutorials to guide you through a simple workflow. As you grow in confidence, the book switches to a conversational FAQ format, so you can quickly find answers to advanced questions. And better still, the eBooks are updated for every release, so it's always up to date.
  • Dark mode now has a single preference for the whole site! It's a simple toggle switch in the bottom right-hand corner of any page. As it uses a cookie to store your preference, you may need to dismiss the cookie banner before you can see it. Any problems, please let us know!

canon camera star ratings carry over to LR

Status
Not open for further replies.

GretchenW

Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2013
Messages
60
Location
Wisconsin
Lightroom Experience
Advanced
Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
LR Classic 12.1
Operating System
  1. Windows 11
  2. Android
Hello! This isn't a question but more just sharing info.
I'm happy to say that I found MOST of my answer from a forum thread posted here from 2014.
Just wanted to share in case anyone is interested!

On Canon cameras, there is a RATE button on the back. (other cameras might also have the same, I'm not sure). You can review your images in camera and give them a rating (1-5 stars).
I struggled to figure out how to get those stars to translate into Lightroom when importing. Here's what I found:

When recording to DUAL CARDS, only one of the cards records the rating. On my Canon R6, it's the card closer to the lens, and slightly higher. (If you have a single slot camera, I guess it applies it to the one card).
When importing, if you use an import preset (for example, my LR is set up to apply copyright info to all imported images), you MUST UNCHECK "RATING" in the Basic Info metadata box.

I think that's it! If you already knew this then you're smarter than me! haha But if you didn't, now you do!
 
Are you shooting raw + jpeg? Maybe the rating transfers on jpegs (if Canon and Adobe set it up that way) but I bet it doesn't on raw.

But unless you are away from your desktop or laptop and are sitting around a hotel room looking though the EVF, why take the time to rate in camera?
That is what post processing is for with LR.

I would never rate a raw file until I see the 1:1 full res version on my 4k screen.

Plus, if you are going to rate in-camera you need to be looking at a full-size jpeg, so you would have to shoot raw plus full-size top-quality jpeg to do that.

I'm curious.... Why rate stars on your shots? I don't do that but I guess it could be fun. In post, I delete images like crazy. They have to be good with perfect focus, exposure and no camera shake (in other words, great image fidelity) or I delete them.
 
When importing, if you use an import preset (for example, my LR is set up to apply copyright info to all imported images), you MUST UNCHECK "RATING" in the Basic Info metadata box.
Good tip. Those checkboxes in the Metadata Preset dialog trip loads of people up. Only check the checkboxes for fields you want to change with the preset, everything else stays unchecked or will be cleared.
 
It might be worth doing a blog article on this.

I have seen several cases of people tripping up on this one. Apologies if you have covered this already.

I think there will be a general move to pre-editing images in camera. With a7RV I can crop, rate, delete, manage / delete groups of images, and probably lots more when I check out further.

I see wildlife photographers spending significant time pre-culling and rating their images on their cameras pre ingest to Lr.

While in the past it was a bad idea to edit images on a card, the in camera features are making this option increasingly attractive.
 
Good idea, I'll add it to my list
 
It might be worth doing a blog article on this.

I have seen several cases of people tripping up on this one. Apologies if you have covered this already.

I think there will be a general move to pre-editing images in camera. With a7RV I can crop, rate, delete, manage / delete groups of images, and probably lots more when I check out further.

I see wildlife photographers spending significant time pre-culling and rating their images on their cameras pre ingest to Lr.

While in the past it was a bad idea to edit images on a card, the in camera features are making this option increasingly attractive.
Yes, the EVFs are getting really good. You should look through the amazing tilt swivel EVF of the GFX 100 sometime.
I can see how a BIF or wildlife photographer sitting for a long time in a blind or standing around with a tripod might cull images out of boredom because they have machine gun fired a bazillion...
But not me. I'll save it for LR.
But I'm gonna check out those import presets you guys are talking about and make sure I'm clean there. I haven't thought about that in a while and I too use a metadata preset at import.
 
Are you shooting raw + jpeg? Maybe the rating transfers on jpegs (if Canon and Adobe set it up that way) but I bet it doesn't on raw.

But unless you are away from your desktop or laptop and are sitting around a hotel room looking though the EVF, why take the time to rate in camera?
That is what post processing is for with LR.

I would never rate a raw file until I see the 1:1 full res version on my 4k screen.

Plus, if you are going to rate in-camera you need to be looking at a full-size jpeg, so you would have to shoot raw plus full-size top-quality jpeg to do that.

I'm curious.... Why rate stars on your shots? I don't do that but I guess it could be fun. In post, I delete images like crazy. They have to be good with perfect focus, exposure and no camera shake (in other words, great image fidelity) or I delete them.
I rate in camera - not always, but when I do - I do it because after a session with a client, I use a mini-HDMI cord to attach to my large tv screen. I have the client view SOOC images on the spot so they can choose their favorites. I then edit only their favorites. I indicate which ones are their favorites by using the rating on the camera.

