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The Devil is in the Details
As a workflow consultant, I get a backstage pass to analyze and dissect what our clients are doing to streamline and perfect their workflows. What amazes me time and time again is how small inefficiencies add up to make processing volumes of images time consuming and to many photographers … tedious.
One particularly thorny part of any Lightroom workflow is moving images to and from Photoshop. As much as I like Lightroom presets, I will tell you dear reader that I love my Photoshop Actions just as much. It is often the need to reach for a Photoshop Action that forces our images to take a detour out of Lightroom. Reality continues to dictate that a Lightroom to Photoshop workflow will continue to be a very tight relationship for photographers - especially for wedding and event photographers.
That being said, the real issue at hand is the tendency for Lightroom to create a derivative image (such as a PSD) using the ‘Edit in Photoshop’ command and place the file into the same folder as your source image. This leaves us with a folder that includes not only our source files but ALSO our derivative files. The view from Lightroom is all too familiar:
We always advise keeping derivative files separate from source files but unfortunately Lightroom has lumped them all together. What we really want to do is place our Photoshop derivative in a folder outside the location of the source file. So how do we do this?
1. Create a new folder (Ctrl+Shift+N)
2. Navigate your Finder (OSX) or Explorer (PC) and determine the location of your folder.
3. Select your derivative file in Lightroom
4. Drag-and-drop to your new folder location
5. Accept what is a rather scary warning to most Lightroom newbies:
Here is what is happening in the background:
Our source folder includes not only our source files but ALSO our Photoshop derivative file.
… after the move in Lightroom:
Our Photoshop derivative file is now in a folder outside the location of the source file.
And there you have it. Doesn’t seem like much does it?
Guess again.
When you are processing hundreds, or thousands of images these small details start to add considerable time to your processing. A couple of dialog boxes here, a few menus there, some trips to and from Lightroom and the file system to make sure everything is where it should be and we’ve now invested a lot of our time to managing files when what we want to be doing is MAKING IMAGES!
Our team, and clients, have been running up against this kink for months. We are proposing Adobe provide a folder location selector in the ‘Edit in Photoshop’ dialog.
In addition to this dialog we are suggesting the small arrow, when selected, remember your previous locations to further speed up your workflow.
What do you think? What other creative ways have you come up with to mitigate this bottleneck? Is there a FASTER way to do this?
Until next time ... happy shooting!
|Brandon Oelling
Comments (17)
Doesn't this break Lightroom's ability to stack the original and the edited version together?
Not at all. Lightroom knows where the files are to be located during the move gesture, and all stacks will remain intact.
|B
Yes PLEASE!!!!! This is exactly what I have been looking to see in LR. It has been causing me issues in trying to manage my images per the recommendations of Peter Krogh in the DAM Book. Excellent!
New reader, so I have to ask: why do you advocate keeping the original and derivative files seperate? I used to do this but couldn't figure out why, so I stopped.
Ah, it's in the DAM book? I have that at home, anyone know where in the book it is?
I thought Stacking (at least on my Mac) only was allowed in the same folder.
Good show! I often times find myself fishing through my folders for edits/derivative files ... much easier to just lump them together and sort them like this! It is always fun, too, when someone points out the overly obvious! -J.
Completely agree wiht your suggestion. Have been fighting with this relocation of derivatives forever...
But as per some previous comment, currently stacks only work in same folder.. Should be easy to fix... hope Adobe guys do that soon.
One last related problem I run across with derivatives:
When I backup my immages (originals aor derivatives) I add the backup CD name as a keyword to all the pictures in it.. just as a note that it has been backed up and to make it easier to locate if needed... But when I create a derivative, that keword is passed along...
So if I forget to delete that particular keyword each time I create a new derivative I can later get a missleading understanding that the file is already backued up when it is not.
What I would need as a solution is the ability to tag certain keywords as "non-trasnferable" to derivatives/copies... is that too much to ask?
any alternative workflow solutions to keep track of backup status/location?
Thanks,
ET
Great suggestion Brandon, this would certainly make life easier for many of us!
Here, here. Right on. I like separate everything when it comes to editing from my originals; file names, folders names and location. I often make several variations from the same original and place them into folders for evaluation at a later time. I work fast in Lightroom, then when I need to publish or print I return to the folder and make my final decision; print, publish or both. The workflow is comes to a crawl when you need to sort through hundreds to find a few.
Perfect solution as far as I can tell. We'll give you the Adobe equivalent of the Nobel prize if you can get this implemented. Keep up the good work.
Thanks to everyone for all your great comments!
I did want to clarify as ET and Scott pointed out: the stacks will break when the previously stacked files are no longer located in the same folder.
I do not use stacks too much in my workflow, but I think this discussion almost merits its own blog entry. I would really like to know how you all and other leverage stacks in your workflow.
|B
I see from your screen shots that you even take the step of placing each image master into a separate folder.
Aside from the fact it's in Peter Krough's DAM book why do you bother? What do you feel you are gaining?
For my workflow I would wonder what happens when I want to go on the road and take a subset of my masters and derivative files with me to work on while I am traveling.
How do I bundle up those images and then reintegrate them when I get home?
I'm still wondering why it's advantageous to have your masters and edits in separate folders.
I have to second Chris Norris here; why the need to use folders for this? -Collections and keywords are an excellent way to separate masters and edits.
If you are using OS X you can also define "smart folders" (in Finder) to keep an easy (and more familiar) folder approach to separating the two.
Just my two cents :)
I don't see what the advantages are of physically moving files that have been worked on to a different folder. It only adds time and steps to a workflow.
Why not use the functionality of Lightroom - use stacks; flags; ratings; collections and colour labels.
Adding unnecessary steps to a workflow should be the opposite of what you are trying to achieve.
Why not just have Lightroom mark derivatives by changing the color of their file name or adding an emblem (such as the turned-up page in a stack) that would make it easy to spot and to collect them all? There could even be a command to show only the derivatives. That would make it really easy to collect just the "finished" imageas into a slideshow or to export them to disk for shipment to the customer.