Toronto Photography Meetup Group

So today I actually bought a copy of lightroom. I dabbled back in the day with a pirated version of LR2, but ended up abandoning it due to Adobe's miserable treatment of Sony raw files.

I also played with the beta of Lightroom 3, but didn't do very much with it. Today I finally bit the bullet, but I'm trying to figure out how to configure it.

I have two main questions to start.

1. How do you organize your image library, in terms of file structure. Do you keep your exports in the library somewhere, and where? In my lazy days I used the windows resize powertoy and a clone of it in windows 7 for most of my flickr uploads. The result is that a lot of my current folders include 3 copies of a file. The raw, the original jpeg, and a resized one labelled as DSC0xxxx.arw, DSC0xxx.jpg, DSC0xxx (Large).jpg. I know that lightroom will notice the raw and the original jpeg, but I still have occasional duplicates on account of the "Large" file, which is actually only a downsize to 1024x768 ish.

2. I noticed that lightroom also allows you to install a 2nd copy on a laptop. What is the practice of doing this from the lightroom library standpoint? Do you have to maintain two libraries, can they sync somehow?

Thanks all in advance.

I have an export function folder creation named Flickr, and other locations I add photos to. I wouldn't recommend exporting in the same folder as raw files, it will get messy fast. I don't ever touch the raw folder where I copy the raw files upon import from camera. I'd also recommend to view some tutorials on the specific function or even general. There's a lot of helpful things to know about setting LR up

When I ingest I just let lightroom keep absolutely everything in one folder, organized by date, and have it save a backup copy on my network drive. All of the organization is then done virtually through collections, and I manage resized exports separately, although Flickr is managed through the built in tool.

Works for me...

Assuming your library is on an external drive, recommended if you are going back and forth between a laptop and a desktop. In this case the library is the same on both platforms.

I keep all my RAW files organized mostly by date (and topic). Exports, I keep as subfolders within the main folders. This allows me to separate the exports from the RAW files but still keeps related files together.

I personally keep my main library on my PC and just keep small libraries for stuff I'm working on while travelling, etc on my laptop. I then export/import to the desktop as necessary. It also happens that my main library actually lives on a NAS.

I have separate catalogs for each year. I keep all catalogs on my local/laptop drive (for speed) and once a year make a copy to my external drive/drobo.

When I import I import into a /year/date/images directory structure. When importing I rename the image files to original_file_name_date and add any default metadata and keywords.

I usually only keep a few months of images on my local drive and the rest are moved over to my external drive/drobo and in LR I use the "find missing folder" feature to update the location.

When editing I save the modified images as tiff files or jpegs depending on use and keep these images with my raw files.

On iTunes you can find Killer Lightroom Tips which is a free podcast from Kelby's organization. They may help answer some of your questions. They had one about moving between laptop and desktop.

DG

Found these articles from Scott Kelby, so I assume this is the same Kelby you're talking about Daryl:

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1664584
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1664584

And some others:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/3472625
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/sho ... p?t=978892

So coles notes version is that I need an external hard drive that can be powered from a USB port that I can take with me. Any suggestions?

On that account, since I have this 2TB lacie esata drive already hooked up to my desktop for my photos, any easy way to to a raid backup between two said drives?

I use two My Passport drives from WD that are powered by usb, no need for outlet power. If that's what you're asking.

creating raid using 2 separate external drives is just asking for twubble

do this:

use current lacie as a backup drive where you dump all your raws.
attach a equally large HDD on your desktop and dump the same files in there as well(optional for redundant backup).

now you have 2 separate drives both as backup.

buy a portable USB powered external and dump the same files there too. import these into LR. ensure that portable is recognized as a same specific drive letter on both computers (e.g. drive L: on both). create LR catalog thing on portable drive from one of the computers and import it from the other. this way you share a common catalog through the portable drive without having to worry about raw file path and what not.

also, you can delete the unwanted RAW files freely since you have 2 backups. this will save space on the portable drive. if you value your edits, backup the LR catalog file thing periodically as well.

like others have mentioned, create a folder of current date whenever you copy over the raw files. that way you will be able to locate specific files faster on the backup drives if you delete them accidentally on the portable. export the pictures you want to upload to flickr and such to a dedicated folder somewhere in the portable drive to keep maintenance easy as PE said.

it is manual management to a degree but all you have to do is copy the raw files to 2 or 3 locations for safety. you can plug in the portable onto any computer to edit/view on the fly and carry over the work to and from each computer.

Ok, suggestions on the USB Powered External?

Lacie? They top out at the moment at 1TB.

