The Lightroom way

[leebase]

For those of use use to raw converters like RawShooter or C1 -- LightRoom can at first seem disappointing speedwise.

Consider the culling process. With RawShooter, I run through my photos, viewing one at a time, deleting the bad ones -- very quick. Not so quick in LR.

In LR, I now go through my photos and tag them as "rejected" by pressing the X key. Pretty quick. I can then review them before deleting (if desired) or just "ctrl-backspace" and delete the rejected ones automatically -- pretty quick.

Another "my old way isn't so good in LR" is to treat LR as if it's RawShooter and C1. That is....go directly to the develop module and process my photos one at a time in a linear fashion. Deleting the bad ones. Processing a file, then copying and pasting the corrections to the next several that are in the sanme lighting. LR really falls down speedwise in comparison to RSP in this regard.

Now I view my photos in Library...marking as "rejected" or "5 star" as I go through them. Then I deleted the rejected all at once and filter on the 5-star and process them in developer.

Back to library in grid mode, turn off the filter, and view my "good photos" intermixed with "all" of the photos. I then can quickly identify photos that are in the same lighting and copy and paste the settings from a "good photo" to those in similar lighting (which aren't always right next to each other).

A final view of one photo at a time in library -- with quick jaunts to developer for those individual photos that need more work.

As a whole, this work flow is pretty fast for me. The extra control I have over the photos is far superior in LR to what I had in RSP. With the new work flow the "total time to complete" is about the same.

The "shot to shot" sense of speed is definately still better in RSP. But starting to work with LR doing things in a LR-way is making my far more happy with the product than using LR in the same way as I used RSP or C1.

I am finding MT's videos an excellent source for how to do things the LR way.

Lee

[rjosef]

Excuse me if this is the wrong forum to ask this question. I have tried the Beta for awhile and like it very much, but I have a question about folders in general. Is there a way to completely delete a folder? For example, if I import some photos in a folder called "Dog Show" and only keep a couple of photos, can I move them to "Dogs" and completely delete the folder called "Dog Show"? I can't seem to find a way to get rid of the folders on the left panel. In a year, two years of five years, there will be a lot of folders! Thanks!

[leebase]

Excuse me if this is the wrong forum to ask this question. I have tried the Beta for awhile and like it very much, but I have a question about folders in general. Is there a way to completely delete a folder? For example, if I import some photos in a folder called "Dog Show" and only keep a couple of photos, can I move them to "Dogs" and completely delete the folder called "Dog Show"? I can't seem to find a way to get rid of the folders on the left panel. In a year, two years of five years, there will be a lot of folders! Thanks!

In LR 1.0 they gave up the "shoots" concept and became more inline with the "folders" on your hard drive. You can indeed delete a folder, either just from the database (leaving the actual files on your hard drive) or from both the database and your hard drive.

I've not tried copying files from one directory to another directly in LR.

Lee

[rjosef]

I am glad to hear that 1.0 allows for folders to be deleted. Another issue I have has to do with a folder of photos on my hard drive that is imported into LR, leaving the actual files in their original location. After modifying the photos in LR, what happens when the original folder is moved to an external hard drive, or perhaps to a DVD, for archiving and to save space on the internal hard drive. How does a user "point" the LR files to the new location of the original unchanged photos?

[MichaelT]

Lightroom will indate that it cannot find the folder and you can manually point it to the new one to keep the links intact. Also like any good DAM, you can view the photos even when the folder is off-line (using the previews).