Lightroom - Raw Files and speed

Mozziephotography

Mozziephotography

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Stephen
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I'll be at a road race on Sunday and will probably come back with over a thousand shots. I shoot RAW and I know it would help speed things along if I shot jpeg but ... Any advice, apart from shooting jpeg, to speed up the process of these images into my Lightroom catalogue.?
 
There is sRAW for some Nikon and Canon bodies that might help if you are after a half way house between RAW and JPEG (and perhaps can stand to lose some resolution)

photographylife.com

sRAW Format Explained

photographylife.com photographylife.com

SRAW capture - Canon EOS 40D Guide - He & She Photography

The 40D also includes an sRAW image-recording quality option. sRAW is an apt abbreviation for Small RAW. These files, which are slightly larger than half the
www.heandshephoto.com www.heandshephoto.com

I have never tried it myself, though

If your body offers the option, compressed RAW files (lossy or otherwise) might save some time while copying from cards.
 
@Musicman I'll have a look into it. A high percentage of runners tend to view the images on their phones anyway. Think I overdo the editing at times , due to the fact that I'm looking at them on a large monitor. The flaws disappear on a mobile.
 
If you insist on shooting RAW (overkill for events IMO), if you have a dual slot camera, shoot small JPG to the other camera. If the filenames are kept the same you can deal with the small jpg for culling and look at the RAW for editing. When I'm shooting a race, I'll probably have 4k+ shots to deal with, and would much prefer to deal with 2Mb JPGs than 20Mb RAWs.
 
We're all different and the choice is mine. I edit according to a standard that I'm happy with. I don't charge for them and I know it's overkill for people like yourself and many of the athletes. I'm just a boring old fart who is stuck in his ways.
 
I shoot raws for all my event and sport photography... I use fastStone image viewer (free) to do the initial culling of the images that I don't want. There's a feature that allows you to move images to another folder, hit 'm' and then again to move - makes my life much easier.

Then when in LR, I have several presets that I use, if there's a particular shot / scene then I edit one image I am happy with and copy/paste the development settings to similar images
 
mossienet said:
Cheers @toohuge . The initial loading up from the camera takes an absolute age. Old computer and processor etc.
Click to expand...
Are you plugging the camera straight on, or using a card reader? A good dedicated card reader is often very much faster than using the camera as one (depending on the speed ratings of your card and reader).
 
I always use a memory card reader. I don't use Lightroom to import the images off the camera, its not fast at doing that - use something else. I use Photomechanic for that. Photomechanic is much faster at rendering the unprocessed image from which you can decide whether to cull or not. Then I import into lightroom, using the add photos in their current location mode.

For your next event, try recording a JPG + RAW at the same time and giving the JPG a go.
 
I always shoot in large jpeg for events, it's usually fine without needing RAW. The longest time is always the copy from the card to the external drive before I start, but after an event that's coffee and snack time anyway!
 
@Retune Yep, card reader. Just found a youtube video which shows Jared Polin importing files and just using minimal previews, no smart previews. Loading up way quicker. I can then cull the ones I don't want and save a load of time. I usually have a cuppa and a biscuit PLUS 40 winks. Allows me time to re-energise. I work on one image in terms of editing colour etc and then sync the ones taken from the same place. If there is a dramatic change of light, might have to edit again.
I've got a parkrun on Saturday, so I'll try the JPG and RAW thing.
 
Faster PC, faster nvme drive. I'm afraid that is all there is to it. Mine are going very fast on a recent desktop. Before it was snail slow on '14 MBP.
 
I would look at doing the culling before using Lightroom as suggested by @toohuge. As I understand it raw files contain embedded jpgs and the culling software looks at those and that is how they can work much faster. How many frames out of 1000 will you need in the end?
 
My workflow is roughly as follows:

1) Ruthlessly cull in camera during the event if time and battery life permits (5 minutes gaps between races etc)
2) Copy remaining images from multiple cards into new folder on PC in parallel (multiple card readers).
3) Create new catalogue for this event, and import all the files building 1:1 previews.
4) Grab a coffee/dinner/beer/whatever whilst the PC imports the images (minute or two at most) and builds the 1:1 previews (up to 30 minutes)
5) Backup the photos to another drive.

You can then move quite quickly through the images in Library mode in LR, zooming in and out to check for sharpness etc. and use the keyboard to Pick images for processing, or give them a rating of 1-5 stars etc. Delete any really bad ones there and then, or just reject them and delete later.

