Beginner Lightroom help.

scott199

scott199

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Hi all

Bought Lightroom for PC a while ago, haven't used it much at all, the importing and filing system I dived into never really worked.

I'm now moving to Mac and will start a completely new Lightroom, my idea was to import all pics from cam to an external hard drive and then use that to feed Lightroom.

So could any one give me some starter tips for importing and sorting into Lightroom, stating up and such.

So how do I set up Lightroom and any advice so I can easily find/locate pics ? My fist attempt failed as all pic got thrown into one large folder/catalog.
 
Just took a quick look at the link Boric gave. This looks like a good primer for Lightroom
The main tip i would give is start with a small catalogue. Maybe 100 or so images. use this as a trial . If you find you don't like the structure or the way you've set things up, it's not a problem to start again.

In theory you could keep all your images in one big folder, provided you've named and keyworded them correctly. However if like me you like a bit more order in you catalogues then try something like this
File your images in folders such as Year/ Event/ Sub Event(s)
i.e
2014/
Cornwall Holiday/
St Ives
Padstow
Lands End

Here we have the main folder that everything that was taken in 2014 is placed. Within that we have another folder labelled Cornwall Holiday. Now you could leave it at that but could include the locations you visited. Alternatively you could leave the third part and rename the images for the location. This way Lightroom's search facility will find them for you.

Lightroom is a very powerful tool and can seem a bit overwhelming at the start. However it's structure is fairly logical and once you understand it ( it really doesn't take long) it is easy to use

Adobe also do a number of video's on Lightroom

here's a link to them

http://tv.adobe.com/product/lightroom/show/featured/
 
You've made a good decision to use Lightroom and a Mac!
Lightroom's strength lies in that it is, unlike e.g. Windows Explorer, also an image database management system. Lightroom will show only the images you have chosen to add or import without the clutter of seeing all the other non-image files in your drives.
You can use it as an hierarchical folder system as long as you know in which folders your images are stored, which is how we all start our records. Once you start to accumulate thousands of images, this alone is no longer such a practical solution.
Its real power as an asset manager comes into play when you use the Filter bar to search for images in the catalogue. Once you get into the habit of entering descriptive keyword information each time you import an image, you will be able to search your archive quickly when searching for specific photos.
 
Also I hear a lot about aperture, just wondering before I learn anything is it aperture any better/easier or is it almost the same with a slightly different name
 
Aperture used to be the more popular mac-only software but I'd say Lightroom is much more popular nowadays. You'll get different opinions on which is better/easier but I'd stick with Lightroom :-)
 
I too have just signed up for a Lightroom subscription, but like the OP the initial set up and importing is the thing stopping me from using it at the moment.

At the moment my library is organised by event/holiday in iPhoto rather than date, year etc, so that seems like the most logical format initially, but not sure if that's actually the best way to use LR in the long run?
 
I am currently watching CreativeLive - The Ultimate Lightroom Workflow with Jared Platt which is excellent
 
ChasG said:
I am currently watching CreativeLive - The Ultimate Lightroom Workflow with Jared Platt which is excellent
Click to expand...
Is that a dvd or online.?
 
Hmm It is available online.
Creative live have many of these 3 day lessons but I think this guy is very good

ChasG
 
Think I'll be having a watch of that too.

Although, a Lightroom 'Professor'!? :D
 
This guy is very efficient and seems ideal for wedding and business type togs. Now on day two
 
My big tip is to be really disciplined with tagging and organising. If you start to leave hundreds of photos from shoots "lying around" without having tagged or really looked at them, 100s will become 1000s and then you'll never be able to find anything again!
 
pjm1 said:
My big tip is to be really disciplined with tagging and organising. If you start to leave hundreds of photos from shoots "lying around" without having tagged or really looked at them, 100s will become 1000s and then you'll never be able to find anything again!
Click to expand...

lol yes i found that the first, this time going in with slightly more knowledge (i hope)
 
I set up smart collections for "not rated", "no tags", "rejected" etc. So that I could see what I still had to organise. I'm still not perfect by any stretch, but at least every time I open Lightroom I have a very visible reminder of what I put off doing last time!
 
pjm1 said:
I set up smart collections for "not rated", "no tags", "rejected" etc. So that I could see what I still had to organise. I'm still not perfect by any stretch, but at least every time I open Lightroom I have a very visible reminder of what I put off doing last time!
Click to expand...
That's a good idea, think I will steal that
 
Use the spraycan
 
In the library module at the bottom of the screen is a spraycan. If you click on that a menu comes up on rhs and if you select keywords another bar appears where you can load up the keyword/s you want. Then if you make sure you are in grid mode you can spray the keyword (or other attribute - eg a preset) onto the images you wish.

