Directions: Exit on 123rd south in Draper …. Go West a little over a block and turn lft (south)
177 W. 123000 S. Draper Utah

Time: 6pm – 7:30

Please sign up on the FLICKR group

• • You will be able to keep tabs of all the future showdowns
  • See that month’s theme
  • And sign up to compete

REVIEW

Last month we had a great showing and we were able to learn a lot to Iron out the wrinkles in the setup of the day.
It should go much more smoothly and faster tonight.

I hope to see you all there

BENEFIT

You will be benefited to learn lots of editing techniques by 8-10 photographers as they spend 20-30 minutes editing a set of pictures (everyone gets the same pictures.)

We will then review all of the different versions of each picture and the spectators will vote on their favorites
We will be able to crown the champion and spend a few moments on each winning picture.

Champion

Last Month David Daniels took home the “crown” and he’ll be there tonight to defend his title.

We will also ask him to show off some of his editing for a short presentation.

More info about the Event – after the jump

David tells us about his edit on this picture

I edited this photo a bit in lightroom before switching over in photoshop. In lightroom I added some graduated filters that boosted contrast and satruation and brought down the exposure and brightness.

I did something similar on the bottom half of the photo but boosted brightness a bit.

In photoshop I ran a LAB action where i boosted the colors a little bit more – did a little bit of sharpening and then I added a photo filter that had a warm tone and then I masked out the warmth on the top and bottom of the photo.

BELOW – The original (we added a picture that didn’t need a ton of editing to see what they would do anyway)

BELOW – The runner up on this picture

BELOW – Ash Ram took some extra time last month to edit this picture all fancy like

And below we have a less intense edit that got the same amount of votes and took co-winner on this picture

Below is the original.

There were 28 pictures last month because the theme of that months competition needed a bunch.
These two pictures were submitted by myself.

THEME

This month the theme is NO Action and NO Presets

So we’ll how the competitors fair this time around… mwahahaha

The plan is to set up a seperate Blog for this monthly competition.

To highlight pictures and have guest contributors talk about how they reached certain results.

When I get a couple moderators for said blog helping out and assigning other photographers to get that done I’ll do the wordpress install and get that Blog going.

But for now I’ll use my blog to show the winners of each picture.

The winner this month was David Daniels

The event took place at the Pictureline in Draper

Both tied for Win

Both are Tied for win

The Original – and winner

Close runner-up

Runner Up

Winner

Runner-Up

Both Tied for the win

Winner

Runner-Up

Runner-Up

Both Tied for the win

Tied for Win

Tied for win

I suppose I could do a write up on each of these. (And really milk you for your attention)
But it’s August and I have 9 weddings to take this month… including later today.

But I’ve changed up how I’m doing a few things and thought I’d write a little bit about each one and make it one power packed post
Instead of stringing you along and milking the marketing aspect of several posts.

Keep in mind this is a changing science… some of this stuff I just come up with out of thin air.
Sometimes its info I’ve gleaned from other sources and then changed it to fit my own needs.

I’m sorry I didn’t put in pretty pictures or reformat it to look nice… did I mention 9 Weddings (one today)

DroboPro

I’ve bought a device that holds 8 hard drives inside of one unit.

On my computer I have enabled it to show up as one drive.
For me that’s a life saver because I’ve always struggled with buying new drives and moving files around
Lightroom wants it’s files in the same place or I have to reconnect.
So now they’ll be in the same place all together.

It may or may not seem like a big thing but it’s already been a huge thing.
Calmed my soul at the very least.
It’s like doing spring cleaning where in the end your house is so much more in order it’s re-vitalizing.

I counted all the drives I had before my DroboPro lying around

80GB external (with it’s ugly power cord and USB cable)
80GB external same (huge for it’s day)
250GB external (A beast of a drive back when, had firewire too)
160GB small stand alone drive (at least it didn’t have a power cord and got it’s power from USB… I bought in a pinch in Mexico)
500GB external (I bought after returning from 3months in Europe in 2006 to hold the 450GBs of pics I took)
500GB small/tiny stand alone (my traveling drive now)

Then I moved to only buying internal drives and using swappable external inclosures for the speedier e-sata

Internals from over years:
125GB, 160, 300, 320, 320, 500, 1000, 1000, 1500, 1500
30GB SSD, 160GB Fusion IO

Count it that’s like 18 drives scattered around the place… Crazy stuff.
It’s a pain to go back to and old project and have to find the drive it corresponded to and plug it in etc.

