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Author Topic: Photography vs. Nerdography.  (Read 12447 times)

David Anderson

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Photography vs. Nerdography.
« on: February 02, 2009, 07:54:50 pm »

Recently I had a chance to see someone who knows what they're doing prep a file for print with Lightroom II -

The raw converter looks very impressive and that made me think it might be time to change from editing in Bridge and processing in CS3 to doing both with LightroomII.

BUT -

From what I understand, Lightroom has issues with editing in that you have to do things through their library system and that simple file browsing is anything but.

Is this the case ?

Will it work for me if I'm not a nerd, filling a computer on every job and I need to edit, back-up and delete things ASAP to make room for the next job ?


Cheers..
« Last Edit: February 02, 2009, 07:56:01 pm by David Anderson »
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Josh-H

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« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2009, 09:17:17 pm »

David,

LR is simple and easy to use.

Without sounding like an adnvertisment - would be well worth you spending the $40 odd dollars on Michael's LR 2.0 tutorial. It will answer all your questions and more in spades and give you a hands on look at how it handles file management.

Best.
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David Anderson

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« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2009, 10:25:56 pm »

Quote from: Josh-H
Without sounding like an adnvertisment - would be well worth you spending the $40 odd dollars on Michael's LR 2.0 tutorial. It will answer all your questions and more in spades and give you a hands on look at how it handles file management.

Thanks Josh, I'll get the tutorial if I get Lightroom - it would have to be WAY better than reading the manual..  

But I can't get Lightroom if it's no good for fast simple editing.
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jjj

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« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2009, 11:32:33 pm »

Quote from: David Anderson
But I can't get Lightroom if it's no good for fast simple editing.
That's what it's very good at. It has the same RAW engine and features as ACR in Bridge does, just laid out in a different way. Some better, some not.
Though I find Bridge much better for sorting through, reanaming, filtering images than I do with LR's, at times somewhat clunky library.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2009, 11:33:29 pm by jjj »
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sniper

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« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2009, 02:37:11 am »

Lightroom is good for the basic edit, the only issue you might have if your talking about fast is that you have to import your images into LR, then after ajustment export them again, this can take time on large numbers of images.  Your best bet is to download the trial version and see if it works for you.  Wayne
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David Anderson

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« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2009, 08:26:31 am »

Quote from: sniper
Your best bet is to download the trial version and see if it works for you.

Now that's a good idea !
(pity I didn't think of it myself.    )


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Wally

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« Reply #6 on: February 03, 2009, 02:15:09 pm »

The idea of working with a Database/Library instead of just "file>>>Open" was hard at first for me to wrap my head around and I went into it kicking and screaming. That was back when Lightroom 1 first came out. Today I can't imagine not doing it that way. I still like to keep my file/folder system I have always used (master folder by year, with a new folder in that for each month, and another in that for each date/shoot) but that works really well with Lightroom as you can just right click on the folder and then sync it from the main library.
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David Anderson

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« Reply #7 on: February 03, 2009, 06:06:47 pm »

Wally, it just sounds like a lot of stuffing around compared to just open, edit and process.
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Nick Rains

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« Reply #8 on: February 03, 2009, 06:35:12 pm »

Quote from: David Anderson
Wally, it just sounds like a lot of stuffing around compared to just open, edit and process.

It is.

LR is good at many things , but maybe not for what you want.

Check out Photo Mechanic, nothing comes close for browsing and editing - but it is not a RAW converter. Tag the images with stars, then go to Bridge and process out in ACR. PM is one of the fastest browsers I know of, on a half decent computer it can preview RAWs at 100% almost as fast as you can press the arrow keys. There's good reasons why Sport Illustrated editors use it for big events like the Superbowl.

PM me if you want more info...
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Ken Bennett

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« Reply #9 on: February 03, 2009, 08:09:15 pm »

Quote from: Nick Rains
Check out Photo Mechanic, nothing comes close for browsing and editing - but it is not a RAW converter. Tag the images with stars, then go to Bridge and process out in ACR.


No real reason to go through Bridge -- Photo Mechanic will happily open your raw files directly into Camera Raw. I do this many times per day.

