Author: Tim Grey

Today’s Question: I noticed the announcement of a 25-megapixel micro four thirds sensor camera, the Panasonic Lumix GH6 (https://bhpho.to/3tpT6sT). Is that about the same image quality, plus or minus 4%, as my 24-megapixel Nikon full frame camera [such as the Nikon Z6 II, https://bhpho.to/36FJQYQ]? Smaller pixels I guess, but I’m not sure how or if that matters.

Tim’s Quick Answer: All other things being equal (which they of course aren’t) the smaller sensor would be expected to produce more noise and not offer as much dynamic range.

More Detail: There are myriad factors that ultimately determine image quality for a given sensor, so it is difficult to make an accurate comparison based exclusively on specifications. The best approach is to directly test different cameras under equal conditions to get a better sense of the relative quality of each sensor.

That said, there are some general properties that impact overall image quality. The size of the individual pixel elements is one of the more significant of these factors. Smaller pixel sites will generally translate into lower dynamic range and more noise. This is because the smaller pixel sites will generally not be able to gather as much light as a larger pixel site.

However, there are many other factors that impact image quality. Signal processing is a significant factor that will vary among different sensors, but the results are difficult to predict without hands-on testing. In addition, sensor manufacturers have made various efforts to improve the performance of their sensors even when they have smaller pixel sites, such as by using lenses to focus the light being captured at each pixel site.

Typically, a larger sensor of a given megapixel resolution would be expected to provide better image quality. Keep in mind, however, that most higher-end camera models offer generally good image quality, and so it is important to weigh other features such as autofocus performance, image stabilization, and other options that may be helpful to you when making a decision about a specific camera mode.

Today’s Question: I am getting ready to take an overseas trip in which I will not have internet access. I am wanting to copy my Lightroom Classic catalog from its current location in Dropbox over to a laptop computer which I will use to import the images from my trip. Could you provide instructions on how to do this? Also, would I just reverse the process once I return home to get the catalog back into Dropbox?

Tim’s Quick Answer: To transfer the Lightroom Classic catalog you can copy the entire folder that contains the catalog file and related helper files, and then rename the original folder to clearly identify it as a backup copy.

More Detail: To transfer the Lightroom Classic catalog you’ll first need to know where that catalog is. Fortunately, this is easily done through the Catalog Settings dialog. Start by choosing Edit > Catalog Settings from the menu on Windows, or Lightroom Classic > Catalog Settings on Macintosh. Go to the General tab and click the Show button at the top-right of the Information section. That will open a window in your operating system with the folder that contains the Lightroom Classic catalog highlighted.

Next, be sure to quit Lightroom Classic, because there is a risk of the catalog being corrupted if it is copied (or moved) while it is in use.

You can then drag-and-drop the folder that contains the catalog and related files to the desired location. With both Windows and Macintosh if the folder (or file) you are dragging is being dropped to a different hard drive location the default will be for the folder to be copied rather than moved. If you want to copy to a different location on the same hard drive, you can hold the Ctrl key on Windows or the Option key on Macintosh to copy rather than move.

Next, rename the folder in the original location to make it clear that it is now a backup copy. For example, I generally add “BACKUP” in all caps to the beginning of the folder (or file) name to I have the copy as a backup but don’t inadvertently use it.

You can then open the catalog from the new location by double-clicking the catalog file (the file with the .lrcat filename extension). When you return from your trip you can use the same process outlined here, just changing the source and destination locations for the transfer.

I should hasten to remind readers that I don’t recommend storing your Lightroom Classic catalog in a synchronized folder (such as Dropbox) for the purpose of accessing the catalog on more than one computer, as there is a degree of risk that the catalog could become corrupted. If you are going to use this approach, I suggest that whenever switching computers you make sure that the synchronization has updated on both computers before using Lightroom Classic.

Today’s Question: When you update Lightroom Classic [to a new version that requires an update to the catalog], will your default catalog automatically switch [to the newly updated catalog]?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, if you have set a specific catalog as the default catalog in Lightroom Classic and then need to update that catalog for a new version of Lightroom Classic, the default catalog will also update to the newly updated catalog.

More Detail: This is actually a question that was asked during one of the live online sessions of my recent online workshop focused on organizing photos in Lightroom Classic. I was stumped at the time, as I don’t recall how this had been handled with earlier updates.

