catalogue, tagging and xmp in LR2

[liquidmonkey]

hello!

firstly, i use LR2 and am going with RAW and xmp files.

1) does anyone know where the catalogue information is stored? am i able to change that location?

2) when i delete photos from a collection, they DO NOT delete from the catalogue. any ideas as to why that is and can it be changed?

3) where is the information stored for flags, stars and so on? is that in the xmp file?

4) can someone please breakdown the terms keywords, metadata and tagging? is that info stored in the xmp file? is a keyword the same as a tag?

5) is it possible to import photos from LR into facebook and have the tags, comments and titles all inserted automatically? i have read it works like that in flickr, right?

big heads up for ANY answers, much appreciated and yes, i'm reading the LR2 help pdf and getting a LR2 book shortly

 

[Denis de Gannes]

This would be a very good article to read concerning the LR Catalog. I am sure others will give you specific answers to your questions.
http://www.mulita.com/blog/?p=42

This website is also a great place to access tutorials, articles etc about LR.
http://lightroom-news.com/

Enjoy the reading and viewing of the great stuff available there.

 

[Gene McCullagh]

hello!

firstly, i use LR2 and am going with RAW and xmp files.

1) does anyone know where the catalogue information is stored? am i able to change that location?

When you say "catalogue information" what do you mean?

2) when i delete photos from a collection, they DO NOT delete from the catalogue. any ideas as to why that is and can it be changed?

That is correct. If you want to delete photos from the catalogue you not be in a collection. When you are not in a collection you will be asked if you want to delete the photo from the catalogue or completely from the disk.

3) where is the information stored for flags, stars and so on? is that in the xmp file?

It is either stored in the xmp in the case of a RAW file or directly in a JPEG or DNG file.

4) can someone please breakdown the terms keywords, metadata and tagging? is that info stored in the xmp file? is a keyword the same as a tag?

keywords and tags are interchangable. These are words or phrases you attach to images in order to easily find them via a search later on. It's a way of categorizing and describing the contents of an image.

metadata is literally data about data. It's everything else in the file (or XMP) about the image. It can include keywords, copyright notices, EXIF data about how the image was taken, geographical coordinates, etc

5) is it possible to import photos from LR into facebook and have the tags, comments and titles all inserted automatically? i have read it works like that in flickr, right?

Metadata will travel along with the file so long as you write your changes to the file before you export a jpeg for uploading to Facebook or flickr. If you have added keywords and don't have changes automatically written out to your files then an expoort won't include those keywords.

big heads up for ANY answers, much appreciated and yes, i'm reading the LR2 help pdf and getting a LR2 book shortly

That's the best way to learn. Also - don't be afraid to play! LR is non-destructive so you can get your originals back at any time.

Try creating a small catalog and import 1' to 2' images. Then just try things out! Enjoy!

 

[johnbeardy]

"That is correct. If you want to delete photos from the catalogue you not be in a collection. When you are not in a collection you will be asked if you want to delete the photo from the catalogue or completely from the disk."

No, there's a keyboard "shortcut" Alt Ctrl Shift Delete on PC, or opt Cmd Shift Backspace on Mac.

John

 

[liquidmonkey]

When you say "catalogue information" what do you mean?

i mean info like stars, flags, ratings etc plus which photos are in the catalogue.

That is correct. If you want to delete photos from the catalogue you not be in a collection. When you are not in a collection you will be asked if you want to delete the photo from the catalogue or completely from the disk.

this is a bit frustrating cause then i need to use keywords to find the photos i want to delete which sort of defeats the purpose of have a collection, or?

 

[johnbeardy]

Read my post - you were being given incorrect information.

 

[Gene McCullagh]

That type of info is stored in the LR database (the LRCAT file).

Yes, take a look at John's earlier post giving you keyboard shortcuts for deleting images while in a collection. This is a shortcut but not how collections are intended to function.

To answer your last question, you can select images in a collection and when you return to all photos, those images remain selected. From there you could delete them from LR and/or the disk.

However, John's method is quicker.

 

[Brad Snyder]

And has the very descriptive nickname of the 'splat-delete'.

 

[johnbeardy]

It's a "shortcut" I hate, just about acceptable on my desktop PC's big keyboard but very awkward on my MacBookPro's smaller keyboard. Plus it's inconsistent.

The first thing I'll do when Adobe make shortcuts configurable is swap it for Delete so that Delete will work one way throughout Library. I've even looked once or twice at using the translation file to change its current behaviour.

But it does the job.

John

 

[liquidmonkey]

thanks for the 'delete' shortcut, it works great and is exactly what i was looking for

adobe SHOULD make all functions work BOTH in the catalogue AND in the collections IMHO.

 

[Gene McCullagh]

The reason they don't work the same way in the Catalog and in a collection is that in a catalog there one, and only one, instance of the image. However, an image can exist in more that one collection. If deleting from a collection allowed you to delete it entirely then all other collections that contained an instance of the image would lose it as well. So the function is designed to protect users from themselves.

 

[liquidmonkey]

good explanation which makes sense. i'm happy they have that delete shortcut then

thanks 4that!