Help with Understanding Lightroom-the "Big Picture"

bogeybrown wrote in post #16903344
Thanks Tony,

I think where I"m getting hung up on the processed image is what to do next.

I see the processed image in my LR, but then what?
I'm viewing it in terms of a ton of RAW files imported, some of which are worth further processing and some of those being keepers. What do you do with your keepers if they're not being immediately printed or posted to a hosting site?

And what format are you saving the images in for further use, whether that be as an email attachment, upload to the forum, printing at a local lab, or web hosting?

I think I'm visualizing a linear work flow of starting with lots of images, sorting,organizing,pro​cessing, then OUT the other side as "finished" images in a commonly usable format that are saved somewhere.

Am I visualizing that incorrectly?

As I said in my previous post for me everything stays in LR. LR is my Image management environment and I do not use any other application for managing photo files. I also use LR as a image viewer for the images on the computer, as LR is very good at finding just the ones I want to see. Sometimes an image needs additional processing in Photoshop, but after checking recently it is even less than I though, a bit less than 2% based on over 20000 RAW images. For images that are processed in PS I usually have them saved as a 16 bit PSD file, although many use TIFF for this. I then bring the edited image back to LR for long term storage and viewing etc just like the RAW files.

I upload many of my images to Flickr, and LR's built in publishing options can actually automate most of the process so that it effectively becomes a one click process. I like this as it leaves no JPEG files on the actual computer. If I need a file for a specific purpose then I export it from LR, I have many different export presets that will produce output files that are specifically tailored to the use that will be made of them. Once they have been used they are deleted from the local computer. If I ever need a file again it is very simple to export it again, and if you have maybe made some tweaks to an image you are not having to worry about synchronizing multiple files.

I also find the the Print module is very good for printing from, much better than what you get with PS, well certainly up to PSCS 5. The Slideshow and Web modules are also much easier to use than the same functionality that is available with Bridge/PS. You also get the consistent user interface across all of the modules, which makes learing things much simpler in the long run.

Alan

Thanks Al,

I'm embarrassed that very little of that makes any sense to me.

bogeybrown wrote in post #16903452
Thanks Al,

I'm embarrassed that very little of that makes any sense to me.

Don't worry I'm sure it soon will do, at least you are making the effort to learn this stuff so that you make the right long term decisions for how you want to work. Very simply put, I look at LR as the place on the computer to do everything with my images, including just looking at them.

If the images have to go off the computer LR can very quickly produce a fully tailored file to send to whatever needs it. Once you have sent that file off to wherever it needed to go you can then delete the file as you have no more immediate use for it. Sometimes LR will even do that for you, so you never actually see that image file on your computer. This way you only ever have to worry about the files that LR is helping you manage.

Alan

Thanks Al,

Here's where I'm lost in the big picture sense:

Once I've processed an image and it's the way I want it, what do I do with it?

It's ok to feel a bit overwhelmed by LR - here are the essential steps of a raw workflow:

1) Copy files from camera/card to computer.
2) Use a raw converter to open images, make edits.
3) Render these edits to actual RGB output (like TIFFs, JPEGs, printed output).

That's pretty much it. Everything else in LR (or any raw converter) is optional and is presumably meant to help with some workflow above and beyond raw conversion.

In LR, this would be:

1) Drag files from CF card into a folder on your hard drive, Import Photos and Video > Add (Add photos to catalog without moving them). Of course, you can have LR perform this action as well.

2) Look at images, slide sliders, make awesome image edits.

3) Export > To Hard Drive (file format and image specifics you choose). <- this is the step that makes your image

That's it in a nutshell. The Library and Develop tabs are all you need to do this. The Map, Book, Slideshow, Print and Web tabs are not necessary.

