Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Digital Asset Management => Topic started by: Mike Fewster on December 14, 2013, 09:49:27 pm
-
I use Lightroom and Photoshop on my home computer. When travelling I use an ultrabook that has limited HD space however I can carry an external HD for files, but I want the program running on the operating system. I am looking for a small footprint photoprocessor with at least basic editing plus 64 bit, high quality RAW conversion.
I can then do basic editing as I go and import the files into Lightroom when I return. I use ICE to do Panorama stitching as I travel (I find it too confusing trying to work out what image went with what after I return).
I have tried using s second copy of LR on my travel computer but find the combining of catalogues problematic.
Any suggestions? Thanks
-
Hi Mike, welcome to LuLa!
I am sorry to be a bit of a party pooper but the requirements that you describe are Lightroom!
You just need to learn how to export and import a catalogue - it isn't hard.
My suggestion is to try it with a TEST catalog containing, say, just five images, to prove the concept for you.
Lightroom is actually designed with precisely your requirements in mind.
Tony Jay
-
Do check out Export to Catalog and Import from Catalog.
I returned from a six-week trip in the middle of September. During the trip, I put all of my images into a LR catalog on a Core I3 powered laptop, with the images on a portable hard drive. I also carried another portable hard drive that I used as backup to the first. Upon returning home, rather than dragging 2300 50MB images over the slow wireless network, I used export from catalog to create a catalog on one of the external hard drives and then connected the hard drive to my main computer, on which I used import from catalog to copy all of the processing done during the trip and all of the base images onto the main computer. The main difficulty with the process is to insure that the images are copied to the transfer drive and into the main computer.
Alan
-
Do check out Export to Catalog and Import from Catalog.
Exactly. It's nothing complicated.
-
Thank you everyone for your assistance. I will investigate Lightroom further. Incidentally, do I need to buy a second copy for my travel computer or can I use the same purchase twice?
I am hoping that this thankyou is visible to everyone who replied.
Regards
-
Mike, the EULA only states that you cannot use single license software simultaneously on two computers.
You are allowed to load Lightroom (single license) on two computers and use them sequentially.
So when you are away you use the laptop, when you are at home you use the workstation.
As always when it comes to legal-type advice you should verify the details independently.
(Reading the EULA itself is not a bad first step!)
Tony Jay
-
That's great.
Many thanks Tony
Mike
-
Not inexpensive but will do exactly what you want, on two computers no-less;
Capture One and Media Pro… I love it!!
lets you take 2.5M images (or smaller if you're storage disadvantaged) with you that are all you need for nice PP work and then just plug it into your desktop when you get home and update… done, finished, perfect!
Two LR licenses are still a bit cheaper, but this is soooo seamless that even I can do it!
Been with LR since LR3 but this is just too good. Takes care of your down-time and you can do rather precise work.
Actually you don't really need Media One, but it is such a nice system for all types of media files and works so well with C1 that it's almost not as much fun… and more work to actually catalog everything universally. media One will work with your other programs as well and then bring it all home in one spot. Very slick...
-
Thanks Allegretto
This is a rather nice forum without the fanboyism I tend to find elsewhere. I alsready have LR and PS so I have a bit of a bias to work with these. An update. Following the device from others here, I have now got LR running on my ultrabook and I will do a test transfer with a few shots on the next few days. But I'll keep your suggestions in mind allegretto. If I think I have the need (or if curiosity gets the better of me), I'll have a play with a trial version.
Thanks again everyone.
-
Thanks Allegretto
This is a rather nice forum without the fanboyism I tend to find elsewhere. I alsready have LR and PS so I have a bit of a bias to work with these. An update. Following the device from others here, I have now got LR running on my ultrabook and I will do a test transfer with a few shots on the next few days. But I'll keep your suggestions in mind allegretto. If I think I have the need (or if curiosity gets the better of me), I'll have a play with a trial version.
Thanks again everyone.
know what you mean, Man… know what you mean…some ass-hats around here
-
Go with LR. Make it work. Period. It is simply inefficient to have two different processing systems as what you do in the field or while travelling with one is time wasted when you come back to LR at home.
I know you have a laptop already, but for others who may have drawn to topic, consider that With price of laptops these days, if a light travel laptop with SSD is too expensive, it just makes sense even to buy an inexpensive Windows machine with a 256GB or 500GB hard drive (and most now come with larger!) just to run LR even if you are running a high end Mac system at home. Mac laptops are expensive, but the nice thing is, LR Windows and LR Mac speak the same language. Throw in your back-up drive and you are all set. And as Tony said and aduke confirmed, learn how to use Export to catalog and Import from catalog, it will make your life so much easier.
Hope this helps.
-
Thanks for the reply Terry, I have done just that. I have LR on my ultrabook and the ultrabook is running the minimum number of programs that I really need so I can keep the 128gig drive at an effective level. I also carry a very small 1tb external HD with uSB3 for files. My wife will have a backup hd stored in her luggage as back up. The hd also carries sufficient movies to keep me happy on long flights (most flights from Australia are long overnight affairs and I am tired of airline movies not working).