That doesn’t count the 5 –  1.5TB drives in the drobo at the moment

I will continue to use drives 500GB or larger to back up all those files on the drobo in case something happens or the file system on the DroboPro goes corrupt.
The DroboPro handles the discs themselves in the cases they go bad. – I like the comfort of knowing they’re on a second drive (even if I never use that drive)
- In the end I also put ALL my final JPGs in original format on SmugMug (I guess that’s why I have over 180,000 files uploaded to SmugMug

My organization of files

Seeing that all my files are on the same “Drive” (combo of 8 drives)

I’ve organized the files into years starting with the 7000 i took in 2004 when I bought a point and shoot and went to Europe for 3 months.

Inside of those year folders are folders labeled “yyyy-mm-dd (description)”  - This method keeps them all in order and helps me find them on computer and in lightroom.

Labeling folders by date and then description is something that I started doing a while back, so most all my folders are like that. Now it’s a matter of putting them all into one big huge year folder.

Organization of LCATs

LCAT is the extension for the lightroom catalog files…
I’ve put them all into one place because  I have almost 30 LCATs from over the years.

Not only are they in one folder call LCATs I have taken them OUT of their subfolders…
I saw no reason for them to remain inside their subfolders.
So now inside the main directory you can see all the LCATs right off the bat!
All the folders containing those previews are also in that same folder… but it’s simple to determine which is which and you never have to go into those preview folders anyway so it’s like they’re not even there.
Even though they can get super huge since they contain previews for tens of thousands of pictures (and I do my previews at 1:1)

Where I store and where I process

Though my DroboPro operates at approx 50-60MBs it is still Slow in comparison to internal drives
Lightroom Editing accesses the files and slows down when it has to access anything external (perhaps exception to e-sata connected drives)
Therefore I have chosen a process where I’ll edit the files while they are on my fastest HD and then when done put them back in the fold on the DroboPro

I can do a few edits later on while they’re on the external drive but when I’m editing hundreds or even dozens I want them on the fastest thing I have.
Which so happens to be the fastest Hard Drive in the world the FusionIO … which blows any other drive out of the water. SSDs a handful of super fast 12,500RPM HDDs raided together.

For that matter I have lightroom installed to that drive and I put my catalogs that I’m presently using on that drive as well.

DNG

For some people DNG is an investment in long term thinking. (Because file formats are known to die over time)
For some it’s a “why not” decision
For some it’s a desire to free up space
Some like it’s ability to hold within it’s self many different things.

DNG users will point to these things and more.

I’ve used DNG for a while… but I haven’t been faithful per-se
I convert them upon importing files to the computer (as an option in lightroom)
But sometimes I forget to set the option and to me it was no big deal.

But now I’ve changed my thinking about XMP files and now converting them all to DNG is huge for me.
I don’t like having what are called “Sidecar files”
And when using DNGs the sidecar files are no longer side car… they are riding along in the Same car. all inside the DNG

Sometimes it’s those small things that make you happy.

XMP

When I edit in lightroom it saves all that information and history of what I’ve done in the LCAT
Loose the LCAT and I loose all those edits.
Lightroom doesn’t change the file itself when you adjust one of those sliders.
It couldn’t change the Raw NEF file if it wanted to, if it wanted to change the raw file it’d have to create a new file in a format it could work on. (And changing files is more of a photoshop thing anyway)
Destructive vs non-destructive (like how they gave them such obviously biased labels?

What pushed me over the edge to starting to use XMP info?

Well I amassed all these countless pictures into one place.
Then I put my mess of Lightroom catalogs into one place.
My pics are nice and orderly and I like it… but my catalogs are a mess.
Sometimes I don’t know what is where.

Not long ago I renamed my lightroom catalogs (LCAT s) to state what is inside (ex. “08apr 08jul and mex cal.lcat ”)
So that helped a bunch to remember what was in that folder.

