“It is critical to understand that Lightroom will always take its own database to be correct,” says Victoria Bampton, raw processing guru and self-dubbed “Lightroom Queen.” (And rightly so!) In case you’re not clear, Bampton is talking about the fact that when working with images in a LR catalog, LR will always refer to the most recent changes that were made in LR, even you worked on images more recently in another program.
Huh?
What this means is that if you update any metadata — from keywords to develop settings – in any other program besides LR (such as Adobe Bridge or Adobe Camera Raw), LR will not be aware of those changes. Considering that many of use do use multiple programs to work with our image, you can see how we could quickly end up with a very big mess.
The solution? Simple: All we have to do is update our LR catalog by using the ‘Read Metadata from Files’ function.
This LR data practice is both very basic and extremely critical to understand, and yet Bampton says that a LOT of photographers are confused about it.
To help us with all kinds of basic and critical, but often confusing LR issues, Bampton has authored “Adobe Lightroom – The Missing FAQ,” a compilation of what she believes are the most frequently asked LR questions. This book truly rocks (trust me), and it is available in downloadable 397-page PDF, which is fully-searchable eBook. (Sweet, no?)
Bampton’s “The Missing FAQ” has no fancy layout or no silly fluff, but a heck of a lot of excellent, well-ordered knowledge – most of which, as she suggests, really is missing from the most popular LR learning resources. Definitely check itices out to get a handle on any nagging LR questions you might have — fast and easy. (She covers way more than just data practices.)
To help you get a handle on how to best approach learning about LR data practices, I authored “Lightroom Data Practices: Getting Under the Hood” for my most recent “After Capture” column. I suggest a process that I think you will find valuable even if you have Bampton’s book. She offers solid answers; I offer a solid learning methodology.
If you have read Bampton’s book AND my article, and you are STILL confused about something regarding LR data handling, let me know and I’ll try to did up an answer for you (i.e. write “Lightroom Queen!”)
If you’re totally on top of your LR data practices, definitely share any great advice or strategies you’ve come up with. We’d love to hear!
September 11th, 2009 12:23 pm
Just what I needed to conceptualize what I’ve experienced over a long period of time. Thanks.