Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: Onslow on December 25, 2012, 05:02:56 pm

Title: Newbie to LR questions....
Post by: Onslow on December 25, 2012, 05:02:56 pm
Morning All,I have a couple of basic questions I hope you can assist with.

I have just bought LR after working quite happily with CS5 and bridge. Also, I have just bought my new Epson 3880. I bought the LuLa C2PS set of videos in Jan 2012 and have found them extremely helpful. Prior to my new Epson, I wasn't concerned with printing so much. I found bridge and CS5 did what I required very nicely. Now I'm printing though, it's a slightly different kettle of fish.

In the C2PS series, I recall Michael and Jeff talking about the ease of printing in LR and the clunkiness of CS5 for the same. This is my major reason for moving to LR. The print module. When I bought LR4, I then bought the LuLa Introduction & Advanced Guide to Lightroom 4 as well as the update with Eric and Jeff. So far, I have watched the introduction series and enjoyed it. It gave a good explanation so far I think.

Now, my situation with my system and workflow.

I import currently using Bridge to download from the camera into a custom named directory ie 20121225 Xmas Day within My Pictures on the c: drive. I use this location as my working area. My C: drive is a fast SSD. I process the images to taste, cull, apply relevant metadata etc etc. The My Pictures folder is monitored and backed up continuously to my NAS and an external HD.

When I have finished with them, I move the files to my onboard 1.9Gb raid 0+1 D: drive. I have a master folder called Camera Raw Treated. Below the master folder, is a series of folders called buckets. ie: Bucket 001 20091224 to 20100423, Bucket 002 etc etc. Each bucket holds around 23gb of files. I have organised them like this so I can copy 1 bucket to a Bluray disc.
When I move the directory from the C: drive, I move it into then next bucket which has sufficient capacity or create a new bucket.

My Camera Raw Treated folder on the D: drive is also monitored and backed up continuously to my NAS and an external HD.

Currently, I am in limbo re processing. My NEC MultiSync LCD2690WUXi2 is away for several more weeks being repaired by NEC. I am currently on a calibrated and profiled (but crappy nonetheless) viewsonic monitor. It's nothing compared to my NEC. So, for the next several weeks, very little image processing is occurring. In the next week, I shall be replacing the C: Drive 120gb ssd with a 480gb ssd as well as replacing the existing 12gb ram for my boards max 24gb ram. I already have have a fast 120gb ssd for my windows and photoshop scratch disks....

Now, to my questions.

1)     I have currently installed and am toying with lightroom on the c: drive. Once the new 480 gb drive goes in, I think that would be the optimal location for the catalog to be stored. As my D drive fills with buckets, I would like to remove the oldest buckets onto external HDs for storage. I believe if I do this correctly from within lightroom, the catalog will track that the buckets are on external (not connected) HDs. This way I can still find old images and lr will say that an image is on a disconnected drive. Am I correct in this assumption?

2)     Either in the videos or on LuLa, Jeff recommended a book for Lightroom 4 use. I don't think he was the author though and can't find any reference to this searching. Would any one be able to recomend this book as well as a good CS6 book for me? Between the videos from LuLA and Jeffs The Digital Negative as well as his Real World Sharpening book, I find I like the immediacy of the video but, then use the books to drill down into specific topics.  I'll be getting CS6 in the next week or so as well. This is why I'm after a good book on CS6 as well.

My apologies for the long winded post.... :)

Title: Re: Newbie to LR questions....
Post by: Schewe on December 25, 2012, 11:11:00 pm
Seth Resnick's D-65 Digital Workflow (http://www.d-65.com/downloads.html).
Title: Re: Newbie to LR questions....
Post by: Onslow on December 26, 2012, 12:34:38 am
Seth Resnick's D-65 Digital Workflow (http://www.d-65.com/downloads.html).

That's the one. Thanks for that Jeff.... :)

Title: Re: Newbie to LR questions....
Post by: Tom Montgomery on December 26, 2012, 08:31:29 pm
Martin Evening's book on PS CS6 is excellent. Also, the Photoshop CS6 tutorials found on Lynda.com are generally very good.
Title: Re: Newbie to LR questions....
Post by: Glenn NK on December 26, 2012, 10:53:28 pm
Martin Evening's book on PS CS6 is excellent.

As is his book on LR4.

Glenn
Title: Re: Newbie to LR questions....
Post by: Ellis Vener on December 27, 2012, 10:49:03 am
Jeff is being bashful: his "The Digital Negative" book  is superb. http://www.ppmag.com/web-exclusives/2012/12/digital-negative.html for my review.
Title: Re: Newbie to LR questions....
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on December 27, 2012, 03:12:08 pm
Jeff is being bashful.

As anyone who pays attention to these forums knows, it's one of his most prominent characteristics!

I agree that his book is excellent. I'm enjoying it very much and learning a lot.

Jeremy
Title: Re: Newbie to LR questions....
Post by: Onslow on December 27, 2012, 05:43:12 pm
Martin Evening's book on PS CS6 is excellent. Also, the Photoshop CS6 tutorials found on Lynda.com are generally very good.

That's winging it's way to me now from Amazon.... :)
Title: Re: Newbie to LR questions....
Post by: Onslow on December 27, 2012, 05:45:43 pm
As is his book on LR4.

Glenn

I've got Seth Resnick's book on the way to me as well. I'll consider ordering this one once I become more familiar with LR and after reading Seths book.
Title: Re: Newbie to LR questions....
Post by: Onslow on December 27, 2012, 05:49:15 pm
Jeff is being bashful: his "The Digital Negative" book  is superb. http://www.ppmag.com/web-exclusives/2012/12/digital-negative.html for my review.

I have this. I noticed a reference to it several weeks ago in a thread here that Jeff posted on his upcoming book 'The Digital Print'. I hadn't heard of it and I like his style. I already have his sharpening book so ordered 'the Digital Negative'.
I agree, the book is superb..... :)
Title: Re: Newbie to LR questions....
Post by: Leszek Piotrowski on December 27, 2012, 07:41:22 pm
Hi--

I have all the books mentioned above, except the Digital Workflow by Seth. Since I am still in "ramp-up" mode ,... big time, I would recommend these books and the LuLa videos. They are meeting my learning needs.

Not sure if I'll order the Digital Workflow,  just yet,... as the workflow Jeff discussed in the Digital Negative was just what I was needing to adopt and implement at this time (Ref: Chapter 6).

Leszek