A question about LR3

[dcoombs]

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I would like to see a simplfied version of Lightroom, retaining all the development and printing tools but leaving out the digital asset management stuff. I dont want to import photos into Lightroom I simply want to open them and see how they look.

 

Jeff

 

Frankly, I'd go with Photoshop Elements 9. It's a superb tool and now very inexpensive ($50 range in the US). It has almost all the editing tools you could possilby want. Actually, more than LR, I believe! It's a great alternative, or addition, to LR.

 

Doug

[wda]

I would like to see a simplfied version of Lightroom, retaining all the development and printing tools but leaving out the digital asset management stuff. I dont want to import photos into Lightroom I simply want to open them and see how they look.

 

Jeff

Jeff, have you a better method of managing your digital photo assets?

[delander †]

I understand that for working photographers coming in from a long shoot that the DAM features of Lightroom are useful. But I am an amateur and find either windows explorer or the mac finder perfectly adequate for my purposes. I download my images from the card to my HD and then particularly like the fact that in Capture One or PSCS5 I can just 'open' a RAW file. The 'import' that LR insists, on even from the HD, is laborious to say the least. I organise my folders on the basis of camera, location, date.

 

Jeff

 

PS I also agree that Photoshop Elements has a more user friendly approach.

[mctuomey]

I've used PSE for several years for higher volume dSLR shooting (youth sports), coupled with several plug-ins, starting with what Jeff described as writing from the card to drive outside of PS. Recently I've moved to LR to improve my efficiency and take advantage of several of LR's features, notably its preset capabilities and noise reduction.

 

My take on file management is that, once I understood how Import and Develop in LR integrates what I used to perform through non-PS enabled file transfer and Open in PS/PSE, LR is more efficient and flexible. Of course, to each his or her own taste. I'll admit it took two trials of LR before I appreciated what it offers. There is a learning curve involved. Practically, whether you've imported in LR or opened files in PSE, you're committed to file management within Adobe anyway. Ever move files using Explorer that you've processed in PSE and then try to re-open them in PSE for further editing? Missing file searches aren't fun ...

 

LR's keywording, rating, filenaming, and Collection functions are very useful and I think better than what PSE offers - something else to consider even if you think today that you don't have professional-level file volumes to manage. Even just a few thousand images need good management, after all.

[wda]

I agree with Mike entirely.

[Dougg]

Interesting discussion, and timely; thanks! I am working my way through Adobe's Classroom In A Book for Lightroom, after finding little success in just winging it. I do like CaptureOne's avoidance of messing with file management. It just puts a CaptureOne folder in with the original RAWs, containing the processing info. The Mac Finder does a good job with files, but I'm seeing that LR is pretty trick in nosing in where it "shouldn't"

 

I have a records and filing system that dates back to 4x6 file cards and negs in PrintFile sleeves, each roll numbered, and that number finding its way onto prints and scanned files so as to keep it all related. So the digital files are integrated into this, inheriting the existing record-keeping.

 

I think LR will do ok with this too, as I tend not to move my folders of original files around. So I can "import" (a deceptive word when using "Add" in that it's simply "registering" the files already in place on my drive) without changing my current filing structure.

 

One question I have in mind, expecting that the book will eventually address, is if there is a practical limit to the number of files recorded in a single Library file; when and why one would have multiple libraries... I gather that Collections can draw from more than one library. What's a good library strategy?

[mctuomey]

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Doug, Scott Kelby recommends the use of one general folder in conjunction with multiple subfolders. There is no limit (except physically on your drive) on number of photos. Catalogs will bog down LR, acc to Scott K, when you push upwards of 50,000 photos per a single catalog. So, he also recommends using multiple catalogs, but within the one general folder containing all your subfolders.

[Dougg]

Thanks for the reply, Mike... I'm a little confused by the last sentence. Other than bogging a catalog down with sheer numbers of records, what would be the reasons to have multiple catalogs?

 

Are the mentioned "folders" simply the on-disk structure I use for storing the original RAW files and the processed TIFFs etc? That is already a long-established arrangement. I can see that for some users, and perhaps for me in future, these may not all be on the same drive... is that reason to have separate catalogs? Or is there some other benefit to having more than one catalog?

 

The photo organizing functions of LR appear best utilized if ALL one's photos are part of the Library record structure, with keywords and such, so that they can be gathered to form Collections for various purposes. But if I use LR for only some of my photos, say those from just one camera, then that reduces the organizational utility of the program.

