Posts tagged with DAM

Oh no you don’t – DNG and panto season

It’s amazing how often some Lightroom users still assert that a disadvantage of the DNG file format is that any time the metadata changes in the DNG file, you have to backup the whole DNG file again (and again). This isn’t a disadvantage of DNG – it’s a failure to re-assess and think through your …read more

5 reasons to rename your raw files

Why do you rename your source images?

“Make a second copy to”

Why does the second copy upon import go into a folder called “Imported on November-11-13” and not into a folder named to match the folder on the hard disk that was set as the Destination for the import?

Nikon Transfer

If you have a Nikon D800 – possibly any recent Nikon DSLR – avoid using OLD VERSIONS OF Nikon Transfer to copy files from your flash cards. UPDATE: Nikon confirm problem and recommend proper practice I honestly don’t understand why a Lightroom user would ever use Nikon Transfer, but some do so. And what they’ve …read more

Why integration?

Q Why are raw processors trying to be like the DAM/Library/Image managers?

Lossy DNG – too early?

While I’m a long-time fan of DNG and welcome its latest developments, you’ve got to be very cautious about saving pictures with the new lossy option. The workflow benefits aren’t enough to outweigh the very significant risks.

Lightroom 4 and facial recognition

On Adobe’s Lightroom 4 Beta forum, one of the most contentious topics has been the omission of automated facial recognition or facial detection feature.

Lightroom 4 – global flags and local stacking

Flags are now global, not local. But stacks have gone local. How do these work together?

You either get it or you don’t

Barry Pearson writes about Seven years of writing about Digital Negative Format and other tales of  the life and advantages of the DNG format: When Adobe launched DNG on 27 September 2004, it was obvious to me that this was addressing a significant need. I knew from my career in helping to develop complicated multi-vendor computing systems that …read more

A minor contradiction

David Marx’s Professional-Grade Backup Plans is worth reading. My one point of minor difference is that people spend too much time thinking about their backups, making sure everything is backed up – but don’t spend time ensuring they know how to use their backup software’s restore features. Too often people only try to figure out …read more

How does Lightroom handle custom XMP?

There’s been no change to LR’s handling of custom XMP since version 1 – I’d characterise it as “preserving” custom XMP data. So LR does read the data from imported files and stores it in a database field. It never displays the information and it isn’t editable even through the SDK. But at least Lightroom …read more

Doesn’t DNG mean my backups will be huge?

If you save metadata back to a DNG, doesn’t it mean that every time a change is made the whole large file needs to be backed up? Not really. It obviously makes no sense to keep backing up big DNG files after every change, but that’s a straw man argument against the format. Instead you …read more

How do I move my images to a new hard drive?

How do I move my images to a new hard drive? In most cases, it’s actually quite simple: In your Lightroom catalogue, in the Folders panel’s header, click the + and choose Add Folder. You should see a dialog box headed “Choose or Create New Folder”. Navigate to the new drive and click the New …read more

How do I migrate from Extensis Portfolio to Lightroom?

While Extensis is good at exporting all metadata, importing data into Lightroom is liable to be the problem. Lightroom has no built-in tool to import text data, though there is a plug-in called LRTransporter, and I have ListView. Even with these plug-ins, you require a fair amount of skill and patience, and will have to …read more

Managing panoramas

Here’s a quick tip for managing panorama frames. My own long-term practice has been to assign the green label to originals which are intended to be the component frames of panoramas, HDR, or other multi-frame techniques.I also stack them. I do this as soon as possible after importing the files from the card. The risk …read more

MediaPro1

Last year PhaseOne finally acquired – “liberated” may be a better word –  Expression Media from Microsoft and gave it back its old name, MediaPro. I say “finally” because they had tried to add the original iView MediaPro cataloguing program to their CaptureOne raw conversion products back in 2006, and also because in those five …read more

New Lightroom plug-in – CaptureTime to Exif

CaptureTime to Exif is my latest Lightroom 3 plug-in. Essentially it’s an in-Lightroom interface for Exiftool: Initially it was for Lightroom users whose catalogue contains scanned images and who wanted to make the scans’ Date Time Original EXIF field correspond to when the pictures were originally taken rather than when they were scanned. But people …read more

A brand new DAM

It was no secret that it was on the way, but my friend Peter Krogh’s The DAM Book has now been listed on Amazon US and Amazon UK. The original book was immediately unusual in its cover not being emblazoned with “Photoshop CS2” or focussing on the image processing side of the pixel mountain. Peter …read more

A rant about hierarchical keywords

It’s not specifically a Lightroom thing, and I say the same about Aperture and Expression Media 2. And I admit that I am a bit out on a limb here in holding these opinions….. But I find hierarchical keywords to be an utter pain, and simply not worth the effort. It doesn’t matter how much …read more

Smart collections for controlling your workflow

When you have a library of many thousands of pictures, querying or searching is clearly a very important feature. And you’ve got to be able to save those search criteria – after all, each time you narrow down your catalogue to find certain pictures, it’s a fair bet that you may want to find the …read more