Best Practices for exported images from Lightroom or Cap One

[PhilBurton]

I am now using Lightroom for most of my image edits, because I like the idea of non-destructive editing and export of finished images. (Most of my original images are NEFs, with some JPGs from my iPhone.)

Lightroom gives you the option of storing exported images as a subfolder of the original images, but I'm not sure that this is a best practice. I'd like to hear what other people with more experience than me have done, or what they would do if they could start over.

Thanks,

Phil

[Mike Buckley]

For best practice, see the following: http://dpbestflow.org/node/292

I like using Supreme's versioning capability, so I would version the exported file with the master file. If you accidentally move one of the versions, once you locate just one of them you can always locate the rest of them so long as they are versioned.

[PhilBurton]

For best practice, see the following: http://dpbestflow.org/node/292

I like using Supreme's versioning capability, so I would version the exported file with the master file. If you accidentally move one of the versions, once you locate just one of them you can always locate the rest of them so long as they are versioned.

Mike,

Thanks. I just read the link, which I have read previously. However, I was hoping for something a bit more "operational" or workflow-oriented, in terms of how people use Lightroom. For example, is it a best practice to have a standard set of subfolders for every folder of original images? My folder hiearchy is yyyy\mm\dd and original files are named yyyymmdd_nnnn_subject.NEF. or .... .JPG.

I wonder how many people in this forum use Lightroom. Or another non-destructive image editor.

Phil

[sanphotgn]

Phil,

I have used Lightroom for years. My best practice: I don't "save" the exports. They are sent to their destinations: web sites, family, friends, .... In a few instances I keep copies. Typically that is not a full resolution copy and not versioned in Photo Supreme. If folks want another copy, I make one. There is usually a period of time between the original and request. A period of time where a new version of Lightroom is sometimes available and hopefully I have gotten slightly better at adjustments.

My workflow: review with FastPictureViewer, import (using existing folder location) into Lightroom and make adjustments, import (copy into final folder structure) into Photo Supreme and add metadata, import (using final folder structure) into Lightroom (using a different catalog than the adjustments catalog). One of these days I will try to make it slightly more efficient, but it has worked very well. (It should also be noted I use many Photo Supreme catalogs. I don't have just one with everything. This has worked very well for me but is not for everyone.)

Kevin

[PhilBurton]

Phil,

I have used Lightroom for years. My best practice: I don't "save" the exports. They are sent to their destinations: web sites, family, friends, .... In a few instances I keep copies. Typically that is not a full resolution copy and not versioned in Photo Supreme. If folks want another copy, I make one. There is usually a period of time between the original and request. A period of time where a new version of Lightroom is sometimes available and hopefully I have gotten slightly better at adjustments.

Kevin,

If I understand you, your best practice is NOT to keep exports on a routine basis, but to save copies in a few instances. So, WHEN you do save copies, do you have a standardized approach in terms of directory locations and names relative to the original images?

At this time, unless you're subscribing to Lightroom CC, what we have now is what we will have for a long, long time.

My workflow: review with FastPictureViewer, import (using existing folder location) into Lightroom and make adjustments, import (copy into final folder structure) into Photo Supreme and add metadata, import (using final folder structure) into Lightroom (using a different catalog than the adjustments catalog). One of these days I will try to make it slightly more efficient, but it has worked very well. (It should also be noted I use many Photo Supreme catalogs. I don't have just one with everything. This has worked very well for me but is not for everyone.)

Kevin

I'm a bit confused here, or maybe I just don't undertstand. You do an import into Lightroom, then copy the images into a new folder for import into PSU. Then you do another import into Lightroom? Aren't you doing in effect double-imports?
Do you rename the image files at any point in this process?

Also, just wondering. What Lightroom plug-ins do you use?

Phil

[sanphotgn]

Phil,

If I understand you, your best practice is NOT to keep exports on a routine basis, but to save copies in a few instances.

Correct.