Edited typos
 
ChasG said:
In the library module at the bottom of the screen is a spraycan. If you click on that a menu comes up on rhs and if you select keywords another bar appears where you can load up the keyword/s you want. Then if you make sure you are in grid mode you can spray the keyword (or other attribute - eg a preset) onto the images you wish.

Edited typos
Click to expand...

Oh, so it's a bit like stamping all info in one hit. ?
 
You could use it that way but you can use it morethan once so you could say go over once with the words Chessington and zoo then over again with bear where appropriate. |the over a different set with lion etc etc

But you can also click and change to say black and white with extra sharpening etc

I really recommend this guy
The Ultimate Photography Workflow with Jared Platt

I have no financial tie up etc etc with any companies or individuals I just rate his videos

ChasG
 
ChasG said:
You could use it that way but you can use it morethan once so you could say go over once with the words Chessington and zoo then over again with bear where appropriate. |the over a different set with lion etc etc

But you can also click and change to say black and white with extra sharpening etc

I really recommend this guy
The Ultimate Photography Workflow with Jared Platt

I have no financial tie up etc etc with any companies or individuals I just rate his videos

ChasG
Click to expand...
Thanks for that, it will make the sorting loads quicker.

As for the video, I have looked, just not willing to spend anything yet, until I get the basics down
 
Aren't you somewhere in Somerset? If so I hope to get down that way before the schools break up and may be able to let you see the videos.

Just a thought - let me know

Charles
 
A little late to the party.

I've been doing what you describe - storing images on an external HDD, then importing into lightroom. I do this because my Macbook had a 128Gb SSD without space to store images - you should be aware it makes moving an image into the develop module slow. I have a folder called 'camera images' an inside that I store in folders based on date of download to the drive in the format YYYY-MM-DD, plus occasionally other useful information (i.e. location) if relevant.

When it comes to using keywords I just simply select the image at the start of the group to be given common details, then shift-click the last image to select the whole set before adding keywords that will be applied to all the images.
 
Recently got LR5 myself and found this video quite helpful with regards to organising files and getting things clear in you mind before that first import…

 
Thanks for the vid - downloading to watch later (Lr is complex enough that I'm always glad for a chance to learn more).
 
No worries Toni, the presenter is a bit Marmite, but I found the information useful. I should say that I also thought some of Jared Platt's vids were excellent too, as already mentioned above. Anthony Morganti is another one who has some good instructional LR5 videos on YouTube - maybe worth checking out too (y)
 
Thanks - I've watched nearly all the Anthony Morganti videos and found them useful. There's a danger with those in particular, that one develops images 'like Anthony Morganti', and I've had to deliberately step away from his method that naturally creates intense, contrasty and saturated images. That description sounds great, but it can really lack subtlety and just make for gaudy, hard pictures (which is a little bit his trademark). But he does explain the use of tools etc and that's really good.
 
I gave up on Amthony Morganti as I thought his images were so over the top. Someone else to check out is Robert Rodriguez Jr - some of his tutorials are LR4, but he is more restrained than Morganti. He also has a few other videos and had a free e-book that I downloaded to my Kindle. The e-book was more on landscape photography, but not too bad for a freebie.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Thanks - I've watched nearly all the Anthony Morganti videos and found them useful. There's a danger with those in particular, that one develops images 'like Anthony Morganti', and I've had to deliberately step away from his method that naturally creates intense, contrasty and saturated images. That description sounds great, but it can really lack subtlety and just make for gaudy, hard pictures (which is a little bit his trademark). But he does explain the use of tools etc and that's really good.
Click to expand...
Sounds a bit like Serge Ramelli - I liked his style at first until I opened some of the images on a "proper" monitor. Rather in your face, to say the least.
 
I've seen there are Serge Ramelli vids on Lr but haven't tried them - thanks for the warning. I very much like the control over tonal range that the min-highlights/max-shadows method gives, but not what it does to colours.
 
ancient_mariner said:
I've seen there are Serge Ramelli vids on Lr but haven't tried them - thanks for the warning. I very much like the control over tonal range that the min-highlights/max-shadows method gives, but not what it does to colours.
Click to expand...

I used to like it - on my laptop. But on a monitor where I can actually see the shadow detail and highlight detail, it's only necessary... erm... when it's necessary! I don't like the things he does automatically - like Highlights-100, Shadows+100, Sharpen=100-NR. I used to be fan of all of these until I actually spent time looking at what they did to most images. His accent's still cool though.

Bear in mind though, I'm still a bit (lot) of a clueless noob...
 
Anthony Morganti makes *more* sense, but still has some automatically OTT rules of thumb. I have very carefully stopped holding alt when trying to determine black point, so that I can see the effect on the image, rather than trying to achieve maximum dynamic range.
 
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