Strategy for using stars, flags and color labels

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lnicole

lnicole

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Is there a good description written up for a good strategy for using flags, stars and color labels?

As I understand it, picks are limited to folders / collections. What is your fist level of rating, the stars? then the flags? Are you using flags to say this is my final pick? I think I started backwards on that and was using picks to mean this is one of my picks from the bunch.

What about the color labels? I'm thinking I should have one color label to mean this is a final that I will / have published - meaning put up for sale on my site, or publish. What else might you use the labels for? A work in progress?
 
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I thought I wrote that up the other day! Or at least, my sound bite version.

For a typical 3-9'' frame batch, I run through applying flags first (with caps lock on). Filtering on unflagged, I'll work through the new pictures until all are either picked or rejected and no images are visible. The rejects will be deleted, and then I'll start again with everything unflagged. 2-3 passes and I'll be left with everything that's worth keeping.

However, ratings do interfere with flagging because I'll notice some images merit a rating. I hold down shift and apply the rating, then apply the flag, and I'd love adding a star rating to automatically add a pick flag. On passes 2 & 3, I begin by flagging all images that already have ratings. Pass 3 is often more about ratings than flagging.

Labels are much more fluid and subjective, and I find people using lots of different schemes (partly that's to make up for the lack of custom fields in LR). I only consistently use green for any long term markup - it identifies images that were shot as components for an intended HDR, stitch, or other multi-frame technique. Viewed on their own, these pictures often look lousy and could easily be deleted, so I like this extra visual warning. Otherwise, yellow tends to mean that the image is to be deleted - so it's like a global reject flag - but I only use this for specific needs (and can't recall what they are!). Other colours are used ad hoc.

John
 
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Sorry to make you repeat John. I don't always read every single post. Did look at recent subjects and did a search before posting.

Nice tip about flagging with filtering on unflagged. It gets hard to see the trees for the forest otherwise. Also, good idea about labeling as a component.

On a related subject (should I start a new post?) when trying to pick my finals, I like to zoom in to check sharpness, I wish I could do a zoom in on both images in the survey view. That would be nice. I don't think you can though? For now I live with zooming in by clicking one then the other in the thumbnail view and back again.
 
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[quote author=johnbeardy link=topic=8'83.msg55'82#msg55'82 date=1255337782]
For a typical 3-9'' frame batch, I run through applying flags first (with caps lock on).

I hold down shift and apply the rating, then apply the flag.
[/quote]

Ok I will ask. What does applying the caps lock while applying flags and holding the shift key during rating do ??
 
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Glad you spotted that tip, Mark. When you have caps lock on, applying a rating/flag/colour also advances to the next picture. That's great except when you want to apply a rating as well as a flag to one picture. So holding down shift when caps lock is on temporarily suppresses the auto advance . You can also hold shift down when caps lock isn't on - it temporarily activates the caps lock mode.
 
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[quote author=johnbeardy link=topic=8'83.msg55138#msg55138 date=1255418973]
Glad you spotted that tip, Mark. When you have caps lock on, applying a rating/flag/colour also advances to the next picture. That's great except when you want to apply a rating as well as a flag to one picture. So holding down shift when caps lock is on temporarily suppresses the auto advance . You can also hold shift down when caps lock isn't on - it temporarily activates the caps lock mode.
[/quote]

I will try that next time...sounds useful...
 
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