Totally agree on the merits of Photo Mechanic. The ease and speed of caption and keyword application is huge.
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Nick Rains

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« Reply #10 on: February 03, 2009, 09:01:41 pm »

Quote from: k bennett
No real reason to go through Bridge -- Photo Mechanic will happily open your raw files directly into Camera Raw. I do this many times per day.

Totally agree on the merits of Photo Mechanic. The ease and speed of caption and keyword application is huge.

You are correct but Bridge does offer some useful options, depending on your workflow... Photomerge for a selection of images, Dr Browns Services etc.
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Nick Rains
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Wally

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« Reply #11 on: February 03, 2009, 11:26:21 pm »

Quote from: David Anderson
Wally, it just sounds like a lot of stuffing around compared to just open, edit and process.

yeah it might sound that way but it really is not. No matter if you use Lightroom or not you have to download your files onto your computer you can do that however you wish. Once they are on your computer you just run Lightroom and click file then select "import files from disk" and point Lightroom to your folder. Lightroom will then import all the files into the Library. Then you will see thumbnails of every image in that folder. When you want to edit one just click it and then click develop and edit away. Your folders will be displayed on the left of the Lightroom window and if you ever put new files intoa folder you just right click that folder and select sync.

Yes it is different but after a few times you will never go back
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ErikKaffehr

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« Reply #12 on: February 04, 2009, 12:57:48 am »

Hi,

I just would like to point out that:

1) Lightroom needs lots of memory
2) If you use Lightroom under normal 32-bits windows it will only use 720 MByte memory that's far to little
3) There might be ways to use 3 GByte of memory under 32-bits Windows, it just that your mileage may vary.

LR seems to work well on the Mac. AFAIK it also works well on 64 bit Windows.

Best regards
Erik



Quote from: David Anderson
Thanks Josh, I'll get the tutorial if I get Lightroom - it would have to be WAY better than reading the manual..  

But I can't get Lightroom if it's no good for fast simple editing.
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Josh-H

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« Reply #13 on: February 04, 2009, 01:20:21 am »

Quote from: ErikKaffehr
Hi,

I just would like to point out that:

1) Lightroom needs lots of memory
2) If you use Lightroom under normal 32-bits windows it will only use 720 MByte memory that's far to little
3) There might be ways to use 3 GByte of memory under 32-bits Windows, it just that your mileage may vary.

LR seems to work well on the Mac. AFAIK it also works well on 64 bit Windows.

Best regards
Erik

LR is RAM intensive - but RAM is cheap.

LR 2.2 flies [and I mean flies] on my dual quad core mac pro with 16 gig of ram and a RAID5 array - now that may not be a typical computer for the average punter - but it should be pretty typical of anyone doing serious photo editing.
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Wally

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« Reply #14 on: February 04, 2009, 09:50:07 am »

Quote from: ErikKaffehr
Hi,

I just would like to point out that:

1) Lightroom needs lots of memory
2) If you use Lightroom under normal 32-bits windows it will only use 720 MByte memory that's far to little
3) There might be ways to use 3 GByte of memory under 32-bits Windows, it just that your mileage may vary.

LR seems to work well on the Mac. AFAIK it also works well on 64 bit Windows.

Best regards
Erik

That has not been my experience at all. I run it on a 32bit  Windows Vista System with 4GBs of Ram and I have no performance issues. I work with both RAW files from my Canon 30D, and with 16bit TIFFs from medium format film scans that run 50-100mbs in size. Most of the time while it is running I also have Photoshop CS2 running and I am either watching TV in another window or listening to music. I am actually quite pleased with the speed with which it does things
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David Anderson

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« Reply #15 on: February 04, 2009, 10:05:39 am »

Thanks for the heads up on Photomechanic - I will have a look at that as well.

Josh, those big computers with quad bikes and dual ashtrays are NO fun on location where I do most of my work.  

That said, my Laptops do make things a little slower..
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flash

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« Reply #16 on: February 04, 2009, 05:14:42 pm »

Aren't we making this more complicated than it needs to be.