In most raw converters, the raw data are not altered when you edit (Canon's DPP is an exception under certain circumstances) - a set of editing instructions is written to a database or a file that sits next to the raw file that tells the raw converter what adjustments to make when rendering an RGB image - it is the recipe for making the rendered image from the raw data. This is known as "parametric" or "non-destructive" editing because the original raw data are not being altered. Think of it as if you opened a file in LR and, after sliding the sliders and setting the settings to a state that you like, you wrote down the value or choice for every setting in the interface - this is what LR does - it stores that data in text form in its database (or in "sidecar" files that can be stored next to the raw file, external to the database). The "original raw" + "the edit list" get used by the raw converter to render ("export") an RGB file (a JPEG, TIFF, etc.) that reflects the edits you made in the raw converter. Many analogize the process to one in which the raw file is the "negative" and the exported RGB image is the "print" on photographic paper, etc. You can develop the negative as you wish and then print it in many different ways, utilizing the same negative over and over, with different rendered results each time. Your database would be the pages in the notebook you used in the darkroom to write down your process settings, exposure times, paper types, dodge/burn amounts, etc. for each copy of the print you made.

The image you see inside of LR as you make edits is a preview of what will eventually be rendered when you perform an "export" to an actual RGB file like a JPEG or a TIFF. You can use the same original raw and make another, completely different set of edits, and render that version too, it is just another text file with the new list of edit settings. Ad infinitum. This is typically called a "variant" or "virtual copy" of the "original raw" - there is no copy of the raw file being made, it is simply another entry in the database of edit instructions being referenced to that original raw file.

Etc.

The option for LR to copy your files from your card to your camera, set rankings and keywords, publish your images to Flickr, make web galleries and books, print, etc. is irrelevant to raw conversion. These things are workflow helpers for people that like a unified work environment and use these features. The appeal of an application like LR is that it does everything. The confusion with an application like LR is that is does everything.

The myriad tutorials and materials out in the inter webs and books present LR workflow from soup to nuts, and the message you may take away is that this is how you **need** to work if you use LR. I do not need the organizational tools in LR and, should I need the Adobe raw conversion engine, I can access it via the ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) plug-in within Photoshop. My workflow is more Photoshop centric, so LR is redundant and mostly unnecessary for what I do. That is why I am giving you my personal insight from the point of view of someone who has tried LR, gets the "big picture" and finds much of it unnecessary for my use. My hope is that this is not taken as LR bashing, but read as a different perspective.

Take your time and figure out what LR can do for you and, as you get used to it, you may find that you can incorporate more of its workflow aids into your workflow. You may also find that you may not need to use many or most of LR's features - there is nothing wrong with this conclusion. Different strokes for different folks.

Just because LR "can" do something does not mean you "must" use LR to do it. It is an option for you - start simple and then fold in more features that work for you. There are plenty of LR experts here that can help once you start to run into problems. They will share their workflow and you can try it to see if it fits your needs, adapt it to your needs or at least determine that it does not fit your needs. All good.

As a Mac user, you are fortunate to have plenty of raw converter options should LR not work for you.

Good luck,

kirk

kirk

Thanks Kirk,

Here's the real nuts and bolts scenario I'm trying to reconcile in my head for an upcoming month in S/E Asia/Indonesia:

I go out and shoot 100 images of temples, 100 of surfers, 100 of street scenes, 100 of sunsets.

I import all thos files and review them. Out of each 100 image set, only a small number are going to be worth processing. Once I have processed those select images into a final product I'm happy with, what do I do with them?

I want to be able to find my best, completed/processed images when I'm looking back on the trip or sharing them by assorted means. Right now, all I can do is scroll through 400 images and try to pick the ones out by eye that I processed.

What do I do with the "keepers" to store them on my hard drive in such a way that I can pull only those images up when I want to, instead of sorting through the other hundreds of images?

bogeybrown wrote in post #16903681
Thanks Kirk,

Here's the real nuts and bolts scenario I'm trying to reconcile in my head for an upcoming month in S/E Asia/Indonesia:

I go out and shoot 100 images of temples, 100 of surfers, 100 of street scenes, 100 of sunsets.

I import all thos files and review them. Out of each 100 image set, only a small number are going to be worth processing. Once I have processed those select images into a final product I'm happy with, what do I do with them?

