Help with printing a contact sheet

[ernie]

Several months ago I set up templates for contact sheets and have used them once or twice since then. But I don't believe I ever changed the order in which the pics were printed on the sheet. Now I'm trying to make one but I want to put the shots in a certain order. HOW?? I've tried dragging and dropping, both in the print module filmstrip, and in the library module both in grid view and the filmstrip too. I've got Kelby's book and it says in grid view I can just drag and drop to change the order. But it sure isn't working for me. Have I missed some setting or what? Thanks
Oh, one more thing. I believe I'm right, but just to be sure... When I import already edited and finished photos to make up this contact sheet, (they're from various folders on my storage drive) I use "general-zeroed" so that no further adjustments are made to the photos. Right?

 

[Brad Snyder]

Ernie,

1) In Library Grid View, to hand sort your photo's, the grouping you're in, collection or folder, may *Not* have any sub-groupings. If there's a sub folder or collection, then User Sort order is not an available choice.
2) Make sure "User Sort" order is selected on the toolbar above the film strip or via menu.
3)When dragging photos, grab the actual picture and not the gray frame.

Those are the usual gotcha's for sort order.

4) No, General Zero'ed is probably wrong. That is actually a preset that sets all the sliders to zero, which is probably not what you're looking for. I think you'll have better luck with None, which leaves all develop settings as set by the ACR profile for your camera for new imports, or as specified by the available metadata for re-imports.

Although your phrasing prompts the question: What photos are you importing from disk? Haven't they already been imported, since you're sorting them? (Sorry, that sounds sarcastic, not my intent).
Importing them from the disk, in an already edited state, will of course depend a great deal on how you treated metadata and export while they were in LR the first time.

 

[ernie]

Thanks Brad. Clicking on the pic itself was the key. Now it works.
I should explain more. I don't use LR for organizing. I use Extensis portfolio for that. 95% of my LR use is just for "develop' of raw pics. Lr is the best raw converter I've found. So once I've done my thing with raw shots, and have exported them, I clear out LR. So any thing I bring back in to make a contact sheet is a finished item that I do not want any adjustments applied to. Therefore general-zeroed WOULD be what I would want in this case. BTW, it didn't sound sarcastic at all to me. It was a valid point if I used LR as most folks do. Thanks again.

 

[Brad Snyder]

Ernie,

So when you're finished in LR, how do you export? What format?
Metadata included?

I'm curious, because I don't work this way, and my lack of experience in this area is causing me to think of things I don't understand/know about LR.
It startles me when you're positive that zero'd is the right choice. I'm not questioning your opinion/observations, but my understanding of the process.

Now that I think about it some more, I think most of my re-imports have been of processed RAWs with XMP sidecars, so I've always chosen preset-None, rather than zero'd.

Examining some of my old legacy shots from jpeg only cameras, they're all set to zero's, so I think you're correct, but I've never really thought it through before.

 

[Kiwigeoff]

Ernie,

So when you're finished in LR, how do you export? What format?
Metadata included?

I'm curious, because I don't work this way, and my lack of experience in this area is causing me to think of things I don't understand/know about LR.
It startles me when you're positive that zero'd is the right choice. I'm not questioning your opinion/observations, but my understanding of the process.

Now that I think about it some more, I think most of my re-imports have been of processed RAWs with XMP sidecars, so I've always chosen preset-None, rather than zero'd.

Examining some of my old legacy shots from jpeg only cameras, they're all set to zero's, so I think you're correct, but I've never really thought it through before.

Isn't it great the way we all learn a bit more each day, sometimes from the seemingly easy questions!!
Thanks for the post Ernie!!

 

[ernie]

Thanks Geoff.
Brad, once I've done what raw development I want in LR I export it as a tiff back to its original folder in a LRedits sub-folder. Then when I get time I will run them through PS Elements 5 for any final adjustments. Then I save-as a tiff and put an F in the file name so I know it's "finished". Then I delete the intermediate tiffs left over. When I'm done I have the original folder with the "finished" pics and a sub-folder within it with the original raws.
That may not be best for a high volume workflow, but it works for me.
As for the metadata, etc., my understanding is that when I export, all the changes I made in LR become a part of that new tiff file-no sidecars, etc. It's then just as if it had never been through LR.
As for the none vs zeroed-I'm sure I saw here a while back (I think from one of Victorias posts) that "none" actually applied the LR default develop settings to files, and zeroed did nothing. Since my re-imports (soley to make up a contact sheet with) were already finished, I wouldn't want anything further done to them. Whew! That's a lot of typing for my two fingers. This is a great forum!

 

[Brad Snyder]

Ernie, I sort of used your workflow, back when I was using RawShooterPro for RAW processing. But, as is concurrently being discussed in another thread, confusion about photo versions soon started to crop up.

Principally, that's why I beta'd LR, for the DAM/organization, the processing engine was just a bonus. (Of course in early LRs, the DAM tools were well thought out, designed, implemented and almost totally unusable. Remember shoots?)

Since you're using another DAM tool, I can see how this would work for you.

Just for my own edification, I'm going to experiment a little with importing raster files, push out of my own small little world a little and see what happens. :lol:

 

[Andrew Hayton]

I used to use Portfolio but when LR came out I used that as I didn't need the full capabilities that it offered. I was just after a program that I could edit images in and find them at the touch of a button. For basic DAM I think LR has been a god send and has kept my hard drives in order and not filled them up too quickly either with large TIFF files.
If your way of working works best for you then keep on doing it. There are no hard and fast rules and what works for one may not work for another.
Andrew

 

[rcannonp]

An import setting of None and Zeroed will look the same for a TIFF since the default for a TIFF is for all of the settings to be zeroed out. I haven't tried setting a new default for TIFF files that apply settings to see if it works that way, because I don't want it to work that way.

 

[ernie]

Thanks Cannon. That's good to know. Does that hold true for imported jpg files too? Some of my "finished" files are jpg. I have vacilated (sp?) at times over whether to finally save them as jpg or tiff, but for now I'm staying with tiff. (Don't want to start that discussion again )

 

[rcannonp]

Yes, JPEGs and TIFFs would work the same in that way. I was playing around and found that you can change the defaults on PSD files, so I would assume that it would be possible on JPEGs and TIFFs as well.