Luminous Landscape Forum

Site & Board Matters => Luminous Landscape Video => Topic started by: Christopher Sanderson on June 17, 2009, 10:55:24 pm

Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Christopher Sanderson on June 17, 2009, 10:55:24 pm
I have posted our latest download video Tutorial - The Luminous Landscape Guide to Asset Management (http://store.luminous-landscape.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=28&products_id=221) to the Store.

Three hours of profane wisdom that really has helped me know where the **** my pictures are.  

Chris S
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Josh-H on June 17, 2009, 11:27:31 pm
Quote from: ChrisSand
I have posted our latest download video Tutorial - The Luminous Landscape Guide to Asset Management (http://store.luminous-landscape.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=28&products_id=221) to the Store.

Three hours of profane wisdom that really has helped me know where the **** my pictures are.  

Chris S

Excellent - viewing for this evening  
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Christopher Sanderson on June 18, 2009, 08:45:59 am
I have had two reports of possible file corruption with the last file 'wamp-08.zip' - so I am replacing that file. It should be replaced by 1700 GMT.
Chris
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Christopher Sanderson on June 18, 2009, 03:17:58 pm
The file mentioned above is now replaced
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Christopher Sanderson on June 18, 2009, 06:12:50 pm
For anyone who wants to find out more about the Tutorial, there is now a page (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/wamp.shtml) explaining all and with a preview video that gives Seth Resnick's recipe for a File Naming Convention.
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: pero on June 19, 2009, 03:11:42 pm
I´m trying to play this tutorial on my TV via my PS3 but have som problems.
Could you tell me which video/audio codecs you have used so that I can do some PS3 tuning ?

Btw LL Video 18HD and the Lightroom totorial works fine
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Christopher Sanderson on June 19, 2009, 04:06:20 pm
The video is encoded with H264 which is now fairly standard. The only 'new' thing is that the pixel dimension (1280 x 720P) and the bitrate are a bit bigger/higher. I suggest you re-export using MPEG Streamclip or other free transcoder to the format that you find most stable for the PS - PSP?

Chris
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Craig Murphy on June 19, 2009, 07:39:11 pm
Peter Krogh's file naming system is better.
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: michael on June 19, 2009, 08:51:46 pm
"Better" can be a statement of fact or one of opinion.

Seems to me that yours is the latter rather than the former.

Michael
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: KeithR on June 19, 2009, 09:58:14 pm
Not having seen this new tutorial yet(still downloading it as I type this) I seem to recall a PhotoshopNews topic by Jeff Schewe that he, Michael, and Seth Resnick were to be in Miami to tape a tutorial. And in a thread on this forum, the same Mr. Schewe said he had packed his tie-dyed shorts and Hawaiian shirts and Michael threatened to wear a bikini...
Is this that tutorial? I took a look at the trailer and saw only Michael, in his usual conservative attire and Seth. Was Jeff hiding off camera, or did the censors digitally remove him?
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Josh-H on June 19, 2009, 10:26:00 pm
Quote from: KeithR
Not having seen this new tutorial yet(still downloading it as I type this) I seem to recall a PhotoshopNews topic by Jeff Schewe that he, Michael, and Seth Resnick were to be in Miami to tape a tutorial. And in a thread on this forum, the same Mr. Schewe said he had packed his tie-dyed shorts and Hawaiian shirts and Michael threatened to wear a bikini...
Is this that tutorial? I took a look at the trailer and saw only Michael, in his usual conservative attire and Seth. Was Jeff hiding off camera, or did the censors digitally remove him?

I have just finished watching all of it and safely say there isnt a scerick of additional skin shown than you would expect  

In fact for Miami its all quite conservative!

EXCELLENT tutorial BTW - I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a great deal about the DAM side of Lightroom that I previously didnt know.
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: michael on June 19, 2009, 11:03:11 pm
Quote from: KeithR
Not having seen this new tutorial yet(still downloading it as I type this) I seem to recall a PhotoshopNews topic by Jeff Schewe that he, Michael, and Seth Resnick were to be in Miami to tape a tutorial. And in a thread on this forum, the same Mr. Schewe said he had packed his tie-dyed shorts and Hawaiian shirts and Michael threatened to wear a bikini...
Is this that tutorial? I took a look at the trailer and saw only Michael, in his usual conservative attire and Seth. Was Jeff hiding off camera, or did the censors digitally remove him?

Jeff wasn't involved in the new tutorial with Seth. He was there for a separate taping of new material on Camera Raw.

