I’ve recently created a Snapshotter plugin for Lightroom 3 that allows you to bulk create Lightroom snapshots while within the Library module. Lightroom’s interface will only let you create snapshots from within the Develop module, one image at a time.  This is fine if you are using snapshots only for recording creative interpretations of an image but is too restrictive when considering other uses for snapshots such as:

• Creating snapshots to identify the exact develop settings used when printing, exporting or publishing a group of images (e.g. creating a FlickrUpload-20100610 snapshot for all images uploaded to Flickr on that date)
• Converting virtual copies back to snapshots so all interpretations of the master image are stored in a way accessible from Photoshop.

Personally I create virtual copies (VCs) to experiment with different image develop settings and then compare the results side by side.  Once I’ve chosen the best I’ll create snapshots for each of the VCs worth keeping, then delete the VCs, because all of those snapshots are actually stored against the master image so will not be deleted.  This is also a great approach for dealing with multiple crop sizes for the same image.  My family have three different sized digital photo frames in use and converting VCs to snapshots is a great way to ensure this doesn’t clog my catalog with more thumbnails than truly necessary.

The Snapshotter plugin assists the snapshot creation process by adding a new Create Snapshot(s) from Images menu item to the File –> Plug-in Extras menu.  Selecting this opens a dialog allowing configuration of the snapshot name to be used, and the option to restrict snapshot creation to virtual copies only, when creating snapshots for all selected photos.  The snapshot naming function currently supports one substitution variable:

{CopyName}    Virtual Copy name

that will be replaced with the relevant metadata from each image.  Information about how this and the other elements of the dialog operate are described in the online help accessible using the button labelled with a question mark (?).

Please leave a comment below to let us know how you use Lightroom’s snapshot feature, and how the Snapshotter plugin helps this or could be improved to help it more.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

The Easy Way to Create Snapshots in Lightroom 3

Related Posts:

• New Plugin Brings Lightroom and Photoshop Elements Together At Last (16)
• Simple Metadata Entry Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090310.002) (11)
• Simplify Entry of Common Metadata in Lightroom 2 (9)

The Lightroom 3 beta is taking a step in the right direction with its new Publish Services.  The included Flickr plugin will synchronise ratings and comments back to your catalog but only time will tell if this capability will support retrieval of individual client selections from Publish Services.  In the meantime Lightroom 2 users can make use of web galleries to achieve a similar outcome.

Matt at The Turning Gate has developed a number of web galleries, including TTG Client Response Gallery, TTG Highslide Gallery and TTG Highslide Gallery Pro, that can help Lightroom publish self-contained web sites that automatically email a client’s selects.  Articles and tutorials regarding web gallery usage are available on Matt’s site so I won’t repeat that information here.  These galleries cover part of the workflow gap – allowing clients to inform you of selects – and my TTG Client script addresses the remainder by converting the response emails into Smart Collections ready for import into Lightroom.

New TTG Client Script features

I first published this script as part of my Working with a Wedding Client’s Photo Selects in Lightroom 2 post last year.  This revision provides the following functionality improvements over the original version.  Usage of the script remains unchanged and is described on the TTG Client script homepage.

Support for TTG Highslide Galleries

Over the past year Matt has released new Highslide galleries that can email client selects to the photographer.  The TTG Client script now supports client select emails from these galleries.

Workaround for Lightroom 2 (LR2) bug when hyphens (-) are used in filenames

LR2 has a minor bug that means it quietly renames files to replace hyphens (-) with underscores (_) when producing web galleries.  While the gallery itself will work fine it makes it difficult to match the client selects back to the original file names in your Lightroom catalog.  The Turning Gate recommends file naming conventions to avoid this issue but this could require renaming of files imported before you started using these galleries.  This new release of TTG Client script allows you to continue with your current file naming scheme and instead treats every underscore as a search wild card so the Smart Collections can locate the selects.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Capturing your Client’s Selections in Lightroom

Related Posts:

• Working with a Wedding Client’s Photo Selects in Lightroom 2 (31)
• Export Backup Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090208.003) (14)
• Backup Your Rendered Images When Exporting From Lightroom 2 To The Web (0)

A little over a week ago Tom Hogarty – Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom – announced the Lightroom 3 public beta (download here).  Its been more than a year since the last version of Lightroom was released so I was keen to see what improvements had been m2de to my favourite photography program.  So keen in fact that I didn’t wait till I got home from my holidays and started using it immediately to import and organise photos taken on the trip!