So, WHEN you do save copies, do you have a standardized approach in terms of directory locations and names relative to the original images?

No for the most part. When I do, I create either a subfolder in the RAW image folder or a folder outside of the RAW images. I do not import these into Photo Supreme or Lightroom.

You are correct I am importing a couple of times.

The process in more detail:

I have two folder structures: review and final. The review folder structure is based on date. The final folder structure is based on subject. Review folders are deleted after the files have been processed and are in the final folder structure and everything has been backed up.

Beyond Compare: Copy from card to review folder structure.

FastPictureViewer: Review photos. Delete. Rate, sometimes.

Lightroom (review catalog): Import from review folder structure. Do not rename. Make adjustments. Delete. Rate, sometimes. If folks need a photo soon, I will export at this stage.

Photo Supreme: Import (copy) into final folder structure. Rename. Add metadata. Delete, maybe. Export Metadata to CSV file (which is then imported into Access).

Lightroom (final catalog): Import from final folder structure. Export.

I try to keep Photo Supreme and Lightroom "synced" after the last step. Thus, if I make adjustments or add a keyword in Lightroom, I close out Lightroom when I am complete and open Photo Supreme and go to Verify Folder. If I add more metadata in Photo Supreme, I close out Photo Surpreme when I am complete and open Lightroom and go to Synchronize Folder. A pain. I sometimes forget. But it does work.

Being able to keep track of where I left off and what needs to be done and so on ... this works for me. Clearly one could import directly from the card into the final folder structure with Photo Supreme and go from there. My process has been a work in progress, based on what I can do, the time to change it, ideas found here and other places, the programs I use and their strengths and weaknesses. The bottom line is finding what works best for you.

Lightroom plugins: I currently use Any Filter and LR/Mogrify 2.

Kevin

[PhilBurton]

Phil,


I have two folder structures: review and final. The review folder structure is based on date. The final folder structure is based on subject. Review folders are deleted after the files have been processed and are in the final folder structure and everything has been backed up.

OK, that makes everything you say seem more straightforward.

Beyond Compare: Copy from card to review folder structure.

I also use Beyond Compare. Great utility. But why not a simple Windows drag-and-drop?

FastPictureViewer: Review photos. Delete. Rate, sometimes.

Lightroom (review catalog): Import from review folder structure. Do not rename. Make adjustments. Delete. Rate, sometimes. If folks need a photo soon, I will export at this stage.

Photo Supreme: Import (copy) into final folder structure. Rename. Add metadata. Delete, maybe. Export Metadata to CSV file (which is then imported into Access).

Lightroom (final catalog): Import from final folder structure. Export.

Now everything seems more understandable but why do a metadata export to Access?

I try to keep Photo Supreme and Lightroom "synced" after the last step. Thus, if I make adjustments or add a keyword in Lightroom, I close out Lightroom when I am complete and open Photo Supreme and go to Verify Folder. If I add more metadata in Photo Supreme, I close out Photo Surpreme when I am complete and open Lightroom and go to Synchronize Folder. A pain. I sometimes forget. But it does work.

Being able to keep track of where I left off and what needs to be done and so on ... this works for me. Clearly one could import directly from the card into the final folder structure with Photo Supreme and go from there. My process has been a work in progress, based on what I can do, the time to change it, ideas found here and other places, the programs I use and their strengths and weaknesses. The bottom line is finding what works best for you.

What are the advantages to you of this "double import," as opposed to doing an import directly from card using Photo Supreme, into the final folder structure, and then into Lightroom? Of course, this simpler process doesn't fix the problem of keeping the metadata synchronized between Photo Supreme and Lightroom.

Phil

Lightroom plugins: I currently use Any Filter and LR/Mogrify 2.

Kevin

[sanphotgn]

But why not a simple Windows drag-and-drop?

Because back in the day of Vista and maybe early Windows 7, it wasn't reliable with a large number of files.

but why do a metadata export to Access?

