I recently had a problem whereby I opened Lightroom when I found that many my images were all messed up. Lots of wrong thumbnails and Lightroom was telling me that my files could be damaged. Scary!

No problem, just return to recent backup you say. Well, yes, but I had pruned my backups, and my last two backups had the same problem.

I tried relaunching and optimizing in Lightroom but it did not fix the problem either.

So how did I get out of this mess?

First I made sure that I could not use any of my backups.

I then tried resynchronizing the top level folder; that did not work either.

Then I created a new empty Catalog and then imported my folder structure using the File menu item
Import Photos from Disk.

I expected to have to re-rate and re-edit hundreds of images. I did not have to!

The reason being that I had retained my previous ratings and edits was because I had selected Automatically write changes to XMP in my catalog settings.

The primary purpose of Auto writing XMP changes is to keep in sync other XMP compatible software such as Bridge. However, it also writes all the rating and editing information as well into the XMP file. So when my import was completed I was in good shape.

The only data I have lost are my Collections. Keywords and keyword tagged images are fine. All my Develop Module edits are intact. Collections are not hard to re-create.
So make sure you turn on that XMP setting as well as keep backing up.

Let me know if this tip helps you.

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Technorati Tags: adobe, photography, lightroom Tips, lightroom, workflow

Tags: General Tip, Catalog

It is not obvious how to change the default backup location, say to an external hard drive.

The default backups are kept in

/Pictures/Lightroom\Backups (Mac) or

\My Documents\My Pictures\Lightroom\Backups on PC.

You cannot change this location directly via a Preference or Options setting. You have to do it via the Scheduled Backup dialog box which will pop up when it is time for your next backup.
To force it to open sooner and make the location change do the following.

1. Open Lightroom and select Catalog Settings from the File menu.

2. Select Every time Lightroom starts from the backup section.

3. Restart Lightroom

4. When the Back Up Catalog box opens you can then set a new location for the backup folder.

This allows you to backup to any drive, internal or external, even an USB key drive or iPod.


Try it and see for yourself.

Let me know if this tip helps you.

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Tags: Backups, General Tip

If you want a quick display of the key commands in any of Lightrooms Modules press command '/' .
This will bring up an overlay screen with all the key combinations for the Module you are in.
Below is the overlay for the Library Module.

To clear the help screen just click on it.
Try it and see for yourself.

Let me know if this tip helps you.

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Tags: General Tip

Scott Kelby posted on his blog last week (23rd Jan) that he had just visited Adobe and was very impressed with what he had seen of the planned Lightroom version 2.0. He gave no details of the planned features or changes, which was not unexpected as he is under non-disclosure.

So here are my Top 5 feature requests for Lightroom v 2.0 having used it from the very first beta.

• 
  
• Ability to display a JPEG with the same 'settings' as was used to capture the image in the Camera. Most of individual camera manufacturers have this in their software (Nikon's Capture NX for instance) but this data is probably not available to the Lightroom Team.
• 
  
• Selective image editing of just small areas of an image. The Targeted Adjustment Tool is good but TAT edits affect the whole of the image.
• 
  
• Dual Monitor support. I really miss this as a 'long time ago' Aperture user!
• 
  
• Better cloning and patching tools. The dust spot removal is much better that it was but I want to avoid round tripping to Photoshop
• 
  
• Inclusion of some of the cataloging and smart searching functionality that Aperture has.
• 
  

What features would you like?

Link to Scott Kelby's Lightrooom Post

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Tags: General Tip

I was working in the Library Module the other day and I could not remember how to change the size of the thumbnails in the Grid view. Cycling through the views by pressing the 'J' key switches between three fixed thumbnail views but does not let you make other alterations to thumbnail size.

I knew it could be done, but how?

The answer was to press the 'T' key.

Pressing 'T' in any of Lightrooms' modules will bring up a module specific toolbar. Above is the toolbar for the the Library Module.

Lightroom remembers if the tool bar is on or off for each module so it is easy to turn it off and forget all about it.
Note that the little downward facing triangle at the end of the toolbar allows you to turn on and off the individual tools for each toolbar.

Let me know if this tip helps you.

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Tags: General Tip

I prepared this tip following a question which was asked in the Image-Space Lightroom Forum.

I backup my lightroom catalog regularly. I use the Catalog Setting (below) which prompts me once a week, when I launch Lightroom, to do an automatic backup.

It's a good idea to have this reminder, and to do the backup, but if you have been doing this over many months, as I have, then a considerable amount of disk space gets taken up with backups.

I checked my '/Lightroom/Backups/' folder recently and there were over 3GB of backups!

You have to delete the backups manually so make sure you leave the last couple in place.

Worth doing if you are short of disk space!

Let me know if this tip helps you.

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Tags: Backups, General Tip

When using Lightroom in it's default mode the interface is set to "Auto Hide and Show" the side panels.
If your mouse touches the side, top or bottom of the screen then the panel will appear and cover up part of your working area. I find this very distracting.

Try turning off 'Auto Hide and Show' and setting it to 'Manual' as follows.

You should see a small triangular dotted icon at the side of the panel. This indicates that 'Auto Hide and Show' is active.

Right click on this icon and select 'Manual'

Now you can move you mouse to the edge of the screen without problems. When you want the side panels to appear just click on the the now solid icon.
Let me know if this tip helps you.

