I need help with my workflow

I am trying to do a timelapse with lightroom 4. I pre-edited all of my photos in camera raw and applied a preset to all of my images in camera raw and I want this preset to carry over on my images into lightroom. How do I load my images from bridge into lightroom at this point? Also does lightroom re copy all of my images into its own library when I use it, this has always confused me a bit? I hope this all makes sense but let me know if I can better clarify my question.

calypsob wrote in post #15372275
I am trying to do a timelapse with lightroom 4. I pre-edited all of my photos in camera raw and applied a preset to all of my images in camera raw and I want this preset to carry over on my images into lightroom.
AFAIK, ACR presets cannot be used in LR and vice versa, but it's easy enough to make an equivalent preset. A preset is nothing more than a collection of slider positions, so write down all the ACR positions with the slider applied and then go into LR, set the equivalent sliders in the same positions and by clicking on the + next to the word "Presets" in the left side panel make a new preset.
How do I load my images from bridge into lightroom at this point?
To tell the truth, this workflow doesn't make a lot of sense to me. ACR and LR are essentially the same. Why not stay with one application? IMO, the only reason to prefer LR to ACR is for its assets management, printing, etc. features. But if you prefer to work in LR, import the photos into LR and do all your editing there.
Also does lightroom re copy all of my images into its own library when I use it, this has always confused me a bit?
No, it does not. It leaves them in their present position on the HD (if you choose "Add" when importing) and only makes a notation of their location in the catalog, or copies them them to a file of your choice when importing from the card. It does make a low res jpg-type copy of the image that it uses as a display preview, but it is very small.
I hope this all makes sense but let me know if I can better clarify my question.

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tzalman wrote in post #15372326
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Thankyou Elie. I intend to use lightroom because it has the ability to create a timelapse and bridge/camera raw cannot do this. I think my only solution at this point is to open all of my images in camera raw at once and then "save as" into a new folder. I suppose it would help with file size if I convert everything from .CR2 to .jpeg at this point anyways. Thanks for your input.

[QUOTE=calypsob;153722​75]I am trying to do a timelapse with lightroom 4. I pre-edited all of my photos in camera raw and applied a preset to all of my images in camera raw and I want this preset to carry over on my images into lightroom. How do I load my images from bridge into lightroom at this point?

Here's what you need to do. Start up Adobe Bridge and go to Edit > Camera Raw Preferences and change the "Save image settings in" option from Camera Raw Database to Sidecar ".xmp" files.

Now select all the raw file you had edited previously and press CTRL + R to reopen them in Adobe Camera Raw. Apply the preset to your files again (it shouldn't change them but if it does hit the Cancel button), then press the Done button. This forces ACR to generate xmp sidecar files with your settings rather than saving those settings to its internal database. As far as I know there's no command to force ACR to create xmp sidecar files for images that had been previously edited so you'll just have to reapply the preset or make a slight change in the edits of each image.

After you press the Done button, when you look in the folder with your files you will see xmp sidecar files for each image.

Now open Lightroom and import those photos as you would normally do and Lightroom will automatically read the settings contained in the xmp sidecar files and apply them to your photos. If it doesn't click on Metadata > Read Metadata from file in Lightroom's menu and your settings will be applied.

No, Lightroom never copies your images into its own library; all it does is create previews of those images and save whatever editing you've done to them.

And yes, based on the inefficient process you've described I'd say you need help with your workflow.

Excellent, thank you for your help. i have another question now, Once I have the files in lightroom is there a way to compress 3:2 resolution into 16:9 so that I can stretch/squish rather than crop the images or is this a photoshop task?

LR won't stretch images. That's something you need to do in PS. (But why on earth would you want that?)

calypsob wrote in post #15372520
Excellent, thank you for your help. i have another question now, Once I have the files in lightroom is there a way to compress 3:2 resolution into 16:9 so that I can stretch/squish rather than crop the images or is this a photoshop task?

If your images were shot with that specific framing in mind you can always use Lightroom to crop them to 16:9 format. Otherwise, as Rene said you can use Photoshop's Transform and Content Aware Scale commands to make the change but that seems to be a lot of work.

Hmm thats disappointing, wish I had remembered to change aspect ratios before shooting. It is a meteor shower timelapse shot at 11mm. I framed it with power lines at the top and tree line at the bottom, cropping will remove major elements of my framing. I suppose I may just leave aspect ratio the way it is for now.