I use custom XMP. The export to Access includes several typical fields and the custom XMP. Once in Access, I can run reports on the data. One could query the Photo Supreme database with third party tools or probably with scripts, but I would rather not and do not know how, respectively. Another benefit: Think of the data in Access as a short version backup of the data in the Photo Supreme database.

What are the advantages to you of this "double import,"

I found it is the easiest way for me to keep track of the progress. (The color labels in Photo Supreme have been set up for this very purpose ... and they can be modified to fit one's workflow or identification needs.)

Kevin

[PhilBurton]

Kevin,

Just a quick reply. I'm also interested in using custom XMP but I don't yet know how. I know that we can't do private messaging on this board. What's the best way to get in touch with you off the board?

My XMP custom data is for railroad subjects, by the way.

Phil

[sanphotgn]

Hi Phil,

After this discussion - http://forum.idimager.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=23944 - I started thinking about custom XMP and Photo Supreme. It will take me a few weeks to see if any of the ideas really work. I will post my findings here.

Custom XMP: It has been a while since I researched custom XMP and applications, but my guess is it is only truly supported - read and write - in a few applications. That number will probably get smaller. As far as I know the latest version of Lightroom still doesn't support it. A part of me keeps using it because it has made my workflow much easier and there is a part of me that thinks all the metadata will eventually be just keywords.

Kevin

[PhilBurton]

Hi Phil,

After this discussion - http://forum.idimager.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=23944 - I started thinking about custom XMP and Photo Supreme. It will take me a few weeks to see if any of the ideas really work. I will post my findings here.

Custom XMP: It has been a while since I researched custom XMP and applications, but my guess is it is only truly supported - read and write - in a few applications. That number will probably get smaller. As far as I know the latest version of Lightroom still doesn't support it. A part of me keeps using it because it has made my workflow much easier and there is a part of me that thinks all the metadata will eventually be just keywords.

Kevin

LOL to that other discussion, since I wrote several replies.

I know that Lightroom still doesn't support custom XMP, other than its own. However, as long as Lightroom doesn't damage custom XMP added by other applications, I'm OK with that. That's why I use Photo Supreme. I need to use custom XMP fields so I can in effect tag certain subject details so they can be searchable. A free-form subject or caption field isn't enough.

Considering that Adobe invented XMP and the concept of extensibility, they really dropped the ball on this one.

[Mike Buckley]

Considering that Adobe invented XMP and the concept of extensibility, they really dropped the ball on this one.

In my view, it's not that they dropped the ball. Instead, it's that they provided a solution for a problem that hardly anyone has. So few have it that Adobe isn't economically motivated to go to the expense of building it into their own product, at least not to the point of offering extensibility that can be custom controlled by the users.

[PhilBurton]

Considering that Adobe invented XMP and the concept of extensibility, they really dropped the ball on this one.

In my view, it's not that they dropped the ball. Instead, it's that they provided a solution for a problem that hardly anyone has. So few have it that Adobe isn't economically motivated to go to the expense of building it into their own product, at least not to the point of offering extensibility that can be custom controlled by the users.

Mike,

I think it's a question of people not "wanting" something that they don't know exists. One term for that is "latent needs." In this case, had Adobe put some effort into custom XMP, then I believe that all kinds of peopel with all kinds of special interests would have said, "Yes, I can benefit from that." There is a lot of discussion, too much for this board, that supports these statements. And of course, some amount of market research would be necessary.

Phil

[fbungarz]

In my view, it's not that they dropped the ball. Instead, it's that they provided a solution for a problem that hardly anyone has. So few have it that Adobe isn't economically motivated to go to the expense of building it into their own product, at least not to the point of offering extensibility that can be custom controlled by the users.

