Currently when I am processing files in 3rd party software, I have 2 copies of the derivative, the first is along side the Original which was exported from lightroom and a second copy is place in a derivatives directory. I am currently only importing the derivative which is alongside the original back into lightroom. I am doing this because currently lightroom will not allow images to be stacked across different folders. When Lightroom allows stacks to carry across directories I will change my work flow. Currently I would rather see my panoramic image in a stack with all the files which make up the image.

e.g.
Bucket1\2007\070403\File_3267.CRW
Bucket1\2007\070403\File_3267_PAN.JPG

Derivative1\2007\070403\File_3267_PAN.JPG

Niall

I have been using lightroom in anger since it was released, I did play with the betas when they were available for windows but did no real work in them. I decided that I wanted to use a single integrated application as I spend a lot of time moving between the library and develop module. This would be more awkward using 2 products. I am aware of the limitations that people have pointed out in this and other threads but I decided to live with them. Buying iView and Lightroom is starting to get expensive and I have a dislike for microsoft products, yes I do run on windows.

As lightroom is a v1 product it can only get better (I hope). Hopefully Adobe will listen to what people are saying about the product and develop it accordingly.


Niall

I do not like the way lightroom hides the higher levels of a folder tree, what is the inelegant hack? It might make my folders look a bit more sensible.

Niall

There are some good online video here that are worth looking at.

http://www.whibalhost.com/_Tutorials/Photoshop_LR/01/index.html

Adobe are also working on a tool which will inderstand raw shooters rws files, and will hopefully  adjust the photos according to the settings you made in Raw Shooter. I am not sure if the tool works when you import the photos or can be applied after they have been imported, but it will save a lot of time especially if you ranked the photos.
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Pixmantec_RawShooter_Migration_Tool
As for when they will release it I do not know it was supposed to be about 3 weeks ago.

Apart from that the best way to learn it is to use it and abuse it.

Niall

Last night I ingested about 500 jpg's from 4 years ago, I had to resort to using the exif.datetime macro as I had edited some of the Photos and their timestamps had been updated. I did not notice any real performance drop off, I would guess that the disc access would be the limiting factor when this many files are involved.

Access to the DateTimeDigitized seams like a good aide as I guess most software would leave that alone.

Niall

I wish I had know it was a s easy as {@exif.datetime}, as I knew which files were wrong, I had already corrected the time the photo was taken.

with {@exif.datetime} I assume the ingestion will be slower as you are reading the exif data, can you extract this information from raw files?

niall

I guessed it was, but there was also a mathching date in the exif information. Thinking about it, the support required to open up all the different raw files and extract the data would be imense and as you pointed out, really slow the processing down. At least I was able to correct the exif and then reset the modified date on the file easily.

Niall

We IIP ingests the photo's which Date field is it using to name the directories. Does it come from the exif data or the files time stamps? or does it depend upon the file type.

The reason I asked is that my Dad forgot to change the time on his camera, when he was in New Zealand so a days shoot was splitting across to directories. I corrected exif data using exiftool, but the files were then moved using IIP they were going into directories with todays date on, which corresponeded to the last changed time. I then had to down load another tool to set the modified time back to the created time.


After a lot of hastle it is now working, the morale  of the story is to make sure the time on the camera is correct, its a lot less hastle.

Niall

There seam to be quite a few of these generators cropping up which will allow you to "hack" various setting. Mind you this looks like a neet tool to allow you to mess about with curves.

Thanks

Niall

The thread is here

http://thedambook.com/smf/index.php?topic=1463.0

I use treeview which is mentioned there.

Niall

If you go for a dual or even a quad core you will only see a speed up if the application is written for multicore processes. I beleive photoshop can take advantage of multiple cores, but there is an interesting technical article here   http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2006/12/photoshop_and_multicore.html (if interesting and technical can go together) which makes some interesting points regarding memory bandwidth and multiple cores. It make a nice analogy to manufacturing "If The workers run out of materials they end up standing around."  I think then the speed up seen will depend upon the operation which photoshop is performing. If it is computationally intense you should see a speed up while if the operation is going to have to pass the whole image to the process the gains may not be a s noticable.

Have a look at Toms Hardware site, there will no doubt be a lot of reviews comparing the performance of different processors, both Intel and AMD.

Also to take advantage of 4 gig of RAM you will have to configure XP to use it, by default it will not, I am not sure of Vista. Have a look at how much memory Photoshop is consuming now to see if you will see any benefits from 4 Gig.

I would be interested to here the results about what ever you buy as I will be looking to upgrade my machine later in the year, I currently have a 3GHz AMD processor with 1 Gig of RAM

Niall

It is also "i" on the PC. I think the difference is ctrl on a pc cmd on a mac.

Niall

Most of the preferences I have left at the adobe default as they seam to be quite sensible, I always let lightroom open my most recent library, mind you I have moved the library so that it is backed up. I also let lightroom backup my database every day. For the preview cache I would select a size for the standard size preview that is similar to you monitor. Just bear in mind that the large the preview size the more of your disk it will eat, mind you disks are cheap these days. If you import a shoot, process it then archive it and never look at it again you can discard previews after a shorter time. If however you spend a loot of time looking and reworking old photos perhaps never expiring the previews is a beter option.

I also Make sure that metadata changes are automatically written into the xmp files. As for file name generation I use dashes for illegal characters and _ for spaces. This is more important if you are up loading files onto the web.

I hace also changed the preference so that star ratings and picks are shown in the film strip and also zoom clicked point to the center of the screen, I think that is a neat option.

Thats about my lot, hope it helps.

Niall

No problem I did not get to upset 

Niall

Its unusual for me to get there first  , at least John agreed with what I said.

Niall