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Lightroom - Moving images
TonyCooper
Registered Users Posts: 2,276 Major grins
Using Lightroom 2, I'm getting too many keywords because I have family snaps mixed in with non-family photos. I set up a second Lightroom catalog, but I would like to move some photos out of the first catalog into the second. The objective is to have one catalog for family snaps and one catalog for my other photography.
Can't figure out how to do this.
Can't figure out how to do this.
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/
http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/
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A few questions--
Do you import images directly into Lightroom, or do you reference the images from their location elsewhere?
Do you use collections in Lightroom?
Couldn't you just establish keyword presets for family and different keyword presets for non-family and then load the corresponding set per type of photos being imported?
Having two catalogs creates more work. Often folks do this due to reaching a very high volume of images (100K) which bogs down the application. Are you there yet?
M
This would be the best way because it should preserve ALL your Lightroom metadata, right down to snapshots and virtual copies, I think...
If you try any other method of exporting/re-importing you will have to take special precautions to prevent losing a) keywords etc., b) develop settings/image edits, c) Lightroom data like print settings, snapshots, etc. I believe Import Catalog is going to be the only way to preserve c). The other two should be preservable via XMP or DNG, but why bother when you can just do a direct import between catalogs.
Yup, it should give you everting including all that proprietary stuff specific to LR.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
I'm not sure I understand your question. I was using Bridge and editing in CS4. I bought Lightroom, but I am primarily using it to keep track of images. I'm using the Library module only at this point.
I bought Kelby's book, and I took out Evening's book from my camera club's library, and I'm learning to use the Develop module.
I get frustrated, though, because I can edit so much faster in CS4.
Anyway, after editing I import to Lightroom just for the keyword function. I import the both the RAW file and the edited .jpg file.
Do you use collections in Lightroom?
Haven't yet.
Couldn't you just establish keyword presets for family and different keyword presets for non-family and then load the corresponding set per type of photos being imported?
Dunno. Didn't know I could. I'll read up on presets.
If I could display only a short list of keywords I would be happy with one catalog. My current problem is the keyword list is so long that the scrolling is a pain.
Having two catalogs creates more work. Often folks do this due to reaching a very high volume of images (100K) which bogs down the application. Are you there yet?
No.
http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/
Thanks for the detailed response.
I would not do anything to your Lightroom catalogs or images just yet. This is why. Image management tools (like Lightroom) work best when they are initially configured to encompass your roadmap of images and your workflow.
Right now you don't know how to use Lightroom enough to be slicing and dicing catalogs or even for determining if slicing and dicing catalogs is the best thing to do.
I suggest you read the books (Martin Evening's LR2 book is superior) and allow your self to figure out the Lightroom basics for each module. This includes Collections functionality and keywording, and the concept of setting up all sorts of presets that help things go very quickly.
I've been a Photoshop user since 1989, but since adopting Lightroom now only dip into CS3 about 8% of the time for very specialized tasks. Many of my peers are following similar courses. LR is far easier and much faster for general photographic editing. I understand the frustration you feel, but that will go away. Or you'll just decide it's not for you and stay with Bridge. Whatever.
My last advice is for you to map out a hierarchy of how you want to organize your images, from a sparse high level set of categories down to detailed groupings. Then configure LR collection that way. You'll have some flexibility, so don't feel inhibited about changing some things.
All of this is highly personal. For example, my high levels are Art/Documentation/People/Places/Work. Under Places>Seattle>Downtown; or Places>Seattle>Street Shots. I'm not a big keyworder, but that's just me.
M
http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/
In that case learn about collections, which you can use with keywords.
I'd have one collection for family (though in my case Family is a subset of "People") and I further break Family down into Family 2009, Family 2008 and then further into specific events like holidays.
You could have another "hobby" collection, but I would think beyond that to the high-level type of "hobby" images you would generate. Hobby, or non-family would be implied by anything else.
Don't confuse this with keywords. Keywords can thread among collections, though I just drag another virtual image to a second or third collection when the image type is applicable to all of them. Lightroom runs on metadata.
M
I changed my keywords around by creating keyword tags inside of general keywords. For example, instead of several keywords showing I now have a keyword "Creatures" and sub-keywords under that for animals, birds, bugs, turtles, etc. I can turn off the visible sub-keywords and have a nice, manageable short list of keywords in view.
This is most useful with family pix. One keyword - Family - can show and all the subgroups can be hidden under that.
http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/