New to iMac & macOS for Post Processing

[Joe94]

Hello,

I have recently got into photography & post processing with Adobe Lr & PS (lasted version) and have bought myself an iMac 21.5” system. I am totally new to the world of Mac OS and so I have 2 questions if that’s okay.

My first question is around setting the screen up correctly & colour management. Can anyone offer any advice of whether I even need to play around with the screen or if I do how to do it without having to spend more money (if possible aha)

Second thing is if anyone can offer any other tips around using an iMac for photography & PP, they would be much appreciate.

Cheers, Joe

 

[Jelster]

I've been using Mac's for years, iMac, then a Macbook Pro, and I'm now back on an iMac. Mine's also a 21.5", 3ghz with 16GB Ram. I've also been using the Adobe products all this time too.

I have a second monitor, and I just can't get it to look as good as my iMac in any area, contrast, brightness, colour, tone, the iMac is so better. I have had one print since I've had the new machine and that is pretty close to what I see on screen.

As regards tips, I would say just make sure you manage you folders in a manner that works for you, as it's difficult to change once they're imported into LR.

 

[Joe94]

I've been using Mac's for years, iMac, then a Macbook Pro, and I'm now back on an iMac. Mine's also a 21.5", 3ghz with 16GB Ram. I've also been using the Adobe products all this time too.

I have a second monitor, and I just can't get it to look as good as my iMac in any area, contrast, brightness, colour, tone, the iMac is so better. I have had one print since I've had the new machine and that is pretty close to what I see on screen.

As regards tips, I would say just make sure you manage you folders in a manner that works for you, as it's difficult to change once they're imported into LR.

Hi Steve,

Thank you for your advice & nice to hear that you have always had good experience with Mac for Adobe photo processing, but just to confirm then, you haven't every changed your screen settings or tried to calibrate... You have just always used as is out of box?

Also thank you for the folder tips, I will defininatky keep this in mind. But one follow up from this too.... Is Am I correct in saying that the folder system in Lr is based on the folders on the actual Mac drive & so doesn't actually create a second copy/folder of anything you import into it?

Thanks again for your help, very much appreciated.

 

[Jelster]

Hi Steve,

Thank you for your advice & nice to hear that you have always had good experience with Mac for Adobe photo processing, but just to confirm then, you haven't every changed your screen settings or tried to calibrate... You have just always used as is out of box?

Also thank you for the folder tips, I will defininatky keep this in mind. But one follow up from this too.... Is Am I correct in saying that the folder system in Lr is based on the folders on the actual Mac drive & so doesn't actually create a second copy/folder of anything you import into it?

Thanks again for your help, very much appreciated.

No, I haven't calibrated my screen, but as I said, the one print I have had done looks very similar to the colours on my screen.

As for the folders, you are correct. What I was driving at was make your folder system one that works for you. As I have a remote drive for my image storage, I was able to move everything around so that on my new machine, it was set up as I want it, and in a way that will "grow" with me still keeping the structure as a want it.

 

[Joe94]

Ahh brilliant thank you. If im honest im not going to be printing & the main reason I got the Mac was because of how good I though photos looked when it was in the shop and I know they haven't been calibrated, so I think I will leave it as is. (Persides im coming from a 1080p laptop aha)

Folders wise, thank you for the confirmation & further advice, I think this will be one of things I need to take time to get it right. Further you mentioned about moving things around to your new machine... Would you recommend I link my Lr folder system to and external Hard drive then or if I like it to the Mac internal hdd, is is still moveable if needed?.

Thanks again Steve for you help with this, I am totally new to all this and you have been very helpful, especially as you read lots about calibration and complex set up etc.. when all I want is to keep things simple and enjoy the equipment I have.

 

[Jelster]

My iMac has a 1TB Fusion drive, but I have 1.8TB of images, so I use a 4TB spinning disk as storage. I will be adding a new 2TB SSD in the near future, I think that will make the world of a difference to performance. I want one with high speed access, so they're not cheap, around £350-400.

 

[ancient_mariner]

On folders etc, I'd recommend creating and organising yourself, rather than letting the software do it - makes it much easier to find stuff if things go wrong (as they can sometimes) or you need to take control.

 

[Joe94]

My iMac has a 1TB Fusion drive, but I have 1.8TB of images, so I use a 4TB spinning disk as storage. I will be adding a new 2TB SSD in the near future, I think that will make the world of a difference to performance. I want one with high speed access, so they're not cheap, around £350-400.

Right okay, so you can have the folders in multiple locations then but still linked to Lr? As for the SSD that will be nice but yeah very expensive aha so I think for now ill stick with my fusion drive and 2tb external HDD lol.

Thanks again for your help tho Steve.

 

[Joe94]

On folders etc, I'd recommend creating and organising yourself, rather than letting the software do it - makes it much easier to find stuff if things go wrong (as they can sometimes) or you need to take control.

Hi Toni,

Thank you for the tips, can I just clarify then, do you mean you create and arrange the folders on the internal HDD through the finder app and then just import into Lightroom using the already created folders?

 

[Joe94]

Question following all you very helpful advice, is do you create your folder on the intern hdd and then create a backup of just the images or the whole folder system? Im just thinking how the best way is to go about backing up incase of a Mac change in the future and moving everything over?

