This tip is for the users who are less experienced in LR Classic, or experienced users like me who don't know everything.

There is a feature under the library module called copy name. I have seen it and today the lightbulb went on in my head as to the usefulness of it.

I find virtual copies useful for many things, and you ARE using virtual copies right? They are a great way to experiment without changing the work in process. To create them Right click on the thumbnail and select "Create Virtual Copy. It's there about 1/2 way down.

One thing I like to do is try different aspect ratios and crops for printing. So I make a copy crop it 5x7, another copy crop it 8x10 etc. Then I will group them into a stack and display full screen and flip thru them.

LR appends / copy 1, / copy 2, / copy 3, etc to the file names but sometimes it's hard to keep them straight. Ohh I like that one is it 5x7 or 2 x 3? And if you have to leave and come back later forget it. And THERE is the usefulness of the Copy Name feature.

You can give the virtual copies a useful name such as
copy 5x7, copy 8x10, Tight Crop, copy4 gradient, copy5 WB
or whatever you like.

I hope that is helpful.

No measurements are required. No calculations are required. No phone app with a DOF calculator is required. You just take a moment to think. No thoughts necessary that would stress an 8 year old child are required. I just posted a photo of grave markers at the national cemetery here in St. Louis. Look at the photo. I didn't measure anything. I didn't calculate anything. It only takes a little thought and a little practice. If I had focused on the marker closest to the camera I would have wasted DOF -- the DOF in front of the focus point would be wasted and I'd have less behind for the loss. What did I know from experience and practice? Most as in probably 80% of the DOF would be behind the focus point. So focus in an estimated 20% -- I focused on the marker behind the one closest to me. I made better use of the total DOF. Honest I don't carry a tape measure!

There is but it's based on the assumption that you don't crop the result during editing and that you are going to view it from a standard distance with normal eyesight.

Rather than drive yourself nuts with the math, just play with this depth of field calculator from Cambridge in Colour. Be sure to click on show advanced to see most of the contributing factors.

What they leave out is the effect of cropping on your computer (which changes the size of the circle of confusion) because there you can even change the aspect ratio.

It's all hardly worth the trouble to dwell on it.

One was created and hand drawn onto some medium by a talented human, the other was never seen by a human eye until it was belched completed out of a computer program.

One was created line by line with purpose and intent, using materials, textures, colors, tones and an understanding of composition. The other was cobbled together by scraping the Internet for work by artists and then analyzing millions of images to mimic them.

Machine learning cannot create anything new, only approximate an execution of what has already been done.

Having an idea for an image and not being able to execute it but only tell someone or something else to do it, is the other side of that coin. If you can type a great description, you may want to call yourself an author, and then hire an illustrator.

Oh yes I definitely do. A photograph regardless of the amount of processing, sharpening, dehaze, denoise etc is still the work of a cognizant human being because the photographer has control of the changes and thus totally owns the final result. The final result whether deemed to be either good or bad is a result of the photographer's artistic talent and their vision. For me a AI generated image demonstrates neither talent or vision and is worthless. What would you rather have, an AI generated Monet or a honest to goodness Monet?

I don't know if your referring to my comment above but that's ok if you were. However I don't believe I'm on shaky ground because I said "in its current state". Yes it is being used in many other ways besides photography, video and movie production for instance, and it can be used to re-create likenesses of actors. That was a big issue in the recent actors guild strike. It's also being used in tech and finance.

Like any other tool, it will be used for good and for nefarious purposes. It's not AI but the values of the user that will determine the end use (good or evil).