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What do you wish you knew when you were getting started with Lightroom?

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Victoria Bampton

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I'm working on the getting started information for beginners, and perhaps you can help me... it's a little while since I was a beginner!

Stretch your mind way back... when you first got your hands on Lightroom, what did you want to know?

For example, did you need to know how to import existing photos or just new ones? Were you worried about renaming at that stage? What about adding metadata?

And then what did you want to do when you first got your photos into Lightroom? Were you interested in rating the photos, or did you go straight to Develop and play with them?

Did you bother to play with slideshows and prints to start with? Did you try to export?

If you could roll back time and give yourself some tips, what would you tell yourself? What do you wish you knew?

Thanks!
 
The second thing i'm struggling with is where should I store the files that I export? I understand that export works like 'save as' and all of the develop settings are then saved with the file but so far i've only exported images to a memory stick as I didn't know where they should be saved on my hard drive. I guess this is linked to my point about folders and files.

I have the same issue...my wife doesn't use LR (wouldn't have a clue) so she just searches the pictures folders (each folder has a descriptive name) for what she wants. Therefore I will put the final jpegs in that folder and hide the raw files in a subfolder (all via LR of course). Painful waste of space but that's why I bought a NAS with 6TB of storage. Maybe someday I can teach her to use LR to search for pictures...
 
Maybe someday I can teach her to use LR to search for pictures...
And then you will both discover that Lightroom is not really multiuser. Or perhaps I should say "not really multi-computer".

Stick to your named directories. That is the best approach if several people want to access the same photos.
 
I bought Lightroom because Raw Shooter stopped being available and I wanted to start processing raw files. I had LR1 and upgraded to LR 2. Skipped LR 3 but grabbed LR4 with the new cheaper price.

I had my own file structure for photos and had no real problem importing as I simply continued the existing structure. (Parent directeory = year, sub directories named YYMMDD-Event. File names as named by the camera, i,e IMG_5542.cr2. I used (and still do for the most part today) LR to convert the raw file to a TIFF which was then exported for further processing in an image editor.

Had hoped to get better in processing images in LR with only rare instances of exporting to another software. But with the breaking of auto-tone in LR4, it is easier for me to do minimum processing in LR4 and finish the image in my editing software.

FWIW, LR does not have my finished image. The finished image resides on external disks, backed up on DVDs, and on-line. If I need to look for a particular photo, it is a simply matter of my searching my online galleries.

I am still very much a novice when it comes to Lightroom. But that is in the area of develop. I don't print myself -- too expensive. If I need a print I get it done elsewhere much cheaper than I could do it myself. I had no problem learning the Map module. What I am interested in becoming much more proficient with is the development module. What progress I had made got thrown out the window with the changes in LR4. But I still get the images I want outside of LR. So it's reverted back to a simple RAW converter with Mapping capabilities.
 
We'd never need to access them at the same time...if I'm there she'd have me do it.
It is not only at the same time. As soon as you need to access them from two computers, even at different times, you are in trouble and will have to use hacks or move the catalog between the computers on a portable drive.

So if the two of you are sharing a computer and plan to do that in all future, you can rely on Lightroom. But if she gets her own computer, Lightroom will show its weakness.
 
I wish to high heaven, BEFORE I started, I had an incling as to HOW I was going to File, Order and Store my finished Products either INside LR or OUTside LR.

Then I may have grasped some basics about Catalogs, Libraries, Back-ups etc.

BEFORE means way prior to IMPORT, Develop etc etc or to put it another way. Once LR is loaded - STOP. THINK. PLAN. ORGANISE. STRUCTURE the Workflow. Work out how to recover any Slips ...... etc

As it is, I remain baffled to this day and that is 3 years since I started with Vers 1.x.

Its capabilities are extraordinary, BUT in that simple assessment lies one of its biggest drawbacks - it is immensely complicated, frustrating and very User Unfriendly.

Do not mean to sound nor seem critical - they are just my initial thoughts shot from the hip and meant to provide feedback and this person's responses to the original Question

Good Luck

Safariholic
 
That's very helpful, thanks Nick!
 
I know that we put this one to bed, Victoria, but if you have the patience, and the stomach, you may want to read the comments on this DPReview article from Martin Evening: http://www.dpreview.com/articles/2252058931/the-lightroom-catalog . I especially appreciated the discussion about the term "Import" about half-way through the comments.