Michael
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: KeithR on June 20, 2009, 11:08:56 am
Quote from: michael
Jeff wasn't involved in the new tutorial with Seth. He was there for a separate taping of new material on Camera Raw.

Michael
Thanks for the heads up! I'll be looking for it. Any idea as to when. And will this update give any clues to the next generation of ACR?
On that note, since ACR and LR are so closely associated with one another, wouldn't it be simpler to just combine the two(in the update) and point out where they are similar/different in function with advantages as when to utilize which one? I realize that there are subtle differences between the apps, but they are so close in many aspects that even Adobe updates them somewhat together.
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Chris Bishop on June 21, 2009, 04:30:03 pm
Quote from: Craig Murphy
Peter Krogh's file naming system is better.

I currently think you may be right.
I'm waiting for some answers to some grey areas.
However there was so much more to this tutorial, I hope you weren't blinkered and missed the wealth of experience and knowledge the pair gave out.
Chris Bishop
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Chris Bishop on June 21, 2009, 04:37:55 pm
In the video, Seth "easily" re-named his files to be consistant, after a deletion or three. He also mentioned regularly deleting files to keep the catalogue "tight" If the folder had been archived, how would he know to re-verify and send off site?
I 'm used to keeping "archived" (read finished, or original RAWs) and "work in progress" (read current ,psds or .tifs in the video) seperate, not even changing a keyword to an archive file. How do you reconcile the two different types? I can see the difference between backup and archive. Backing up work in progress is fine and correct. I don't need to back up verified archived folders.
Chris Bishop
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: budjames on June 21, 2009, 07:41:33 pm
Michael and Chris,

As usual, Great Stuff!!!

I converted the files to AppleTV format so that I can watch them on my 52" plasma. A nice bottle of 2004 Sterling SVR Reserve and this series is making for a great evening.

I'm going to redo my file naming method and definitely do more comprehensive keywording.
Cheers.

Bud James
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: StuartOnline on June 21, 2009, 09:01:24 pm
Michael,

I also found 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures'  to be well worth purchasing. Even after purchasing your Lightroom 2.0 video that you put out last year I found this one very helpful. In fact I have now set up presets for importing like the way Seth has done.  I am also going back and redoing those images (nearly 15,000) I have already imported and changing the file names. I found out that after setting up the preset I could use that preset when using the re-name feature. Even though I have a fairly good handle with Lightroom I seem to always be learning something new.

Thanks again for providing these current training videos.  Will be looking for more in the future.

Stu
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Chris Bishop on June 22, 2009, 04:58:20 am
Quote from: StuartOnline
Michael,

I also found 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures'  to be well worth purchasing. Even after purchasing your Lightroom 2.0 video that you put out last year I found this one very helpful. In fact I have now set up presets for importing like the way Seth has done.  I am also going back and redoing those images (nearly 15,000) I have already imported and changing the file names. I found out that after setting up the preset I could use that preset when using the re-name feature. Even though I have a fairly good handle with Lightroom I seem to always be learning something new.

Thanks again for providing these current training videos.  Will be looking for more in the future.

Stu

I agree, but unsure about altering my archived photos. any suggestions? Or do I alter them, then re-archive them? How many times down the road does this happen? suggestions on this forum suggest they are working on a video for new LR "stuff" v3? More changes????
Chris Bishop
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: jed best on June 24, 2009, 09:32:06 pm
Kudos to Seth and Michael. I have had the privilege of hearing Seth at several D65 workshops. It is amazing how much I learn at each one and the same holds true for these DVD's. His system is so intuitive unlike others, that it is very easy to create a backup system that works. His advise to do adjustments on the raw file and then export to DNG has now been reinforced by Adobe changing what the DNG can do. It seems to me that it will still be some time before the DNG has been standardized so it is safest to follow Seth's advise.

His retelling of how his server toasted his images and without an offline backup, he would have been screwed is very telling. I for one, have ordered more off line drives so that they can be kept is a safe, offline place in case Murphy's law decides to visit me.

Jed Best
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: frugal on June 24, 2009, 09:43:23 pm
All in all it was a pretty good set of videos but I completely disagree with Seth's renaming of files after he's deleted some of the files from the catalogue. I understand the aesthetics but for someone as anal about following good practices for managing your files as Seth appears to be I can't believe he's doing this.