But now I kinda want to make some new catalogs. one for 2004, one for 2005, 2 for 2006, 1 for 2007, probably 2 or 3 for 2008 and same for 09

These aren’t necessarily my operating catalogs because they have already been edited. But they’ll be used for going back to old projects as I’m known to do from time to time.
And I hope to go back to more of these old projects even more during the fall winter when I hope that things slow down a little bit.

I test a HD first – Move instead of Copy

Like with all my HDDs I vetted my DroboPro first.
I transfered a bunch of files to it and used it for a little while to make sure it wouldn’t go out on me.
Meaning I COPIED files to it… i DID NOT MOVE them… they are all still on those old hard drives if something were to happen.

When I give it a little time to operate I start letting go of the worries and using it as my main drive.
I’m at the stage where the DroboPro has earned my trust but I’m still storing my HDDs off to the side for a while.

Reconnecting Folders

I’ll be the first to preach how much faster and easier it is to move folders around Inside of lightroom instead of finder/explorer and then reconnect in lightroom.
BUT… when you’re transfering 3TBs of Pictures (that’s 3000Gbs) that is an insane process that would take decades to do … seeing that you can only move one folder at a time.
So it was much smarter to copy them hundreds of folders at a time and then reconnect later. (Reconnecting though tedious only takes about 4-8 seconds a folder.)

In lightroom you can RT click on the folder of images and say “find missing folder” or if it’s already there but you’d rather have lightroom reference the files copied to a newer location you can still RT click and select the option which allows you to reconnect to a new spot.

What am I doing now

I already copied all my Z: drive (drobopro)
- They’re nice and organized in the folders
I put all the older LCATs in place.
I’m opening each LCAT in order and reconnecting to pics on the Z: drive
I’ll do a search to view all pics in catalog by File Type and I’ll see how many are Raw and not DNG
Over night or while I’m gone on a shoot I’ll convert them to DNG
When they’re all DNG I’ll go to catalog settings in Lightroom
- I’ll select “Automatically write changes in XMP”
But since this is an older catalog and I don’t have time to wait for it to gradually change the XMP info
- I select ALL files in catalog
- Then I go to Metadata drop down in Lightroom and select ” Save metadata to files”
- It will go pretty fast but when it’s 20,000 pictures that still means hours probably.

Later I hope to create new catalogs with a ton of pictures in one catalog…
still not sure what size i should go with
50,000 per catalog or up to 100,000 ??
So if you have a suggestion let me know. – I’ll probably only render small or perhaps standard previews.
Then I’ll be ready for some projects later this year.

I’m talking about tons of editing… fast editing.
A computer for tons and tons of editing with fastest speeds possible.
Not a computer that will be used from time to time to edit.
Because if you have other pressing needs for the computer then your decision might differ.

My solution isn’t for the pretiest or the most user friendly… I’m talking effeciency!

Fastest, most powerful machine to run Lightroom or Photoshop. = Saving Time

Winner = Hand built PC for serious editing

If you want the fastest machine possible (at the moment) for picture editing you’ll have to stick with a PC for now.

-Good news is it will be abt half the cost (Roughly $3000 less)

-You’ll either need to set it up yourself
OR – Pay someone a couple hundred to set it up.
Still much cheaper than a Mac by several thousand.

Price has a lot to do with my consideration… so if several thousand for a similar powered machine isn’t a concern… by all means go Mac.

I don’t like store bought PCs

Thing about PCs is that stores sell cheap PCs or sell the good ones too expensive.
(Not an efficient move)
The PCs in stores aren’t that good… companies trying to make a buck on shoddy stuff. Therefore the whole PC system gets a bad rap.

And I must admit Macs are great for people who don’t know much about computers and have no desire to learn. But they just aren’t as fast for the same cost… and the options are way limited in comparison. (Stick with them for laptops)

Get a really great one set up by someone

Like i said just pay some techy friend to set it up…
or I’ll find you a techy friend to set it up for you.
Spend the couple hundred you save by buying hand selected parts and pay someone.