--Ken
 
thanks for the link to the article. I enjoyed reading it. When looking back at my own resistance to using Lightroom instead of Bridge, I can see that my biggest problem was not creating folders and being in control of my own filing system. I thought that it was much simpler to create a folder called "Babies" to put all of my baby portraits in. That way, when I wanted to show examples of my baby work to a potential client, no problem. Now, I realize that adding the keywords "Baby Portrait" upon import is a better method for me to use. But, if someone does not see it that way, I do not argue with them. They have to find it out for themselves, and if it is not the best for them, then they should use what works the best for them. To each his own.
 
Thanks Ken, I'll have a read
 
I wish to high heaven, BEFORE I started, I had an incling as to HOW I was going to File, Order and Store my finished Products either INside LR or OUTside LR.

Then I may have grasped some basics about Catalogs, Libraries, Back-ups etc.

BEFORE means way prior to IMPORT, Develop etc etc or to put it another way. Once LR is loaded - STOP. THINK. PLAN. ORGANISE. STRUCTURE the Workflow. Work out how to recover any Slips ...... etc

As it is, I remain baffled to this day and that is 3 years since I started with Vers 1.x.

Its capabilities are extraordinary, BUT in that simple assessment lies one of its biggest drawbacks - it is immensely complicated, frustrating and very User Unfriendly.

Do not mean to sound nor seem critical - they are just my initial thoughts shot from the hip and meant to provide feedback and this person's responses to the original Question

Good Luck

Safariholic

Fundamentally the problem is a lack of an official Adobe manual.
But of course how often are manuals read anyway.

I agree that there is MUCH more to Lightroom than initially meets the eye.
As for digital asset management and workflow even with all the resources available individuals who, arguably, should know better still generate extraordinarily unnecessarily complicated approaches.
It is true that real beginners probably do need help in this area - perhaps this may explain Victoria's current motivation?

I have also had to play catch up with digital asset management and it is possible to do this retrospectively.
If you are motivated start posting some questions and issues that need addressing and lets see what can be done to help you - yes?

Tony Jay
 
Fundamentally the problem is a lack of an official Adobe manual.
But of course how often are manuals read anyway.


Tony Jay

While there is not an official Adobe "Manual", there is the Help tab in Lightroom that has tons of information, and there is the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Classroom in a Book.

I think that a lot of people have the same problem that I had when learning to use Lightroom: we try to learn by doing instead of reading the instructions first. I wish that I understood the importance of educating myself when I tried Lightroom for the first time. It would have saved me from a few years of using a less efficient Bridge/Camera Raw workflow as well as many hours of floundering around in Lightroom. I am by no means flounder free yet, I am still stubborn at times and try to figure it out the hard way, but I do try to "read the instructions" more.
 
That is an interesting perspective Bryan.
Thanks for the input.

I think that what really is missing most are easily implemented fundamental and practical workflow instructions that are fundamentally sound but can be built on as one's insight grows.

Perhaps this is easier said than done but Lightroom's biggest strength, is also its achilles heel, and that is the unbelievably large number of ways to skin the cat.
Many of the possible options, especially related to digital asset management, are not just poor choices but actually counterproductive and even downright dangerous but are there to accomodate workflow approaches that can best be described as outliers on the Bell curve.
Most of us are found toward the median value of the Bell curve, and also require workflow solutions that reflect that reality.

In my mind a solid connection between metadata and keywording on one hand, and smart collections and filtering options on the other, needs to be made early otherwise a foldercentric bias to digital asset management will persist and become thoroughly counterproductive since it definitely does not survive the inevitable upscaling that is required by photographers armed with digital cameras.

Tony Jay
 
Victoria the Library module was the biggest one to get my head around together with the import dialog.
The biggest changes to my workflow, as time has gone by, and subsequently the biggest headaches to fix retrospectively, are in these areas.
I sure wish that I had known how to manipulate the import dialog to my advantage in the beginning.
Overall I feel that the digital asset management capabilities of Lightroom are the most underappreciated aspects initially and also of the most difficult to fix retrospectively once the importance of digital asset management is grasped and the abilities of Lightroom in this area are recognized.
The great power and strength of Lightroom, as an application, is also its Achilles heel, since the numerous alternatives at each step of the workflow magnifies into a workflow of almost infinite variation. To the beginner, a few (2-3) alternative workflows guiding one through importing images, keywording, and metadata capture with special emphasis on how to use presets to automate the process where relevent would be hugely helpful.
Because the whole issue of digital asset management is usually so under-appreciated by most beginners strongly emphasizing the cogent benefits of the early part of any workflow (early on the Develop module was my darling - the rest was just fill) would hopefully mitigate the pain associated with retrospectively trying to rename image files, update metadata, and keyword gazillions of image files years later.

