LR Experts Please Advise

KED

I'm trying to figure out two unrelated LR issues that really shouldn't be this hard. I'd appreciate help with either or both:

1. Crop: I generally like to crop to an 8 x 10 aspect ratio. LR by default goes to landscape mode for this. I can find no way to "force" portrait mode right off the bat. I invoke the crop tool, move it into the image and "try" to make it start a crop frame that has portrait orientation, even if it's postage stamp size. If that works, I just stretch it and go from there. Half the time, though, it does not work, so I have to undo crop rectangle and start all over. There has to be an easier way!

2. Folders: Maybe a little more complicated to explain, hopefully not so complicated to solve: Yesterday, I shot two games with the same card. I had already set up a folder for each in LR, knowing that I was going to have to dump all the images into one or the other when I uploaded, but thinking that it would be easy enough to select, then drag and drop, the images from the second game into the correct folder. That just simply did not seem to work (after having made a multiple non-contiguous selection, once I tried to grab them it simply de-selects everything else), and I can't find any menu command for this.

These things seem so rudimentary that I fear that I may be asking stupid questions, so sorry and thank you in advance. I will be shooting rather prolifically in the coming months, and the time I am wasting on this stuff could really add up.

jww

KED wrote:

I'm trying to figure out two unrelated LR issues that really shouldn't be this hard. I'd appreciate help with either or both:

1. Crop: I generally like to crop to an 8 x 10 aspect ratio. LR by default goes to landscape mode for this. I can find no way to "force" portrait mode right off the bat. I invoke the crop tool, move it into the image and "try" to make it start a crop frame that has portrait orientation, even if it's postage stamp size. If that works, I just stretch it and go from there. Half the time, though, it does not work, so I have to undo crop rectangle and start all over. There has to be an easier way!

2. Folders: Maybe a little more complicated to explain, hopefully not so complicated to solve: Yesterday, I shot two games with the same card. I had already set up a folder for each in LR, knowing that I was going to have to dump all the images into one or the other when I uploaded, but thinking that it would be easy enough to select, then drag and drop, the images from the second game into the correct folder. That just simply did not seem to work (after having made a multiple non-contiguous selection, once I tried to grab them it simply de-selects everything else), and I can't find any menu command for this.

These things seem so rudimentary that I fear that I may be asking stupid questions, so sorry and thank you in advance. I will be shooting rather prolifically in the coming months, and the time I am wasting on this stuff could really add up.

1. ... in page setup, select portrait rather than landscape. Then play with the selection "auto rotate to fit". I found leaving it on forced a portrait even on a lanscape photo. Seemed to behave better for me at least.. Hope that helps a bit..

2. Try using catagories over folders... just pull in everything all at once and then break the different games into seperate catagories. You can further define with sub catagories if you wanted lets say to break the game down to seperate players for example.

..or if you really want, you can still arrange them into your respective folders. Click on previously imported.. This is everything.. Select the first pic and then find the last pic of the 1st game and hold down shift and click it.. Drag and drop it into the folder of your choice including creating a new folder if you so desire..

Much easier to deal with breaking them down after the import.. I usually shoot targets (for example I write "group 1" in a small notebook and shoot it prior to that group) That helps me find my points to make my catagories quickly.

colourbox

KED wrote:

2. Folders: Maybe a little more complicated to explain, hopefully not so complicated to solve: Yesterday, I shot two games with the same card. I had already set up a folder for each in LR, knowing that I was going to have to dump all the images into one or the other when I uploaded, but thinking that it would be easy enough to select, then drag and drop, the images from the second game into the correct folder. That just simply did not seem to work (after having made a multiple non-contiguous selection, once I tried to grab them it simply de-selects everything else), and I can't find any menu command for this.

I am not sure if this is the right solution, but I read on another forum that when you mouse down to start dragging the selected images, it matters whether you start dragging from the image thumbnail or from the image thumbnail's wide border in a grid square. If you're doing it one way, try the other. One way gets the job done, the other deselects for some reason.

HiSPL

The above poster is right. You must click on the thumbnail if you want to drag multiple images to a folder.

Also, when you are in grid view, down at the bottom, you can select how to sort your images. Choose capture time in the drop down menu and your two games would then be grouped together. LR defaults to sort>import order which can mix up all your event images if you shoot more than one event in a day.

