I will be needing some Lightroom help (Page 2): Why are you creating DNGs? LR Classic can handle all native RAW file types. What is the benefit / purpose of the DNG?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

chemsaf wrote:

I import directly into LR-C and convert to DNG. At the same time LR automatically writes a copy of the DNG to an external drive. At end of the import, I disconnect the external and have a complete untouched copy of the shoot.

Why are you creating DNGs? LR Classic can handle all native RAW file types. What is the benefit / purpose of the DNG?

mikeroetex Loc: Lafayette, LA

flashdaddy wrote:

I just bought the Scott Kelby Adobe Photoshop Ligh... (show quote)

If you import everything using LR, you can cull, save RAW, create collections, organize any way you want. The originals are always right there, on your hard drive or external drive. LR is non-destructive and you can always go back to the same RAW file and re-edit time and again, even from scratch.

Just do every action using LR, even moving files. It is just a pointer to where the files sit.

lreisner Loc: Union,NJ

flashdaddy wrote:

I just bought the Scott Kelby Adobe Photoshop Ligh... (show quote)

My suggestion to you is that you use Lightroom exclusively rather than Bridge. Lightroom's Library module was partially designed to do everything that you are doing in a much more efficient and easier manor. When you import your pictures from your camera you can tell lightroom where to store your pictures. Lightroom is non destructive so it will not alter your original files.

Once imported you can then cull your files using the flags to pick the keepers and reject the others. When you finish you can choose to delete all of the rejects from the catalog or even from the hard drive in one shot if you wish. At the same time you can use the star or color system to rate the pictures that you want to work on. Of course you can leave the rejects in place for future exploration.

Your next step would be to set up collections. Start by creating a collection set under which you can break things down into individual collections (equivalent to file folders) for various projects (one collection for pictures for books another for various sized photos and so on. The idea is to be organized). Your first collection should be a master collection where you put all of the pictures that you selected as keeper. If you highlight the pictures that you want in the collection before you create the collection, upon its creation, lightroom will automatically put those pictures into the collection. After that you can make as many collections as you want. You can also set up a target selection for easily creating a new collection.

My aim here is just to show you and others the power of Lightroom. Lightroom was created for professionals. It allows wedding photographers to quickly go through their pictures. Why walk around the block to cross the street when you can simply cross where you are? Once you export pictures from Lightroom you can always re-import them and put them into collections as well.

When you make collections you are not taking up additional hard drive space. All this is explained in Kelbyone course, I am sure and in countless other support videos on Youtube. In this forum, most post focus on Lightroom as an image editor, but it is so much more than that.

flashdaddy Loc: Berlin PA

DirtFarmer wrote:

As far as moving stuff outside LR, it is not difficult to move it from within LR to avoid the problem. You can create new folders from within LR if you need them. If you make them subfolders of your primary folder (that holds your original image files) they're easy to take care of. If you use external drives, they can be large enough so you don't need to delete them after filling an order, but if all the files are in a single folder and subfolders, it's easy to delete them. But you should delete them from the catalog too if you want to get rid of them. Otherwise your catalog will have missing images.

If you want to do everything within LR, create a smart collection based on some characteristic of all the images (file name, common keyword, things like that [note that you can create a keyword with an invoice number if you use something like that]). Then you can click on the collection in the library module, select all, click on All Photos in the library (grid mode), and hit delete. It will give you the choice of deleting them from just the library or deleting them from the disk also. (If you hit delete while looking at the collection it will just delete the images from the collection, and if it's a smart collection they will just reappear there).

The only drawback here is that LR doesn't delete the folders, only the files. You will have to delete the folders outside of LR.

If you want to do it all outside LR, just delete the top level folder and that will take care of all the subfolders. LR will then have missing images. Within LR, go to the library, click on Library => Find all missing photos. That will show you all that are missing. You can just select them all and delete them from the catalog. (If you take this approach it would be a good idea to check for missing photos before importing your shoot and correct any that should be there but aren't.

Another approach would be to use a catalog specific to a shoot. When you're done and everything is delivered, you can delete the catalog file. That doesn't delete the image files, so they have to be deleted separately. An easy way to do it all is to create a catalog in the top level folder of your image folder structure. That way deleting the top level folder deletes all the images and the catalog also.

Of course if you delete everything after delivery, that negates the possibility of re-orders. My wife was an archivist. She beat into me "Always keep the original". No problem with external hard drives (although if you have a lot of them you need a system to determine which orders are on which drives).

As far as moving stuff outside LR, it is not diffi... (show quote)

When I finish a project I always cut a DVD, plus files are saved to 1Drive.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

flashdaddy wrote:

When I finish a project I always cut a DVD, plus files are saved to 1Drive.

IMHO, DVDs are not really a long term storage medium. There's a difference between commercially produced DVDs and home burnt DVDs. Mass produced DVDs are produced by pressing the pattern into the surface, then covering it with a coating of metal. Home DVDs have the pattern burnt into an organic layer by a small laser. The organic layer is not as stable as the metal coating of the commercial DVD. The organic layer can change with time in response to heat and light.