I appreciate that my thoughts, as expressed above, may be difficult to translate into a workable beginners package (whole books are written on this subject matter), but the potential benefits would be massive should it be accomplished.

My $0.02 worth

Tony Jay

I can't agree more. I moved to Lightroom specifically for it's DAM capabilities. I am not nearly as prolific a shooter as some people I know, but I've always seen the need to keep track of my photos. Back in pre-computer days, it was all on paper (what a mess that was!). After going digital, I tried several things, from my own concoctions to a couple of commercial software packages. The last one I tired, which was pretty decent, would not translate to Windows 7. In trying to make the transition, I lost about 5 years worth of data. One of Lightroom's great features is it's ability to transfer my data from version to version, platform to platform.

But what do I wish I knew when I first started?

I wish I had known more about general importing practices.
I wish I'd known more about collections. Fortunately, I already had a number of "categories" set up from previous attempts to catalog everything, but the idea of being able to nest collections within collections, to be able to smart collections, and all of that has been a revelation.
I wish I had known more about stacking. I have since learned that I can create an import preset so that when I shoot HDRs or anything where I've shot a number of frames in quick succession, they all stack themselves automatically, saving me the hassle of having to do that manually.
I wish I had known more about exporting and nondestructive processing. I was so used to having to click on "Save As" after working on a RAW file, then saving to that it took me more than a month to get used the the need to not have to do that. And to go with it --
I wish I had known more about virtual copies. Process a photo, create a virtual copy, reprocess it a different way. Repeat. Nice feature.
I could go on, but that's the gist of it.
Thanks for such a fabulous application.

Don Risi
 
Thanks Don, that's useful!
 
I'ma newbie. I got LR specifically for the DAM capabilities and I'm still struggling with defining the workflow and how to use it effectively for my needs.

What I wish was that there were clear examples of typical workflows for various people, a case study approach.

For example. I am a scrapbooker, I typically take between 2500-4000 digital pictures a year. I currently store them in folders by year and within that a folder for each day. I rarely do much editing of my photos beyond cropping. If I do need to edit I have both Photoshop and Elements to do that and use them as needed. I have done absolutely no DAM except I have a good backup and archive system. I get that LR can leave my folder organization alone and by using Add I can get pictures in without affecting my current backup and archive strategy. What I need is info on how to determine collections, how to edit and tag photos so I can find the ones I want for the projects I wish to do, how to upload to Shutterfly to print them or add to digital scrapbooks and how to use Photosmith on my iPad to tag and document photos. My camera shoots jpg files, it's a small Canon point and shoot. I don't know or really care at this point about RAW or other image formats.

Another of my projects is using LR to document a large historical photo collection. For that I need to know about metadata, tags, collections, how to add custom metadata if possible and other things that make LR a catalog. In that project I already have several version of each of the images. The original archival scans as TIFF files, the lower resolution JPG reference files, the even lower resolution web files and the tiny thumbnails. For some files I have print versions that are at specific resolution for specific printing devices. The different versions were created outside of LR using Photoshop with a clear editing workflow. I have no clue how to tell LR that all those different versions are part of the same image. How do I link them in LR? I believe it is possible but I don't know how to do it. Again finding a way to do the tagging and metadata editing away from my main computer is critical. Ideally I could set up an iPad with a group of photos give that to a historical society volunteer to edit and add the metadata and then when it comes back integrate that with the main catalog. That is another reason I'm looking at Photosmith.

A friend is a semi-pro and uses LR to both store and catalog his photos. He wanted more details on storing Raw, he edits his photos a lot. He has multiple cameras and tracks pictures by a lot more tags than I anticipate using. His needs are different.

So for me a series of if you are an X then here is a good way to use LR to help you do Y would be most helpful.
 
Great info, thanks Oogie.
 
Oogie,

Let me take a stab at helping you get at least some of your DAM setup in Lightroom going. As I go through this, please keep in mind that regardless of the system you finally adopt, catching up will take some time. Toward that end, I would suggest you just do a little at a time. Just as importantly, once you settle on a system, make sure that you follow through on any and all new photos as you go. When you add new work to Lightroom, follow all of your procedures on all of the new photos.

Okay, here we go.