Many thanks again, Joe

 

[stoo31]

It's typical to have a workflow that starts when you import the images from your memory card. Ideally you should rename the files, add metadata and put them in a suitably named folder in a main archive folder and also create a copy of these files on an external drive. You can then import that folder in to Lightroom at its current location so basically lightroom is just referencing the folder structure that you have set up.

There's a book called the DAM book which is by Peter Krogh that is big and heavy but if you get to the stage where you have TBs of images you'll be thankful you got your process down in the first place because once you get in the habit of storing and managing your digital files properly it makes life a lot easier.

 

[gad-westy]

So many ways to use LR and no right or wrongs but for what it's worth here's my take on things.

I don't mind LR creating my folders for me. It just creates a folder for that day which works well for me. It's probably how I'd want to do it anyway. It's a set up once and forget about thing for me.

I manage my catalogue in two ways. Firstly I keyword every image. Typically that would mean naming any people in it, maybe a location, an event name or a type of animal or genre of photography etc. That way they're always going to be findable with a word search later on. This doesn't have to be much of a chore if you do it using multiselections and keep on top of it rather than having to do 100's of images in one sitting.

For a significant event, maybe a holiday, or a party or something, I'll create a collection so all photos from event sit in one easy to find place. But I've also created a load of smart collection so I have ones that look for certain people, landscape photos, motorsport, astro etc. I have loads of them. The great thing about LR is that you're never moving or changing the original file, you're simply creating different ways of finding and cataloguing them and the same photo could appear in many different collections, smart collections or searches.

I don't tend to bother with geotagging but I can see how that would be handy.

In terms of the monitor side of things, I think it's most important for printing otherwise, just check that what your histograms are telling you broadly reflect what you're seeing on the screen, if not adjust brightness a little and then I don't think there is much to worry about. IF printing it might be worth buying/borrowing a calibrator but overkill if not in my opinion.

 

[stoo31]

So many ways to use LR and no right or wrongs but for what it's worth here's my take on things.

I don't mind LR creating my folders for me. It just creates a folder for that day which works well for me. It's probably how I'd want to do it anyway. It's a set up once and forget about thing for me.

You are right there are no rights or wrongs as such but with Digital Asset Management there are definitely some fundamentals that are worth following.

In your example for instance if at some point LR becomes obsolete or redundant which could easily happen anytime in the future, having folders that aren't human readable will be quite unhelpful. If you are usefully tagging your images then of course that will help but again that is reliant on a piece of software to read the tags in bulk in order to search your images. For this reason it is advisable to have folders that you can actually understand independently of any software.

 

[ancient_mariner]

Hi Toni,

Thank you for the tips, can I just clarify then, do you mean you create and arrange the folders on the internal HDD through the finder app and then just import into Lightroom using the already created folders?

Exactly that. Perhaps because I prefer to be in charge of what the computer does: the extra effort involved is minimal, but the peace of mind substantial.

 

[Joe94]

It's typical to have a workflow that starts when you import the images from your memory card. Ideally you should rename the files, add metadata and put them in a suitably named folder in a main archive folder and also create a copy of these files on an external drive. You can then import that folder in to Lightroom at its current location so basically lightroom is just referencing the folder structure that you have set up.

There's a book called the DAM book which is by Peter Krogh that is big and heavy but if you get to the stage where you have TBs of images you'll be thankful you got your process down in the first place because once you get in the habit of storing and managing your digital files properly it makes life a lot easier.

So many ways to use LR and no right or wrongs but for what it's worth here's my take on things.

I don't mind LR creating my folders for me. It just creates a folder for that day which works well for me. It's probably how I'd want to do it anyway. It's a set up once and forget about thing for me.

I manage my catalogue in two ways. Firstly I keyword every image. Typically that would mean naming any people in it, maybe a location, an event name or a type of animal or genre of photography etc. That way they're always going to be findable with a word search later on. This doesn't have to be much of a chore if you do it using multiselections and keep on top of it rather than having to do 100's of images in one sitting.

For a significant event, maybe a holiday, or a party or something, I'll create a collection so all photos from event sit in one easy to find place. But I've also created a load of smart collection so I have ones that look for certain people, landscape photos, motorsport, astro etc. I have loads of them. The great thing about LR is that you're never moving or changing the original file, you're simply creating different ways of finding and cataloguing them and the same photo could appear in many different collections, smart collections or searches.

I don't tend to bother with geotagging but I can see how that would be handy.

In terms of the monitor side of things, I think it's most important for printing otherwise, just check that what your histograms are telling you broadly reflect what you're seeing on the screen, if not adjust brightness a little and then I don't think there is much to worry about. IF printing it might be worth buying/borrowing a calibrator but overkill if not in my opinion.

Thank you both for your advice, very helpful and gives me some things to think about when setting it all up.

As for the screen calibration, tbh I think I will leave it as it is. Im not printing anything it is purely for hobby based photography most of which will just be shown locally or online and I find the screen good enough for me anyways, hence why I bought it because its already a lot better than what I was using.

Thanks again for you help and advice, much appreciated.

 

[Joe94]

Exactly that. Perhaps because I prefer to be in charge of what the computer does: the extra effort involved is minimal, but the peace of mind substantial.

Thanks Toni, I must admit I like the idea of the control over the files, so I think that idea is where I will look along with the other advice I have been given