Adding Lightroom to my workflow
January 27, 2011 10:42 AM Subscribe
Help me get Lightroom to play nicely with my photo library on OS X. Caveat: I don't want Lightroom to handle EVERY photo, just the raw files. Any advice appreciated.
I looked at previous AskMes and while this one was close it didn't have an answer for me.
I have three Macs. I keep my photos synchronized between all three - my MacBook Pro, my wife's MacBook, and a backup drive attached to an older Mini. When I shoot raw files, I am opening them on my MBP and importing them to Lightroom to develop them. Shooting in raw is my New Year's resolution, I guess. Prior to this I mostly just shot in jpg. My wife's point-and-shoot also saves everything as a jpg.
Right now, our folder structure is organized as YYYY/YYYY_MM_DD/ on import. I regularly synchronize the photos between the computers, so that anything my wife uploaded from her camera will end up on my computer, and vice versa. The backup to the Mini is a one-way shot, not two-way. It's storage only, we don't edit files on the Mini.
I am using Lightroom 3.3. I am also using Picasa. I am using Picasa because it is the only photo management software I can find that doesn't care what I do to my photos outside of itself. This makes it dead easy to sync files between computers. If I add a jpg to a folder, when I sync, my wife's Picasa will see it and it will show up in her image database. This is great and it works well. The kicker is the raw files.
She likes my photos and she wants copies. She doesn't have Lightroom nor does she want to fuss with it. I don't copy my Lightroom catalog onto her Mac. I have been syncing the raw files though, as I like redundant backups. Picasa can see raw images and it will show them to her, but it obviously can't read the develop settings so things look like crap. I have disabled raw support in Picasa, to keep it from potentially changing my photo metadata. I plan to do this on my wife's computer too - but that means she can't see the raw files any more.
A related issue is that I want to have her photos on my Mac too. But I am using Picasa to check on them, not Lightroom, as I see no advantage to importing jpg files into Lightroom - I am not going to change them at all, and Picasa might change the metadata on next open anyway, so why bother cluttering my catalog? When I import, I only import the raw files.
My dream setup is something like this: I import photos from the camera, using the Canon camera software (good or bad, I like it, and will continue to use it for the import step). Any jpgs stay in the original folder where Picasa can find them. The raw files are imported in place into Lightroom (manually if need be). I make changes. I export the developed shots back into the original folder, where my wife can see them with Picasa. I am OK with manually importing the raw files this way, even if it is tedious because Lightroom won't filter on file extension during import.
This would be easier if I had a separate folder structure for the raw images (eg ~/Pictures/Raw/YYYY/etc.), which is kind of what I really want - but then exporting a batch might be hard as I'd have to manually sort them into the right destination folder. I organize my shots by date, not by any other scheme, because dates are simple and take guesswork out of categorizing them. That's what keywords and metadata is for. But my camera software can't export raw or jpg into different folders based on file type, and my wife occasionally uses my camera on full auto so it will not always contain just raw images. My Lightroom catalog already references my existing folders, so moving them might be a problem.
Abandoning Picasa is a no-go. iPhoto won't sync between computers, we both kind of hate it, she's used Picasa for years and knows how to make it work for her, and it's super easy for her to use the built-in export options to share photos online or order prints.
I'm half decent with AppleScript and figure there must be a solution, but don't know where to start here. Any suggestions welcome. Help?
I looked at previous AskMes and while this one was close it didn't have an answer for me.
I have three Macs. I keep my photos synchronized between all three - my MacBook Pro, my wife's MacBook, and a backup drive attached to an older Mini. When I shoot raw files, I am opening them on my MBP and importing them to Lightroom to develop them. Shooting in raw is my New Year's resolution, I guess. Prior to this I mostly just shot in jpg. My wife's point-and-shoot also saves everything as a jpg.
Right now, our folder structure is organized as YYYY/YYYY_MM_DD/ on import. I regularly synchronize the photos between the computers, so that anything my wife uploaded from her camera will end up on my computer, and vice versa. The backup to the Mini is a one-way shot, not two-way. It's storage only, we don't edit files on the Mini.
I am using Lightroom 3.3. I am also using Picasa. I am using Picasa because it is the only photo management software I can find that doesn't care what I do to my photos outside of itself. This makes it dead easy to sync files between computers. If I add a jpg to a folder, when I sync, my wife's Picasa will see it and it will show up in her image database. This is great and it works well. The kicker is the raw files.
She likes my photos and she wants copies. She doesn't have Lightroom nor does she want to fuss with it. I don't copy my Lightroom catalog onto her Mac. I have been syncing the raw files though, as I like redundant backups. Picasa can see raw images and it will show them to her, but it obviously can't read the develop settings so things look like crap. I have disabled raw support in Picasa, to keep it from potentially changing my photo metadata. I plan to do this on my wife's computer too - but that means she can't see the raw files any more.
A related issue is that I want to have her photos on my Mac too. But I am using Picasa to check on them, not Lightroom, as I see no advantage to importing jpg files into Lightroom - I am not going to change them at all, and Picasa might change the metadata on next open anyway, so why bother cluttering my catalog? When I import, I only import the raw files.
My dream setup is something like this: I import photos from the camera, using the Canon camera software (good or bad, I like it, and will continue to use it for the import step). Any jpgs stay in the original folder where Picasa can find them. The raw files are imported in place into Lightroom (manually if need be). I make changes. I export the developed shots back into the original folder, where my wife can see them with Picasa. I am OK with manually importing the raw files this way, even if it is tedious because Lightroom won't filter on file extension during import.