I also use a system of daily folders nested inside yearly folders. For example, Monday's shoot went into a folder named 120107, which is inside my newly created 2013 folder. The day folder's name is YYMMDD format. Notice that I leave the "20" off the year. That's because I don't have any photos from 1913, and by the time 2113 comes around, I'll be long gone, and won't be shooting any more. So I save the keystrokes there, only to use them on the month and day -- the month and day must always be two digit numbers or the computer may not sort them correctly. I usually follow the date with a short description of what I shot that day. For example, I shot some portraits that day, so the full folder name would be, "120107 -- Smith Portraits" It's just a way of making sure that somehow, some way, I can always be sure to be able to find my photos. And if Smith ever wants to shoot more portraits, I can find those, separately from these.

As far as collections are concerned, it might be helpful to think of collections by the term most of Lightrooms competitors use -- categories. So you have to ask yourself what categories your photos fit into. I literally sat down with a virtual "pencil and paper" (my work processor), and wrote them out in outline form.

As you do this, remember that Lightroom as different types of collections. There are regular collections, collections sets, and smart collections. I tend not to use smart collections too much, but there may be ways for them to be of help to you. But let's stick to regular collections and collection sets for now.

As I started my list, I realized that I shoot general types of photos, and specific types of photos, and that, generally speaking, many of the specific types fit within some general type. This is where collection sets come into play. For example, I shoot wildlife. All kinds of wildlife. So I have a collection set named "Animals." What kinds of animals do I shoot? Great Egrets, Robins, Grizzly Bears, Squirrels, and a host of others. Well, they are all animals, but the Great Egrets and the Robins are also Birds. So within the collection set called "Animals," there is another collection set called "Birds," and within that is a regular collection called "Great Egrets" and another called "Robins" (along with several other collections for other types of birds). And every time I shoot a kind of bird I've never shot before, I create a new collection within the "Birds" collection set.

Then I have another collection set within the "Animals" collection set called "Mammals," and within that there's a collection called "Squirrels." The grizzly bears go in a collection called "Grizzly Bears," but that's in another collection set called "Bears" (because I also shoot black Bears and Brown Bears, and maybe someday, Polar Bears), which is within the "Mammals" collection set, inside the "Animals" collection set.

In my Library, my Collections ends up looking like this:

Animals
Birds
Bald Eagles
Great Egrets
Hawks, Red Tail
Robins
Snowy Egrets
Mammals
Bears
Black
Brown
Grizzly
Squirrels
Next Major Category Collection Set
Next Sub-Category
Next Sub-Category Collection Set
Next Sub-Sub-Category
Next Sub-Sub-Category

And so on.

Yes, it can get pretty complicated. But it's worth it.

One of the neat things is that although you can't put a photo in a collection set, any photo can be in as many regular collections as you want at the same time. For example, if I want to create a collection for photos I want to print, and I have a photos of a grizzly bear that I want to send to the printers, I can have it in both the "Grizzly" collection and the "To Be Printed" collection. And if I shot that grizzly in Yellowstone National Park, it can be in the Yellowstone National Park collection as well.

Keep in mind that Keywords work in a similar fashion. You can nest keywords inside other keywords. Unlike collections, though, you can have a photo assigned to both the sub-category keyword and the major category keyword at the same time.

Which system you decide to use will depend on how you work and how you see your overall collection of photos. Personally, I use both systems side by side, as I feel like both have their place in my work. You can search keywords, but you can't search collections.

Here's the catch: I shot the USAF Thunderbirds at an airshow. I can keyword those photos using keywords like "Aircraft," "Military," "Thunderbirds," "USAF," "F-16", etc. But if I search on "Aircraft," and I didn't add that keyword to a photo of the Thunderbirds, it won't show up. Your system is only as good as your willingness to keep it up. What are all the possible key words that could apply to a photo? As many as you think of today, next week you'll think of more, and then you have to think about all of your past photos, and do any of them fit that keyword? And all that applies to collections, too.

All of this applies to your historical collection, as well. It's just more collections and/or more keywords. You can set your Library thumbnails up so that they display the file format, which means you'll know if it's the original archival scan TIF or the lower res JPG just by looking at the thumbnail. You can also display any number of other things on the thumbnail as well. Just put your cursor on the border at the top of any thumbnail, and right click (if you're on a PC; if you're on a Mac, it's whatever the Mac equivalent of right clicking is). Be careful exactly where you place the cursor, though. There are 4 distinct places at the top of each thumbnail where you can put info, and each one is set separately. So if you want a specific thing in a certain position, make sure your cursor is in that position when you right click.

You can also have LR display that same info in Loupe view. That setting is accessed through the View menu at the top of the screen.