I want to be able to find my best, completed/processed images when I'm looking back on the trip or sharing them by assorted means. Right now, all I can do is scroll through 400 images and try to pick the ones out by eye that I processed.

What do I do with the "keepers" to store them on my hard drive in such a way that I can pull only those images up when I want to, instead of sorting through the other hundreds of images?

One suggestion is to delete the images you feel aren't good enough to be processed. If you review your images using P (for pick) or X (for reject), you can then have LR remove the rejects. It'll ask if you want to remove them only from the catalog or also from the hard drive.

As suggested above, you can "Pick" or "Reject" images. There are also star ratings (0-5 stars) that you can use in LR to rank the fitness of each image.

Reducing clutter in LR is achieved in many ways by filtering (ranking, keyword, flags - lots of ways to assign relevance to images). Once you have filtered or sorted you images into the set you want to view, edit, slideshow, etc., you can keep this image set active without deleting or removing the rest - it is just a way to tag and view sets of images. I have used a process where I go through all 100 images (in your example) in a first pass using a 0 or 1 ranking where rejected images get a "0" (out of focus images, clearly bad images, etc.) and potential images get a "1". You can use LR's filters in the Library tab to show you only the "1" images ( or many other sort criteria. This way, you can view just the images that made the first cut - I have then gone through the "1" images and ranked them with stars (say, 5, 4 or 3) to prioritize them in terms of what I think will make the best images. 5 is the top of the list. Filter to just show "5" and you have whittled the list down to a few images that you can work on without the other images cluttering your workspace (they are still there, just not displayed, according to the filter you set up). In this example, I did not immediately reject or delete the bad images, but if I feel comfortable with doing so, I can then just filter to show all of the "0" images and delete them - from the LR database and from the hard drive if I choose.

Filtering and Sorting work inside of LR - you can probably make a slideshow, or whatever, with just the filtered keeper terrific images as denoted by your filter, etc.

There are other ways to make "Collections" of images and the LR power users here can probably suggest various methods for doing this. The bottom line is, unless you specifically tell LR to delete non-keepers, you can tag and organize your images to focus on the ones you really care about without permanently deleting the rest.

Once you have worked these best images and feel they are ready to be rendered, export them as TIFFs or JPEGs, or whatever you need. Now these rendered images live outside of LR, in a folder or wherever you put them, and you can do with them what you wish, independent of LR. The previews of the edited raw files still live inside LR with your edits and you can always go back, revisit them, make new edits, etc., and export these new versions.

These filtering and ranking tools are included in most raw converters. For example, I just updated LR to v 5.4 for the Mac. The install file was over 1GB (gigabyte). Iridient Developer, a high-quality, full featured raw converter for Mac has an install file of 16 MB (megabytes). Iridient Developer has ranking tools, etc. but does not have many of the extra bells and whistles that LR does (DAM/keywording, local edit tools and publishing tools), but produces output that rivals or exceeds LR - it all depends on what you need.


kirk

Jpegs take no storage space at all. You can flag keepers and export those with a click of a button. You can do this with 5 different sizes if you want and view them with a different viewer.

Besides why keep them all. Like I said before I import to LR I cull using DPP. In my opinion nothing looks as good as Quick Check in full screen view. I go thorough them, place an X on the ones I don't want and delete then after. Then I import into LR.

Edit - Rating - Select Rejected Images only. Then File - Delete.

Here is what I do to import files into LR and back up those files a the same time.

I hook up my card reader and two external backup drives to my computer (a laptop). I open import in LR. I use "Copy as DNG" and on the right, I set it up to copy the files to my main external drive in a folder that I create while in LR. Then I set it up to make a second copy of the files in a folder created and named the same on my second external drive as a backup. So, one copy is going to my main external drive which is the one I use to work with the files in LR and another copy is going to the secondary external drive as a backup.

The LR adjustment files are the only ones that stay on my computer. And when I backup the LR catalog itself, I do it to the main external drive so I have two copies of the LR adjustment files.

