Comments on: Getting Started: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3′s Preference Menus

By: David Marx

David Marx — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:28:06 +0000

Dear Casey, The "Photos Go Here" folder is something that I created. It makes my image storage nice and tidy. It also makes it easier to move the entire set of image folders from one drive to another. See Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog Creation and Image Storage Fundamentals and Moving Folders with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. -- David Marx

By: Casey

Casey — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:29:31 +0000

Thanks so much for all of these great tutorials! I am learning so much from them! Just a quick question for you. In this tutorial you mentioned about creating a “Photos Go Here” folder. Is this something that you recommend to someone who is storing everything on external hard drive? If so where do I find the tutorial to do this? Thanks again for all the help!!!!!

By: Cory

Cory — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:56:25 +0000

Thanks for the reply. I did make the change, but nothing was happening for some time. Only manual.
After a bunch of digging around myself, I found that there was an update to Lightroom, and that fixed my problem. Once it was updated, the .xmp files were created/updated with each change.
Thanks so much.

By: David Marx

David Marx — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:52:54 +0000

Dear Cory,

Turning on the “Automatically Write to XMP” preference switch should force Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to start creating XMP files for all your .CR2′s assuming that you have indeed made changes. It might take the program quite a while though to create a sidecar for each one though if a: there are a lot of images in your catalog or b: you are working with a slow hard drive / computer combo. You might try leaving Photoshop Lightroom running in the background with this preference switch turned on for a night or two.

You might also be interested in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 beta’s new filter by metadata status ability.

–
David Marx

By: Cory

Cory — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:40:34 +0000

Thanks for this tutorial.
I have recently switch to my canon’s raw setting (.cr2).
I’ve enabled the xmp setting and restarted lightroom 3 a number of times.
But, the only way I get an .xmp file, and have the .xmp file updated, is to manually choose to “save metadata to file”.
I thought I understood this to mean it would happen automatically with each change. It is not doing that for me, even though the checkbox is checked. ?
Thanks.

By: David Marx

David Marx — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:55:08 +0000

Dear Paul, If keeping things simple is your goal then I have to urge you to use the Drobo for backup only. Store the primary copy of all your images, the copy that your Lightroom index references, on the regular external drive. Teach your Drobo to backup this external drive and your computer's internal disk. Using the Drobo as a working disk--meaning adding files that live on it into your Lightroom Catalog--adds a lot of complexity that I don't think you need. My article on My Photo Storage System: Two External Hard Drives and our article on Where Should I Keep My Lightroom Catalog might help. Again, my advice is to use the regular external drive as your primary storage and the Drobo solely for backup. By the way, I fear that you missed a key point in the tutorial on how to create an alias that leads to your Lightroom Catalog. The goal here is to prevent you from having multiple Lightroom Catalogs. If you create an alias to a Catalog on the Drobo and keep the alias to the Catalog on your regular external disk then you must have multiple Catalogs and thus we have not accomplished anything... -- David Marx

By: paul

paul — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 23:51:03 +0000

David,
With your help I have made an alias on my external drive that I use with my laptop (macbook pro). But I am setting up a drobo for backup off of my desktop (imac). I would like to work on the images on both, plus I have allot of images that I need to move out of iphoto on the desktop to the Lr catalog. Do I have to make another alias for the drobo to recognize my catalog. I am trying to have one catalog work on both external and drobo. I am just trying to make it simple. I have moved the images from iphoto on the laptop to the external with the Lr catalog alias no problem, I just need to do the same thing on the desktop. I am an old film guy trying to catch up been out of the game for a while.

Thanks
Paul

By: David Marx

David Marx — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:57:25 +0000

Dear Keith Randolph,

I am not sure why you can’t see the Images folder in Bridge. In Bridge, do you have the “View Folders” and the “View Items from Sub-Folders” options turned on?

–
David Marx

By: Keith Randolph

Keith Randolph — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:27:32 +0000

David,
I guess my main question is that since I set up my drive “D” per your instructions, with the LR catalog as a seperate folder and a folder that I import image files to, why can’t I see that “Images” folder when I open bridge and navigate to that “D” drive. As previously stated, the only thing showing is the folder for the LR catalog, not both.
I will be looking at the referenced video,s later this evening.

By: David Marx

David Marx — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 06:18:04 +0000

Dear Keith Randolph,

Your Catalog (the .lrcat) and it’s preview files (the .lrdata folder and sub-folders) are not going to show anything useful for you in the Adobe Bridge or in the Windows Explorer. These are database files, and thumbnail caches, that Lightroom uses but that no other program will understand. This article http://thelightroomlab.com/2008/12/understanding-lightrooms-non-destructive-image-enhancement-system/ and this video tutorial http://tv.adobe.com/watch/the-complete-picture-with-julieanne-kost/saving-changes-to-your-photographs-in-lightroom-3/ from Julieanne Kost might help you understand more about how Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop interact.

Hope this helps,

David Marx