[Sandy Tracy]

Hi Ladies,

I run the risk of not making any sense, but I am going to give this a shot. I just spent the weekend with Scott Kelby trying to figure out Lightroom. I think I pretty much understand. I started with just importing my Christmas pictures and just playing with those. I fixed the white balance, copied the changes and applied it to other pictures with similar problems. All in all, I love the flow that lightroom creates. THEN, I came across a problem...Lightroom does not make the changes to the original, so I can only view the changes in Lightroom. So basically if I want to use any of the pictures I made changes to they would have to be exported from Lightroom and saved again somewhere on my hard-drive. And from Lightroom, I cannot open in PSE, only in CS4. I know that this can be good, because they are "non-detructive" changes, but it just seems like a hassle to have to save the file again. Am I the only one that sees this as a problem? Am I looking at this wrong? Someone help me see the good in this program.

TIA,
Sandy

[SilverSwanMama]

Can't help you Sandy, but I'm about to get Lightroom and I'm interested to hear the responses.

[bjc]

first of all let me say that lightroom is great... and if you shoot in raw..which i do it is even better .... the photos are not stored in lightroom...they are kept whereever you have downloaded them to... in my case that is on my ehd in a folder called pictures and subfolders by dates...

so when you export them what i do is export them to a subfolder i call export inside the original dated one...i do not export all my photos...but you can make the changes in lightroom and just leave them that way till you need to print or use them for a layout...

at first it does seem like extra steps...but once you see how quickly and wonderfully LR can fix a photo, or apply a preset ( there are some good ones here at sg... ) then you may decide you like it

also if you are shooting in raw your photos have to be adjusted or made into jpegs anyway so this isnt really such an extra step when you see what LR can do

interested what other responses you will be getting...i say stick with it and since you probably enjoyed "spending time with scott kelby" anyway may as well put it all to good use

lol

[MLLatscrapgirls]

I do see that as a problem, lol, but not enough of one to stop using Lightroom. I just export my corrected photos to a folder called PSE Exports. It is easy to find them there, either from Picasa or from PSE.

It is a great program, and I am interested (and envious lol) to hear you had lessons from Scott Kelby! Once you have a folder set up for your exports, it only takes a few seconds to send them off for PSE, so I would definitely vote for continuing to learn it.

[Sandy Tracy]

Thanks for your responses ladies!

I played around some more last night and found a plug in that allows me to export from Lightroom to PSE...that really helps!

Bobbie-I do shoot in RAW, and you do have a very good point, I do have to save the picture anyways. After thinking about it, I rarely save changes unless I am going to print the pictures. I usually import the picture into PSE, make changes and then add to my layout and I rarely save the changes to the original file. So I really am not missing out on anything there. So I take it that you organize all your pictures in Lightroom. Is your system all by dates and you tag the pictures accordingly? Where do you store your digi-supplies?

MLL-I may be borrowing your output idea for Lightroom. I like the idea of having one folder for all the "updated" pictures. I am still learning so I am definitely not giving up on Lightroom yet. Plus, I am not done with the Kelby book, so it looks like I may be spending more time with Mr. Kelby.

Jennifer-Do hurry and get Lightroom, afterall, you are my learning buddy! And I have the Kelby book, so don't buy it, you can borrow mine.

Thanks for the help!

[ChristyVW]

Sandy, I don't think you should have needed a plug-in to be able to open the photos with PSE.

In Lightroom, if you go to Edit>Preferences, on the 'External Editing' tab there is a box that says 'Additional External Editor'. You can use the 'choose' button to set it up to use PSE.

Then, you can right click on a photo and select 'Edit In' and Photoshop Elements should show up as a choice. A pop-up will come up where the only choice is 'Edit a copy with Lightroom Adjustments'. This will open the file as a PSD. You can make your changes in PSE, then choose 'Save' when you are done (overwrite the existing file). Then, when you go back to lightroom, you will now have a PSD file with the same name as the original RAW file. (I chose not to stack mine, so they show up as two separate things - my verdict is still out on the whole stacking thing ). Now, if you want to edit the PSD again, right click and choose Edit In PSE. When the pop-up appears this time, you have a choice of what to edit. If you chose 'Original', your layered PSD will open in PSE.