Filenames need to be sacred, renaming files like this just begs to create problems down the road, especially when you're changing the name to the same as another file that was in the same directory and was likely modified around the same time. Say for instance you load a ton of files into your library and then create a web gallery from some of the selects. After that you do some further edits on the library and delete some of the ones that didn't make the cut and then rename the files in the folder so there's no gaps, now at least some of the filenames in your library don't match what's on your website, but you don't think to update your website because you didn't add or delete any images that made it to the website. So then later on a customer views your site and decides to order a print and the filename given (either by the customer or the backend software on your site) doesn't match what's in your gallery so you end up shipping the wrong print.
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Josh-H on June 24, 2009, 11:16:48 pm
Quote from: frugal
All in all it was a pretty good set of videos but I completely disagree with Seth's renaming of files after he's deleted some of the files from the catalogue. I understand the aesthetics but for someone as anal about following good practices for managing your files as Seth appears to be I can't believe he's doing this.

Filenames need to be sacred, renaming files like this just begs to create problems down the road, especially when you're changing the name to the same as another file that was in the same directory and was likely modified around the same time. Say for instance you load a ton of files into your library and then create a web gallery from some of the selects. After that you do some further edits on the library and delete some of the ones that didn't make the cut and then rename the files in the folder so there's no gaps, now at least some of the filenames in your library don't match what's on your website, but you don't think to update your website because you didn't add or delete any images that made it to the website. So then later on a customer views your site and decides to order a print and the filename given (either by the customer or the backend software on your site) doesn't match what's in your gallery so you end up shipping the wrong print.

I agree with you - I take the M.R approach of keeping the original filename as sacred.

That said.. its personal preference as to wether and how to rename and I greatly respect Seths's opinion, methodology and reasons for his approach.

I think its just a matter of a different horse for a different course.
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: budjames on June 25, 2009, 07:16:45 am
If you watch the segment on file naming, Michael agrees to change is file naming system as explained.

Me, I'm rewatching the whole thing several times and then scanning the DAM book before I decide which way to go.

As a photo hobbyist, I don't have the huge number of images like a working pro.

Cheers.

Bud
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Chris Bishop on June 25, 2009, 10:39:24 am
OK, so you do all your work on the RAW file. It is now finshed and archived to DNG. That is the process I use.
Which is the main file, if it is needed again in the future? Because one or other is now out of sync, and no longer an archive copy of the "original", and how do you find them if the numbering has changed.
Chris Bishop
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: sethresnick on June 25, 2009, 10:52:48 am
Quote from: Chris Bishop
In the video, Seth "easily" re-named his files to be consistant, after a deletion or three. He also mentioned regularly deleting files to keep the catalogue "tight" If the folder had been archived, how would he know to re-verify and send off site?
I 'm used to keeping "archived" (read finished, or original RAWs) and "work in progress" (read current ,psds or .tifs in the video) seperate, not even changing a keyword to an archive file. How do you reconcile the two different types? I can see the difference between backup and archive. Backing up work in progress is fine and correct. I don't need to back up verified archived folders.
Chris Bishop


Hi Chris,

There is no way for me to show everything in a 3 hour video which is why we teach a four day workshop. Your question is a good one but the answer is really quite simple. The entire onsite archive is updated on a continual basis, currently four times per day. This is also duplicated to the drives which will become the offsite drives. (shipped out on a regular basis) The off site drives get shipped back to my office on a regular basis as well replaced by the latest one. The rotation allows for everything to always be in sync. I also realize that I just made this seem super complicated  when in fact it is super simple

best,

seth
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: sethresnick on June 25, 2009, 10:59:01 am
Quote from: frugal
All in all it was a pretty good set of videos but I completely disagree with Seth's renaming of files after he's deleted some of the files from the catalogue. I understand the aesthetics but for someone as anal about following good practices for managing your files as Seth appears to be I can't believe he's doing this.

Filenames need to be sacred, renaming files like this just begs to create problems down the road, especially when you're changing the name to the same as another file that was in the same directory and was likely modified around the same time. Say for instance you load a ton of files into your library and then create a web gallery from some of the selects. After that you do some further edits on the library and delete some of the ones that didn't make the cut and then rename the files in the folder so there's no gaps, now at least some of the filenames in your library don't match what's on your website, but you don't think to update your website because you didn't add or delete any images that made it to the website. So then later on a customer views your site and decides to order a print and the filename given (either by the customer or the backend software on your site) doesn't match what's in your gallery so you end up shipping the wrong print.

