Never been to India but did spend a week in Sub-Saharan Western Africa and never even burped. As everybody else has said - get *every* shot recommended by your doctor, only drink bottled water (even for teeth brushing), and well-cooked food or peal-able fruit. No street food, no tap or broken-sealed bottled water.

Go there and enjoy it for what it is - a culture, history and civilization entirely different from our own. What would be the point of going if it were the same as here? India is very high on my wish list, so I'll be anxious to hear your reports and impressions.

Catherine

Correction to above message: I use "copy" for adding photos from my ApertureExport to my LR catalogue, NOT "add".

I'm also in the process of moving from Aperture to Lightroom and I highly recommend making this move: I find LR far superior in its organizational capabilities and it's the "gold standard" for a reason. But there are a few Gotcha's to be aware of: (a) DO NOT MOVE/RENAME photos outside of LR as this will cause LR to "lose" them. Note: it hasn't lost them - the photos are still there and just fine, but LR no longer knows where they live. Just do all your organization/reorganization within LR and you'll be fine. (b) LR does not "store" your photos, instead it merely has links to them (imagine following a piece of string to the actual photo ...). (c) You need to back up your LR catalogue and photos separately because, as stated before, the LR catalogue does NOT contain the actual images.

I recommend using ApertureExporter (available from the App store) to export your pictures from Aperture into a folder structure that can then be imported into LR. I've exported my Aperture libraries (one folder per project/event) onto my hard disk and then I import them into LR one folder at a time. LR has 3 importing methods: move, copy and add. Use "move" to move the photos from the AE folder into another one and then delete them from the original location, "copy" to do the same thing except then not delete the originals (use this method when importing from a CF or SD card), and "add" to retain the original folder structure but simply add links to these photos to LR. I personally use "add" for my Aperture to LR transition because I'm structuring my LR catalogue in an entirely different way, and then once I'm satisfied that the import went ok, I go back and delete the AE folder.

One of the beauties of LR is that you can organize your photos into literally *any* folder structure you can dream up. I take most of my photos on trips so my folder structure is organized by place ("Europe/Germany/Cologne") and then I use LR to automatically create the "year/year-month-day" subfolder structure beneath the top-level "Europe/Germany/Cologne". I then use keywords for subject matter like sunsets, cathedrals, friends, family, etc.

The Lightroom FAQ book is recommended. At the very least, take a careful read through the LR quick-start guide by the same author (free on the internet) before doing anything.

Good luck and feel free to PM me if you have any questions. LR is a much better product and if you take care to obey the few cardinal rules you'll be fine. Another bonus is LR's integration with not only Photoshop but most of the other photo software out there.

Catherine

I used to use Photomatix heavily (and it works great as a LR plug-in), but then got wind of a screaming deal on HDR Projects Professional from StackSocial and I am seriously impressed by that latter piece of software. Google "stack social HDR projects" and you should get a link. Photomatix has a great upgrade policy (free!) and a fully featured unlimited time trial period where the only difference is they put a watermark on your final image. But, it's a good opportunity to fully kick the tires and see how you like it.

But for anybody interested in HDR, I highly recommend HDR Projects Professional especially if you can get the deal. I think it leaves the other software in the dust.

Catherine

Catherine

I have a Sigma 10-22 for my crop-frame 7D and love it. Between that and my 18-270 from Tamron, I have the entire range covered. It's nice to be able to walk around for an entire day with only 2 lenses needed.

I think that the LA County Public Library gives out free Lynda subscriptions. I get one through work myself (though I prefer a printed paper book, I'm such a luddite at times which is quite a feat given my line of work!), but checking with your local library is a great idea.

Catherine

Go into the terminal and type in the following two commands:

cd /Volumes
ls

and tell us what you see. My guess is that you're mis-interpreting what finder is showing you and that the two hard drives are indeed mounted separately. The Mac OS lists all the drives (both internal and external) under /Volumes. The internal hard drive appears as
/Volumes/Macintosh HD (note the space in the name) and all your external drives will be listed as /Volumes/Home and /Volumes/Business.

Given the level of questions that you're asking, I highly recommend that you go to your local Apple Store and sign up for a class or two on navigating the Mac. Once you learn the basics, it's very straight-forward but it can definitely be confusing the first time.

Get Lightroom! You can either get the $10 month subscription and get free updates, or buy it outright for a reasonable price. LR is the best organizational tool out there. There are a few gotcha's to be aware of, but read Victoria Brampton's "QuickStart" guide to LR and always resist the temptation to reorganize your folder structure outside of LR.

LR will work with *any* folder structure that you want to dream up, or it will create one for you. Your choice. With a decent folder structure and good use of keywording, you'll be able to completely organize all your photos.

LR is the "go-to" software for this type of task, and for good reason.

Catherine

LR is an accompaniment to either Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, not a replacement. PS and PSE are meant for detailed editing using layers, whereas LR is a top-notch organizer of your photos that has some editing ability built into it. Since they're both made by Adobe, they integrate seamlessly together. I highly recommend getting LR as its organizational capabilities are really second-to-none, and it's the perfect counterpart to PSE.