HTH,
-=Tim=-

KED

colourbox wrote:

I am not sure if this is the right solution, but I read on another forum that when you mouse down to start dragging the selected images, it matters whether you start dragging from the image thumbnail or from the image thumbnail's wide border in a grid square. If you're doing it one way, try the other. One way gets the job done, the other deselects for some reason.

BINGO! It's the thumbnails from which you have to move to a new folder. God I love this forum! Thank you so much!

KED

HiSPL wrote:

The above poster is right. You must click on the thumbnail if you want to drag multiple images to a folder.

Also, when you are in grid view, down at the bottom, you can select how to sort your images. Choose capture time in the drop down menu and your two games would then be grouped together. LR defaults to sort>import order which can mix up all your event images if you shoot more than one event in a day.

HTH,
-=Tim=-

Thank you; I'm always sorted by time, but in this case one event led right into the other, and it was hugely complicated by the fact that the opponents' uniforms were indistinguishable from one another except for the color of their chinstraps! You have no idea how many times I have searched for the "crossover" in my grid view.

KED

jww wrote:

1. ... in page setup, select portrait rather than landscape. Then play with the selection "auto rotate to fit". I found leaving it on forced a portrait even on a lanscape photo. Seemed to behave better for me at least.. Hope that helps a bit..

2. Try using catagories over folders... just pull in everything all at once and then break the different games into seperate catagories. You can further define with sub catagories if you wanted lets say to break the game down to seperate players for example.

..or if you really want, you can still arrange them into your respective folders. Click on previously imported.. This is everything.. Select the first pic and then find the last pic of the 1st game and hold down shift and click it.. Drag and drop it into the folder of your choice including creating a new folder if you so desire..


Much easier to deal with breaking them down after the import.. I usually shoot targets (for example I write "group 1" in a small notebook and shoot it prior to that group) That helps me find my points to make my catagories quickly.

Thanks; this opens a whole new avenue that I need to explore. Much appreciated.

jww

KED wrote:

Thanks; this opens a whole new avenue that I need to explore. Much appreciated.

..most welcome! Have fun!

photocat

If you want to change from landscape to portrait, you have to unchip de lock in the toolbar when you are in crop mode. If you drag the corner handles and force those, you will be able to change modes. If the lock is on, the photograph will keep the given crop ratio.
It is easier to show then to explain with words I am afraid...
Let me know if you understand it. If not, I will try to capture it in a little movie

KED

photocat wrote:

If you want to change from landscape to portrait, you have to unchip de lock in the toolbar when you are in crop mode. If you drag the corner handles and force those, you will be able to change modes. If the lock is on, the photograph will keep the given crop ratio.
It is easier to show then to explain with words I am afraid...
Let me know if you understand it. If not, I will try to capture it in a little movie

I know about the lock, maybe I don't understand its complete functionality though. I do want to maintain a particular aspect ratio; can I do that even if I "unlock"?

photocat

KED wrote:

I know about the lock, maybe I don't understand its complete functionality though. I do want to maintain a particular aspect ratio; can I do that even if I "unlock"?

the lock unlocked will let you change unrelated to aspect ratio. I explained it wrong. You need to drag the corner handle to change from landscape to portrait. I always have my ratio on 6 by 4, locked. So whatever size I have, dragging the handles around, it will always be 6 by 4 ratio.
If you want to change from landscape to portrait, push and pull the corner handle till you see it change direction...
If you unlock, you can go away from the ratio aspect.
The main rule to change any aspect ratio set is keep the lock on, and drag the corner handle... It will jump to the correct ratio you have put in.

KED

photocat wrote:

the lock unlocked will let you change unrelated to aspect ratio. I explained it wrong. You need to drag the corner handle to change from landscape to portrait. I always have my ratio on 6 by 4, locked. So whatever size I have, dragging the handles around, it will always be 6 by 4 ratio.
If you want to change from landscape to portrait, push and pull the corner handle till you see it change direction...
If you unlock, you can go away from the ratio aspect.
The main rule to change any aspect ratio set is keep the lock on, and drag the corner handle... It will jump to the correct ratio you have put in.

I just tried the following: set aspect ratio, unlock, create generic portrait crop frame, re-set aspect ratio and lock, then adjust crop. That worked, and maybe step one was a waste of time. By jove, I think we've got it! Thanks!