I have been playing with LR for about 8 months now and still have not decided on a final workflow. I shoot in RAW too and love the ease of LR for doing all my basic edits. I still always end up tweaking in PS before using the final photo. For a while I was doing all the basic edits in LR, sharpening in PS and saving a JPG version, then deleting all my RAW files - not wanting to take up all the hard drive space keeping RAW for everything long term. Like I said, I am still not sure if this is my 'official' workflow yet or not!! LOL!

[sunnie2004]

I have the beta 3 Lightroom and I am so sweet talking me and Hubby into please please buy me this! I think it is supberb over adobe CS3

[bjc]

Sandy Tracy, on 28 December 2009 - 03:08 PM, said:

Thanks for your responses ladies!

I played around some more last night and found a plug in that allows me to export from Lightroom to PSE...that really helps!

Bobbie-I do shoot in RAW, and you do have a very good point, I do have to save the picture anyways. After thinking about it, I rarely save changes unless I am going to print the pictures. I usually import the picture into PSE, make changes and then add to my layout and I rarely save the changes to the original file. So I really am not missing out on anything there. So I take it that you organize all your pictures in Lightroom. Is your system all by dates and you tag the pictures accordingly? Where do you store your digi-supplies?

MLL-I may be borrowing your output idea for Lightroom. I like the idea of having one folder for all the "updated" pictures. I am still learning so I am definitely not giving up on Lightroom yet. Plus, I am not done with the Kelby book, so it looks like I may be spending more time with Mr. Kelby.

Jennifer-Do hurry and get Lightroom, afterall, you are my learning buddy! And I have the Kelby book, so don't buy it, you can borrow mine.

Thanks for the help!

i upload my photos from my card reader using LR... in my pictures i have a folder by years...2008. 2009 and soon 2010 (!) ...i then do each upload by date...and then after i rename them with a name after the date..this helps me remember...for example... 2009-12-22 nate eating pancakes...i havent figured out how to name then when i upload them from the cf card...i only see the choices by date... so that is why i do date and name... i then may not do anything more with my photos till i want to scrap or do some printing etc...then i go thru and pick out my favs from the folder... and then adjust those that are my favs and then export them into the same original folder with a sub folder called export in that original folder...sometimes i export the same photo with different adjustments..like in bw and color... sometimes i go back to a folder and am looking for something that i didnt adjust the first time cause now i have something else in mind...so then i adjust the photo that i need

i am also trying to find time to learn about some of the other adjustments you can do in LR... but havent gotten that advanced yet...


btw..all my photos are uploaded and saved to an ehd... that is also where i have all my scrapbooking supplies and my scrapbook pages...
i too use the kelby book..

[Sandy Tracy]

Yay Christy! That did it! I really appreciate everyone's help with this. LR is growing on me. I still have a lot to learn and I know that eventually I will figure out what works for me and create my own work flow. It is nice to hear everyone's work flow.

Thanks!

[ScrappingForever]

Coming soon, to an SG classroom near you - a Lightroom class. Just saying...

[Sandy Tracy]

YAY! YAY! YAY!

[KarinaS]

Downloaded the beta version last night....is there a way to only import a few pictures (or one subfolder) at a time? I have TONS of pictures and it takes forever to import them and I'm assuming it's bogging down the program as well...

TIA to you "experts" out there

[bjc]

KarinaS, on 20 January 2010 - 12:27 PM, said:

Downloaded the beta version last night....is there a way to only import a few pictures (or one subfolder) at a time? I have TONS of pictures and it takes forever to import them and I'm assuming it's bogging down the program as well...

TIA to you "experts" out there

go to file...import from disk and then just select the folder or the photo that you want to import...i would suggest you also choose copy photos to catalog with out moving ....

[MLLatscrapgirls]

[Shelbi]

ScrappingForever, on 29 December 2009 - 12:43 PM, said:

Coming soon, to an SG classroom near you - a Lightroom class. Just saying...

Oh I am so so so excited to hear this. I bought LR, loaded it into my computer, bought a how-to book and that is as far as I have gotten LOL.

[MargotW]

ScrappingForever, on 29 December 2009 - 12:43 PM, said:

Coming soon, to an SG classroom near you - a Lightroom class. Just saying...

Can't wait! I think there is going to be a mad stampeed to this class sign up!