Escape vs. `key

[Nill Toulme]

Finally gave LR a go last night.  A longtime C1 user, I am impressed by LR3's NR and sharpening results and am contemplating making the switch.

My first experience with it was  a bit frustrating though.  As instructed, I clicked Import to start bringing in a folder of images.  Started going through them, toggling the flag off the non-keepers with the ` key.  But every so often I would miss ` and hit Escape instead, which took me all the way out of the Import module — and worse yet, when I went back into Import, all the flags were reset and I had to start over from scratch.  Is this just standard hazing of beginners?  ;-)

Nill

[Sheldon N]

Try a different set of keystrokes - P for Pick, X for reject, U for unflag (if you hit the wrong key).

In LR, the flag is usually used for keepers of some sort, and the reject is used to mark non-keepers. The reject also grays the image out while in grid view so you can easily see which ones are rejected.

Have you gone through Michael's LR tutorial videos? If you haven't, I'd highly recommend them.

[Nill Toulme]

Thanks Sheldon, I will give the tutorials a go.

But is Escape really supposed to do that?  In a non-recoverable fashion?

Nill

[john beardsworth]

Your problem was that you were trying to decide which to keep within the Import dialog. That's not really the idea. Instead, just import the entire folder. This registers those files in the catalogue/database, and now you can go through using the P U X flags - and try doing so with and without Caps Lock.

John

[Nill Toulme]

Ah... that makes sense.  Thanks.

Nill

[wolfnowl]

Nill:

Once you've imported your images and gone through them using 'P/U/X' your pick images will be flagged and your rejects will be marked as such.  If you want to go further, you can 'refine' your images using Library/ Refine Photos.  What this will do is to go through the images in whatever folder you have open, mark the unmarked images as rejects and mark the pick images as unflagged.  You can then refine those further, etc.  Keep in mind that rejected images aren't removed from the catalogue until you tell Lightroom to do so (using Photo/ Delete Rejected Photos) and even then you can decide whether to delete them from disk or simply remove them from the catalogue.

Mike.

P.S.  I have a list of over 135 sites that have Lightroom tips, tutorials and videos here: http://bit.ly/LRTips

[Nill Toulme]

Thanks.  One more question:  Having imported a shoot, is it possible to go through it quickly in a fullscreen sharpened view, applying P/U/X as we go?

Nill

[NikoJorj]

Thanks.  One more question:  Having imported a shoot, is it possible to go through it quickly in a fullscreen sharpened view, applying P/U/X as we go?

To be able to accurately visualize sharpening, you need to build 1:1 previews first - you do that either at import, or with ctrlA and then library/previews/render 1:1 previews (takes a while, but that's in the background). Then, switch to 1:1 view, and hide the side panels with Tab or shift-Tab.

[Nill Toulme]

Thanks!

Nill