1. Lightroom and ACR have nearly identical functionality and output quality when processing RAW images. One will not produce better files than the other. Lightroom adds a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system so you can easily find, sort, track images. But you will need to "import" (ie: create previews in a database) to use Lightroom. Each image takes a second or so to generate a thumbnail.
2. If you're working on a few images at a time Bridge/ ACR is faster than Lightroom.
3. If you're working on hundreds of images at a time then Lightroom is faster than ACR/Bridge.

Gordon
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Nick Rains

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« Reply #17 on: February 04, 2009, 05:22:35 pm »

Quote from: flash
Aren't we making this more complicated than it needs to be.

1. Lightroom and ACR have nearly identical functionality and output quality when processing RAW images. One will not produce better files than the other. Lightroom adds a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system so you can easily find, sort, track images. But you will need to "import" (ie: create previews in a database) to use Lightroom. Each image takes a second or so to generate a thumbnail.
2. If you're working on a few images at a time Bridge/ ACR is faster than Lightroom.
3. If you're working on hundreds of images at a time then Lightroom is faster than ACR/Bridge.

Gordon

This is where Bridge and LR fail as browsers, they insist on generating accurate thumbs from RAW files which takes time. That's fine if that's what you want or need but if you want to see your shots, check for sharpness and tag keepers as fast as possible then then LR and Br are simply too slow. Colour is far less important at this stage of the edit - it's all about getting the shoot done, knowing you've got it in the bag and making a rough selection for a client. You can worry about the finer points of the colours and tones later.
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Nick Rains
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David Anderson

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« Reply #18 on: February 04, 2009, 06:57:54 pm »

Quote from: Nick Rains
This is where Bridge and LR fail as browsers, they insist on generating accurate thumbs from RAW files which takes time. That's fine if that's what you want or need but if you want to see your shots, check for sharpness and tag keepers as fast as possible then then LR and Br are simply too slow. Colour is far less important at this stage of the edit - it's all about getting the shoot done, knowing you've got it in the bag and making a rough selection for a client. You can worry about the finer points of the colours and tones later.

That's exactly right.

Checking for sharpness is my first priority and it takes WAY too long in bridge, Capture One was a little quicker frame by frame, but only after you had waited a LONG time for
the thumbnails or whatever the hell it was taking forever to do with the raws.
(Capture One lost interest in Canon for a long time and I lost interest in them and went to Bridge.  )

What I need to do before worrying about anything else is cut a job down from 1500 - 2500 frames to a couple hundred as quick as possible and send a quick graded set of Jpegs to the client so they can pick the 10 - 40 that they need proper processing and maybe re-touching on.
Generally I only have one day for the entire process or maybe two if the re-touching is really involved.
After that I want the whole job backed up and out of my life for good and would be very unlikely to re-visit it so I don't need it in any library.

I find the grading and final processing is fast enough in Bridge, but loose a lot of time editing.

Nick, thanks again for the insights and links for PM -









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jjj

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« Reply #19 on: February 05, 2009, 10:56:21 am »

Quote from: Nick Rains
This is where Bridge and LR fail as browsers, they insist on generating accurate thumbs from RAW files which takes time. That's fine if that's what you want or need but if you want to see your shots, check for sharpness and tag keepers as fast as possible then then LR and Br are simply too slow. Colour is far less important at this stage of the edit - it's all about getting the shoot done, knowing you've got it in the bag and making a rough selection for a client. You can worry about the finer points of the colours and tones later.
Learn to use Bridge properly before saying such innacurate things.
You can use embedded previews in Bridge [just like PM does]. Just to the left of the star filter on top right of screen are two gridlike buttons, they control previewing. I just opened a new folder of images and was able to click through them as fast as in PM. Aperture also uses this as well now.
Besides even rendered previewing is waaaay quicker than it used to be, so I rarely bother to use embedded previews.

Quote from: k bennett
Totally agree on the merits of Photo Mechanic. The ease and speed of caption and keyword application is huge.

File Info in Bridge is very useful for captioning and keywording, similar + IIRC much better than the similar panel in PM - I forget what it's called there offhand. I went their website to jog their memory and it's awful, as to see what programme is like you basically have to install it. I didn't bother.
How hard is it to have some annotated screenshots?

BTW I also used to use PM for it's speed, but I find using Bridge a much better workflow solution these days.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2009, 10:59:32 am by jjj »
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