Couple Lightroom 2.4 questions.

[Soundy]

Hey folks, new here... found this site when googling for my main question below, and didn't see any specific answer, so I figured I'd sign up and ask...

I really like Lightroom, especially its ability to import photos to a year\month\day folder structure. Its keyword functions are handy as well for organizing photos. Main problem with it is, it's an absolute SLUG on my system (Athlon64 32''+, 3GB RAM), so I don't actually use it for anything other than importing photos from my flash cards these days.

That would be alright, except for the fact that the keywords don't translate into anything usable by anything other than Lightroom. They're stored in the catalog databases, but not in the IPTC or EXIF or anywhere else "standard"... at least, they aren't by default.

So my main question is, does anyone know of a way to "copy/import" the keywords I've applied to my photos during import, to the IPTC fields so they're usable by Picasa, Windows Explorer, etc.?

And/or, does anyone have any tips for improving Lightroom performance? On a 1'MP JPG image from my 4'D, for instance, "Rendering larger preview" typically take 2'-3's, sometimes more... it makes the program pretty much unusable for any kind of serious photo work.

Ultimately, I may just have to look for a smaller, simpler, lighter utility to handle the import-to-folder-structure and tag-during-import functions without all of Lightroom's additional bloat... any suggestions there?

Thanks...

 

[breyman]

Hi Soundy, welcome to the forum!

As you've noticed, Lightroom can eat a bit of resources - primarily when rendering those large previews. If you're willing to give it time upon import, though (go and have a meal, maybe), you can come back and it'll be working a fair amount better.

Based on your questions, I'd recommend a few things.
- Upgrade your PC . I know this may not be an option and if it isn't, the following may come in handy (you'll usually just have to wait). But, a faster processor and more RAM will go a LONG way. I also have a 4'D and a large privew takes 1/4-1/2 of a second to preview, a good 5'x faster than what you've reported.
- As you mentioned, only generate standard previews on import (Standard from Initial Previews in the Import dialog). Unless you zoom in a lot in your reviewing/editing, larger previews won't do a whole lot of good. If you need larger ones, change it to generate them on import and walk away while they're coming in to avoid the frustration.
- Check out the following links for some additional suggestions on optimizing LR.
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/index.php?topic=7243.'
http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2''7/'3/five_ways_to_speed_up_lightroo.html

Also, LR can absolutely save the keywords and other metadata to your files - as you observed, it just doesn't do it by default. You can do it in 2 primary ways. I'd probably recommend the first, as I doubt your slower system would like the second way much as it requires more horsepower.
1. Once imported and keyworded, select all the files and choose Metadata > Save Metadata to file (or use Ctrl + S). That'll save all the current metadata into the file (or as a sidecar) so that other programs (Picasa, Bridge, etc.) can see it.
2. Go to Edit > Catalog Settings > Metadata and check Automatically write changes to XMP. Then, any changes you make (keywords, adjustments, etc.) will automatically be saved. As mentioned, this will make things slower.

In my opinion, adding another program for importing would only make your workflow more tedious, even with the slower machine. If it were me, I'd import and walk away during the painfully slow parts.

Good luck speeding things up!

 

[Soundy]

Thanks for the tips, Brian! I don't mind it taking longer to import, not a big rush there, so I'll try those suggestions.

This machine isn't getting upgraded much beyond what it is now... at most I could go from the A64/32'' to a 34'', and with XP32, anything more than 3GB RAM would be pretty much wasted (I don't want to bog it down with Vista, and XP64 was a driver nightmare last time I tried it). Next hardware upgrade will have to be a whole new machine.

Honestly, I do most of my quick tweaking with Picasa, in large part because I like its easy upload to Facebook and my Picasa Web Albums... but if I can get the performance improved in LR (especially the previews), it does do a lot more and will be more useful overall... which hopefully will give me more opportunity to participate here!

 

[Gene McCullagh]

Welcome to the forums Soundy!

I recommend you check out Jeffrey Friedl's site. He has several plugins available that will directly export to online services. Facebook and Picasa are among them. It's at http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies

That will keep your workflow within LR.