Filenames are sacred and we certainly agree on that. The web gallery situation you describe would never happen in our workflow. Smart collections are always maintained for all web galleries so anytime there would be a change to a file the Smart Collections are updated and the web galleries are updated simply as part of the workflow. The archiving process is also always occurring with scripts so any change is changed automatically anywhere in the system.

seth
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: sethresnick on June 25, 2009, 11:02:17 am
Quote from: Chris Bishop
OK, so you do all your work on the RAW file. It is now finshed and archived to DNG. That is the process I use.
Which is the main file, if it is needed again in the future? Because one or other is now out of sync, and no longer an archive copy of the "original", and how do you find them if the numbering has changed.
Chris Bishop


The master files are my raw files and DNGs' are exported to job folders. If a file is deleted or worked on down the road, a DNG is automatically exported replacing the older one in the job folder. There is never anything out of sync

best,

seth
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Chris Bishop on June 26, 2009, 07:33:35 am
Thanks Seth, you are a busy guy and appreciate your time on this topic.
Clearer now.
Chris
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: frugal on June 27, 2009, 09:49:58 pm
Quote from: sethresnick
Filenames are sacred and we certainly agree on that. The web gallery situation you describe would never happen in our workflow. Smart collections are always maintained for all web galleries so anytime there would be a change to a file the Smart Collections are updated and the web galleries are updated simply as part of the workflow. The archiving process is also always occurring with scripts so any change is changed automatically anywhere in the system.

seth

That makes sense. I was just using the web gallery as one example. Personally, I like my sequence numbers to be consistent across any copies I have, and in LR all you have control of is the what's in the library, renaming a file there will make sure the relevant file on the disk gets renamed but it doesn't do anything to track down any other files you might have kicking around (layered PSDs, flattened files, web images, etc). Yes, you could have those in your LR library as well but unless I'm missing something (and if I am, please share it with me!) there's no way to "link" all those files back to the original RAW file and keep the naming in sync.
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Gurglamei on June 29, 2009, 03:15:44 pm
Quote from: sethresnick
Filenames are sacred and we certainly agree on that. The web gallery situation you describe would never happen in our workflow. Smart collections are always maintained for all web galleries so anytime there would be a change to a file the Smart Collections are updated and the web galleries are updated simply as part of the workflow. The archiving process is also always occurring with scripts so any change is changed automatically anywhere in the system.

seth

One more question about file names: Why the 31 charater limit?

Christopher
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: john beardsworth on June 29, 2009, 03:31:59 pm
A historic limitation of the Unix operating system. But a filename of that length is verbal diarrhoea.

John
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: thebatman on June 29, 2009, 04:24:25 pm
Just wanted to say thanks for another great video; both entertaining and instructional, as usual.  Like Seth, I do rename files again to avoid any "gaps" in the sequence as deletes are made.  However, since I am perennially 1-2 months behind in processing my shots, and export JPGs to the same folder, occasionally I run into a glitch: if I want to develop a shot from yesterday, File005.dng now has File005a.jpg sitting beside it, but when I batch rename the folder the JPG becomes File006.jpg.  Not a big deal because I am not a pro, but wish there was some way around it.  I can just feel Seth's neck twitching  

P.S.  Chris, love the soda can in the foreground in the XMP module    (Sorry!  just couldn't resist)
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Christopher Sanderson on June 29, 2009, 06:38:20 pm
Quote from: thebatman
P.S.  Chris, love the soda can in the foreground in the XMP module    (Sorry!  just couldn't resist)
EDIT: P.S.  Michael, love the soda can in the foreground in the XMP module    (Sorry!  just couldn't resist)

I am not a Soda drinker  

Chris
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Pete Ferling on June 30, 2009, 10:01:54 pm
Finished the tutorial while in flight today.  Very informative and I learned a few tips that I'm going to incorporate (except I drink beer).  There is nothing wrong with being redundant (I have three copies of my personal work -I'm going to add a fourth for offsite).  Seth made it very clear that backups and archiving are not optional, but a requirement.  

At my day job we use cumulus for offsite backups, and my working drive that holds the master catalog failed.  Because I archived the DNGs, simply downloading and re-importing them into a new catalog was the easy fix.  That's the beauty of DNG's, having edits preserved within the file.

It seems like a lot of work, but LR makes it an easy habit to get into to.
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: joedecker on July 01, 2009, 04:46:09 pm
Finished the video series a couple days ago, liked it so much I wrote a review of it over on Photocrati.  I've used LR extensively the last couple years (and have taught classes based on it), but I still learned a few things, and now have another great resource to point intermediate students to.  Michael and Seth: Thanks!  --Joe
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Misirlou on July 01, 2009, 06:17:24 pm
Quote from: Craig Murphy
Peter Krogh's file naming system is better.