For those of you new to Lightroom the Import feature is how you load photos into your catalog so the program can find and work with them.  The Import feature has obviously received a lot of attention from the Lightroom team this time around.  There are three major changes that have been made, and a number of usability improvements.  Major changes:

1. “Import from Disk” and “Import from Device” dialogs have been merged into a single Import dialog
2. UI has been completely overhauled aesthetically
3. UI now has Compact and Expanded modes that give you control over all aspects of the import task on a single screen

There have also been a number of usability improvements including:

• Import presets have been added to store and access your common import settings
• Expanded mode has added Grid and Loupe views for selecting photos to import
• Import’s backup will now store files using your renamed rather than camera created file names
• If you shoot using your camera’s RAW + JPEG  mode, both photos are now imported even though the RAW (or DNG) will be the only photo to show in the Library
• New “Shoot Name” field available for file renaming templates
• Additional folder naming presets

This is a beta so don’t expect perfection just yet.  The dialog can get a little sluggish under certain circumstances and I’ve logged a bug report about one specific case (Copy as DNG when source and destination are on the same drive) that can stall the import entirely.  But all in all I found it was reliable enough for my import workflow and I’m liking the new UI more and more every day. 

One of the great things about this being a beta is it will only get better over time.  I’m personally crossing my finders and hoping these three usability improvements make it into the final release:

1. Extending folder renaming to use a template-based mechanism similar to to file renaming, including access to the new “Shoot Name” field
2. Backups to be stored using the same folder structure, not just file names, as the imported files
3. Allow resizing of the dialog and the side bars within it.

I will get to the other new and improved Lightroom 3 beta features over time but wanted to share my observations after working with one of the first features most users will be encounter.  If there are any other features you are keen to hear about now  Tom has posted links to other beta related articles and resources.  And if you plan to test LR3 yourself then I’d recommend reviewing Victoria Bampton’s LR3 Beta – Popular Bugs and Forum Threads post to find out its most frequently noted limitations.

Detailed Look at Import UI

Compact Import dialog

When you first try to Import Lightroom defaults to the Compact dialog and launches over the dimmed main UI. 

Key elements of the Compact dialog:

• Source: In addition to displaying the currently selected source, clicking it allows you to change the source and access and manage the Recent Paths list.
• Import Type: Select between Copy as DNG, Copy, Move and Add import types.  All types other than Add allow renaming of files and folders during import.  Copy as DNG converts RAW files to Adobe’s DNG file format during import, but leaves the image’s backup copy (if enabled) in the original file format.
• Destination: In addition to displaying the destination folder, clicking it allows you to change the destination and access and manage the Recent Paths list.  The Folder settings provided below will be used to create folders within this location.
• Mode: Switch between the “Quick Settings” (default depicted here) and “Summary” modes (displays a summary of all Import settings in the Import Settings area) using these buttons.   The “Summary” mode is depicted in the screenshot below.
• Import Settings: Select a Metadata preset and Keywords to be applied to all imported files.  When required by the file naming scheme, “Shoot Name” and other fields also display in this area.
• Folder: Choose between “By original folders”, “By date” and “Into one folder” folder naming schemes.  “By date” allows you to choose between 13 predefined folder naming templates.  All options also allow a subfolder to be included within this folder naming scheme.
• Source Status: Upon selecting a source Lightroom immediately scans the folder (and subfolders, if configured) for images and displays the status of that scan in this area.  The arrow here toggles between the Compact and Expanded dialogs.
• Presets: Displays the active Import preset, and allows you to choose or create presets using the arrow to the right.  Presets store most detailed settings that can be configured in the Compact and Expanded dialogs.
• Buttons: Initiate or cancel the import.

