I just got lightroom.......

gothgirl

gothgirl

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Edit My Images
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..... And now to process 4 years of photos into 12 shades of creative monochrome.....

I AM ADDICTED
 
Best of luck with that!

I recently introduced a mate to Lightroom and his eyes went all dreamy when I showed him some of the things he can do with it.

Remember to backup your catalogue and keep a copy somewhere safe! Mine prompts me whenever I close.
 
DBT85 said:
Best of luck with that!

I recently introduced a mate to Lightroom and his eyes went all dreamy when I showed him some of the things he can do with it.

Remember to backup your catalogue and keep a copy somewhere safe! Mine prompts me whenever I close.
Click to expand...


I use the copy as DNG option, so I have a copy of all my camera's original raw files on my hard drive and all the DNG / TIFF files from lightroom.

I think my eyes went dreamy tooo

Now they're just cross eyed from spending hours deciding just how much black is too much in black and white :lol:
 
It really is a great application I used to use Photoshop and Bridge to manage everything but I tried Lightroom and couldn't believe how easy so much of it was.

Regading your backups and your Catalog which I mentioned above, sorry if I'm about to sound like a tit, but I think you might have misunderstood either me or how Lightroom works or I've misunderstood what you just said. The reason I'm willing to look like a tit, is because this part of Lightroom is the most vital to understand above everything else.

You are backing up your RAW images, so you have them in two locations. This is perfect. In an ideal world one of these locations would also be on a different HDD in a different house. All depends how much losing your images means to you.

However, what I'm talking about is Lightrooms Catalog, not your actual images. When you import an image into Lightroom and make some edits, that file actually doesn't get edited at all. Lightroom saves all of those edits into a database called the Lightroom Catalog. This is how Lightroom can non destructively edit all of your images, it never actually writes to the files in the first place. They will forever remain the image your camera made.

What I suggested above is that you back this Lightroom Catalog up. Why? Lets say you sat there today and started going through your extensive collection of images and edited say 100. If you managed to delete your Catalog, or it got destroyed by a virus or god forbid your HDD died, you just lost that work and those changes. You might very well have backed up your images, but without Lightrooms Catalogue those images will go back to being exactly what you shot, without any modifications.

Now imagine you have a Lightroom Catalogue that has had 30,000 images added to it, with many many edits, virtual copies, flags, ratings, keywords, etc etc. Now I delete your Lightroom Catalog.

Now all you have are the 30,000 images you originally took, with no modifications at all. None. It's back to the start with everything.

This video from Adove.tv will show you how to do it in LR4, I imagine it's fairly similar in LR5.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-lightroom-4/backing-up-your-catalog/
Please please please make sure you are doing this!


In addition, some of those other Adobe.tv videos can be very very helpful when you first get LR.

http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-lightroom-4/


Apologies once again if all of that is already known to you :)
 
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Yes I regularly back up the original raws and the dng/tiffs from lightroom
 
gothgirl said:
Yes I regularly back up the original raws and the dng/tiffs from lightroom
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I say this because I recently restored the lr4 files from a timemachine backup during a fresh operating system rebuild if my MacBook, and Jebus on a motorcycle, that was a horrid way to spend a Sunday.

It's not just the raws and the dng's, LR is non destructive in that keeps a pointer to your dng's and then runs a catalog which stores your actions on those dng's. When you open a previously edited file LR runs though its catalog of actions and re runs whatever actions you performed when you last edited that file...

So to back up LR you also need the LR catalog file and your preferences files, your presets files, your develop defaults, lens defaults, custom curve defaults, all in all there are about five locations you want to backup. If you are missing one bit of the puzzle it all goes Pete Tong.

Take a look here for a very good list.

http://members.lightroomqueen.com/i...icle/View/1147/198/lightroom-4-file-locations

I was lucky that my backups covered my entire hard drive. I had all the locations covered, if I hadn't I would have probably spent Sunday night crying over a bottle of gin.
 
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DBT85 said:
I'm still not sure you understand me.
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You have my sympathy. Many people find it hard to understand that a LR catalogue only contains references to the folders that are chosen to be added to it. It does not contain the folder of the image originals.
Put another way, the files and folders of images on the hard drive are referenced to the LR catalogue and not contained in it.
A system for backups must cater for the source files as well as the LR catalogues.
 
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Do you mean I should use the option to "export the catalogue" to a disc, rather than just copying the files ?
 
BrynBoru said:
You have my sympathy. Many people find it hard to understand that a LR catalogue only contains references to the folders that are chosen to be added to it. It does not contain the folder of the image originals.
Put another way, the files and folders of images on the hard drive are referenced to the LR catalogue and not contained in it.
A system for backups must cater for the source files as well as the LR catalogues.
Click to expand...

I blame this on adobe really. It is a complex model to understand and they don't exactly make LR backups easy. I'll have to watch the vid Darren posted. I suspect I am backing up far too much.

Someone could probably make a decent part time income with a chunk of code to automate LR backups.
 
You must keep backups of the LR catalogues on a separate drive from your computer, which is normal backup practice.
I suggest you read Darren's advice again and watch the vids on Adobe.tv he mentioned. Also if you are serious about understanding LR, you might invest in Martin Evenings excellent book on Adobe Lightroom.
Lightroom needs careful understanding if you are to reap the many rewards it has to offer.
 
Ebilpirate said:
I blame this on adobe really. It is a complex model to understand and they don't exactly make LR backups easy. I'll have to watch the vid Darren posted. I suspect I am backing up far too much.

Someone could probably make a decent part time income with a chunk of code to automate LR backups.
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Adobe are not to blame for anything other than producing an excellent piece of software. Backups are not complex once you have taken the time to study Adobe's tutorials or Martin Evenings or Victoria Brampton's advice.
I run my backups every day and don't even think about them, because I spent a lot of time at the start to structure them to my requirements.
 
Ebilpirate said:
I blame this on adobe really. It is a complex model to understand and they don't exactly make LR backups easy. I'll have to watch the vid Darren posted. I suspect I am backing up far too much.

Someone could probably make a decent part time income with a chunk of code to automate LR backups.
Click to expand...

To be fair, to backup the catalog as you can see in the video is incredibly easy. Every time I close Lightroom it asks me if I want to backup. When I click yes, it does it.

It's getting people to understand WHY they need to that is the problem. They soon get it when their file corrupts and they realise they have lost hours and hours and hours of work, despite backing their photographs up religiously.


gothgirl said:
Do you mean I should use the option to "export the catalogue" to a disc, rather than just copying the files ?
Click to expand...

Gothgirl, read my post a few up carefully and you'll see a link for the video showing you exactly how to backup your catalog. Your Lightroom Catalog is NOT your collection of images, it is the database of those images, the keywords, modifications etc that you have made to them. Your photos without their Lightroom Catalog are like a library of books without page numbers, spines and shelves. Take the time to watch the rest of those Adobe Tv videos, they really are very instructive.
 
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BrynBoru said:
Adobe are not to blame for anything other than producing an excellent piece of software. Backups are not complex once you have taken the time to study Adobe's tutorials or Martin Evenings or Victoria Brampton's advice.
I run my backups every day and don't even think about them, because I spent a lot of time at the start to structure them to my requirements.
Click to expand...

In this thread we have are three people trying to explain a rudimentary backup regime to another photographer. Those three people don't agree on exactly what needs to be backed up, neither do they agree what the best source of information on backups is, Fan page, video on the adobes website or a third parties book.

Anyhow I am out of this thread now, op is welcome to pm me if she needs a hand, but this ongoing discussion isn't adding value.
 
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