This would be easier if I had a separate folder structure for the raw images (eg ~/Pictures/Raw/YYYY/etc.), which is kind of what I really want - but then exporting a batch might be hard as I'd have to manually sort them into the right destination folder. I organize my shots by date, not by any other scheme, because dates are simple and take guesswork out of categorizing them. That's what keywords and metadata is for. But my camera software can't export raw or jpg into different folders based on file type, and my wife occasionally uses my camera on full auto so it will not always contain just raw images. My Lightroom catalog already references my existing folders, so moving them might be a problem.
Abandoning Picasa is a no-go. iPhoto won't sync between computers, we both kind of hate it, she's used Picasa for years and knows how to make it work for her, and it's super easy for her to use the built-in export options to share photos online or order prints.
I'm half decent with AppleScript and figure there must be a solution, but don't know where to start here. Any suggestions welcome. Help?
but then exporting a batch might be hard as I'd have to manually sort them into the right destination folder.
tl;dr your entire post. Lightroom will indeed do this for you automatically.
Also, if you accidentally import one of your wife's JPEGs into Lightroom, just follow the same procedure, and you'll pretty much end up with the same thing in the end. You'll have a few JPEGs living in your RAW filetree, but there's no reason why that's explicitly a bad thing.
posted by schmod at 11:00 AM on January 27, 2011
tl;dr your entire post. Lightroom will indeed do this for you automatically.
Also, if you accidentally import one of your wife's JPEGs into Lightroom, just follow the same procedure, and you'll pretty much end up with the same thing in the end. You'll have a few JPEGs living in your RAW filetree, but there's no reason why that's explicitly a bad thing.
posted by schmod at 11:00 AM on January 27, 2011
Response by poster: schmod - "manual sync dance" = Chronosync, which does it over the local network and is already paid for. If I wanted Dropbox to do the same thing I'd need to get a paid account, as I have about 90+ gb of photos, not including several years worth of raw images I don't currently have stored locally. After initial setup it works fine, and will auto-sync without intervention when it notices specific drives available on the network.
"Stop shooting jpegs" is why I am trying to get things into Lightroom. I'm not shooting them now, but my wife is.
How do I restructure the existing catalog? I tried moving things in Lightroom and it warned me that doing so might sever links between files and the saved settings for each in the catalog, and that it was not undoable. I need some way to separate the existing photos so that the raw files I currently have in the tree get moved to a new directory, without confusing Lightroom. Do I just do this manually, and then tell Lightroom where the resulting folders have been moved to (there's something like an "update folder location" option I ran across...)
Will play with the Lightroom import settings and see what I can do. My main reason for sticking with the Canon setup were the quick startup (no need to load the entire catalog just to import a few shots) and the tethered shooting controls which give full access to all camera features (granted I have almost never used it, but up until Lightroom 3 tethering options were nonexistent).
posted by caution live frogs at 2:19 PM on January 27, 2011
"Stop shooting jpegs" is why I am trying to get things into Lightroom. I'm not shooting them now, but my wife is.
How do I restructure the existing catalog? I tried moving things in Lightroom and it warned me that doing so might sever links between files and the saved settings for each in the catalog, and that it was not undoable. I need some way to separate the existing photos so that the raw files I currently have in the tree get moved to a new directory, without confusing Lightroom. Do I just do this manually, and then tell Lightroom where the resulting folders have been moved to (there's something like an "update folder location" option I ran across...)
Will play with the Lightroom import settings and see what I can do. My main reason for sticking with the Canon setup were the quick startup (no need to load the entire catalog just to import a few shots) and the tethered shooting controls which give full access to all camera features (granted I have almost never used it, but up until Lightroom 3 tethering options were nonexistent).
posted by caution live frogs at 2:19 PM on January 27, 2011
Best answer: Followup. Import works as described - I wasn't seeing these options before as I was using "import in place" for existing files. But there's no way to filter them differently based on file type. Meh. I can deal.
Export - had to install another plugin for that, LR/TreeExporter. Not free but pretty cheap. It recreates the folder structure.
Moved the files by relocating manually and then telling Lightroom where they were. Didn't screw anything up. Am now putting all raw files into Raw/YYYY/YYYY_MM_DD and I am happy.
posted by caution live frogs at 6:09 PM on January 27, 2011
Export - had to install another plugin for that, LR/TreeExporter. Not free but pretty cheap. It recreates the folder structure.
Moved the files by relocating manually and then telling Lightroom where they were. Didn't screw anything up. Am now putting all raw files into Raw/YYYY/YYYY_MM_DD and I am happy.
posted by caution live frogs at 6:09 PM on January 27, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
2) Stop shooting JPEGs. If you're using Lightroom, you might as well do everything in RAW. Storage is cheap.
3) Set up a second folder structure for your RAW files. These will "live" solely on your Macbook Pro. Lightroom should let you do RAW/YYYY/YYYY_MM_DD/
4) Set up an export preset (or whatever LR calls it these days) to export your photos to the usual JPEG folder tree that you've been using. You should be able to coax LR into following your existing folder structure.
5) Import and process your RAW photos. Once you're done with that, export them. They will then live happily alongside your JPEGs, as if they were never RAW to begin with. You can both continue to use Picasa to your heart's content.
Also, consider a Dropbox account to keep things in sync instead of your existing manual synchronization dance. It's MAGIC. It's not cheap for a larger account, but you get a great deal of value out of it -- it "just works," and also doubles as a backup, rudimentary version control, and remote access solution.
posted by schmod at 10:57 AM on January 27, 2011