*** Please Note: as of March 1, 2012, I will no longer be supporting the content of this class. This is a cutting (really bleeding) edge way of organizing supplies. After over a year of helping students do this, I no longer know if it is a workflow I would recommend. It is complicated, and there is great potential to lose files/work. For now I am leaving the information up for those who want to try it, but please know I no longer have the luxury of supporting this class. I am currently looking at other easier alternative solutions that are not as high risk. ***
Before you do anything further in this class, make sure you have completed THIS ASSIGNMENT.
If you already did your pre-class work of physically organizing all your scrapbooking items in folders by kit and then kit folders in designer folders, you are ready for the instructions in this post. If you have not yet completely that step, please take the time to go back and complete this pre-class assignment before you move forward. Once you have the physical folder structure organized, you are ready to begin.
Lightroom Setup
There are a few things you will want to setup in Lightroom to make things run optimally for what you are doing. First thing we will do is setup a new catalog.
- Choose File > New Catalog. Navigate to where you want your catalog stored. Some store it in their pictures folder. Personally I chose to store it under my user name on my main hard drive. You need to create your catalog on your main hard drive so it is always accessible even without your EHD connected.
- Choose Lightroom > Preferences > File Handling. Set the Cache size to 50 GB.
- Choose Lightroom > Catalog Settings > General and set the backup catalog to Once a day, when Lightroom exits. This means once a day Lightroom will backup and optimize your catalog. The catalog is ONLY THE DATABASE part of your organization system it does not backup photos. Make sure you have another backup solution for all of your photos. Catalog backup is important because catalogs can become corrupted over time and optimizing your catalog daily helps it to run faster and you all know how I feel about backups.
- While still in Catalog Settings, under File Handling, choose to automatically discard 1:1 previews after one week. This keeps your catalog size smaller. 1:1 previews aren’t as important with digital supplies as they are with photos – but we will get into that in class.
- Lastly, in Catalog Settings, under Metadata (this is the most important setting) – check the box next to “Automatically write changes into XMP” – this is critical because now the tagging you do will be written to the file automatically every time. No more trying to remember to write all your metadata work to your files. This does slow down your catalog a bit, however, it makes the metadata you write instantly recognizable in other programs – no chance for your keywording and tagging to get lost – which is a very good thing!
Next Step: Your First Lightroom Import.
Debannib
Thank you for organizing and teaching this class Kayla! I’m so excited to learn Lightroom, and to get this ol’computer organized. Really looking forward to working with you…..Deb
Malinda
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Your are so, so generous in offering us this class!! I look forward to every post. I just got Lightroom back in December and have been so excited to get this going!! Again, Kayla…thank you!!!
Malinda
Sarah
I have a ? about the XMP setting- I haven’t done this previously, and when I check it it started creating hundreds of additional files (XMP files). I thought that the reason to keyword in LightRoom was that the data was stored “in” the file itself? I am horrible at keeping files together and the thought of having to make sure that I never separate the XMP file from the original file makes me a bit nervous.
Sarah
OK, So…never mind, I figured out what the problem was, I had files that I hadn’t converted to DNG but left RAW, according to this site:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/2.0/WS638E3AC9-A04C-4445-A0D3-F7D8BA5CDE37.html
raw files must store it in a sidecar file, (the reason I saw many new files created) while other file formats will store it in the file itself.
So I converted my Raw files to DNG and problem solved! No more sidecar files and no way to lose the metadata.
Kayla Lamoreaux
Thanks for replying and sharing your solution – you made my day! I am glad you figured it out!
I LOVE the DNG format. It is awesome to not have to keep track of all those XMP files – it makes me HAPPY!
Have fun!
Marie
Kayla – I am only on my 4th designer folder in the TIF conversion (out of 400 or so) but am already SO excited about seeing everything in Lightroom. Thank you so much for doing this!
Kayla Lamoreaux
You’re welcome – I hope you enjoy it!
Kayla Lamoreaux
Hope you enjoy the materials Deb – have fun!
Kayla Lamoreaux
So glad you are excited! I felt the same way when I started bringing things in – it was like Finally! I hope you enjoy working through the class materials and creating a workflow that works for you and your scrapbooking process. Happy organizing!
Susan
Kayla
I am coming late to this party but have a question about the catalog and settings recommended above. I already an using LR for my photos and have a catalog for those. Do you open a different catalog for the digital supplies? Or use the same one for both? If you use the same one – do you still recommend purging 1:1 previews each week?
Thanks for all your help and this wonderful class.
Susan
Kayla Lamoreaux
Great question! I keep both my supplies and photos in the same catalog. I set my photos to 1:1 previews and get rid of them after one week because most of the editing I do is done in the first week after importing them. Even if I didnt, Lightroom keeps all the info in the catalog to regenerate previews.
Now I do have different settings on Import for my Supply files and my photo files. I do minimal previews for Supplies and 1:1 for photos.
Hope that helps!
Jan B.
How did you get another folder under places? I am new Mac and
still learning some basics.
rsheedy
I have a question about the Lightroom backup files. Are they incremental or comprehensive? I’m wondering if it’s okay to delete old backup files or if I need to keep all of them. What is your process; do you purge old backup files?
Kayla Lamoreaux
I go back about every couple of months and delete all my backups except about 4 of the most recent (I backup Lightroom every time I exit – usually only skip backup if I havent made any changes to items in the catalog so those backup files add up fast!).
Another detail you may find helpful – I recently changed my Lightroom backups to backup to a separate disk from my Lightroom catalog. I also run Time Machine which backs up not only my main hard drive, but also my external hard drive. This way I have the information on at least three separate hard drives:
Main harddrive: Live Lightroom Catalog
External Harddrive: Lightroom Backups
Time Machine: Backup of both Live LR catalog and LR Backup files.
Hope that helps!
rsheedy
This is very helpful; thank you!
Xnomads
Hi Kayla, I have a question about the last setting – Automatically write changes to XMP. Since I have been using LR for almost a year and just changed that setting – what will that mean to the more than 30,000 photos already in my catalogs? Thank you!
Kayla Lamoreaux
I am not sure if it will write past changes to XMP or just new changes. To make sure, select items in your catalog in Library mode (you can do this one folder at a time or group of images) and press CTRL/CMD+S. This will save the metadata to the files so you will be good for sure.
Hope that helps!
Jane
Can you point to your “pre-class instructions” for those of us who just stumbled upon this class? Thanks:)
Kayla Lamoreaux
Thanks Jane! It is basically about backup – I added it to the Lightroom Class Index of posts link on the top right of the blog. You can also find it here – http://www.digiscrap101.com/lightroom-class-2011-index-of-posts.html
MonicaB
Hi Kayla, Thanks again for this wonderful class. I just finished organizing my digi supplies and have a question about the next step. Currently I have a MAC desktop with an EHD attached. All my digi supplies are on the EHD, not the MAC. Lightroom is installed on the MAC. If I understand the direction, I’m to create the catalog on the MAC so that I can work with it even if the EHD is not connected. My question is if I want to use this catalog on a laptop in the future how would I go about doing that? If this is something that will be answered later just let me know.
kayla
If you want to share your catalog between two computers you would have to move everything to an external drive. That can be done at a later date. Hope that helps – have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
MonicaB
Thank you this does help. At least I know I can change it in the future. Have a wonderful holiday weekend!!