My old PC vs New MacBook Pro

I have a brand new MacBookPro for traveling but it’s way way slower than my PC. (1 yr Old quad core)
But laptops are small and convenient and great for travel. I don’t expect to use it all the time, just travel… that’s what it does best.
Why mac for laptop – macs don’t have a huge price difference when it comes to the higher end. I think it was only a few hundred more than the HP and it was smaller and had better battery life. The mac laptops are great…

BUT… For serious editing – use a desktop with real power

But come on, don’t use a laptop for editing if you do lots.
If you edit just a bit… it’s ok, by all means… get a laptop and plug it into a monitor and use a mouse.

COST

Top of the line PC can be built sub $2k (w/o monitor)
(See details below)

Throw in a dell or a mac 30″ monitor and then you’re loving life, you’ve saved several thousand by going PC why not.

MAC = $5549  (w/o monitor)
8cores 2.6, 2 video cards, 2HDs
(NO FAST HD option like an SSD … at least not from their store… so you’ll need to get one of those somehow and reinstall OS)

So yeah it’s a fast machine I can only imagine, perhaps due for an update… but it’s nice.
They really don’t have a lesser version I would recomend unless get the 4 core instead of the 8 core.

Mac is $3000 dollars more and isn’t technically quite as fast. (Not sure how it compare honestly)
But it is prettier and the Mac/OS is nice for many people.

But let’s face it… you’re using Lightroom and Photoshop not finder or laucher all day long.

Seriously I’ll find someone to build it for you

Specs=

i7 8cores, 12gb ram, SSD fast HD with several 1.5TB HDs, best video card or two for up to 4 monitors, full tower, best MB with tons of toys.

Crazy fast for Lightroom editing.
Add in a 30″ monitor or a couple of regular size ones.
I recomend always having a couple of monitors

Oh and if you play games on the side… You’ve pretty much built the ultimate gaming machine

Yet another reason to get a PC for editing?
Fusion IO is coming out with their incredible new pro-sumer HD and it’s a PC device!
And no longer do you have to spend $3-$10K to buy one!

• Monday: Bridals
• Tuesday: Bridals
• Wednesday: Full wedding
• Thursday: Full Wedding
• Friday: Drive to Portland
• Saturday: Full Wedding
• Sunday-Monday: Family in Oregon
• Tuesday: Drive to Utah
• Wednesday: Partial wedding
• Friday: Full Wedding
• Saturday: Full Wedding

Then in may I am doing weddings in Alaska, NYC, Arizona (So i’ll be gone half the month)

And in that time I need to Move houses, clean my old house

I also need to edit three past weddings

LIGHTROOM NEWS

But I do have some exciting news for those Lightroom users out there.
I’ve been doing tons of stuff to speed up my system and I have been able to bring Lightroom speeds way down and I’ll let you know how I did it.

Thanks,

Scott

I’m busy and stuff… so I’ve just decided if you haven’t signed up for thursday yet… JUST COME.
Leave the nice tables for those who’ve already signed up. But there will be chairs and stuff.

Also please send an email to lightroom@jarviedigital.com to list things you want me to cover in intermediate class.
I’ll try to cover them all. 

Intro/Beginning Class

(Those wanting the intro and the basic rundown of Lightroom)

Tuesday 14th April
7pm-9:30pm 

Intermediate Class

(Those who have used it for projects &/or gone to a previous long workshops.
We’ll be learning some tips and tricks, guest presentations and a more extensive Q&A for me and other Advanced Lightroom users) 

Thursday 16th April
7pm-9:30pm 

Advanced Class

There is no workshop or class
But we will be a monthly meetup.
Lightroom Advanced User Group Meetups – “Jarvie’s fellow Lightroom Geeks”

You must have a good deal of lightroom experience
If you want to be involved or help organize these meetups email lightroom@jarviedigital.com and specify your interest 

There is a cool special format for these meetups.

Location:
East Bay Studios
85 Eastbay Blvd
Provo, UT 84606 

How to register – Follow directions exactly

Send email to lightroom@jarviedigital.com – Or leave a comment on this blog post
Write out the following items 1,2,3,4

Email Title: “April Workshop” 

1. Name
2. Which class you’ll be attending (1 class only, you pick)
3. If you want to be on the waiting list for the other class. (The one you didn’t pick.)
4. Whether you expect to want to go in for Pizza &/or Rootbeer Floats
   5. Notes/Comments – Anything you want me to cover, thoughts, inspirations, resources, ideas! Everything else I can skim through for kicks. Or questions.