 

Or, I suppose I could Import TIFFs processed elsewhere... However I didn't buy LR for its file organizing features, but for its RAW processing, so I've been seeing that as undesirable duplication of my existing record-keeping method.

[Shootist]

I would like to see a simplfied version of Lightroom, retaining all the development and printing tools but leaving out the digital asset management stuff. I dont want to import photos into Lightroom I simply want to open them and see how they look.

 

Jeff

 

 

I think they call that Bridge. But you need Photoshop to have Bridge.

[Shootist]

I actually bought a Mac yeaterday, MacBook Pro, and I'm going to install Lightroom on it.

I personally don't care for Lightroom because of the Catalog stuff . But I need something on it to view M8 DNG and Pan LX5 images until I move those images to my main Win 7 desktop with PS CS5.

 

The whole catalog feature is over the top for me. I store my image by year, folders, and then by date shot, subfolders under years.

 

I then copy a folder to my SSD drive to have the quicker read and write times when working in PS. Then move those files back to there original subfolder when I'm done editing. In LR I then have to sync these. To top it off the lack of LR being able to see PSD files without saving them in Max Compatibility. Why do we have to do that? Why can't LR, an Adobe photo editing program, see files from another Adobe photo editing program natively. Doesn't make much sense to me.

[delander †]

I think they call that Bridge. But you need Photoshop to have Bridge.

 

I also have Photoshop CS5. But do you know they recently sent me quite a good offer to pugrade my C1 v5 to C1 v6 pro and I took advantage of that. Even now having LR PS and C1 I still find the processing of RAW files by C1 to be superior to the Adobe products. The initial rendition of the file by C1 just seems to be better (whatever that means). But I know Ed that you dont like C1 because of the way it dumps extra files on the HD, but again with HDs getting ever bigger in size it becomes much less of an issue.

 

Jeff

[mctuomey]

Thanks for the reply, Mike... I'm a little confused by the last sentence. Other than bogging a catalog down with sheer numbers of records, what would be the reasons to have multiple catalogs?

 

Are the mentioned "folders" simply the on-disk structure I use for storing the original RAW files and the processed TIFFs etc? That is already a long-established arrangement. I can see that for some users, and perhaps for me in future, these may not all be on the same drive... is that reason to have separate catalogs? Or is there some other benefit to having more than one catalog?

 

The photo organizing functions of LR appear best utilized if ALL one's photos are part of the Library record structure, with keywords and such, so that they can be gathered to form Collections for various purposes. But if I use LR for only some of my photos, say those from just one camera, then that reduces the organizational utility of the program.

 

Or, I suppose I could Import TIFFs processed elsewhere... However I didn't buy LR for its file organizing features, but for its RAW processing, so I've been seeing that as undesirable duplication of my existing record-keeping method.

 

Doug, your current structure can be imported as is, with one modification prior to doing so: move the folders in whatever structure you have them under/in one folder labelled something like "My Lightroom Photos." You could have any kind of structure within that one dedicated "Lightroom" folder that you wish. The benefit is that, whatever hierarchy you evolve in LR, you will not have to remember to point LR selectively at different folders - everything's in one.

 

The benefit of multiple catalogs depends on how you like to define sets of photos. Hard to say for your specific need. All within your single LR folder, you could have catalogs devoted to Sports, Weddings, Portraits, Landscapes, etc. And within each catalog you can have multiple folders. Keep in mind that a catalog is just where LR stores all the edits for all of your photos (LR is nondestructive). If LR has to work in only one catalog with 30,000 images, it will slow down. At some point, adding catalogs is an efficiency thing.

 

Hope this helps.

[mctuomey]

The whole catalog feature is over the top for me. I store my image by year, folders, and then by date shot, subfolders under years.

 

Why can't LR, an Adobe photo editing program, see files from another Adobe photo editing program natively. Doesn't make much sense to me.

 

I know it seems "over the top" but actually it's very simple once you get it. You like how you store your work now? LR won't make you change anything. You just have to tell LR (that's what import means) where your work is. With one recommendation only: that you place your existing structure into a single topmost hierarchical file before you point LR to them (by "importing" your folders and files). That's it.

 

LR can "see" anything you want it to see. But you do have to tell LR to do so by importing the files.