Hi everyone (first post, always a lurker before)

During the last 2 years i have climbed (some of the way) up the learning ramp with LR and during this time have sporadically populated my SmugMug as I felt my way along. Started with LR3 and now running LR4, also transitioned between a MacBook and MacBookPro. Each time I changed something i somehow managed to get the SmugMug interface in LR running again. Sometimes it brought all the pics along with it sometimes not. The Structure I have on Smugmug always gets replicated in the folder hierarchy in LR but many pics are missing (fortunately they are all still on the site).

Now i feel comfortable with my workflow and can really get something out of LR its time to stop fumbling and get things working for me at last.

Which means i want to have confidence that when i populate the publish folders in LR that the pics will go where i hope and stick there. The tool is great because i do a lot of this work on long haul flights when no connection available or in China where loading pics to foreign sites can be censored.

So 3 info requests after this long outpour:

1. Is it possible for me to sync the photos currently on my SM pages back to the LR/SM "publish" folders?

2. Once set up is this intended to be a robust process or should i manage folders outside of LR and use the uploader separately?

3. Are SM settings in LR tied to a specific LR library? do multiple libraries mean setting up the publish settings each time?

Many thanks

oops, and stop press, I have of course read this excellent post :http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93281 and hit the sync button may times

Hello,

LR and SM will only sync the images you already have in your LR catalog. It will not pull images from SM back to your LR catalog. Regarding the process, there are a number of pros that only use LR and our plugin to manage their workflow. I personally don't so I can't speak to that, perhaps others will chime in. The SM settings are tied to your site, they are not tied to LR.

With best regards,
Ryan W.

Thanks Ryan

Understood that images go in one direction only and that they will only show up in the publish folder directory if they exist in the current catalogue. I see that i have changed file names on a number of the images and converted to DNG since publishing originally - got it

Is necessary to stick with one catalogue for SM content purposes - got it

Is it necessary to stick with one catalogue for the LR SM account / plugin settings? i have to restart each time i work a different catalogue right now

Regarding the comment "our plugin" - I use the one downloaded from the Adobe site and updated yesterday, is that the "our plugin" or is there another?

Regarding the comment "The SM settings are tied to your site not LR" - these are the settings and sync button in LR "plugin manager" right ?

Thanks again

a. Lightroom 4 does that automatically for me each time I switch a catalog - it closes and then restarts with the other catalog.

b. Yes, there are two different plugins. The SmugMug one and the plugin from Jeffrey Friedl. If you're still not sure which one you have, look at the Lightroom plugin manager - there in the status section, there should be a path and the name at the end should be SmugMug.lrplugin is it's the SmugMug plugin you're looking at.

c. I think you and Ryan might refer to different settings. The settings in the "Lightroom publishing manager" are the ones tied to your LR catalog. Same goes to the details on what photos are showing in what SmugMug gallery within the publish service as it will only show photos that you uploaded with that LR catalog or if you use the sync photos feature, the photos that were matched up between SmugMug and the photos in your LR catalog.

That said, the actual information on categories, subcategories and galleries (the tree structure) and the specific gallery settings are tied to your SmugMug account.

Note that this is a bit difficult to keep apart as there's no clear separation as it's all working in hand.

many thanks - that helps a lot

i will play around a little more to answer the niggles i still have - am getting there

even the SM and LR naming e.g. categories and galleries are reason for another sip - be great if the names of these things were the same at both ends (especially for a Bridge Collection aficionado)

Really appreciate the detailed and rapid response from both of you

As far as I can see, the lingo for categories and galleries matches between SmugMug and our Lightroom plugin. The only exception I can see are subcategories which are also called categories in the Lightroom plugin. I'm guessing that this is a Lightroom limitation as it probably just calls it all categories with no additional element being available to name.

Cheers,

assuming you are on mac: in LR; two finger touch the smugmug icon in publish services. It gives you the option to create a Gallery, Smart Gallery or Category.

As it has been months between using both SM and LR together i need to work out each time what corresponds to what - or am i missing galleries in SM?

As i play again i know what goes with what but as there is already so many things to learn it would be so nice......

I'm linking you to the equivalent pages on SmugMug. Hopefully that'll help clarifying things
- gallery
- Smart gallery
- category

The only possible confusion I can see with categories within the SmugMug publish plugin as they refer to both, categories and subcategories. It's a category if it's at the top level. If it's on the second level below a category, it's a subcategory.
Beyond that, you can't have any other levels other of course galleries, which can be part of a category or subcategory.

For more information on using categories and subcategories, take a look at this post.

You might want to keep our Lightroom workflow page bookmarked!

you guys are great - i see a nice rainy sunday afternoon with these threads, mug of tea and a good album playing in front of me as i peruse....

cheers all