If you are familiar with Lightroom 2 you will have noticed that the file renaming, Develop Presets and Preview size features are not available via the Compact dialog.  To configure these you must use the Expanded dialog, though once set you can always create a new Import preset that captures these details and can be chosen from the Compact dialog.

Additional screenshots of the Compact dialog’s “Quick Setting” and “Summary” modes (respectively) can be found below.

Expanded Import dialog

Clicking the arrow button at the bottom left corner of the Compact dialog opens the Expanded dialog.  The description below refers only to elements that differ from the Compact dialog.  

Key elements of the Expanded dialog:

• Source panel: In addition to the source section available in the Compact dialog, you also have access to detailed device and folder information via the left hand side of the Expanded dialog.  Devices and Drives are listed separately.  Drives allow you to drill down through the folder hierarchy, while Devices do not give you this option.
• Display area: Displays either thumbnails or a single photo depending upon whether Grid or Loupe view has been selected (respectively).  Import status for a photo can be changed using its checkbox, right clicking on it the change the Import Photo state, or using the P (Pick) or U (Unpick) keys to modify the currently selected photo.  At this point in time there is no way to change the import status for multiple (but not all) photos at once, so arrow keys and the keyboard shortcuts are the quickest way to work around this limitation.
• Toolbar: Controls the display area view, sort order, and allows bulk modification of import state.  Thumbnail size is also configured here but is not depicted as it was not visible on my netbook’s small screen.
• Import settings: Fine grained import settings are managed to the right hand side of the Expanded dialog.  These are controlled through four panels, only two of which are available in the Add import type:
  • File Handling: Sets the preview size, whether duplicates will be imported, and whether a second (aka backup) copy of the files is created during import.  The second copy option copies the original files directly into the nominated directory using the naming scheme assigned in the “File Renaming” panel.  This option is disabled when using the Add import type.
  • File Renaming*: Sets whether files will be renamed and which (if any) template will be used to configure that process.  Renaming uses the same custom and EXIF field formatting approach available in Lightroom 2, with the addition of the “Shoot Name” field mentioned earlier.  If included in the file naming template you will be able to specify the values of the “Custom Text”, “Shoot Name” and/or “Starting Number” fields here.
  • Apply During Import: Sets the Develop preset, Metadata preset and multiple Keywords that will be add to your files.
  • Destination*: Provides the same folder creation options available in the Compact dialog.  In addition you can browse the destination folder structure to locate and set the import destination.

* Not available for Add import type

All four import types (Add, Copy, Copy as DNG and Move, respectively) are depicted below, including at least one example of each of the Import settings panels.

I hope you’ve found this trip through the improved Import UI useful, and good luck with your Lightroom beta testing!

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Import Improvements in the Lightroom 3 Beta

Related Posts:

• The Easy Way to Create Snapshots in Lightroom 3 (0)
• Capturing your Client’s Selections in Lightroom (7)
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 has been Released! (0)

Unless you are a full time photographer the answer is likely no.  I’m an amateur photographer and find that Photoshop’s cutdown version – Photoshop Elements – meets all of my needs and there is no compelling reason to move to the full version.  But there is one compelling reason to choose Photoshop Elements over Photoshop.  The price.

Its large enough in the US, but internationally the price difference between Photoshop Elements and Photoshop is remarkable. At the Adobe Store Photoshop CS4 costs* $699 USD or $1415 AUD ($1180 USD) and Photoshop CS4 Extended $999 USD or $2019 AUD ($1690 USD). Photoshop Elements costs $99.99 USD or $165 AUD ($140 USD).  This means Photoshop Elements costs Australian consumers a little more than 1/10th of the price of the most basic Photoshop CS4 version. Its no wondering the Photoshop Elements community is growing so quickly outside of the US!