Perhaps...
But then: perhaps nobody sees the real potential of custom XMP, just because there hardly any tools on the market that support it. I think it is actually quite an irony that lots of people keep using standard IPTC and XMP fields for a purpose that those fields were not designed for. The standard fields now supported by most tools are actually fields that initially were designed for press photographers (IPTC), later that standard was extended a bit, but it is obvious that it still does not suit everybody's needs.
Now, I suspect it is actually not just economic reasons why Adobe "dropped the ball". The real problem with custom XMP is the ability to be able to "customize" it. That sounds like an oxymoron, but it is true. If anyone has access to software that can easily create all sorts of custom XMP fields, then anyone will. And that means we will end up with thousands of different custom XMP fields. Some about railroads, some about apples, some about oranges. That might perfectly suit the individual needs of a specific customer, but it could ultimately result in quite a chaos of custom XMP fields. I can only guess that Adobe happily supports existing XMP fields and standardizing bodies who ever so often come up with some additional XMP standard fields, but they likely make it fairly difficult to support full customization (their XMP toolkit is quite beyond the average person and perhaps only accessible to programmers, and even then: using it to design custom XMP if tools like Lightroom don't support it...).

Despite all this I truly regret that PSU dropped support for generating custom XMP and I believe the worries about too much chaos are probably unwarranted. Looking at software standards usually emerge by various approaches competing with one another and having the option to come up with one's own custom XMP would give users more flexibility to manage their data relevant to their own digital assets.

In any case: I encourage anyone interested in full custom xmp to vote for this feature request in Mantis:
http://mantis.idimager.com/view.php?id=1585

Cheers,
Frank

[Stephen]

Lightroom gives you the option of storing exported images as a subfolder of the original images, but I'm not sure that this is a best practice. I'd like to hear what other people with more experience than me have done, or what they would do if they could start over.
Phil

Phil,

Peter Krogh, co-author of the linked article also authored "The DAM Book", a very valuable (unfortunately outdated) resource on similar lines.

Within the next few weeks I have a large project where I will need to select, keyword, edit and catalog a large number of RAW images. As I dislike editing twice, the retrieval of those images on future occasions is important.

Historically I have used basic keywords when importing images and since linking my image directory to PSu have been consistent in folder naming, i.e.:
Spain Madrid 2015-10-10
Spain Madrid 2015-12-12
USA New York 2015-11-11

This assures that the folder structure is more useful and provides independence of a DAM.

My images are named chronologically: yyyymmdd-hhmmss-9999.raw

I clone them (more reliable than copying) from card to drive with ChronoSync and only then import them to a different location according to the directory structure above. The original import remains untouched as an archive copy as storage space is cheap. The archived originals don't have keywords and ratings, but can always be found.

I can follow Peter Krogh's methodology of separating RAW and edited files, which also saves continually backing up unchanged images, however, I don't think it will work for me.

My preferred editor, Capture One (C1), can put the edits in the original folder or a subfolder (or wherever, including multiple locations simultaneously). I have yet to decide which is best. PSu will can find them with the verify folder command.

BTW, C1 creates sub-folders (within the folder you select) where it puts data related to the edited images.

I will outline my thoughts for this task:
1. Putting edits in the original folder will mean that some meta data which C1 kills could be partly rescued by stacking.
2. As I don't like to stack the versions, a subfolder might lead to a cleaner organization.
3. I prefer to edit / work chronologically, which is easier with my folder naming system than with yours. So I normally work in the catalog view sorted by date. This has the disadvantage that sometimes (yet to determine why only sometimes) the edited files cannot be found under the correct date, although the chronological file name does not change. Possibly something to do with PSu using different dates for sorting.
4. I could continue with my current method, by placing the edited files in a different location which is named for the project. That potentially makes it harder to find those edited files at a later date and to combine them with unedited ones.
5. I could rename all of my folders (similar to your style), but then the OS will use its own sorting and so I can then not keep subject matter together, as it will show like this:
2015-10-10 Spain Madrid
2015-11-11 USA New York
2015-12-12 Spain Madrid
This would have relevance when working in the folder view.

Phil, just some of my thoughts which will perhaps be useful to you?