Extra: If you’ll be bringing anyone else please supply their information as well – including email 

Example:
Title: “April Workshop”
1. Scott Jarvie
2. Tuesday Class (beginning)
3. Yes (for waiting list on thursday/intermediate class)
4. Yes, Pizza (Yum Yum)
5. My question and ideas: Are you going to give away all your presets?  Have people there to talk about their experiences, share their workflow.

80 person Limit

… so RSVP soon. (Specially since it’s only 1 week away)

Questions?

If there are further questions please try to use lightroom@jarviedigital.com – or twitter @jarvie
I will try to refrain from doing much chatting on facebook or gmail chat about the subject to help save me some time to get pictures edited to free up time to do these workshops. 

FAQ

What can we do to show our appreciation?

Advertise this event for me… so I can get to my editing and be prepared for this workshop.

Also you can become fans of JarvieDigital on Facbebook 

Why only one week notice?

Because I’ve been busy and now I have a brake.
These are the dates that worked best for me and the location.
From the 18th of april until the 2nd of may I’ll have 7 weddings… so I need to do it before then.

Will there be other opportunities?

Pete at East Bay studios is kind enough to let me use the facility and suggested that doing more in the months to come could be an opportunity.
I can see doing a month one either beginning or intermediate (rotating) could be an option.
We’ll see what the demand is and I’ll go from there.
Personally I’m not opposed… I like teaching and I only get better each time.
I’m considering strongly throwing in a twist the next time… adding a little photography teaching to go with that editing teaching. haha
 

How many people can attend?

Each time I’ve doubled the capacity. 
I’ve done so again… we will now allow 80 people.
This time I believe it will fill up fast.
Please RSVP soon. 

Will there be food?

Remember this is all casual.
But Yes! We will accept money at the very beginning of the class
We will then send a runner out to get the food.
Dinner &/or desert.
You can put minimum $4 down on pizza
And minimum $2 down on RootBeer floats

Anything left over in the funds will go to say thanks to EastBay/VIP studios for hosting us.

Is there a cost?

NO, I will not be charging a fee if that’s what you mean.
We will take donations for Food and donations in general, to say thanks to EastBay/VIP Studios. 
If we have left overs I might grab some stuff to bring to the next class to give away. 

I might be pimping the opportunity to do one on one personal lightroom training sessions. (Lightroom Personal Trainer)
But really it’s not even in my long term life plans nor a part of how I make a living… I’ll do it mainly because I know there’s a desire, and I’m cool like that.

Are their giveaways?

Yes a couple hour of my time that night. haha
But other than that… I’ll look into it.

You guys can come up with ideas for giveaways.
I need to edit and not spend all my time looking for giveaways… haha 

What are you teaching?

I would say it’s oriented to teaching how to be both Fast/Efficient while raising the  quality of work.
I focus on workflow and how to deal with large quantities of images.
After all I have 5,000 images waiting for me to edit at this very moment.

What is your teaching style?

Fast and furious!
This isn’t a dumb class where I wait until everyone understands everything.
We’ll cover tons and tons of information in a relatively short period of time.

Basically think of long 5 hour intensive classes you’ve been to…
Take that amount of information add a little more and we’ll try to cover that in less than half the time.

Will you answer my individual concerns and questions?

Probably not. My assistant might.
But in most cases I’ll take your question and just extend this FAQ and give you a link to it haha 

Do you have any more answers?

Not unless you supply the questions

SAM SCHOLES

What types of photography you do: Urban Decay, Landscape/Scenic, Portraits, Travel/Lifestyle

Vist Him Here>>: http://samscholes.carbonmade.com/ & http://www.flickr.com/photos/pictobox/

Written by Sam Scholes:

A blurb about Lightroom and how it helped you: Lightroom revolutionized my workflow. Prior to using it I tried just about ever other RAW editor out there (Capture One, Bibble, Nikon Capture, Adobe Camera RAW, etc. etc).