Photoshop vs Photoshop Elements

A recent post at Lightroom Secrets compared the features of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements to help users understand the incremental benefit of buying the full version.  The essence of that comparison (and my own research) is Photoshop provides:

• Customisation – Photoshop allows customisation of the UI via keyboard shortcuts, menus, workspaces, presets, actions, and (official) support for scripting
• Enhanced 16-bit – Additional Photoshop fliters supports 16-bit images
• Enhanced Colour – Photoshop supports CMYK and Lab colour modes, and custom curves
• Enhanced Layers – Photoshop includes layer masks, additional adjustment layers, and full support for smart objects
• Enhanced Selection – Photoshop includes paths, pen tools and quick masks
• Additional Tools – Photoshop includes additional features such as HDR and content aware scaling
• Enhanced Tools – Photoshop includes more advanced versions of some tools such as Camera Raw and Camera Distortion

The importance of many of these features diminishes when you are using Lightroom as your primary editor and only dipping into Photoshop every now and then.  Other features (e.g. Content Aware Scaling) would be nice to have, but as an amateur photographer I don’t think they are worth the additional $1250 AUD I’d have to spend to “upsize” from Photoshop Elements 7 to Photoshop CS4.

Bottom line?  Most photographers using Lightroom won’t miss the features they lose by choosing Photoshop Elements over Photoshop.  But the money they save could go a long way towards a new lens or flash that could make a significant difference to their photography.

Improved Photoshop Elements Integration With Lightroom

Another benefit of Photoshop is the level of integration it enjoys with Lightroom.  Photoshop Elements is added as an external editor, while Photoshop has a number of menu items dedicated to improving workflow when it is combined with Lightroom.  To close this functionality gap I’ve created an Elemental plugin for Lightroom which provides Photoshop Elements users roughly the same level of integration Photoshop users get "out of the box".

The Elemental plugin adds 5 new menu items to the File –> Plug-in Extras and Library –> Plug-In Extras menus, emulating the integration available to Photoshop users.  This includes letting the user select photos and launch them directly into the Photomerge dialog, or open them as Smart Objects (a feature Adobe doesn’t advertise as available in Photoshop Elements).  It even adds some new options for good measure, namely Remove Lens Distortion and the ability to directly Open in PSE.  And it does this all while avoiding the Camera Raw dialog which should be redundant as Lightroom’s Develop module contains a superset of the options available in PSE’s version of Camera Raw.  The only feature that can’t be reproduced is Merge to HDR in Photoshop because Photoshop Elements does not include this feature.  As many Photoshop users utilise an external HDR tool rather than the one supplied with Photoshop this hopefully won’t prove too much of an issue.

Where Do I Sign?

If you are ready to take the plunge and add Photoshop Elements to your workflow, Adobe sells the products online and may have specials running so please try the Special Offers page before using one of the direct purchase links has a number of specials running at any given time that can (North America only) specials running till August 10.  Links are included below for your convenience and by purchasing through these you will be helping support the ongoing development of my Elemental plugin.

Find all current special offers on Adobe products.
Photoshop Elements 7. Extraordinary photos. Amazing stories.
Photoshop Elements 7 + Premiere Elements 7 – Complete photo and video editing made easy.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for Macs

UK readers can use the following links to support my plugin development while purchasing the products but unfortunately no discounts or coupons are currently available: Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 & Adobe Premiere Elements 7 – Full, Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 – Full and Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for Macintosh – Full.

If you aren’t quite convinced why not download a trial copy of either the Windows or Mac version and find out firsthand whether it suits your workflow?  I’m sure you’ll find, like me, that Photoshop Elements covers all of your main “pixel pushing” requirements without doing too much damage to your bank account!

* Note: All prices were converted using Google’s current exchange rates on August 3, 2009.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Why Lightroom Users Should Seriously Consider Adding Photoshop Elements To Their Workflow

Related Posts:

• New Plugin Brings Lightroom and Photoshop Elements Together At Last (16)
• Simple Metadata Entry Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090310.002) (11)
• Simplify Entry of Common Metadata in Lightroom 2 (9)

Update: Newer version(s) of this plugin are now available. 
Please visit the Elemental plugin page to download the latest version.

