Should I use Lightroom??

[dharmit]

Hi,

The question has arisen because of the following reasons.

1. My photo library is growing
2. Lightroom 3 is available for beta and I like some of its capabilities
3. I am not sure if Lightroom has the capability that I want (please read the post for description)

Right now, my workflow is as follows:

1. Shoot in Raw (Shoot in Jpeg only if it is something like shooting Fast jet Planes)
2. Download via DPP (Digital Photo Professional)
2.1 Download to folder structure of "2009/2009_12_04 Scenery/Raw/20091204IMG.CR2"
3. Deleting bad ones, Minor tweaks and cropping in DPP
4. Exporting to Jpeg Folder "2009/2009_12_04 Scenery/Jpeg/20091204IMG.jpg"
5. If need be further editing with Gimp and storing as "2009/2009_12_04 Scenery/Edited/20091204IMG.tiff"
6. Tag JPEG and Tiff files in Picasa

I went online and downloaded Lightroom handbook from Adobe, watched Adobe TV for lightroom video tutorials, read DPS Post etc, so I have done my homework.

My question is, in Lightroom, the jpg images are considered as side cars or a NEW image in Lightroom. So from now on if I edit my Raw file, will Lightroom save JPEG file in the folder structure as I have done (I can do it by export file) but will Lightroom maintain tags and keywords for RAW and Jpeg files both?, What about my previous images from 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 till date. They are all RAW and JPEG in seperate folders under the same date.

Does Lightroom tag both RAW and JPEG image? If so when I will try to search for any tag in year 2008 (for eg), it will give me two files whereas I only want one. What should be done?

I know there are lots of lightroom users, who can shed some light on this lightless person (Lightless does not mean that I cannot do photography, it just means that I am in a darkroom and that I have no clue in how to do tagging, archiving etc )

Cheers

[Walkere]

I've been using Lightroom for a few months, and I love it for organizing and editing my photos. I work on the yearbook at my high school, so we have a large amount of photos that we keep in the current catalog, and Lightroom has worked out really well for that. I used Picasa last year to organize the photos, and it started off ok but got out of hand by the end...

I've only just started shooting some stuff in RAW, though. I just did a little experimenting, and when you export a raw image to jpeg, Lightroom will save the tags you've applied along with the star rating you've given it. However, if you flagged the original RAW image, that flag will not appear on the new jpeg.

If you're worried about double images showing up, you can add extra tags to each type of image. Add a "final" or "jpeg" tag to your exported jpegs, and then you can filter out all of the RAW images. You can also use the text filter to filter files by file type (put in "jpg" to see jpegs only, or "cr2" or whatever your RAW filetype is to see the RAW images).

If you've edited your RAW image and exported it to a jpeg, I don't think that further editing the RAW image will have any effect on the jpeg (unless you re-export it). This isn't much of a problem for me. I either save the original RAW image with the edits (and export it when I want to print it or drop it into the yearbook layout) or I edit the image to my satisfaction, export the jpeg, and delete the original raw image. If you think you're going to go back and edit the raw image, it seems silly to keep both a raw image and a jpeg on your hard drive.

- Brian

[dharmit]

Hi Brian,

• Deleting Raw files does not seem a feasible option (would you discard your negatives, if you were shooting with film cameras?). May be I can shift them to other HDD for future use or shift the JPEG for future use.
• Even though I don't normally reopen, reedit my raw files, sometimes I do
• Working with LR will mean that I will work on raw files directly and only export those photos that are worth sending on web, to friends or DPS but the jpeg files are required as my wife likes to look at them and email it to her friends and family if I am busy or have forgotten and when I am not home (in Explorer on Windows and Finder on Mac), will Finder or Explorer show the edited raw file in LR or the original Raw file?
• I think if I start using LR, I need to change the way I am doing my DAM.
• For my old photos (Raw and Jpeg), should I ask LR to see only RAW (in which case I have to do all the editing again as most of the editing is done in DPP and LR will not be able to see it) or I ask LR to see only JPEG?

Sorry if I have bombarded the forum with more questions but if I am planning to move my entire cataloging to a new software and stick to it, I should be pretty happy that it will work.

[Bluenoser]

If you're going to use LR, why bother with DPP at all? Just creating another step that isn't necessary imo. LR will do everything, right from uploading off your memory card.

[dharmit]

Bluenoser: If I am going to use LR, DPP is out of question. The only reason I mentioned DPP in my post is for my old photos that are edited (cropped, sharpened, white balance adjusted etc) in DPP. My question was whether LR can see the edits made by DPP or I have to do those edits for 10,000 files again?

Thanks for the insight though and I will keep that advise on-board.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by dharmit

Bluenoser: If I am going to use LR, DPP is out of question. The only reason I mentioned DPP in my post is for my old photos that are edited (cropped, sharpened, white balance adjusted etc) in DPP. My question was whether LR can see the edits made by DPP or I have to do those edits for 10,000 files again?

Thanks for the insight though and I will keep that advise on-board.

My bad - misunderstood the question.

As long as the edits are saved in the old photos, they should come into LR when you import them. Best thing I can think of is to just import a few photos first and see what the result is. The originals will still be there after import, so you won't lose anything if it doesn't work.

[kirbinster]

Sounds like lightroom would be a perfect fit for you. I have used it for years and it is a great program.

[dakwegmo]

I've been using Lightroom for about six months and once I got used to it wouldn't go back to my old system.

A couple of things to point out. When you import your files, if LR finds a JPG and a RAW file with the same name, in the same folder, you can tell it to stack those in LR so you only see the stack in your library unless you break it up. You can also manually stack photos, which helps to minimize the clutter.

When you edit in Lightroom you aren't actually making any changes to any of the image files. All the edits are recorded as entries in a database, but the only time a change is applied is when you export the images. It's a completely different way of doing things and takes some getting used to, but it's a great way to manage a lot of photos.

What I would recommend if you aren't sure is give it a test run. You can use the 30 day trial of the latest version, or use the beta version until it expires. If you don't like it uninstall it and go back to the way you were doing things before.

[dharmit]

Hi,

Bluenoser: I tried to import one of the RAW file to LR which was edited in DPP. I purposefully made RAW look underexposed to check if it is translated to LR. Alas, the edits from DPP did not flow to LR. I will have to think about this and make my mind as to "What should be done to the old photos and how to import them in LR". I might just import JPEGs as they have all the edits and leave RAW as archived negatives on a separate HDD which might be used if need be.

Is there any way LR can see tags that I have added to my old JPEG photos in Picasa?

Is there any advantage to "Embed original RAW in DNG" when importing RAW file?

Thanks

[dharmit]

Hi,

After my last post, I tried to import a JPEG file which was tagged in Picasa and LR 3 Beta did import the tag as keyword.

Now I have to look for information on whether DNG is good and

1. Whether I should convert my JPEG files to DNG or not?
2. Whether I should import RAW files as DNG or embed them in DNG for 2010 photos