Collection sets

[gazwas]

Does anyone know how I get Lightroom CC to open up using my own custom smart filter collection set rather than the one it uses by default?

I use a set of colour tags to select my architectural images for grading. I open a new catalogue for each shoot I do (as I do in Capture One with sessions) and I would like to carry over my smart filters rather than continually having to set them up each time.

[john beardsworth]

First, I wouldn't recommend replicating what you did with C1 sessions. LR works best as a single catalogue, not by fragmenting control of your workflow and picture collection. You've got fields like Job which can separate shoots.

But alternatives to do what you want:

1. Create an empty catalogue with the collections and copy it each time you want to start another catalogue
2. Create an empty catalogue with the collections and one image, and use File > Import from Another Catalogue - follow the method in my Workflow Smart Collections. In fact, this is a method to avoid new catalogues - just change what's in the current work collection or change its name.

John

[gazwas]

First, I wouldn't recommend replicating what you did with C1 sessions. LR works best as a single catalogue, not by fragmenting control of your workflow and picture collection. You've got fields like Job which can separate shoots.

Seems like a more complicated way of working to me especially when it comes to invoicing for jobs and having to open Lightroom and use keywords to see the work I've done???

Maybe I could reduce it down to per client by financial year?

I'm really liking Lightroom but frustratingly there are a few things it just doesn't do as well as Capture One (presets for one) that carry over or selectable between sessions.

[john beardsworth]

There's nothing complicated about keeping control of your work in one place. Tools like the Library Filter and smart collections can make it even easier, even when you're handling hundreds of thousands of pictures.

[gazwas]

What about working with images on multiple machines if its one big catalog?

With C1, sharing session files is just a matter of sharing one session folder between studio machine for tethered work, laptop for location work and home machine for catching up with grading and processing. I might start a job tethered on location then shoot produt stills in the studio, finally taking all the captures home to work on in the evening. Moving or exporting a large LR catalog seems cumbersome and potentially problematic to me but is ther a way around it I'm missing.

[Jim Metzger]

You can keep your catalog on an external hard drive. As long as the computer you are hooking up to has Lightroom application on it, you are good to go.

I also believe that if you build smart previews when adding images to the catalog you can work on them when away from the original files.

I just found out a good way for working on large raw files, if you work on the smart previews in the catalog with the drive containing the original files offline, the work really zips along. You are creating .xmp files for very small raw (this is the smart preview) files. When the originals are online again all the edits are paired to the original files.

Jim

[john beardsworth]

What about working with images on multiple machines if its one big catalog

That's what File > Export as Catalog and File > Import from Another Catalog are for. It lets you roundtrip work into a smaller catalogue and back, or consolidate work done on another computer. You might have small catalogues for temporary requirements, but control rests with the one big catalogue.

There's plenty of flexibility. For example, if you continually use different computers it can be better to put the catalogue onto an external drive, or on something like Dropbox. Jim's advice re smart previews is also good.

[gazwas]

Thaks, will look into this more.

Some questions I'm not sure about.

1. Can I export as catalogue only one shoot out of say ten?
2. After working on the images on another computer and re-importing back to the original computer, will it think they are just duplicates and not import or import but add another version of the image (duplicates)?
3. Import catalog - will that sync any changes made to the files if older versions exist on the HD?

[john beardsworth]

1. Can I export as catalogue only one shoot out of say ten?
2. After working on the images on another computer and re-importing back to the original computer, will it think they are just duplicates and not import or import but add another version of the image (duplicates)?
3. Import catalog - will that sync any changes made to the files if older versions exist on the HD?

That's what I meant by "roundtrip work". The Export as Catalog / Import from Another Catalog route often surprises people with its intelligence. You can, for example, use the Library Filter to select all photos from job X (or jobs X, Y, Z), and do an Export as Catalog to create a small catalogue of that shoot. You might include the originals, or just the smart previews, and take the catalogue and images onto another computer. Apart from the size, this might let you show those photos to the client and be sure they won't see other clients' shoots, and you can make adjustments, change ratings, make picks etc. Afterwards, you use Import from Another Catalog to bring that small catalogue back into the main one. LR recognises the imported photos match photos in the main catalogue and automatically applies those changes - though you have the choice to create new virtual copies (C1 "versions" = LR "virtual copies").

[gazwas]

Thanks for the help, sound ideal.

Do you think its best to organise catalogs by client or one large catalog for all my work by financial year?

[john beardsworth]

Well, let me put some questions to you. What happens when a job spans more than one financial year? eg a wedding where you shoot the dress fitting in one year and the event months later. Or do client companies never merge, or families never split? Think of your local supermarket - does it run separate inventory records for each store or for each type of product? Of course not - they use store and product codes, ie metadata, so they keep control of everything in one place and can see their total vegetable sales year by year without loading one catalogue, then the other etc. Turning back to LR, why the urge to break up control of your picture collection and workflow? Wouldn't you save time if you could just copy the keywords you applied to the 2014 medieval house shoot for client A to the similar scene you're just shot for client B, and how much time will you save next year when prospective client C wants to see samples of your best medieval house work and you can just double click the "medieval house" keyword and see everything you've done? Of course, you could always open the FY 2014 catalogue, and then the other annual catalogues one by one, or just try to remember which client catalogues to open. Then the client says only show me the wide angle or interior shots.

C1 was mainly a raw converter, and that's how you've been using it with sessions, but LR is a raw converter and a cataloguing tool. Sessions and the catalogue are very different animals. While you can break up control of your workflow and picture collection, if you want, you wouldn't be squeezing the most out of LR.

In practice, other catalogues may be needed. There's the example of needing to roundtrip a shoot, or you might have a business reason to start a job in a new catalogue. For instance, it would be nasty if a wedding photographer somehow mixed up pictures from different events, so it's quite common for those LR users to start a new catalogue for each engagement, archive it when the job's closed, and then use Import from Another Catalog to bring the shoot into the catalogue that controls all their work. I maintain a separate catalogue for photos by some other photographers, or I know someone who has a sideline shooting male nudes and keeps them in a separate catalogue from the single catalogue for her event and portraiture business. So there's got to be common sense and flexibility too.

[lelouarn]

As far as I understand, the one thing that doesn't get transferred in export / import catalog are presets, which are machine specific (and do not "belong" to a catalog).
Is there a convenient way to "export" all the presets from a machine to another ? I know the trick of finding out in which directory they are and copy/pasting them into another directory. But it's kind of a PITA...
I would have thought that this could be done through the cloud, but it doesn't seem possible (I think it's there in PS CC).

[john beardsworth]

No built-in way, though presets shouldn't change so frequently. But I agree that the cloud would help here. The way I do it is by putting those folders on Dropbox and pointing each computer at the folder by using aliases / symbolic links.

Publish Settings are also omitted.