In what way?
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: sethresnick on July 06, 2009, 12:44:53 pm
Quote from: frugal
That makes sense. I was just using the web gallery as one example. Personally, I like my sequence numbers to be consistent across any copies I have, and in LR all you have control of is the what's in the library, renaming a file there will make sure the relevant file on the disk gets renamed but it doesn't do anything to track down any other files you might have kicking around (layered PSDs, flattened files, web images, etc). Yes, you could have those in your LR library as well but unless I'm missing something (and if I am, please share it with me!) there's no way to "link" all those files back to the original RAW file and keep the naming in sync.


Every job has a job folder with the naming convention yyyymmdd_jobname on external drives. If a file or series of files are changed in LR they are simply exported again to the job drive and the older information is replaced with the new. So to answer your question, everything is always in sync.

best,

seth
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: eitanwaks on July 07, 2009, 06:00:29 am
Seth and Michael,
thank you very much for your wonderful piece on image management. It certainly opened my eyes to the vast amount of things that I'm doing wrong. (The one thing I'm doing right is that I have been off-line storage).

I do have one question, in the part about working from laptop you mentioned that if you name both the main drive (in my case my desktop) and an external drive holding the catalog you can copy the catalog from the desktop and work on it on your laptop. When you're finished, all you need to do is copy it back to the desktop. At least that's what I understood.

For me this is critical because I commute to work about one hour each way and I would very much like to keyword my images during this time. Unfortunately I do not have a separate drive just for Lightroom on my desktop, nor do I have an external drive for carrying my Lightroom catalog (I back up to a Drobo).

How would I go about transferring my catalog (with the 1:1 previews) to my laptop to enable keywording if the drive names are not identical?

In addition, other than keywording can I rename/delete the files on my laptop (i.e. will they synchronize when the catalog is moved back to the desktop)?

Thank you so much for your wonderful tutorial,
Eitan Waks

PS I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask the question. If it isn't please either move this post to the right forum or delete it altogether.
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: digitaldog on July 07, 2009, 08:38:47 am
Quote from: eitanwaks
How would I go about transferring my catalog (with the 1:1 previews) to my laptop to enable keywording if the drive names are not identical?

Since the two drives are dedicated just to LR, you can use any clone utility (on the Mac, I use SuperDuper). Just go in the correct direction and everything gets updated and, only new data is copied (Smart Copy) to speed things up.

Of there's always the Export as Catalog/Import as Catalog function.
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: eitanwaks on July 07, 2009, 02:44:02 pm
digitaldog,
maybe I didn't clarify myself. I do not have two dedicated drives for Lightroom rather, I have two hard drives: one on my desktop and one on my laptop (in addition to the Drobo for backups). I work primarily on my desktop when handling images because of the better display however I have a lot of free time commuting back and forth from work and would like to keyword images during that time.

my question is how do I go about doing this?

Thanks,
Eitan Waks
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: digitaldog on July 07, 2009, 02:58:09 pm
Quote from: eitanwaks
digitaldog,
maybe I didn't clarify myself. I do not have two dedicated drives for Lightroom rather, I have two hard drives: one on my desktop and one on my laptop (in addition to the Drobo for backups). I work primarily on my desktop when handling images because of the better display however I have a lot of free time commuting back and forth from work and would like to keyword images during that time.

my question is how do I go about doing this?

Thanks,
Eitan Waks

Its easier with two dedicated drives but you can still use a unity to sync folders among drives. I use ChronoSync for this.
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Misirlou on July 08, 2009, 06:34:29 pm
Seth and Michael touched on a couple points tangentially in the videos that I am starting to get concerned about; the legal ramifications surrounding photography. Can anyone recommend any understandable, current resources? I'd like to know about how to handle model releases, copyright protection of my images, fair use of text in image captions/keywords, etc.

Maybe Michael could do a small video set just about this unpleasant, yet essential topic...

Or, maybe he already has?
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Etienne Cassar on March 19, 2010, 05:39:12 am
I am watching this very instructive video for the second time and just found out that the tip pointed out by Seth, namely to highlight and Ctrl click a caption word that you enter to go to the wikipedia and access information, doesn't work out for me.  I am on a PC running Windows 7 64 bit and wonder if this is something that is simply only available for MAC users.  Any ideas about this?

Thanks

Etienne

P.S. In case anyone asks I am not in the current import folder but in the library folder so I should have eliminated the so called 'Bug Feature' :-)
Title: 'Where the #%*! are My Pictures?'
Post by: Tom Montgomery on March 19, 2010, 08:24:04 pm
I believe that it is a Mac-only feature, but it is part of the Mac OS, and not specific to Lightroom.  Right-clicking on any word pretty much anywhere on the Mac's screen brings up a menu that includes Googling the word, a dictionary search, etc.