Lightroom 4

[danny842003]

I have just got Lightroom 4 and so far so good for editing.

Do people use it to organise there photos? As I currently use iPhoto and to be honest it is not ideal. Was thinking about finding another program to organise all my photos in and if lightroom is a good solution I might as well use this. If you edit a photo in lightroom are the changes saved in the original file you saved on your computer?

 

[specialman]

Lightroom is perfect for organising and archiving.

It's non-destructive, so any adjustments are saved in a master file and applied almost like a layer over the image (so to speak) so the original file is unharmed.

I've just installed LR4 on my work mac (I used LR2/3 on my laptop). I used to manually drag files from memory cards into named folders on my HD, which means I can have 'master' folders for the types of jobs I do, although you can use the import function an let LR deal with placing files into its default folder. If you do import through LR it usually imports as a date coded folder (the date the shots were taken) but the folders it creates can be easily renamed to suit how you want to organise your files.

For work now I have a folder for each of the brands I shoot for (I work at a fishing tackle manufacturer) and within that I have product shoot folders and 'lifestyle' shot folders for each shoot I've been on. But it's personal....

 

[sep9001]

Yep.. Only use Lightroom to organise and process my photos.

 

[danny842003]

Do you export your files once edited or something. The reason I ask is i edited a load of photos in aperture and recently had to factory re set my system so now i have the photos but all unedited ones from my hard drive which is slightly annoying.

 

[specialman]

Do you export your files once edited or something. The reason I ask is i edited a load of photos in aperture and recently had to factory re set my system so now i have the photos but all unedited ones from my hard drive which is slightly annoying.

In LR (probably the same in Aperture) you can colour code shots and rate them (1-5) so you can 'grade' shots. Everything that's '5' is for use and are exported as .PSDs and given to my designer. The rest of the shots are kept but the real duffers are deleted. It's only the really bad ones - out of focus, bad exposure etc - that get deleted. Hard drives are cheap so I keep most shots.

LR saves all adjustments as a catalogue - if this catalogue is backed up elsewhere then if something does happen to your catalogue, you can just re-assign the catalogue to LR and it's apply all the adjustments.