Filter in LR for just the images that you have Picked or rated as required.
Edit first image, then sync settings with all other images taken at the same time/lighting conditions.

Ensure your LR install, catalogue and photos to be processed are stored on a fast NVME drive.
Increase the LR cache size to 20Gb or higher.

Lots of memory helps, as does lots of CPU cores for building the 1:1 previews and exporting which can be done in parallel.
 
JohnStewart said:
My workflow is roughly as follows:

1) Ruthlessly cull in camera during the event if time and battery life permits (5 minutes gaps between races etc)
2) Copy remaining images from multiple cards into new folder on PC in parallel (multiple card readers).
3) Create new catalogue for this event, and import all the files building 1:1 previews.
4) Grab a coffee/dinner/beer/whatever whilst the PC imports the images (minute or two at most) and builds the 1:1 previews (up to 30 minutes)
5) Backup the photos to another drive.

You can then move quite quickly through the images in Library mode in LR, zooming in and out to check for sharpness etc. and use the keyboard to Pick images for processing, or give them a rating of 1-5 stars etc. Delete any really bad ones there and then, or just reject them and delete later.

Filter in LR for just the images that you have Picked or rated as required.
Edit first image, then sync settings with all other images taken at the same time/lighting conditions.

Ensure your LR install, catalogue and photos to be processed are stored on a fast NVME drive.
Increase the LR cache size to 20Gb or higher.

Lots of memory helps, as does lots of CPU cores for building the 1:1 previews and exporting which can be done in parallel.
Click to expand...

Thanks John, @mossienet mine is a variation focussing on keeping only the best pics

1. Take fewer frames, once you can anticipate the moments of peak action that will produce best images
2. Rate the best frames in camera
3. Put card in computer and use photomechanic to pick the keepers, starting with the rating already made
4. Ingest only the keepers for final tweaking and ditch the rest
5. Backup the keepers and format the card
 
It's a difficult one sometimes. Lots of runners are happy with some images that I'd probably cull. Lots of good advice, cheers. Wish I could go through images on the camera linked to a tablet.
 
mossienet said:
I'll be at a road race on Sunday and will probably come back with over a thousand shots. I shoot RAW and I know it would help speed things along if I shot jpeg but ... Any advice, apart from shooting jpeg, to speed up the process of these images into my Lightroom catalogue.?
Click to expand...

A thousand isn't that many images really, not sure what you are worried about?

Would suggest though that creating a new catalogue for each project might be the best option, it is good practice to do that for each individual project as it means if you get a corrupt catalogue you are only losing the edits on one project and not all of your photographs. As each catalogue for each project will have smaller amount of images than just one huge catalogue, everything runs faster too.
 
f/2.8 said:
A thousand isn't that many images really, not sure what you are worried about?

Would suggest though that creating a new catalogue for each project might be the best option, it is good practice to do that for each individual project as it means if you get a corrupt catalogue you are only losing the edits on one project and not all of your photographs. As each catalogue for each project will have smaller amount of images than just one huge catalogue, everything runs faster too.
Click to expand...
I'm not worried about anything, just trying to speed up the process in any way I can. I've cleared an external hard drive, putting last years running images on an 8TB EHD. New catalogue all ready for the weekend shoots.
 
I use Photo Mechanic to quickly cull my images, there is nothing faster for cycling through full screen previews, as I scroll through I rate 'red' the ones I will keep, once I get to the end I delete all others and then import the keepers into Lightroom.

My cull is generally looking for the feet off the ground shots or legs in full stride.
 
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I also just have the standard one. I use Lr for everything else including the cataloging
 
Just a brief reply to let you know how I got on at the weekend. I took on board what people had posted.
Catalogue set up for this race alone.
Didn't spend any time culling photos that didn't come up to scratch, just ignored them.
Edited one image and then did the sync thing for each position I took up during the race.
I do crop images where needed, so I included an unlocked crop when I did the sync. It made it much quicker.
Uploaded files onto my external hard drive in small batches, coffee or toilet break.
Didn't attempt to try out different presets etc, I could try that out with a few later on.

Thanks for all your input. Much appreciated.

www.flickr.com

Percy Pud 10k 2021

Too many runners to capture you all - apologies
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com
 
Something I do with my camera is using the FTP function every photo I take gets transferred to my phone, which then uploads to my NAS at home. That way all my photos are ready to import as soon as I get home, also a good backup idea.

Depends on you having a camera with FTP function and I guess an unlimited data on your phone.
 
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