Lightroom’s non-destructive editing capabilities support most of my digital photography workflow needs.  I rarely need to resort to external tools to edit my photos, but rarely is not quite the same as never.  There will always be some situations where Lightroom needs a little help.  For me stitching together panoramas, correcting lens distortion and correcting perspective issues are the main culprits.

Before Lightroom I was a Photoshop Elements (PSE) 6 user.  I had been hoping to completely migrate away from it and remove it from my system, but I still keep it around as an external editor to pair with Lightroom.  I’d love to be able to splash out and use Photoshop instead but as I’m only a hobbyist I simply can’t afford it.  An upsell version (from PSE) of Photoshop CS4 would cost me over $1200 AUD at the Adobe store.  That’s a lot of money for a piece of software I would rarely need to use, especially when my couple year old version of PSE does everything I really need at a fraction of the price.  My photography would benefit more from me investing that cash in a brand new Nikon DSLR camera body, lens or flash than a software upgrade.

One of the things I’m missing by not using Photoshop is tighter integration between my external editor and Lightroom itself.  The Lightroom Photo->Edit In menu contains a number of entries (see above) that allow you to work with files in Photoshop CS3 (or later), launching directly into the desired feature without having to render those files first.  This would not only speed up my editing process but also reduce the need to waste CPU cycles rendering files that will only be discarded later anyway.  With Photoshop Elements my only option is to use the standard external editor feature which doesn’t allow me to launch directly into the PSE feature I’m planning to use.

My new Elemental plugin resolves these issues.  It adds 5 new menu items to the File –> Plug-in Extras and Library –> Plug-In Extras menus, emulating the integration available to users of the full Photoshop product.  This includes letting the user select photos and launch them directly into the Photomerge dialog, or open them as Smart Objects (a feature Adobe doesn’t advertise is available in PSE).  It even adds some new options for good measure, namely Remove Lens Distortion and the ability to directly Open in PSE.  And it does this all while avoiding the Camera Raw dialog which should be redundant given your Develop module edits in Lightroom.  The only feature I couldn’t reproduce was Merge to HDR in Photoshop because PSE does not have a matching feature.  By all reports the HDR generated by Photoshop was of limited usefulness so I doubt many would miss it anyway.

Usage

When you first try to use one of these menu options the plugin will attempt to locate your installation of Photoshop Elements.  If you have used the default install location the plugin shouldn’t require any configuration.  If it can’t find PSE then it will open a dialog asking you to locate the PSE editor before you continue.

There are also a few other dialogs you may see during regular operation.

First is a reminder to save your files before opening in PSE.  Saving your metadata (Ctrl + S, or Cmd + S) writes the Lightroom edits to the photo or XMP sidecar making them available to other applications.  If you don’t save your files first PSE will show the initial, unedited image which is unlikely to be what you intended.  Once you’ve gotten into the habit of saving before opening you can configure the warning to not show again.

Next is a warning that displays if one of the selected photos is a virtual copy.  Virtual copies do not have a dedicated, matching image file so you can’t save the metadata to the file or sidecar and they can’t be opened in PSE.  For virtual copies you will be given the option of opening the master file instead, or ignoring the virtual copies entirely.  Once again the dialog can be set to not show again if you have a preferred option you will always use whenever virtual copies are selected.

The last dialog is one you will only see if you use the plugin for more than 3 weeks and it will only show once.  Its a “buy me a beer” donation request.  I’ve put a fair amount of work into this plugin (including learning a new programming language) to make Photoshop Elements do things its not supposed to be able to do, and to work not only on Windows but also the Mac platform.  I’m hoping you will find my plugin useful enough that you would consider saying thanks in a liquid fashion.  If you are extra keen you don’t even have to wait for the 3 week reminder.  You can donate (and update the configuration) at any time by opening the Elemental entry in File –> Plugin Manager dialog.

I hope you find this plugin useful and as always please leave comments below if you have any feedback you would like to offer.  I’d also like to send out a big thank you to Mark over at Rusticolus Images who quite patiently tested the plugin on OSX and helped me iron out a number of rather large kinks on that platform!