However, I tested Lightroom Classic and found that the default catalog setting will indeed get updated. So, for example, let’s assume you had set your catalog as the default catalog in Lightroom Classic 10. When you upgrade to Lightroom Classic 11, that catalog would need to be updated, including getting a new filename. After that update, the newly updated catalog would be set as your new default catalog as well.

By the way, I strongly recommend setting your primary (and hopefully only) Lightroom Classic catalog as the default catalog that will be loaded every time you launch Lightroom Classic. You can find this option in the Default section of the General tab of the Preferences dialog in Lightroom Classic. Selecting your primary catalog as the default catalog will ensure you’re always using the correct catalog when you launch Lightroom Classic, even if you had previously opened a different catalog for some reason.

Today’s Question: Do you have any documentation that explains what the badge icons are that appear on thumbnails of photos in Lightroom Classic?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes! I’ve published a post on the GreyLearning blog that defines the “badge” icons on photo thumbnails in Lightroom Classic here:

https://greylearningblog.com/meaning-of-thumbnail-badge-icons-in-lightroom-classic/

More Detail: By default, Lightroom Classic displays icons at the bottom-right corner of applicable photos in both the grid view display in the Library module as well as on the filmstrip on the bottom panel. The five badges are used to indicate whether an image has had keywords added to it, has GPS coordinates in metadata, is included in one or more collections, has been cropped, or has been edited in the Develop module.

I find these badges very helpful, especially since you can click on the badges to access specific features as outlined in the article linked above. However, if you don’t like having the badges displayed it is possible to turn them off.

For the grid view display you can update the settings in the View Options dialog, which you can access by selecting View > View Options from the menu. Turn off the “Thumbnail Badges” checkbox in the Cell Icons section of the Grid View tab if you don’t want to see thumbnail badges in the grid view.

For the filmstrip you can turn off the badges in Preferences. Start by selecting Edit > Preferences from the menu on Windows or Lightroom Classic > Preferences on Macintosh. Go to the Interface tab, and turn off the “Show badges” checkbox in the Filmstrip section if you don’t want to have badges displayed on thumbnails on the filmstrip.

Today’s Question: When or for whom would Capture One be an alternative to Lightroom Classic or Photoshop?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I think that for most photographers Lightroom Classic and Photoshop represent a better overall workflow solution. However, for some photographers such as commercial studio photographers (especially if they collaborate with clients) Capture One represents an alternative worth considering.

More Detail: In many respects Capture One can be thought of as providing many of the features available in Lightroom Classic or Photoshop. In the early days of Capture One I felt that it offered what was perhaps the best processing capabilities for raw captures. However, over the years all the various tools for processing raw captures have improved to the point that excellent quality can be obtained with just about any of them.

In other words, the decision now is mostly about workflow needs and personal preference.

I consider Lightroom Classic to be superior to Capture One when it comes to organizing your photos. It would be fair to say that Capture One has some additional features for optimizing photos that go beyond Lightroom Classic, but of course you can send photos from Lightroom Classic to Photoshop and go far beyond what is possible with Capture One.

Where I think Capture One has an advantage over Lightroom Classic is when it comes to collaborating with a client in the studio, even while actually capturing the photos. Capture One provides a good workflow for tethered capture, so a client can be reviewing photos as they are captured. There is even a Capture One Live service that enables remote collaboration via the internet.

Because of the overlap in features and the workflow issues involved, I don’t think it makes sense to use both Capture One and Lightroom Classic together. Rather, I think photographers should choose one or the other. I prefer the combination of Lightroom Classic and Photoshop over Capture One, but I also think Capture One is very good software for the photographer.

For a photographer who hasn’t already started using either of these tools, it is worth evaluating both. I think most photographers would be better served by Lightroom Classic and possibly Photoshop, but for some photographers (especially studio photographers) the unique features of Capture One may be a better fit.

Note, by the way, that Capture One is more expensive that the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan. The Creative Cloud Photography plan includes Lightroom Classic and Photoshop and costs US$9.99 per month, while Capture One Pro is US$24 per month. Both subscriptions offer savings if you pay annually. Capture One Pro is also available with a perpetual license for one major version at a cost of US$299.

Today’s Question: I use collections to synchronize images from Lightroom Classic to Lightroom Mobile for Android and I use Folders to organize images on Lightroom Classic. Do the Folders and Albums in Lightroom Mobile conflict with collections and folders on Lightroom Classic? Or are Lightroom Mobile Folders like Collection Sets in Lightroom Classic?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Collections in Lightroom Classic correspond to albums with the cloud-based ecosystem for Lightroom, which would include the cloud-based version of Lightroom, the Lightroom app for mobile devices, or Lightroom in a web browser (https://lightroom.adobe.com). Folders in Lightroom Classic correspond directly to folders on your hard drive where the photos are stored, whereas the term “folders” in the cloud-based ecosystem of Lightroom relates to collection sets in Lightroom Classic.

