lightroom help pls

[mantababe]

hi thanks for all your recent advice re:lightroom ihave now had it for about a week along with scott kelby's book, struggling with it all a bit but learning bit by bit

have a question [have loads actualy but wont go into all of them lol] what is the difference between setting up a folder for your lightroom pics and the lightroom catalog folder that seems to automatically appear when i loaded the software onto the laptop? kelby suggested in his first directions in his book that you open a new folder and call it "my lightroom pics" which i have done but i dont know what im suppose to do with the generic lightroom one that has appeared in with my pictures folder

hope this makes sense?

 

[under water]

The Lightroom catalog does not have your pictures in it, it contains the information about your pictures. Your pictures would be in a different folder and are not modified by Lightroom (unless you delete them using Lightroom).
Open up the Lightroom catalog folder in Windows Explorer (or from Lightroom - Edit - Catalog Setting - General - Show) and you will see it is full of cryptic files related to your activities in Lightroom, not jpegs and raw files.

 

[mantababe]

The Lightroom catalog does not have your pictures in it, it contains the information about your pictures. Your pictures would be in a different folder.and are not modified by Lightroom.
Open up the Lightroom catalog folder in Windows Explorer (or from Lightroom - Edit - Catalog Setting - General - Show) and you will see it is full of cryptic files related to your activities in Lightroom, not jpegs and raw files.

thanks for that, this is such a different system to get round, cant even use my limited knowledge of PS to help but im learning something everytime i go on there...so maybe one day!!!

so at least im right in using my new folder "my lightroom pictures"

i do have a canon camera by the way....seeing as im posting on the canon site

 

[bvanant]

My work flow is as follows but it takes at least two hard drives one on my laptop and one on a portable external drive. Before a dive trip I create a folder on my laptop called PNG 2011 for example. At the end of day 1, I copy my card from the camera (7D, Nex-5) into the PNG 2011 in a subfolder called Day 1. Same for the rest of the trip. I make a copy of PNG 2011 onto my portable hard drive so I have two copies of every picture that I took on the trip, good ones (not so many), bad ones and ugly ones. This is the permanent record of the trip. During the trip, I create on my backup drive a folder called PNG 2011 LR for putting my lightroom stuff into. I tell lightroom to create a LR Catalog PNG2011LR say in that folder. Now I use the lightroom import feature to COPY the pics from either source and rename them PNG2011 1 of x for example. Now I have a catalog that I can work with (yes it is a third copy of all my pics). I go through LR, through out the bad and ugly ones and keep the good ones. When I delete, I tell LR to delete from the drive. At the end, I then keyword and now have a LR catalog with a few pics in it (just the keepers) and two copies of all the pics that I took. Sounds complex but it really is very very simple. I don't keep all my pics in a giant LR catalog but keep separate catalogs for each trip.

Bill

 

[furby076]

@bvanant - So the LR catalog keeps all of the settings and changes to the pictures? So if I have a folder with the catalog and the raw pics, and I decide to move that folder (e.g. move it through windows explorer) then the next time I open my raw pics it will have the changes?

I ask because I modify my pictures on my laptop, then move it to my desk top and a backup drive. The pics on my laptop are actually deleted (smaller hard drive). The only problem with this is I tend to lose any of my changes - which is many hours of work.

Your solution sounds like the changes are portable with the folder that contains the pictures (which, imo, LR should do by default)

 

[lmorin]

In order for you to see the changes made in LR, LR must know where the files are. If you move them using explorer, you will have to show LR where to find them. (I think you can also instruct LR to find "lost" files, as it keeps a record of what it should be seeing; can't remember for sure). On the other hand, you can move files from within LR. It then never loses track of where they are.

 

[bvanant]

@bvanant - So the LR catalog keeps all of the settings and changes to the pictures? So if I have a folder with the catalog and the raw pics, and I decide to move that folder (e.g. move it through windows explorer) then the next time I open my raw pics it will have the changes?

I ask because I modify my pictures on my laptop, then move it to my desk top and a backup drive. The pics on my laptop are actually deleted (smaller hard drive). The only problem with this is I tend to lose any of my changes - which is many hours of work.

Your solution sounds like the changes are portable with the folder that contains the pictures (which, imo, LR should do by default)

The LR catalog keeps track of all the changes that you make. If you move the raw pics though then LR will be able to show you the thumbnail with changes but won't know where the old pics are. Once you point to the new place all is well.
You will not lose any changes. I often edit quickly on the boat and that works fine.
Bill

 

[mantababe]

thanks for all your really helpful replies going print them off so i can read them whilst in lightroom