DJ-S1

KED wrote:

I just tried the following: set aspect ratio, unlock, create generic portrait crop frame, re-set aspect ratio and lock, then adjust crop. That worked, and maybe step one was a waste of time. By jove, I think we've got it! Thanks!

No no, Photocat has it right. You don't need to click anything - just drag the handle around. It will flip to portrait automatically for you.

One thing I stumbled on in the crop tool was the rotation stuff. I knew that you could drag a line to fix the rotation or use the slider, but the slider increments were too big to be useful. I didn't know that if you click and drag just outside any of the corner drag handles it will rotate in fine increments; I use that all the time now.

KED

DJ-S1 wrote:

No no, Photocat has it right. You don't need to click anything - just drag the handle around. It will flip to portrait automatically for you.

One thing I stumbled on in the crop tool was the rotation stuff. I knew that you could drag a line to fix the rotation or use the slider, but the slider increments were too big to be useful. I didn't know that if you click and drag just outside any of the corner drag handles it will rotate in fine increments; I use that all the time now.

The "drag the handle around" answer is just so ridiculously easy, and maybe even obvious, that I feel like I should apologize for the stupid question, except that one would hope that this could be discoverable in LR Help. Thank you and also for the tip on straightening ---you are certainly right, the slider is a bit heavy-handed.

DJ-S1

KED wrote:

The "drag the handle around" answer is just so ridiculously easy, and maybe even obvious, that I feel like I should apologize for the stupid question, except that one would hope that this could be discoverable in LR Help. Thank you and also for the tip on straightening ---you are certainly right, the slider is a bit heavy-handed.

No apology needed; I think the LR documentation is pretty poor for such a feature-rich product.

KED

DJ-S1 wrote:

No apology needed; I think the LR documentation is pretty poor for such a feature-rich product.

Agreed! I try to post here only as a last resort for LR questions, but the first and second options, documentation and Help, are lame, and the dedicated LR forum appears to have approximately 3 active members (which is actually sort of surprising).

cmason

KED wrote:

Agreed! I try to post here only as a last resort for LR questions, but the first and second options, documentation and Help, are lame, and the dedicated LR forum appears to have approximately 3 active members (which is actually sort of surprising).

Just spend a few hours here: http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/
and be sure to watch all the videos. Free and time well spent.

KED

cmason wrote:

Just spend a few hours here: http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/
and be sure to watch all the videos. Free and time well spent.

It's bookmarked and I have the RSS feed. But when you need an answer right now to a specific question . . . you know what I mean.

Pittspilot

KED wrote:

I'm trying to figure out two unrelated LR issues that really shouldn't be this hard. I'd appreciate help with either or both:

1. Crop: I generally like to crop to an 8 x 10 aspect ratio. LR by default goes to landscape mode for this. I can find no way to "force" portrait mode right off the bat. I invoke the crop tool, move it into the image and "try" to make it start a crop frame that has portrait orientation, even if it's postage stamp size. If that works, I just stretch it and go from there. Half the time, though, it does not work, so I have to undo crop rectangle and start all over. There has to be an easier way!

2. Folders: Maybe a little more complicated to explain, hopefully not so complicated to solve: Yesterday, I shot two games with the same card. I had already set up a folder for each in LR, knowing that I was going to have to dump all the images into one or the other when I uploaded, but thinking that it would be easy enough to select, then drag and drop, the images from the second game into the correct folder. That just simply did not seem to work (after having made a multiple non-contiguous selection, once I tried to grab them it simply de-selects everything else), and I can't find any menu command for this.

These things seem so rudimentary that I fear that I may be asking stupid questions, so sorry and thank you in advance. I will be shooting rather prolifically in the coming months, and the time I am wasting on this stuff could really add up.

First, a 'trick' to note is that in quick develop you can select all the images you want to apply a crop to and then select the appropriate size from the dropdown list. Viola, all are setup - and if I'm not mistaken there is some level of intelligence that smart aligns. Saves a hell of a lot of clicking......

jww

cmason wrote:

Just spend a few hours here: http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/
and be sure to watch all the videos. Free and time well spent.

I found Scott Kelby's book pretty nice as well. For me I struggled a bit in Lightroom until I read that book.