My last WD drive was not a fun occurrence. Drives were fine, but the enclosure failed, and I've become turned off to them.

I probably use Lightroom in the most uncommon and incorrect way. I import, work on the files, export and delete the majority of the RAW files. If I let Lightroom manage my library I would have run out of space a long time ago. I sharpen every photo in PS as opposed to LR, that means I have a RAW+50mb tiff for every photo I keep.

I know I'm shooting myself in the foot by not keeping a lot of RAW files, but there has to be a better way.

After I export the files, if its work related photos, I will move all of the original RAW and TIFF files to my own folder structure where I break it up by clients/types of shoots.

If its personal, I will just move a few RAW files to a saved folder, just the ones I would consider printing one day. Everything else is tossed, and the lightroom library is empty once again.

Lacie are just some overpriced HDD enclosures with OEM hardrives inside.

You'll get better speed and reliability with eSATA enclosures.

Here's a nice article from Chase Jarvis' website on the process of short listing large amounts of photos and eventually getting to the 5 star images for editing.

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2011/0 ... arvis+Blog)

Here's my own experience. I had an external drive in enclosure where you could just use any SATA drive. It failed after a while: computers couldn't read/write to it. I have had a WD My Passport drives ever since (about 2-3 years now) and they have performed flawlessly so far. I know enclosure sounds like a good idea, but the implementation isn't that solid in my eyes. Small external drives that are fed by usb are more reliable, I think. I have a 1TB and a 400Gb My passports that migrate between 2-3 computers occasionally. As long as you don't need it to be fire/water/shock proof

Ok, so the underlying issues I have are as follows:

I have several 3.5" external HD's:
2 x 2TB E-sata / USB.
1 x 1TB E-sata / USB, 1 x TB in a USB toaster. Due to a desk reorganization I'm not using these drives at the moment. When I plug them back in for whatever, they will be on USB for movies, music, etc. One of these 1TB's will likley end up at my work as an off site backup of my photo library.

As of right now, my photo library is one one of the aforementioned 2TB drives (a Lacie).

Any USB powered drive uses only a 2.5" HD, so I'm maxed out at a 1TB drive at the moment if I wanted to go that way. Speed will suffer a bit comparing USB 2.0 to E-sata, but will give me the mobility I desire with the netbook, but I won't get the speed at home.

Camera files are 24MP from my a900, so speed is kinda nice to have.

If I get a USB powered drive, I would maybe consider manually copying the data between it and a desktop for safe keeping.

At the moment, my photo drive is around 720 Gigs, and the so I'll be hitting 1TB in the next 12 months or so, thereby exceeding whatever a USB capable drive can do.

Ok, I think i've read up enough material to know what I want to do with lightroom. The new problem I have is sorting of images given multiple computers.

The main question now for everyone is how do you organize your file structures, especially given multiple cameras (I for example use a main combo of a900, a700, nex5).

Chris I just use the folders I shot for the day or event. I don't use Lightroom but Filters under Bridge is a pain free way of retrieving what is stored in the folder.

It really doesn't matter what camera, lens, aperture value, ISO, speed etc. It is all embedded when I load it. Put the effort in "keywords" and it's even better.

My files are color labeled and asterisked to tell me what stage of editing it is at. When I get to resized versions, I just add 8x10 or what size before the "." to make it easier for me. I don't have to open it to know what it is.

Randy, I know there isn't a *right* answer persay, but I feel like what I'm dong now is the wrong answer. A folder for the day event is great, but right now I have two separate trees by camera, ie right now it's a900/2011/01/2011-01-01 and a700/2011/01-2011-01-01... will I gain any sanity, and can lightroom set this up for me?

Lr is not a file manager so much as it is a tag manager. So, it doesn't really care where you put your stuff respective of each camera and will find those images based on keywords in metadata. Separate them through typical file management, as you are now, if it's important to you, and it may be if you move from Lr to something else in the future. For all Lr cares you could dump all your images into a dir called "Images."

Why do you need to separate the file structures by camera? Just use a single tree and if you need to filter on a particular camera you can do so based on a metadata filter.

I use this sort of a tree pattern personally:
2011/2011-01-01_New_Year_Party

Similar to yours, but without the camera details (I use several cameras too) and I add the event name to the folder name. All the searches and filtering I need to do I can do based on the tags I use on import, the metadata (camera, lens, etc, etc), and also any collections I may set up.

I think that is a better way of managing your files.

If Lightroom has a feature to name your workspace, do it. Play around with your viewing preference and when you select one, name it so. Chances are you'll move things around on your viewing or editing and you can easily revert back to preferred settings by clicking on your named workspace.