Every one was difficult to use, slow, and unpolished. RAW editors at that time lacked the sophistication and ease-of-use I was used to having in Photoshop and were more frustrating than helpful. It wasn’t until Lightroom was released that things began to turn around.  Lightroom was the first RAW editor that offered the flexibility and ease-of-use I wanted.

I love Lightroom.

Random Tip:If you are shooting RAW and not using Lightroom do yourself a BIG favor and buy Lightroom, it will revolutionize your workflow too. ‘)

My Workflow

Before anything else capturing some photographs is a must. My recipe for success is to go somewhere amazing and (hopefully) shoot some even more amazing photographs ! My current love is a Nikon D300 DSLR and various Nikon lenses. I exclusively shoot 14-bit RAW and use the Adobe RGB color space (for more vibrant colors and smoother gradients). Shooting RAW gives me the most flexibility when editing and allows me to achieve exactly the look I am going for.

When I can home from a shoot…

Part 1: Library module

1. The first thing I do after getting home from a shoot is take a shower and change my clothes. Usually I am pretty dirty after a long day shooting, so this is a good thing.

Next I insert my memory card(s) into a USB card reader and import all of my photos into my Lightroom catalog.  I import the photos with the following custom settings….
* File Handling: Move photos to new location and add to catalog
* Organize photos into folders by date (ie. 2009/2009-03-01)
* Rename photos by date with a number sequence (ie.2009-03-01_001.NEF)

* Embed custom metadata which includes my copyright, name, email, and web site. This metadata will be added to every file I import or export, so every JPG I send out can be traced back to me. This is important for helping protect my copyright.

Finally, I choose to have Lightroom render high resolution previews so I can easily and quickly zoom in and out without having to wait for Lightroom to render a new preview. This makes reviewing my shots much faster.

2. Once Lightroom has transfered all of the photos and rendered the previews I begin reviewing the photos. Its at this stage that I realize that most of those “amazing” photos I took actually sucked… Its a good thing reviewing a lot of photos in Lightroom is so easy…
* Any photo that is out-of-focus, severely underexposed or overexposed, has a bad composition or just isn’t very good gets rejected. You can do this by hitting the X key.
* Often times I will use the Quick Edit sidebar to make slight exposure or white balance adjustments when comparing different compositions of the same shot. I want to make sure I keep the best shot and get rid of the others so small tweaks can be helpful to make sure I select the right shot.
* Hitting Z or clicking on the image zooms in and helps me check focus and sharpness. I use this a lot which is why I like to have Lightroom render high-resolution previews and not the smaller, standard previews.
* If I want to compare two compositions of the same image I will often select the two images and hit the C key to compare the shots. This shows both photos in a side by side comparison and is a great way to evaluate different compositions and check sharpness.
* In reviewing the photos from a shoot I will rate photos as well as reject them. This helps to separate the wheat from the tares and allows me to focus on only the best shots. Any photo that I like gets rated with 3 stars (hit the number 3 key to do this), any shot I really like gets 4 stars (hit the number 4 key), and any shot that really is amazing I will rate with 5 stars (hit the 5 key). I usually don’t bother with anything under 3 because any photo less than 3 should probably be rejected and deleted.

3. Once I’ve gone through all the photos I go to the Photo menu and select “Delete Rejected Photos”. This removes all of the bad photos so I am left with just the “good” ones.

Part 2: Develop module

1. Switching to the Develop module I change the rating to 3 stars or more. This hides all of the photos I’ve not stared and lets me focus on just the “good” shots. Sometimes I will also change the rating to 4 or more, so it narrows things down even further.

2. From here its time for editing, some more editing, and even more editing! Every photo is different so I won’t go into any detail about my process here.

3. Most of the time I can get my photos 90% of the way there in Lightroom. For that extra 10% I than take the photos into Photoshop. This is especially true with portraits which require additional retouching and editing that is only possible in Photoshop.

4. When I export from Lightroom to Photoshop or to JPG I make sure and convert to the sRGB colorspace. This is the default for the web and for most printers. I shoot Adobe RGB for the additional flexibility when editing but export to sRGB for compatibility.