To link the different versions, you could just stack them. Decide which thumbnail you want on top, and click on it. Then, holding down the Ctrl key (Option on Mac), click on the other versions one at a time. When you've clicked all the versions, hit Ctrl (Option) G, and they will be grouped into a stack. A number will appear on the stack's top photo telling you how many photos are in that stack. On each side of the thumbnail, there will be two short vertical lines. click on one of those, and the stack will open up so you can see the other photos in that stack. You can then do anything you want with any of them (print, edit in Photoshop, whatever). When you're done, click on one of the vertical lines again, and the stack will collapse. The help file will tell you how to add or subtract photos from an existing stack.

I think, though, that one of the things that beginners have trouble getting used to in Lightroom was something that took me some time to get used to myself -- the fact that we no longer need many copies/versions of the same photo. You say you have original archival scans as TIFF files, the lower resolution JPG reference files, the even lower resolution web files and tiny thumbnails. You don't need all those versions with LR. All you need is the original TIFF files. Lightroom will create its own thumbnails. When you need low res web files, use the export feature. Once you set that up (and there are excellent tutorials out there on how to publish to the web directly from LR), that's all you do. The low res versions will go to the web, and never actually exist on your computer. So you don't have to keep track of all those versions any more.

Like your friend, I shoot RAW, and I do 90% of my processing in LR. So I take a RAW photo to the Develop module, and work on it. If I decide I want to try something different later on, I just make a virtual copy, make the new changes, then stack it with the original. Since LR doesn't actually change the original photo, it's still there, but I no longer have all sorts of versions and variations floating around.

Hope this helps. Have fun.

Don
 
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Thank you Don, that really does help.

I have a few more questions for you about how to use the LR editing features to save on creating the lower resolution forms but I think that more properly goes in the Develop your photo's section so I'm going over there to post a questions. I hope you will follow along and offer your insights.
 
When I picked up this (expensive) hobby in January of 2011 I did a lot of digging for both equipment & storage/processing. I came across George Jardine’s LR Video’s.

Now, 15,000 shots and 2 cameras later I feel lucky and blessed that I followed his folder and backup suggestions, among many others.

The only thing now I wish I would have done from the beginning is geo-tagging; although there wasn’t a map module in LR 3.6 I am now “muddling” through tagging all my photos.

Mark
 
This all makes very interesting reading. In my view, controversially perhaps, I see one of the main issues is todays "instantaneous" ideology. We expect everything immediately. We google and get an immediate answer, we text and get an immediate response. We get a new piece of software and we expect to be immediately able to use it proficiently. However, there is no substitute for experience, particularly with LR.

I now consider myself to be highly proficient with Lightroom. But that was not always the case ! Take a look at some of my initial posts. I used to import my RAW photos, undertake various edits and then export them. I then "Removed" the RAW photos from Lightroom !! I didn't want them remaining there as I did not know what LR was going to do to them or whether I would ever see them again !!! It was only after several weeks and months that I was brave enough to leave them there and start to understand why they were supposed to be left there !!

Regarding having a robust filing system (outside of LR) I had already gone through that pain when using Photoshop. I still use the simple filing system that I developed at that time and it works very well for me. Basically every shoot gets a dated head folder for example "2013_01_29_Paris" and within that folder I will create another folder named "CR2 Files" in which I put my RAW files. I will create other folders within the head folder on an ad-hoc basis such as Jpeg_800px_LR4.2 in which I would store exported Jpegs. So I know where everything is both within and outside LR.
 
Being a newbie, I think you have nailed the basic questions that someone new to LR4/ databases faces. I am very much struggling with all of the above right now. The first three items in particular. What to put on my hard drive vs a portable drive - and how to do this while not losing too much speed. I have yet to find something that describes this intuitively.
 
Victoria

Just reading this thread now for the first time and having bought your e-book I see you have answered almost all of their and my FAQ. Wonderfully I might add.

One thing I do not see covered much is emphazing keywords over collections or vice-versa or using both equally as your primary metadata vehicle. Having come from IDImager and worrying about Adobe's Cloud licensing I lean to trying to do as much with keywords as possible because I can now get this info out of LR if needed and back into something else like IDImager if ever necessary. I do admit I also use collections to some advantage, but still try to add some kind of corresponding keywords for my possible transitional needs. It's more work now, but I feel will be rewarded many, many, times over if I should have to transition my catalog a 3rd time. Perhaps you or I should even move this question to another thread.

This was the only things I missed seeing in your FAQ.
 
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