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I recently had a problem where Lightroom was constantly consuming more than 80% of the CPU cycles for long periods of time. Disk drive activity was also very very high.

The fix was to turn off the Automatically Write to XMP option in the dialog box under Catalog Settings.

This solved the high CPU usage and disk thrashing.

Let me know if this tip helps you.

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The Lightsout mode in Lightroom is a very easy to use and powerful way to view and isolate images. On any screen in any of the modules you can press the "L" key. The display will dim.

First Press of the "L" key - Interface 50% dimmed

The amount of the initial dimming can be set in the Preferences/Interface menu. I like to use 50% for the initial dimming as I can still see and use the other interface tools.

Second Press of the "L" key - Interface fully dimmed

Press "L" again and it will dim right down and just leave the selected image.

Works in any of the modules. An gives you a really uncluttered view of the image, or set of images, that you are working on.

Hope you find this useful.

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In my first Lightroom post I stated that I was unsure which to use, Lightroom or Aperture. Well I am now using Lightroom all the time and have not run Aperture for at least 10 days.

Here is my reasoning:

• 
  
• Folder Management. By using my simplified folder structure of Places, People and Objects I can now structure my library so that I can easily locate images without having to perform complex searches. One of the main reasons I used Aperture was the folder and file management. I can now do this just as well in Lightroom; and Lightroom has the big advantage that it directly mirrors the folder structure on the disk with Lightroom application view.
• 
  
  
• Metadata Browsing. In particular the date browser which automatically sorts and presents your images by date. This can be set up in Aperture, but its a time consuming manual process and it lacks the granularity I require.
• 
  
  
• Develop Module Tools. In my view they are much more powerful. The ability to do curve manipulation is much more intuitive for me than altering the histogram alone. The Targeted Adjustment Tool which allows adjustment based on a selected area of tonality is very powerful.
• 
  
  
• Performance. Lightroom is just faster with big libraries. My modest collection of 12,000 images always slows down Aperture after relatively short sessions - 30 minutes or less. Lightroom does not slow down.
• 
  
  
• Printing. I always revert to Lightroom for printing as it has a very simple and easy to use print layout interface. I just works. I can select the profile I want in a few clicks of the mouse and it remembers my settings. It's one of the cleanest interfaces I have seen for printing. Bottom line is I don't waste time, paper and ink anymore.
• 
  

At last I am not having to to keep two workflow applications running in parallel !

Hope you find this useful.

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Here is a tip which will let you show additional detail in the Filmstrip in Lightroom.

The default Filmstrip has very little information other than just the thumbnails.

Try right clicking on the Filmstrip. You will get a menu item to allow you to "Show Ratings and Picks"

This is really useful when you are working in either the Library or the Develop module.

Hope you find this useful.

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Tags: General Tip

There are a whole host of tools which can be selected from the lower toolbar. Some are new such as the color label and others have been relocated such as the select by Rating. I initially thought that the select by rating had been removed but was thankful to find it again.

Lightroom lower toolbar setup

The more I explore the new Lightroom v1 the more I like it.

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Version 1 of Lightroom has arrived - now officially called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I have decided to give it a try with the view to using Lightroom instead of Aperture.

What has improved over Lightroom beta 4.1?

Well quite a lot. I will concentrate this time on the Library module as there are far to many changes and improvements for this one post.

• 
  
• In the Library module there is now a Metadata browsing mode which allows you to see your collection automatically sorted by date, camera, lens, file type or location.
  
• A new Folder view reflects the folder or directory structure on you hard disk. As you move folders or files around outside of Lightroom changes will be automatically reflected in the Lightroom folder structure; even if Lightroom is not running at the time.
  
• The Find functionality has changed and sports a date finder (slider). Gone though is the ability to show or hide subfolder contents. I found the old way very useful as I could check to see if all my photos had been allocated a sub folder.
  

  
  

• Keyword handling has been extensively enhanced in the library module for keyword searching and assignment. There are now displays of recent keywords and implied keywords
  

Will I switch from Aperture?

I still find the Lightroom interface somewhat cramped. The text size is quite large and even on an 1600 x 1024 monitor I find there is not enough room to get a good view of you folder structure. Aperture has the edge in that it can span multiple monitors and gives you a much better folder view of your image library.
I had hoped that Lightroom would provide better image management functionality as I still find Lightrooms' Develop and Print modules are better than Aperture.
So the bottom line is that I will continue to use both programs.

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Here is a Adobe Lightroom tip which may save you some time and frustration.

I could not get Lightroom to show the image rating toolbar. It should have been there but I have somehow switched it off. I worked with Lightroom for days before I thought to check the obvious and look under the drop-down menu options.

It is just a matter of turning it back on again in the View menu.

Tags: General Tip

Lightroom beta 4 opens up with a default Panels setting which can be quite confusing. There is a new “solo” mode in which only one panel at a time will be visible. When you are in this mode you will see a different style of arrow next to the panel names. A sort of semi-solid panel icon.

Single Panel Mode

To toggle between solo mode and having as many panels open as you want you need to option-click one of the panel headers (on a Mac) or right click in Windows.

Multiple Panel Mode

Tags: General Tip