...seems all was not as simple as I first thought.
Came up with over 1,100 "Missing Photos" in each of my two now-synchronized catalogs.
erk...
But, Lightroom to the rescue.
Select a specific missing photo (part of the beauty of Lightroom is that, even though it knows when a photo's gone missing it can still show you what it knew about it before it vanished) in Grid mode of the Library module, and click on the "Missing Photo" icon in the upper-right corner.
Lightroom attempts to give you a best-guess as to where it was, to navigate from.
*If* you know the photo is really still around, navigate to the correct folder and select the specific file.
Leave "Find nearby photos?" selected.
Click OK.
Lightroom recovers the missing photos!
In the Library module, under "Catalog" select "All photos" and select Library > Find missing photos.
Again, select one, click "Missing" icon, find, find nearby.
Find the photos, Spot! Good dog.
Repeat as needed, or wade through all the missing photos all at once.
Coolness...
And what had happened to the "Missing" photos in the first place?
I had renamed a few directories on my file server, which Lightroom had no way of knowing about.
Takeaway: only rename source directories on the file server from within Lightroom, under the "Folders" panel in the Library module.
duh...
Friday, February 11, 2011
*Whew* That was really...
...scary.
Any first-time experiment that involves *really* important stuff (my photos) and new software (Adobe Lightroom) and the primary index file of a large and important database (Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat) has got to be scary.
The primary problem is that I have two essentially identical shiny-new Win 7 boxes to use for photo post-processing.
Each has its own copy of Adobe Lightroom 3, and Adobe Photoshop CS5.
The core idea here is that I can be working on one project, move to the other box when something on the first is taking time (i.e. printing) and keep right on working -- but on a separate project.
Or just switch back and forth between two projects: work for a half hour on wrestling, work for a half hour on basketball, lather-rinse-repeat.
Or wanting to print photos from one project simultaneously on both boxes when the catalog's only on one.
The problem is that over time I get two entirely different catalogs of photos on each box.
Which at the very least is a PITA trying to remember what's where.
So, search Lightroom Help for "combine catalog" or "merge catalog" or variants, only to finally discover that what I want to do is "Import from catalog".
Which is, of course, right there on the File menu in the first place, but whatever...
Select "Import from catalog" and navigate to the *.lrcat file on the other box over the network, select it, and "OK".
"Check All".
"Add new photos to catalog without moving" i.e. keep them out on the file server.
Select "Replace metadata, Develop settings and negative files" and "Preserve Old Settings As A Virtual Copy".
Click "Import".
Hold breath.
And it works -- although it takes a while, given that I've got over 6,500 photos that have been imported.
And what I get is identical catalogs on both computers, with photos in an equivalent state on both boxes.
Of course the two catalogs will diverge as I work separately on each box, but it's nice to know that I can synchronize them pretty painlessly -- and quickly, having done the heavy lifting once the first time.
Any first-time experiment that involves *really* important stuff (my photos) and new software (Adobe Lightroom) and the primary index file of a large and important database (Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat) has got to be scary.
The primary problem is that I have two essentially identical shiny-new Win 7 boxes to use for photo post-processing.
Each has its own copy of Adobe Lightroom 3, and Adobe Photoshop CS5.
The core idea here is that I can be working on one project, move to the other box when something on the first is taking time (i.e. printing) and keep right on working -- but on a separate project.
Or just switch back and forth between two projects: work for a half hour on wrestling, work for a half hour on basketball, lather-rinse-repeat.
Or wanting to print photos from one project simultaneously on both boxes when the catalog's only on one.
The problem is that over time I get two entirely different catalogs of photos on each box.
Which at the very least is a PITA trying to remember what's where.
So, search Lightroom Help for "combine catalog" or "merge catalog" or variants, only to finally discover that what I want to do is "Import from catalog".
Which is, of course, right there on the File menu in the first place, but whatever...
Select "Import from catalog" and navigate to the *.lrcat file on the other box over the network, select it, and "OK".
"Check All".
"Add new photos to catalog without moving" i.e. keep them out on the file server.
Select "Replace metadata, Develop settings and negative files" and "Preserve Old Settings As A Virtual Copy".
Click "Import".
Hold breath.