I know there are other ways to do this (shoot tethered to a laptop, transfer images via eye-fi card, etc.) but this is the system that works for me and it's super easy. Just open the side slot, plug in the HDMI cord to my TV, and turn on the camera. Images are ready to go. Use the rating button and that's it.

Thanks for your thoughts - hope this doesn't sound ungrateful, but I wasn't really asking, "Do you think I should do this?" My post was more just about anyone who would like to use the rating button and carry over the ratings to LR, to help them know what to do.

Also to answer your question, no I do not shoot Raw + Jpeg. I shoot raw to both cards.
 
rate in camera - not always, but when I do - I do it because after a session with a client, I use a mini-HDMI cord to attach to my large tv screen. I have the client view SOOC images on the spot so they can choose their favorites. I then edit only their favorites. I indicate which ones are their favorites by using the rating on the camera.
I like the idea... even though not applicable to me right now .... but might be really useful for a project still at a conceptual stage.
 
I rate in camera - not always, but when I do - I do it because after a session with a client, I use a mini-HDMI cord to attach to my large tv screen. I have the client view SOOC images on the spot so they can choose their favorites. I then edit only their favorites. I indicate which ones are their favorites by using the rating on the camera.

I know there are other ways to do this (shoot tethered to a laptop, transfer images via eye-fi card, etc.) but this is the system that works for me and it's super easy. Just open the side slot, plug in the HDMI cord to my TV, and turn on the camera. Images are ready to go. Use the rating button and that's it.

Thanks for your thoughts - hope this doesn't sound ungrateful, but I wasn't really asking, "Do you think I should do this?" My post was more just about anyone who would like to use the rating button and carry over the ratings to LR, to help them know what to do.

Also to answer your question, no I do not shoot Raw + Jpeg. I shoot raw to both cards.
Aha! You know right after I wrote that I said to myself, I bet she is a portrait pro and is tethered in some way (even a TV which is a first). That makes perfect sense. One of my best friends was until recent retirement probably the top portrait pro in San Antonio and she shot tethered in her studio and did those ratings as part of her on the fly culling with clients looking at the screen.

I know you weren't asking if you should do it. But that doesn't stop me from telling you I don't.

I've noticed on this forum that people ask technical questions about LR and 95% of the time, they give far too little info on what it is they are doing and why, what they are shooting with, what they are shooting at, whether or not they are a pro or beginner, what their setup is, what their computer is, what their workflow is and so on. I don't mean you, I mean generally.

I actually believe about half the questions on here are computer-related more than LR related questions and another 25% related to work-flow issues.
I admire you portrait guys. I hate shooting people and work very hard to get them out of my shots. Especially tourists or any street people, beggars or homeless (which is getting harder to do all over the world). But I'm a travel photographer and my other rule is, if it is someone holding a phone and looking at it, I will stand there for an hour if I have to waiting for them to go away from my scene. No humans staring at phones allowed in my shots, and that is getting hard to do because all humans have phones, and they all stare at them all of the time, even while walking.

Plus, I'm really terrible at posing humans. But I'm pretty good at lighting, having studied it for decades. I like setting up lights. I just hate pointing them at people.

My Daddy (RIP) was a great photographer. When he was teaching me the basics 55 years ago (when I was 11), he said, Greg, if you want to take a great picture point the camera at something pretty. Most people aren't that pretty and it takes too long in LR to clean them up....

Good luck.
 
Last edited:
I have seen several cases of people tripping up on this one.
There are many reports of that every year on the Adobe forums. It seems to happen more often with GPS coordinates -- users can't figure out why the GPS coordinates don't get imported, only to eventually discover that they're copyright metadata preset is clearing them.
 
John, what do you think the best way to do your personal data on import is? For example, on my laptop with which I do most of my shooting, I have all that personal and copyright date set up with a name in import. I call it "Dell XPS 15" so I know it's from my laptop.

Then I get home and copy all the files with their sidecars to my PC's master disk (a big 8TB SSD). Then I import to the cat. On my PC, I have another personal data and copyright set up called PC. That probably wipes out the one I had from importing to the laptop right?

I have never given it much thought because all my stuff is there on each image. But there is probably a better way of doing it.

I need to look into this. I've probably been doing it wrong or awkwardly for the past 12 years.
 
what do you think the best way to do your personal data on import is?
An import metadata preset is the best way. You just have to be careful to only check the fields you really want to change.

It sounds like you're importing photos twice, once into the laptop catalog and then into your desktop catalog. You could instead use File > Import From Another Catalog, which should be a little faster and will import some things that don't get recorded in .xmp sidecars (e.g. collections).

But with your current method of re-importing with the .xmp sidecars from the laptop into your desktop, there's no need to apply another import metadata preset -- the changes you made on the laptop will of course be preserved in the .xmp sidecars.
 
Yes, thanks, and good explanation, but I have an import metadata prest on my PC because when I shoot at home and stick my SD card in my PC and do a clean import I need that preset. But on the reimport from laptop w sidecars the PC preset would overide the laptop preset right? I need to make them the same anyway.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top