Pick flags in Lightroom
I was just helping out a newcomer to Lightroom with how to use the pick flags and the P U X shortcuts. As a reminder, I came up with this little panel end mark. Memorable enough?
The file should go in the Panel End Marks folder which you can find by right clicking in the bottom of Lightroom’s right panel.
Also see seeing stars for a similar approach to making your star ratings consistent.
My apologies for the number of typos in the previous comment.. should have proof read before sending. =( ET
I would agree with John in teh use of colour labels. My most used one is for marking multi frame shots (red in my case), but I also have a couple more:
Purpule: Unrated – gets applied automatically on import on all frames, and I take out once I have gone through the star rating. In this way I can distinguish frames I have not evaluated yet, form the once I have decided to give a 0 rating… By the way, Purple is the only colour that has no kbd shortcut, and that is why I specifically chose it .
Green: Needs retouching in PS (a reminder to do it)
Blue: Once a pic gets retouched in PS, the original raw frame get a blue label, indicating “there is a better copy of this pic, if you don’t see it, go find it”.
I do not that consistent about the Green/Blue thing, but I have it there as part of the system.
Yellow is just a general use frame as per John’s description.
Just the way I do it. Hope somebody can build on it..
Thanks for the usual good discussion/ food for thought.
ET
I find the pick flags essentially useless since they are not global and apply only to a given collection. Based on a post of yours a while back, I make extensive use of smart collections for managing my workflow in Lightroom.
Instead, I arbitrarily chose the “blue” label (assigned or removed with the keyboard shortcut of 9) to indicate a “selected” photo.
I’d be happy with flags having a global/local preference, although there’s good cause for having things the way they are – ie being able to apply them multiple times in different contexts (eg bride and groom’s picks, her parents’ picks).
On the other hand, if you use those smart collections, flags are more global in nature as setting them while in a smart collections means they are applied to the folder.
Hi John,
during last years I based my workflow to this scheme in LR:
1. the first stage (shortly after the shoot usually):
x – Delete, eXpunge
u – Unsure
p – Pick
2. the second stage (sometimes quite bit later)
0 – Keep
* – Accepted
Here I am doing basic keywording and tagging also
3. the last stage could happen anytime when I have a mood or need for it:
** – Qualified
*** – Candidates
**** – Portfolio
***** – Gallery
Still not feel a need for using color coding in LR
Thanks for sharing ideas, following you elsewhere too.
Miro
I’m assuming you’re not a native English-speaker, Miro. “Expunge” only goes to prove (as if we needed proof) that those who learn the language often know it better than we do! But I do think my version of X is more likely to stick in the memory.
I don’t use labels much, or rather I don’t use them as consistently. I see the flags as being strictly temporary (eg initial decision to keep, later decisions to shortlist for a slideshow or whatever), and star ratings as a permanent / long term evaluation of an image. Coloured labels though are more fluid and can be short or long term. So I use green as a permanent way of marking multi-frame images (HDR, panorama etc) as this provides a very visual indication that an image isn’t poorly exposed or composed but is part of a set of related frames. But the other colours I use for temporary markup, whatever I happen to need at the time. And I’ve never seen a good reason for Metadata > Colour Label Set!
With Colour Label Set you manage text that is written into sidecar XMP file (I do not use DNG personally), so red color in “Bridge Default” color label set saves into <xap:Label>Select</xap:Label> element and into <xap:Label>To Delete</xap:Label> while in “Review Status” set. So that should improve compatibility with other tools.
I am not sure if this is just side effect or useful feature 🙂 as LR is in fact my the only tool for DAM currently.
And yes, not a native speaker, always trying to mask it somehow, but you caught me in the act p;)
That’s exactly how it’s designed to be used. Compatibility with Bridge is important but could have been achieved by making LR default identical to Bridge’s default (not an ideal solution though).
My problem with the label sets is that they can cause chaos if you change between label sets, which is what some people do when they use them to enter custom metadata. It’s a poor workaround for LR providing custom fields like most other DAM programs, and storing them in the XMP.