daldds Loc: NYC

Hi, friends: I am going to help someone who is reasonably familiar with the basics of LR, but a rank beginner with PS. He has about 200 scanned negative bw images. They need further improvement with PS’s editing. He will bring the .tiff images on a flash drive.
I intend to put the images into a LR library which I will make just for this, so that he can go back home and either add more images to this library or use however he wants.
One question is this: how much room on his flash drive do I need to make the library, or is that even practical? Should I have a separate small external HD? I intend also to make a folder with my finished results on his drive.
FYI, my libraries are run on external hard drives which have been partitioned for photo folders also. Another question: can I partition his flash drive once he has images on it?

rmcgarry331

I'm assuming that you are using Lightroom Classic LrC for this. Set-up a temporary directory on your internal drive for this. Create your catalog and import the files from the flash drive to a folder on your internal drive. Tiff files are exceptionally large, and take an exceptionally long time to load and save on any external (USB) device. The flash drive is designed just for temporary storage. Figure the PSD files will be about the same as the TIFF's or more if you leave them un-flattened. Add another 10% for the overhead of the LrC catalog and previews. Just make sure that LrC is set to build standard previews, not 1 to 1 or Smart previews, since it look-like you are planning to do your work in PS. Note you can place the catalog and pictures in the same directory for this. When you are complete copy the folders over to the flash drive. Wait until your friend has uploaded the catalog and photos to his computer and checked them out before deleting them off your internal drive.

daldds Loc: NYC

Sounds like a good idea just as you planned. I’m not going to be saving any PSD images; they will all be tiffs, because he hasn’t the skill tomodify them further.
Are you suggesting that I move the library along with the photos to his flash drive? Since they will be tiffs that should take some time, correct? Thinking about it, he will be approving the results of every image that we work on together, so I think all he will need is those finished images in a new folder on his flash, labeled something like “done.” The reasons I want to create the library is to be able to see if there are corrections I could make there before PS, teach a little, and just manage the whole batch.

Again, thanks.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

I have a suggestion that might be more helpful for your friend: set up a 'film preset' in your Develop Module and apply defaults editing to all your friend's images via Lightroom. Here are some settings:

Clarity +5
Vibrance +5
Saturation +1

Sharpening Amount: 65
Radius: 0.05
Detail: 0.0
Masking: 85

Noise Luminance: 4
Detail: 15
Contrast: 0

Color Noise NR: 3
Detail: 20
Smoothness: 50

Personally, I'd skip the whole PS adventure and just edit in LR. But, if determined to work in PS too, then edit in PS using these modest sharpening and NR settings to have your friend just focused on any complex revisions to the image content in PS. If unfamiliar with Presets, you can use the settings above on the first TIFF image and sync across all images too within LR.

Finally, I'd run the <Auto> Toning and <Auto> WB against the entire import of scanned images, but then LR's rather wild updates will have to be customized to each image and your friend will begin to learn the details of the LR Develop module. If the images 'as-scanned' have questionable exposure and / or White Balance issues, these corrective improvements will be needed eventually to justify the entire effort of scanning to TIFF and editing.

The benefit of creating this LR catalog is to bring along this edit information when your friend gets home. Your friend can then import these images (and their edit details) into their main catalog when they get home. When naming the LRCAT file, be sure to give the file a distinctive name so there's no long-term confusion, maybe something like: Film-Scans.LRCAT.

rmcgarry331

If you are coming from LrC into PS, LrC will create a second tiff file with a new name of filename_PS to indicate it was edited in Photoshop. So you will end up with two tiff files, the original scan and the edited one. It is strongly suggested you keep the original scan file and do not overwrite it with the edits. The reason I suggested PSD rather than tiff for the output is I don't flatten layers when I complete edits, incase I want to re-edit from the point I left off. Although, tiff will retain layer information, the resulting files are much larger than their PSD counterparts. Your friend looking over your shoulder, may learn some Photoshop along the way, and may want to play with them at a later date.
When you complete the project, use your operating system to copy the files over to his flash drive.

daldds Loc: NYC

You taught me something. I didn’t know that LR created those new .tiff files with PS. That has been a problem for us during the past week. He wants the files to remain as they are with the thumbnail attached when looking at it in the second from the left icon under view in the folder... no PC. (The third and fourth icons show the thumbnail after I’ve edited them, but not the second.) He has had someone with far more LR experience and skills than either he or I have edit them to this point. However, she can’t do to them what I can in Photoshop. I am basically his second editor, trying to refine the images which he will then publish. (He’s a New York City based photographer with several published books, on Coney Island, a twins series and others, plus several photos are hanging in small museums around the country. That’s his skill set…editing is not included.) His book editor wants the files to look like the ones he sends to me...tiff with the thumbnail.

Since I have to use Photoshop to help him, is there anyway that I could avoid this problem in the future before I start on his 175 photos. I currently have done 7 that he loves, but with the “messed up“ file names.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You probably want to use <quote reply> so your comments have a context. Also, did you mean to attach some sort of screen capture?

rmcgarry331

If someone else did initial edits in LrC, and he copied the files onto a flash drive, they will not include the edits from LrC. If the files were exported from LrC, then the edits will be in the new tiff files created by LrC. If this is the case I would bypass LrC and just use Bridge to manage the files and open the originals in PS. Lightroom, in all flavors is a totally non-destructive editor, and never re-writes the original files.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Thanks Paul, i’m going to save these values as an initial preset when I shoot/scan 35mm film with my EOS-1n and process in LR. Much appreciated!