And it works -- although it takes a while, given that I've got over 6,500 photos that have been imported.
And what I get is identical catalogs on both computers, with photos in an equivalent state on both boxes.
Of course the two catalogs will diverge as I work separately on each box, but it's nice to know that I can synchronize them pretty painlessly -- and quickly, having done the heavy lifting once the first time.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Further thoughts about Adobe Lightroom...
...while I'm waiting for the printer to finish.
So I'm printing an order, one which in the past would have been rather a PITA because it involves six different photos in four different formats or aspect ratios.
One image is to be done as an 8x10" portrait, a 5x7" portrait, and at 1.9x2.8" on a 4x6" sheet -- this to fit a custom commemorative frame from the 2010 Father-Daughter Dance.
The first two would be rather straight forward: load the original image, compose and finalize the crop, load the paper, do the page setup, do the print setup, print it.
But switching between the two crops always brought up a "Save the Changes?" dialog, and it was here I had to pay attention, because although many times I want to save changes, here I don't because all I'm doing is sending out a transient version to the printer.
But more than once I'd hit <Enter> reflexively, only to go "Oh cr*p..." because, no, I really didn't want to save that specific crop: I'd just over-written the original which is Not a Good Thing(tm).
But with Lightroom, there's no concept of "Save" or "Save as" at all - in fact there isn't even such a thing on any menu.
Which takes some getting used to.
Again, what Lightroom does is all "virtual" -- or, as I'd rather think of it, write to a database that records a list of state changes for a given image.
So there's no risk of saving some intermediate format of an image, because all I'd done was work through some new state changes, print that, and *poof* none of it really exists anywhere except the final print, and even those state changes can go away as soon as I need to edit the image a little.
Like print a 4x6" right after I've printed an 8x10".
Without having to pay a lot of attention to what I'm doing, because I'm probably doing something else on the other computer at the same time...
Very cool!
So I'm printing an order, one which in the past would have been rather a PITA because it involves six different photos in four different formats or aspect ratios.
One image is to be done as an 8x10" portrait, a 5x7" portrait, and at 1.9x2.8" on a 4x6" sheet -- this to fit a custom commemorative frame from the 2010 Father-Daughter Dance.
The first two would be rather straight forward: load the original image, compose and finalize the crop, load the paper, do the page setup, do the print setup, print it.
But switching between the two crops always brought up a "Save the Changes?" dialog, and it was here I had to pay attention, because although many times I want to save changes, here I don't because all I'm doing is sending out a transient version to the printer.
But more than once I'd hit <Enter> reflexively, only to go "Oh cr*p..." because, no, I really didn't want to save that specific crop: I'd just over-written the original which is Not a Good Thing(tm).
But with Lightroom, there's no concept of "Save" or "Save as" at all - in fact there isn't even such a thing on any menu.
Which takes some getting used to.
Again, what Lightroom does is all "virtual" -- or, as I'd rather think of it, write to a database that records a list of state changes for a given image.
So there's no risk of saving some intermediate format of an image, because all I'd done was work through some new state changes, print that, and *poof* none of it really exists anywhere except the final print, and even those state changes can go away as soon as I need to edit the image a little.
Like print a 4x6" right after I've printed an 8x10".
Without having to pay a lot of attention to what I'm doing, because I'm probably doing something else on the other computer at the same time...
Very cool!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
OK: Adobe Bridge...
...is exactly what I've been looking for to replace BreezeBrowser Pro and do all the front-end file management stuff before I even start into Adobe Lightroom.
I'm able to sit on one (or two, although not both at once) of my new Win 7 boxes and look at Canon RAW files that are on my file server, over my network.
I can move, delete, and re-name files at will.
And all much, much faster than I'd been able to do it on the file server box itself, which is running Ubuntu 10.10 and where I have to use gthumb to view files in the Canon RAW format via dcraw.
Totally cool!
I'm able to sit on one (or two, although not both at once) of my new Win 7 boxes and look at Canon RAW files that are on my file server, over my network.
I can move, delete, and re-name files at will.
And all much, much faster than I'd been able to do it on the file server box itself, which is running Ubuntu 10.10 and where I have to use gthumb to view files in the Canon RAW format via dcraw.
Totally cool!
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