You'll need to read a bit about LR before diving in, but if you understand how the catalogue works and the fact that LR doesn't "store" your photos, but rather just links to them, and resist the temptation to do any re-organization of your folder structure outside of LR, you're good to go. One of the beauties of LR is that you can organize your photos in a structure completely of your own choosing, and LR will work with whatever you decide to do.

Even though I haven't done so, I understand from other posts that LR is also excellent at batch processing.

Catherine

In reply to MW:

One of the beauties of LR is that you can organize your files in literally any way that you want. LR has the option of creating a directory structure for you, but that's completely optional. If you already have a file/folder structure that you like, simply use the "add" option when importing into LR and it will not touch that pre-existing structure in any way, but simply add them to the catalogue. This is so much nicer than the iPhoto/Aperture way of hiding all your photos from you in some arcane folder structure that you can only access through the application.

As other people have said, LR and PS are built for two different functions and should not be used either/or. They integrate together beautifully so use them both and get the full advantages of these incredible pieces of software.

Did the location or filenames change any? If so, LR won't be able to find them. But as far as I know (and some of the LR guru's will hopefully chime in here), there's no need to reimport. All you need to do is to tell LR what the new directory name is and it will "re-find" the files for you. I suggest doing a google search for details on how to do this.

If the files were stored under /Users/<username>/Pictures or any other path that has your username in it, and you changed usernames, this is likely the problem.

It's definitely worthwhile upgrading to PSE 14 from PSE 10. Lots of useful changes and the interface is miles better. There's no need to upgrade every time a new version comes out: every 3rd or 4th version will work just fine providing you don't have a brand-new camera. Check Amazon or eBay for deals.

Your photos can live anywhere and on multiple disks - some on your internal hard drive, some on external disks. LR doesn't care as it knows where they are.

The LR catalogue is a file that should be on your internal hard drive. LR will prompt you to "back it up" when you exit - do this!

LR does not "lose" photos of its own accord. People get into this situation when they move/rename the photos outside of LR and then LR can't find them afterwards. There is a way around this (which I'm not personally familiar with), but the easiest thing to remember is to do ALL your renaming/moving within LR itself. If you do that, LR will always know where they are.

I would advise purchasing Aperture Exporter and letting it run on a small Aperture library. At the end of the process, you will have a bunch of subfolders, one per project within Aperture. Then import *one* of them into LR. You can "add" it if you want to keep the same folder structure, or "copy" if you want to rearrange things. I always do the latter so I can arrange my LR catalogue by place/year/date.

Don't be scared of LR. It's far far superior to Aperture and if you remember to NEVER move/rename files or folders outside of LR then you're golden. Aperture Exporter will export all your RAW files AND also create jpegs of all the files that you edited inside Aperture. The only thing that you lose is the ability to undo your Aperture edits - all you get is the final jpeg that can be re-edited or just go back to the original RAW files. Tiffs/jpegs created with other programs such as Photoshop will also be exported as is.

I continue to recommend Aperture Exporter because that gives me the ability to completely re-organize my file/folder structure to my liking, whereas the import function built into LR doesn't give you that flexibility.

Play around with a small test case and you'll quickly see that it's pretty simple. You can message me for help if need be.

Catherine

I have the 7D and it is a beast to carry around but I love it. I found that getting one of those "sling straps" that goes over your shoulder helps the weight/comfort issue a lot if I'm walking around with it all day. A $10 strap off of eBay and two safety pins later - I'm all set! It is much more comfortable than having it hang around your neck all day. The "built like a tank" aspect of the 7D is nice, but it is bulky and heavy.

I suggest using the "Aperture Exporter" software available from the App Store. I am using this to migrate my extensive Aperture collection into Lightroom and it's working like a charm.

Launch Aperture Exporter and it will ask you what Aperture Library (I have many!) you want to export
Launch Aperture with the specific library
AE will export into the directory location you give it, creating a separate subfolder for each project/event in your Aperture Library. You have the options of creating a jpeg for every RAW image (modified or not), or only the ones that have been edited.
Once the export is finished, launch LR and import (I select "copy" to have the projects organized into a different structure within LR but if you like the AE folder structure you can simply choose "link") each project folder individually.
All of your keywords are automatically preserved.

Using AE gives me the option of completely reorganizing my Aperture Library into a different folder structure within LR. I organize by place, with "yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd" subfolders automatically created by LR. Using the LR export doesn't give you any of this flexibility.

If you chose to "copy" your images into LR during the import process, you can then delete the AE created folder after the import is complete. But, if you chose "link" DO NOT DO THIS!! LR is a database software and it does not actually import the pictures: it merely populates a database with links to your pictures. This is very different from Aperture, but I much prefer the LR philosophy as that gives me the freedom to organize my catalogue exactly how I want it.

Good luck!

Catherine