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

New Plugin Brings Lightroom and Photoshop Elements Together At Last

Related Posts:

• Why Lightroom Users Should Seriously Consider Adding Photoshop Elements To Their Workflow (15)
• Simple Metadata Entry Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090310.002) (11)
• Simplify Entry of Common Metadata in Lightroom 2 (9)

My Metadata Tagset plugin for Lightroom 2 has been updated.  The new version contains additional tagsets to help document the metadata fields available, including a number of those available in popular third party plugins.

The plugin now includes six additional tagsets for use in the Library module:

For those interested in writing their own tagsets, the ‘LR: All’, ‘Miscellaneous Plugin’ and ‘Undocumented’ tagsets are the most useful for documentation purposes.  Even if you shy away from using undocumented features it is worth reading the last section of the ‘Undocumented’ tagset because it demonstrates some of the ways to control tagset field formatting.  Please note ‘LR: SDK’ is not particularly useful at the moment, other than to demonstrate SDK documentation issues which I’m currently discussing with the Adobe developers.

With this release I now have all of the main features I need for my own purposes, and have provided sample code for everything I’ve found out about tagset metadata fields and formatting techniques.  Please leave a comment if you have suggestions for other features that should be added.

Installation

1. Download the plugin: metadata-tagsets-20090310_002.zip
2. Copy the file where you want the plugin to permanently reside, then unzip the file.  This should create a sub-directory called metadata-tagsets.lrplugin.
3. Open Lightroom 2, then select the File\Plugin Manager menu option.
4. Press the Add button, select the metadata-tagsets.lrplugin directory created in step 2, then press OK.
5. The plugin is now installed and enabled.  Press Done.

Usage

When you open the Library module and display the right panel, a Metadata section is shown towards the bottom of the panel.  To use the new features:

1. Select the drop down list showing available tagsets (depicted above).
2. Choose one of the new tagsets at the bottom of the list.  For example, the Default (with Location) tagset.

I hope you find this plugin useful and feel free to share your experiences or suggestions in the comments section below.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Simple Metadata Entry Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090310.002)

Related Posts:

• Simplify Entry of Common Metadata in Lightroom 2 (9)
• New Plugin Brings Lightroom and Photoshop Elements Together At Last (16)
• Export Backup Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090208.003) (14)

According to Scott Kelby I must be either a serial killer or a micro biologist.  Apparently they are the only two types of people who religiously maintain metadata for their photos, but as you might suspect the reality is a little more mundane. 

I keep my metadata up-to-date on all my rated photos for two main reasons:

1. So I can find them later; and
2. To help me grow as a photographer by allowing me to better understand what an image captures and how.  

Applying keywords, IPTC location information and geoencoding (when appropriate) helps me to find my photos later.  Gaining insights into my photography depends more upon captions, ratings,  labels and EXIF data.  My quandary was Lightroom 2 addresses these goals using two separate Library Metadata panel layouts: Location and Default. 

Constantly changing backwards and forwards between these two tagsets (i.e. Metadata panel layouts), or scrolling around the massive All tagset, unnecessarily slows down my workflow.  Fortunately this was a simple issue to resolve as the Lightroom 2 SDK provides a way to define new tagsets.  The result is my newest plugin which provides two additional tagsets for use in the Library module.

The second tagset was added because I found the SDK documentation for tagset development to be  insufficient and (in places) inaccurate.  The LR: All tagset implements most of the fields available in the Metadata panel, so if you are interested in modifying my plugin to better suit your individual workflow you have a working example of most of the fields you can select from.

Installation

1. Download the plugin: metadata-tagsets-20090223_001.zip
2. Copy the file where you want the plugin to permanently reside, then unzip the file.  This should create a sub-directory called metadata-tagsets.lrplugin.
3. Open Lightroom 2, then select the File\Plugin Manager menu option.
4. Press the Add button, select the metadata-tagsets.lrplugin directory created in step 2, then press OK.
5. The plugin is now installed and enabled.  Press Done.