After hours of editing hopefully I’ve survived long enough to shoot another day. Rinse and repeat. Have fun!

In preperation for the class I asked 4 other photographers at all ranges of ability to submit their WORKFLOW

Each Day – See and compare

I the next few days I will post each of these workflows.
You will be able to see the differences and similarities.

Submit your own

If you’d like to contribute please write up your workflow and we’ll add it. jarvie@jarviedigital.com

We will start with my present workflow.

Scott Jarvie

1. Picture Taking

I take awesome pictures
sometimes I chimp/pre-delete on camera because I have time and or want to save space on computer HDs

2. Importing

I import from card using Lightroom. Little USB external importer thingy.
I store on a hard drive organized by date. (2009-03-14) Thus making it chronological order.
I rename the folder to include a description after the date.
(This maintains the chronological order but makes it easier to know what it is)
I have the computer pre-render 1:1 because I hate wating when i’m going through them

2.5 Pre-Edits

In order to figure out which pictures are my favorites sometimes I want to see what they look like in a OK light
So sometimes I’ll grab a picture edit it really quickly and then synchronize with all the pictures like it.
I’ll do that for underexposed images so that when I do the next step I’m seeing a good image to make a decision on.

3. Selecting

I use “P” to pick or flag the image.

I keep one hand on the “P” and the other on the next arrow
Sometimes I click “X”(Reject) when a picture is so bad I should delete it off the computer to save room
Hitting “P” – I’m basically saying… I think this customer will want this image
A yes no decision is the fastest decision you can make. Faster than deciding 1-5

4. Develop

I develop ALL the ones that I selected.
I used to use presets a lot more but now I know exactly where to go so I usually don’t do presets.
I spend 5-30 seconds on a picture
Every once in a while when I want something fresh I’ll go through my presets and see which one might be nice.
But I’ll always tweak the picture after applying the preset.

Sometimes I make a virtual copy and try a second edit on the second version.

5. Reorder

After much investigation I’ve found out that putting your best face forward is super important
So I go through all pictures and pick my favorites to display to people first.
Then sometimes I go through those favorites and pick the bestests
I used the colors to symbolize levels of goodness
Recently I have been using the star rating feature to do the same thing.
1/red being great 2/yellow being to be shown even before that and when needed 3 to be even betterer
I use categories to save contain the ones I want to sort and reorganize
You can drag pictures into a specific order you want.

6. Export to JPG

When they’re all in order I export to JPG with the file name the same but in front of the file name

I put a sequencer 001,002 – I believe that’s a custom file name ability.

That way when I put them in a gallery I can have that gallery organize them by filename.

And therefore my pictures will be in order… the order I want.
The amount of people that will look at your second page of pictures decreases by 2-3times
And half again for the next page of pictures.
So if your best picture is on the 10^th page you basically just shot yourself in the face. Or you’re saying I don’t care if anyone ever looks at these picture.

7. Upload to SmugMug

I use SmugMug to display my pictures to customers.
I have them display by filename order

Sometimes I make a chronological gallery of the same images as well – in those cases I organize by time taken.

8. Distribution

I give my customers a link to the SmugMug and tell them to grab them off smugmug and make themselves a Facebook gallery

I sometimes make a blog by dragging straight from SmugMug into my blog editor
I’ll grab a set of pictures from off of smugmug (because they are perfect size and have watermarks) and use those pictures to upload to Facebook and sometimes I even use Flickr

Obviously: How do I make lightroom faster?

Would i have a better experience if I upgraded to 64bit operating system?

The answer is probably yes… but then I would ask… How much better and how?
What I’m getting down to… Is it even worth bothering?

Would things be better with more than 4GB of Ram?

Again the answer I expect is yes…. but then I would ask…
How much better and how will I notice the effects?
What I’m getting down to… Is it even worth bothering?

How big can I make my catalogs?

He’ll say… it depends.
I’ll say of course it depends… that’s how computers and technology works…
Now expand on that thought.

Is there a perfect way to install Lightroom and set the preferences?

He’ll probably say there’s no “perfect” way or it depends.
Then I’ll ask ok… what’s the “best” way you know of?