What I really want now (and I think everyone does) is a tablet with enough grunt to run LR and connection for a hard drive. It will come.
-
As everyone else has said, you've already got all you need to do the job, you just need to learn how to use it to suit your purpose.
I've found Georeg Jardine's video tutorials on LR excellent and there's a set specifically aimed at dealing catalogues and how to import/export them http://mulita.com/blog/?page_id=4130
-
Thanks for that. I have had a trial run and it worked just fine. Getting folders mastered for the downloads is the next step, but I think I know now how I can handle that as well.
-
Mike,
I travel with Lightroom and Photoshop and an external hard disk. I will put the catalog and images on the external Disk (the Lightroom software has to be on your system disk) and work that way. I do basic edits - good enough for e-mails, etc. I also carry a small Bamboo tablet to ease this process.
Once I get home, I take the hard disk, plug it into my home desktop, and use Lightroom's "Import from Catalog" feature to pull it all in - keywords, side-car, edits, all of it. It works very well.
-- Mike
-
Thanks Mike
Assisted by this forum, that is what I am now doing. I create one folder on the external hard drive that contains everything relating to the trip. I create a subfile structure within the file based on the places we visit. I transfer the complete trip file into my master catalogue when I get home and it arrives with the subfolder hierarchy.
I am not using Photoshop as I travel but I am using Microsoft ICE. I find shooting sequences for possible stitching one of the most tricky things to deal with when I get home as it can be tedious trying to remember the sequences etc to reassemble. I therefore do this editing as I travel and then I cull the sequences I don't want while the original and the shooting is fresh in my head. This also gives me a completed panorama with the sequence and this makes later decision making when I might be wading through many many images, a lot easier.
Now what I want is a tablet with enough grunt to handle Lightroom and a usb3 port for the hard drive and about 10 hours battery life. No such device as yet, but it will happen in the next few years I think. My HP 128 gig ultrabook goes close but is still bigger/heavier than I want for air travel. The power adapters particularly. One of the plusses of the computer plus hard drive is that I can take my own entertainment system and not have to rely on the in flight offerings.
I still have to refine (maybe it'd just practice) my technique for exporting shots as I travel for sending to family etc.
Thanks for your interest and help
Mike
-
Now what I want is a tablet with enough grunt to handle Lightroom and a usb3 port for the hard drive and about 10 hours battery life. No such device as yet, but it will happen in the next few years I think.
The Surface Pro 2 might be the one.
-
I have heard that Photogene 4 will handle rAW processing and PP on an ipad. Has anyone experience using this program? Is it fast enough? Does it take shortcuts that might permanently change the original file? If it can do a good job, that's impressive.
Thanks
-
Off the topic perhaps, but I remember my first photographic trip and there were all these people in a place they had never been to and will probably never go to again, sitting in a hotel room editing photos.
I now ditch the computer, take lots of cards and spend my time photographing the sites and absorbing the culture. The shots are right when I click the button and they will be right when I sit in a comfy chair with a big monitor and powerful computer back home.
-
What I really want now (and I think everyone does) is a tablet with enough grunt to run LR and connection for a hard drive. It will come.
Coming on the 1st September 2014, MS Surface Pro 3 icore 7, 8gb ram, 512gb ssd, usb3, 2160x1440 screen sounds perfect for LR on the road.
-
Thanks Bob. I noted that. I want to have a closer look at the specs to see which model I need. I think I might need the 512 size, which looks pricey. Either that or I'll need to look at the connectivity and continue to also carry a small hard drive. I also want to know (haven't seen it mentioned) about the recharging. My ultrabook needs a small brick as well in my luggage. But yes, this looks to be the breakthrough.
I am currently travelling in Italy, with the ultrabook with LR installed plus a hard drive. It is working well for me as a system. I am also carrying three Sony cameras and trying to decide what I might standardize on/lose for future trips. With me I have an RX1 (quite possibly my favourite camera of all time), an RX100 and a 5n with Just one lens, the Sony 10-18. I am enjoying just reaching for another camera rather than lens swapping, but it is one camera too many. The 10-18 lens on the Sony 5n is brilliant but I might get very interested in the just announced RX100 mk3 which has a widerfocal length and might keep me happy instead of lugging the 5n and then stitch shots from the RX1 when I need even wider. Decisions, decisions.
-
Off the topic perhaps, but I remember my first photographic trip and there were all these people in a place they had never been to and will probably never go to again, sitting in a hotel room editing photos.
I now ditch the computer, take lots of cards and spend my time photographing the sites and absorbing the culture. The shots are right when I click the button and they will be right when I sit in a comfy chair with a big monitor and powerful computer back home.
I know exactly what you mean, but it's not necessarily computers to blame. My girlfriend was on a business trip to China a few years back and all the chaps wanted to do was sit in the bar and drink as opposed to having a look around Shanghai.
I will download, sort, name + backup photos out each day whilst away, because if I wait to get home to do that, I may have forgotten the names, details etc that are needed for organising. And that's tediously time consuming when somewhere new and interesting. Though I may grab a shot that catches my eye to post on FB, but that's so quick compared to filing, it's no big deal.