When I export files from LR, I usually make a subfolder in the folder on my main external drive. And every so often, I just drag a copy of those files to a subfolder of the same name created on my backup drive. Backing up the exported .jpg's might be a little overkill but I do it.

I do it this way so that I don't fill up the hard drive on my computer with photo files. One of the disadvantages is that it being a laptop, I have to hook up the main external drive to my laptop everytime I want to work on photos in LR. And I have to hook up both external drives when I'm first importing the files. But, while it may not be completely bulletproof like offsite automatic cloud storage, it gives me a little feeling of security that I have two copies of everything.

bogeybrown wrote in post #16903681
Thanks Kirk,

Here's the real nuts and bolts scenario I'm trying to reconcile in my head for an upcoming month in S/E Asia/Indonesia:

I go out and shoot 100 images of temples, 100 of surfers, 100 of street scenes, 100 of sunsets.

I import all thos files and review them. Out of each 100 image set, only a small number are going to be worth processing. Once I have processed those select images into a final product I'm happy with, what do I do with them?

I want to be able to find my best, completed/processed images when I'm looking back on the trip or sharing them by assorted means. Right now, all I can do is scroll through 400 images and try to pick the ones out by eye that I processed.

What do I do with the "keepers" to store them on my hard drive in such a way that I can pull only those images up when I want to, instead of sorting through the other hundreds of images?

My personal workflow for Lr (I tend to be a "low volume" shooter): I put the card in my computer and Lr opens. This is where I'll do my initial cull, checking all the images that I want to import. Then I go to the destination panel on the right and select the destination drive. I will right then create a new folder for the shoot in Lr simply by right clicking the directory, and selecting "create new folder". This brings opens up a windows explorer panel with the drive opened. Then I create the folder and close that window. Now the folder will appear in the Lr directory for the drive.
Now with the folder created and the images selected I'll import them. I may apply a few keywords on import that apply to the entire series at this point. From here images will be culled again. Using flags to pick the images I like. Now I've got the images I at least kinda like flagged I will use the attribute panel at the top to show only flagged images. From here you can further refine the selection by using star ratings if you want, or you can separate them into different groups by color. I don't do this because I separate images into smaller groups on import using subfolders.
Once I have my flagged images I will edit them in Lr. Then they go to Ps for final polish. Once back from Ps the finished images will get a Green label. All green images are done. The green images will get comprehensive keywording as the final stage as well as my metadata/copyright preset and title/description.
I have a series of different export presets for the images as well. Images that are only going to forums will be exported to photobucket. I have extensions for uploading to flickr and 500px. I have a separate folder for exporting print ready files, as well as files for NAPP, Getty, Alamy, etc, etc.

Another thing you can do is create smart collections. These are collections that will capture any image that fits it's preset criteria. Maybe have a file that grabs any image keyworded with "sunset" or "sunrise". Then when you open it all your sunset and sunrise images will be there, assuming you remembered to keyword them.

I feel so much better now that I realize that no two people have the same answer to this.

If I'm having this much fun with the organization phase, actually doing complex edits is going to be a blast.

Thank you guys, I'm starting to gather a mental picture of what's happening, kind of.

I originally thought that images were retained in LR, I've now come to understand that LR is effectively just an image viewer for files physically located elsewhere. That bit of understanding helps quite a bit.

bogeybrown wrote in post #16903681
Thanks Kirk,

Here's the real nuts and bolts scenario I'm trying to reconcile in my head for an upcoming month in S/E Asia/Indonesia:

I go out and shoot 100 images of temples, 100 of surfers, 100 of street scenes, 100 of sunsets.

I import all thos files and review them. Out of each 100 image set, only a small number are going to be worth processing. Once I have processed those select images into a final product I'm happy with, what do I do with them?

I want to be able to find my best, completed/processed images when I'm looking back on the trip or sharing them by assorted means. Right now, all I can do is scroll through 400 images and try to pick the ones out by eye that I processed.

What do I do with the "keepers" to store them on my hard drive in such a way that I can pull only those images up when I want to, instead of sorting through the other hundreds of images?