Would a sub $2000 mac be better than a quad-core PC with 4GB of ram 5-6 HDs?

Follow up if the answer is yes… would it be worth giving up my 3 screen setup? (And having to classify myself with annoying Apple Fan Boys… I mean I did get an iPhone so I don’t suppose it’s way out there)
Because if it’s only a tiny bit faster then what’s the point?

Why does it seem that Lightroom is specially sluggish when I leave for a while. Or when I wake in the mornings?

I don’t turn off my computer or even shut down lightroom.
Is that a terrible thing and the root of all my problems?
Does lightroom need to be shut down from time to time just like a computer?

Will add more to the post as I think about them or you suggest them.

Here’s a series of twitter messages I sent out this morning.
I figured it might be important enough to put on the blog since more people view it on a daily basis.

Somewhere out in the tubes there’s an article/blog called: “10 things to do to speed up lightroom” I just can’t find it! Please write one!

In that blog tell me what the fastest computer would be and what tips you suggest about how to run the computer etc…

If I do too many pictures in one catalog am I overburdening things and slowing lightroom down? What’s the magic number?

In fact almost everyone writes about the 10 new features they love in LR2
I would but hundreds of people already did it.
And the article is always called “10 features I love in the new Lightroom 2″

Thomas hawk wrote about the new LR2 features
It’s probably my preferred so far. But seeing how they were all the same I stopped looking at them.

In that Thomas Hawk article Sephen Shankland makes a comment that makes it seem like he knows a bit about speed issues in lightroom. Turns out he has a blog over at CNET

• This article needs to be by someone who really really knows what they’re talking about.
• Not written by someone who is simply a user. (Heck I’ve edited tens of thousands of pictures and i’ve noticed trends but I’m certainly not the person to write this because I would only have theories and not solid facts)
• Base their 10 points on facts and not speculation
• Give us the perfect setup
  (I have a quad core and that sped up things immensely! But I want more)
• Going from picture to picture is where the most annoying lag is.
• In my case I don’t care about the exporting/crunching of images i’m talking about the navigation more so… moving from grid to develope and from picture to picture or applying the edits.

Some lightroom developer needs to do this (maybe they have)

Or someone that likes doing detailed research

I wouldn’t mind Scott Kelby writing this up because he certainly chats with the adobe people a lot and isn’t afraid to ask the questions. Plus everyone seems to read his blog so he can at least pose the question.

Update:

Thanks to Calanan for finding an article that gives 5 apparent ways to speed things up.
Heere’s the twitter message he sent

calanan @jarvie How about 5? http://tinyurl.com/3a3vda

5 tips are great but I want more.
An article not just for the common lightroom user. I want something geared toward huge catalogs and not just focused on speeding up lightroom on an old crappy computer but on an already upgraded computer.

Something that goes more into depth.

I could probably spit out 5 tips to make lightroom faster based on experience.
But i want some really solid stuff going above mere observations and guesses.

Saying get a faster computer and get more ram is cheap because that speeds up every computer. Say that and then explain how it benefits and perhaps give an example.

Am I being too demanding? Lots of people out there blogging and looking for things to write about… just trying to help make the best lightroom article ever.

dwterry @jarvie I have Lightroom store my data in XMP files with the images. That way my edits and my images get backed up simultaneously.

dwterry @jarvie The other advantage is that frees me to blow away my LR catalog any time I want. Which is about every few thousand files or so.

jarvie @dwterry XMP files? that sounds so messy. but i’m willing to listen. Will that make them import into any lightroom with settings in-tact?

Plus i thought one of the points of lightroom was to be more than a place to edit… DAM
DAM – a way to Manage our Digital Assets

If I really had a choice and it worked I would love to have ALL my pictures in the same library… so that might be going the wrong way.

zelph @jarvie I have 17,000+ on my home computer’s lightroom catalog and only about 1,000 on my laptop… I see no noticeable difference

This isn’t what I’ve heard elsewhere, but I’m not sure he’s wrong. I don’t really know if my catalog with 5000 runs faster than those with 40,000 plus.
Now we just need a thousand more people to say what they think and we’ll get down to the bottom of this