Lightroom 3 - setup tips?

[Marko]

Hi members,

So I'd like to try LR3 and I recall seeing something about how to best set it up....

Are there any tips members can share about how best to START using LR3 for the first time? (and mistakes to avoid)

many thanks!

[edG]

Hey Marko can't really offer any tips- I just fumble through as best I can (haven't used half of the features related to sorting/archiving/meta data, etc). Here is a link to Adobe TV for the Lr 3 product, I am still going through them.

AdobeTV | Learn Lightroom 3

[Mad Aussie]

Don't make your catalogues too big ... it takes forever to sync them otherwise.

[Marko]

Don't make your catalogues too big ... it takes forever to sync them otherwise.

This is exactly what I'm after.... and I'm gonna sound like a noob here...but isn't the catalogue the entire inventory of the images you bring into lightroom? If so...how can you keep it small if you have tons of images?

[Mad Aussie]

You could ... but you'd regret it very quickly. A Catalogue in LR is what you want it to be really so I make mine more or less mimic what I use on my harddrive/storage.

If you are like me, you'll have your photos divided on your harddrive/storage in various categories i.e landscape, portrait, still life, transport, birds, animals etc etc. Some of those can contain a lot of photos! If you have several thousands shots of birds for instance it can take awhile to synchronize. Synchronizing is the LR process of checking through your LR catalogue and the harddrive folder it points to and making sure you have all the photos in there or whether it needs to remove any that are not. For instance, remove a photo from your harddrive it does not automatically get removed from your LR catalogue. Also, export an image out of LR into Photoshop ... process it, and re-save it with a different filename and it will not automatically show up in the LR catalogue. Synchronizing the folder achieves this. This process can take a long time if there's thousands of photos in your catalogue.

Therefore, I try to keep my catalogues down to less than around 1500 photos give or take. Your figure may vary depending on the speed of your computer.

I have about 15 or more LR Catalogues. Inside many are sub folders which is also handy in LR because it sees these and allows you to sync those separately if you wish. This further speeds the process up.

[mbrager]

I had LR3 trial versions on my computers, Mac and PC, during the holidays. As a hobbyist with computer skills, I found the Library function unnecessarily complicated for my (simple) needs and preferred Picasa because it always catalogues by date by default, no matter where the file or directory is located. I don't catalogue by subject, as our Australian friend mentions.
The Slideshow segment is also unnecessarily complicated with too many options for my needs. I like the way Picasa works, starting a full screen slide show with one button press. In LR3 you have to turn off a few defaults to start a straight up slide show with no borders or backgrounds.
I liked the way it is possible to turn off sections of LR with a mouse gesture to give more screen real estate, and bring them back with a gesture. After a while, once I figured out where everything is, editing a picture became quite quick and easy. The Develop segment was adequate, but I found the tools like the ND filter and the selective editing brushes forced me into choices I didn't always want to make. Layer masks produce far more detailed results than what LR3 offers in my opinion. The Develop segment is non-destructive, and you are working on RAW images immediately, instead of using the PS RAW editor. This is supposedly a more advanced engine, but I preferred the separate application, applying basic exposure, noise reduction, sharpening and white balance editing before using Photoshop, where layers are the main thing. As most people recognize, the noise reduction in LR3 is top notch, but for me, that is a minor feature.
I came to like the automatic Flickr upload feature once I figured out how to use it. It exports the file automatically as a jpg to Flickr, but doesn't save a jpg file locally. It also seemed less intuitive than using the Flickr uploader as a separate application. Also the export function to create a jpg file was complicated. If I recall correctly, I didn't find the Print function very accurate or helpful, and printing from Photoshop produced much more accurate results.
I spent a lot of time learning LR3 and in the end decided it wasn't worth the commitment. I believe I have all the tools I need in Photoshop Elements and Picasa and there was no need to change workflow and use LR3 in spite of it being a very sophisticated all-you-need-for-photo-editing application.
Marko, I'm not sure any of this will speak to you, but as a non-professional, intermediate level hobbyist, I'm waiting for PSE 9 to come out.
Mike