Of course there are different grades of disks to use for DVDs. Back in the '90s I had some disks that were probably supplied by the low bidder, which were unreadable after about 3 years.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

flashdaddy wrote:

I just bought the Scott Kelby Adobe Photoshop Ligh... (show quote)

The way I use Lightroom is to not save finished raster files (jpegs). This way I have a lot fewer files to manage. I also use a descriptive folder name that has the date for a suffix and a prefix that looks like "02.09" which simply orders the list of files in the OS File Browser (Finder on Mac and File Explorer on Windows). In this example 02 denotes February, and 09 is the 9th time I used the camera. After every use of the camera I download all the files on the card(s) using a card reader, and once they are in the catalog, I use either LR to cull (small number of files) or Faststone Image Viewer if there are a large number of files. If I use Faststone to cull, I simply open that folder in Lightroom and re-sync it to bring the catalog up to date which eliminates the previews and catalog entries for the culled files.

You probably think I am crazy for not saving jpegs, but it is far easier to finish editing an image, then use a saved export preset to generate images on demand. I do not resize my images for specific print sizes. I save the highest resolution image, then send the print lab that image at full resolution. The lab uses a RIP - raster image processor - that takes care of tailoring the image to the print size for antialiasing, noise, sharpness for their printer(s).

I have presets for print, screen, general social media, email, website, Instagram, etc. If I were making prints for orders, I would generate the highest quality/resolution jpeg, and send sizing information to the lab in my order.

I never delete raw files. I have gone back to raw files that I processed in 2008 through 2012 and reinterpreted them with current software and was impressed with the difference the new software made on those images.

When I work on an image that goes beyond what I can do in Lightroom/DXO/Capture One/On1Raw - I save the layered, 16 bit psd file in ProPhoto color space as it is, in case I need to make adjustments, but from that finished image I can generate anything I need using the jpeg output export presets.

Using the export presets in this manner cuts down on the number of files and the need to make special folders for print size, orders, etc. And once the finished files are received at their destination, I delete those, but keep the psds and raw files in case I need them again. In the preset I sometimes append the purpose of the file - like the size, client name, etc to the name in the export preset - but now that I am the client for most of my images, I've drifted away from that.

If you decide to continue to create a bunch of files and move them around, you don't need to do that in LR. You can do it in File Explorer or Finder, and simply update the file locations in LR. LR is not all that fast with large numbers of files, but the recent updates have gotten better in that respect.

cactuspic Loc: Dallas, TX

Gene has given very good advice. I would qualify his advice in one small respect. File naming and file structure may be a bit more personalized depending upon what you shoot and what your needs are. As someone who may shoot 30 similar plant species in a day with information such as variant, plant collection data, and scientific name being important, my file structure and naming tends to be more elaborate. My editors don't want to do a keyword search to find a particular species out of a set of images. But that is just my particular needs. It has to work for you.

I also want to deal with only the raw version and my edited PSD or TIFF file (dependent on my processing program). I often revisit old images when new software comes out that allows me to improve the image. If I have multiple copies of the image, then I have to hunt them all down and make the changes in each of the various file. I use keywords and collections to gather images for specific purposes. For example, If I am submitting preparing a book on haworthia species I will have a collection entitled "Haworthias for book" that will contain a virtual copy of each of the original images. Any subsequent edits of the original image will be reflected in the virtual copy. Hope that helps.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

cactuspic wrote:

...I also want to deal with only the raw version and my edited PSD or TIFF file (dependent on my processing program)...

As far as I'm concerned, the original raw and PSD or TIF file is what I want to deal with.

However, I have a lot of family photos mixed in with my photopile. None of my family knows the first thing about dealing with raw files or non-image formats. For that reason I try to be sure that family photos are saved as jpgs. And those files are saved with meaningful file names. My family will have a nonzero chance of finding useful family photos when I expire. If they were all raw files or PSDs, the chance would be more like zero.

DPFotoZ Loc: Woodruff, SC USA

Check out Mattk.com, he presents an easy way to import, etc, all in LrC, where they go and a simple explanation of how to organize all of your photos in one program. And when you export them from LrC they are changed to jpg.
I import all photos from the SD card into LrC, cull or just highlight the ones I want to keep and work on and still have the others there if needed for later. All of the ones I work on are stored automatically on an ext HD by date. One key is to learn how LrC works.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

DirtFarmer wrote:

IMHO, DVDs are not really a long term storage medi... (show quote)

It’s not opinion, it’s fact that DVDs can degrade quickly. Much faster than the claimed 100 year life. The Stamped ones suffered from degradation to the aluminum from a component in the glue used for stickers. I have some music CDs that are completely unplayable now after less than 20 years.

The R/W DVDs are even more volatile. Many variables, and that adds up to loss of data or complete loss of function in time.

And Technical obsolescence is probably the greatest risk. Optical drives are disappearing. What computer comes with a DVD/CD reader these days? Who uses DVDs now? Remember Blue Ray? What happened to that? Remember floppy drives? All this spinning stuff will eventually be replaced by newer technology. And that is already in progress.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

JD750 wrote:

...All this spinning stuff will eventually be replaced by newer technology. And that is already in progress.

And the newer technology will get smaller and smaller and eventually us older guys will have trouble seeing it, let alone finding it.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

DirtFarmer wrote:

And the newer technology will get smaller and smaller and eventually us older guys will have trouble seeing it, let alone finding it.

Ha ha I can’t find my glasses half the time. Anything smaller is a lost cause. lol.

So we’ll put that tiny tech in a big shoe box. 😂