It's you who decide what to do with your digital images!

As has been mentioned, there are various ways to put some type of "ID" on images, ranging from keywords, putting them in Lightroom collections, and then "flagging" them with one or more of the tools LR provides.

What I typically do after importing a shoot is I quickly browse through it and if there are ones that are obviously "bad" (like bad focus, terrible exposure, or a totally messed up composition) I can flag them with an "x"/Reject. If I'm looking at the same time for ones that I want to "Share" and they have good off-the-shelf quality, I can flag them as "p"/Picks. Then it can be quick to use the LR Filter to view just the Rejects or just the Picks. The Rejects can be selected as a batch and then deleted from the disk and library/catalog, because I have no interest in keeping them! If I do want to do some quick "Sharing" on the Web or to someonevia email, you can again use the filter tool to just see your Picks and then you can do whatever quick processing you want, select them all and Export them as jpegs at the size/Quality settings you want/need.

As I have said, Lightroom makes all this quick and simple!

Other folks go more in-depth, using colored flags or Numbered flags to get more specific about their intentions -- a flag for certain processing needs, one for printing, one for the Web, that type of thing. Again, it's up to you!

One question that comes up a lot is how much to delete, and how much to keep even if you don't have an immediate output need for it.

Well, some folks are pretty heavy-handed with deleting things. I'm not so quick at that. Our original Raws are to me like undeveloped film, before even they are developed into negatives, and I do enjoy occasionally going back and "messing with" a Raw file using the newer processing and my newer skills to work over that image, part of the great thing about the "digital darkroom"!

And, I did come from the "film days" when I would shoot a roll, but I didn't have a darkroom, so I'd drop off film to be developed and would get both the negatives and also small prints, all of which I could do what I wanted with. I've printed large prints from a few, I still have some framed and decorating the walls, but then I also have boxes of negatives and prints, and sometimes I'll bring out a box and enjoy the pics with family or friends, you know, "memories" and "moments"...

But with the "digital darkroom", I have images that are from scanning old prints going back, gosh, about 20 years ago when I got my first scanner, but then when I got my first digicam back in I believe December of '01, well, photography got more "serious", and now, I have about 50,000 photos "living" on my system. I don't have to find a box now to dig out the old negatives and prints, all my photos are "at my fingertips"!

It's funny, something came up recently with a FaceBook group of photographers I've been active with. The subject came up of pics "Straight Out Of the Camera" ("SOOC") and it was suggested that we could use that as a "theme" this week.

I have been shooting Raw for, well, gosh, when I got my first DSLR in '06 I quickly switched it to Raw, my "compact" digicams that shot only jpegs died off, so for me it's been Raw only with Camera Raw and then Lightroom as my Raw processors, so the "SOOC" thing wasn't applicable to my photographic workflow.

But then, I found myself going back to my earliest digital photos, and with Lightroom, again it's quick and easy! I have applied keywords to my photos, put them in Lightroom Collections appropriate for what I've shot, I have my library Folders on an external "Library" hard drive (and incorporated in my Lightroom Catalog), or, for fun, I can just look at "All Photographs" in the LR library, and my photos are sorted by "Capture Time", so I can quickly go back, way back, and see if there is an SOOC shot that could be shared with that group!

Should have posted this earlier. Excellent video tutorial from Adobe on getting started with LR5 - http://tv.adobe.com …be-photoshop-lightroom-5/

Personally I make use of keywords, star ratings, flags and collections/smart collections to find my images.

THANK YOU Dan,

I'd done the 2 hour "getting started" video hosted by B&H and it was so different from everything I'd read in the Kelby book that it was making things worse.

I'll work my way through the Adobe series and see where it gets me. What I realized was that I need to pick ONE way (one expert's way) of doing things and stick with it rather than taking bits and pieces from everywhere when it comes to organization.

With developing all the different methods are helpful, with organization not so much.

This Adobe series may be the ONE way I approach things.

Thannks again,
Nelson