Usage

When you open the Library module and display the right panel, a Metadata section is shown towards the bottom of the panel.  To use the new features:

1. Select the drop down list showing available tagsets.
2. Choose one of the new tagsets listed at the bottom of the list.  For example, the Default (with Location) tagset depicted here.

I hope you find this plugin useful and feel free to share your experiences or suggestions in the comments section below.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Simplify Entry of Common Metadata in Lightroom 2

Related Posts:

• Simple Metadata Entry Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090310.002) (11)
• New Plugin Brings Lightroom and Photoshop Elements Together At Last (16)
• Export Backup Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090208.003) (14)

My Export Backup plugin for Lightroom 2 (in Adobe speak, a post-process action) has been updated today.  The new version contains some usability updates:

• Destination folder now has a “Most Recently Used” (MRU) drop down list to help you quickly export files to your favourite folders.  A delete button (the minus sign next to the drop down arrow) helps you clean up folders you no longer want kept in the list.
• A separate subfolder field has been added, similar to that found in the Export to Files Export Service.
• Windows Explorer or Finder can show the backed up files once the export completes.

With this release I now have all of the main features I need for my own purposes.  Please leave a comment if you have suggestions for other features that should be added.

Installation

1. Download the plugin: export-backup-20090208_003.zip
2. Copy the file where you want the plugin to permanently reside, then unzip the file.  This should create a sub-directory called export-backup.lrplugin.
3. Open Lightroom 2, then select the File\Plugin Manager menu option.
4. Press the Add button, select the export-backup.lrplugin directory created in step 2, then press OK.
5. The plugin is now installed and enabled.  Press Done.

Usage

Next time you export files you will notice an Export Backup entry in the Export dialog’s Post-Process Actions list.  

To use this feature:

1. Select the Export Backup entry, then press the Insert button.  Note: The Insert button will remain inactive if you select the wrong Export Backup entry.  This will add an Export Backup Location section near the end of the Export dialog.
2. Either manually enter or choose the base directory where the rendered files should be copied. 
3. If desired, specify a subfolder to be appended to the folder name.  This is typically used to enter the album/collection name or any other folder name that changes from export to export.
4. Select either Overwrite or Skip option, depending upon how you want to proceed if the same files already exist in the destination directory.
5. Continue with your file export as usual.

When you export your files to Flickr, Gallery 2 or whatever photo hosting service you use, you will now also have a local copy of the rendered output for your own records. 

I hope you find this plugin useful and feel free to share your experiences or suggestions in the comments section below.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Export Backup Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090208.003)

Related Posts:

• Backup Your Rendered Images When Exporting From Lightroom 2 To The Web (0)
• New Plugin Brings Lightroom and Photoshop Elements Together At Last (16)
• Config Backup Plugin Updated… To Backup More Configuration Settings (Version 20090606.002) (10)

Today I’m publicly releasing my first Lightroom 2 plugin.  Its a simple export post-process action that addresses an oversight in the Lightroom 2 export functionality – that there is no way to backup the images rendered while exporting from Lightroom to a web site.  These images are generated, uploaded then discarded without giving the user any option to intervene and keep these images.

While it is possible to use the “Files on Disk” export service to achieve a similar result, I found this to be a cumbersome workflow. A second export is required to make up for the missing functionality, and this approach is error prone because you may not remember to reapply all of the same settings.  Not to mention the time it takes to run the export and wait for it to re-render the files.

There are many reasons you might want to retain these files. 

• If you have read and follow advice in Peter Krogh’s The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers, you will be keeping copies of all derivative files you deliver to your clients. 
• As a Lightroom user you are probably shooting photos using a raw format, and your family members might not be using image viewers that can cope with these formats. 
• If you are anything like me you won’t want people in your household to download your photos from the web when they could quickly and easily copy them from your PC. 

For these and other reasons I decided to write a plugin to fill this gap.

Installation

1. Download the plugin: export-backup-20090131_002.zip
2. Copy the file where you want the plugin to permanently reside, then unzip the file.  This should create a sub-directory called export-backup.lrplugin.
3. Open Lightroom 2, then select the FilePlugin Manager menu option.
4. Press the Add button, select the export-backup.lrplugin directory created in step 2, then press OK.
5. The plugin is now installed and enabled.  Press Done..

Usage

Next time you export files you will notice an Export Backup entry in the Export dialog’s Post-Process Actions list. 

To use this feature:

1. Select the Export Backup entry, then press the Insert button.  Note: The Insert button will remain inactive if you select the wrong Export Backup entry.  This will add an Export Backup section near the end of the Export dialog.
2. Either manually enter or choose the directory where the rendered files should be copied.
3. Select either Overwrite or Ignore option, depending upon how you want to proceed if the same files already exist in the destination directory.
4. Continue with your file export as usual.

When you export your files to Flickr, Gallery 2 or whatever photo hosting service you use, you will now also have a local copy of the rendered output for your own records. 

I hope you find this plugin useful and feel free to share your experiences or suggestions in the comments section below.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Backup Your Rendered Images When Exporting From Lightroom 2 To The Web

Related Posts:

• Export Backup Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090208.003) (14)
• New Plugin Brings Lightroom and Photoshop Elements Together At Last (16)
• Config Backup Plugin Updated… To Backup More Configuration Settings (Version 20090606.002) (10)

I recently found out I was the official photographer for my brother’s wedding only two days before the actual event.  Aside from the stress of my first wedding shoot (for a family member no less – no pressure…) I also had to work through the logistics of processing and publishing the reams of photos captured.  Living over 1000 kilometers away from the client made this process a little more difficult than for your average wedding shoot.

The foundation of my digital photography workflow is Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom 2 (LR2). I was confident my core workflow was up to the task but what I was missing was a way to publish the proofs, record the client selects, and bring that information back into LR2 so I could complete my editing tasks.

The Turning Gate’s Client Response Gallery provided a simple solution to the problem.  The web engine plugin generated my proof gallery for me, and when family members selected photos I would receive an email with the details:

Selections: EX_20080914_153823, EX_20080914_154715
GalleryTitle: Test Gallery
Name: Sample
Email: <<email address>>


The standard process for loading the selections into LR2 involves copying part of the selection line, pasting it into an LR2 find or filter field, then working with the displayed photos.  I found this a little cumbersome given the volume of selection emails (> 40) I ended up receiving, so I wrote a perl script to turn the gallery email body into smart albums that could be imported directly into LR2.

The script to convert TTG Client Response gallery selection emails into smart collections can be downloaded here: ttgclient.pl.  If you are a Windows user and don’t have perl installed already you can download it here. 

Using the script is as simple as:

1. Copy the body of a TTG Client Response gallery selection email into a text file. (Example: input)
2. Run the ttgclient.pl script, passing one or more filenames as parameters.
   e.g. on Windows c:\> ttgclient.pl ttgclient-sample.txt
Smart Collection TTGClient-Sample-Selections.lrsmcol ready for import to LR2.
e.g. on Mac (assumes perl is in you path)perl ./ttgclient.pl ttgclient-sample.txt
Smart Collection TTGClient-Sample-Selections.lrsmcol ready for import to LR2.

3. Open LR2’s library module.
4. In the Collections panel, right click on a Collection. Select Import Smart Collection Settings from the context menu, then select the file generated by ttgclient.pl (e.g. TTGClient-Sample-Selections.lrsmcol).
5. If the client specified ratings for any of the photos you will also have a separate import files generated for each rating level awarded.  Repeat the previous step until all of the collections are imported.

You should now have a new Smart Collection (e.g. TTGClient-Sample-Selections) containing all of the selections and rated images included in the email from the gallery. 

I hope this helps your workflow as much as it did mine.  And thanks to Matt for making such a useful LR2 gallery available for free!

Updated Feb 2009: Added Mac details based upon user feedback

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Working with a Wedding Client’s Photo Selects in Lightroom 2

Related Posts:

• Capturing your Client’s Selections in Lightroom (7)
• Export Backup Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090208.003) (14)
• Backup Your Rendered Images When Exporting From Lightroom 2 To The Web (0)