More Detail: Folders in Lightroom Classic represent actual folders on your hard drive. The folder structure you see in the Folders list in the Library module in Lightroom Classic will match the folder structure on the hard drive for the photos that are actually being managed by your catalog.

Collections in Lightroom Classic can be thought of as basically the same as Albums in Lightroom Mobile. If you enable synchronization for a collection in Lightroom Classic, that collection appears as an album in Lightroom Mobile. Similarly, if you create an album on Lightroom Mobile and add images to the album, that album will appear as a collection in Lightroom Classic, with synchronization enabled for that collection.

Folders in Lightroom Mobile can be thought of as the same thing as collection sets in Lightroom Classic. However, these items don’t actually synchronize. If you enable synchronization for a collection that is included in a collection set in Lightroom Classic, the collection appears as an album in Lightroom Mobile but doesn’t appear in a folder representing the collection set from Lightroom Classic.

If you create a folder in Lightroom Mobile with an album in that folder and photos in the album, the photos and album will synchronize to a collection in Lightroom Classic, but the folder from Lightroom Mobile won’t appear as a collection set in Lightroom Classic. Rather, albums synchronized from Lightroom Mobile will appear in a “From Lightroom” collection set, without the folder/collection set structure synchronizing.

In other words, for the cloud-based ecosystem for Lightroom that includes the Lightroom CC desktop application, the Lightroom Mobile app, and web browser access to Lightroom (via https://lightroom.adobe.com), folders and albums operate the same. The outlier is Lightroom Classic, which uses different terminology and does not synchronize in exactly the same way as the rest of the Lightroom ecosystem.

Today’s Question: Is there any advantage between shooting black and white in camera versus converting in Lightroom Classic?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Assuming you’re capturing in raw (which I consider critically important for black and white images) the only advantage to setting your camera to black and white is to get a preview on the camera’s LCD of what the image will look like in general as a black and white image. The actual conversion from color should be done after the capture.

More Detail: While I recommend raw capture for all photography, I consider raw capture absolutely critical for photos that will be converted to black and white. If you capture in or convert to black and white for a JPEG capture, the image will have a maximum of 256 shades of gray. That results in a very high risk of a loss of smooth gradations (posterization) if relatively strong adjustments are applied to the image.

With raw capture you are recording at a higher bit depth, which for most cameras translates to a bit depth of 12-bits or 14-bits per channel (with a small number of cameras supporting 16-bit per channel capture). By comparison to a JPEG capture, that translates up to 4,096 shades of gray for a 12-bit capture, 16,384 shades for a 14-bit capture, and 65,536 shades at 16-bits.

Setting your camera to black and white will provide a grayscale preview of the raw capture, which can obviously be helpful. However, as soon as you import that raw capture into Lightroom Classic or open it with other raw processing software, the image will appear again in color. You can then convert to black and white and apply adjustments to optimize that image, confident that you’re taking full advantage of the additional tonal range represented by the raw capture compared to a JPEG capture.

If you set your camera to black and white when capturing JPEG images, there will not be any color information recorded and you’ll be left with a grayscale image with only a maximum of 256 shades of gray. That can lead to serious image quality problems if moderate adjustments are applied, which is why raw capture is so important when your intent is to convert the images to black and white.

Today’s Question: Thanks for develop preset. Is there a way to see (read) what this develop preset does without applying to an image?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Sort of. You can open the source file for a Develop preset with a text editor and read the details of the adjustments. The file can be a little cumbersome to read, however.

More Detail: When you save a preset in the Develop module (or export a Develop preset from Lightroom Classic) the result is an XMP file that contains the metadata related to the adjustments included with the preset. You can import presets obtained from others, but within Lightroom Classic there isn’t an easy way to determine which adjustments are included in the preset. You could reset the adjustments for a test image, apply the preset, and then note any adjustment settings that differ from the defaults, but this isn’t a very easy or reliable approach.

You can, however, review the source XMP file for the saved preset and read the details about the included adjustments. The details can be a little obscure, but they are there.

To review the contents of the saved preset you can open it in a text editor or word processor. Just be sure not to make any changes or re-save the file, as that may corrupt the preset.

On the Presets list on the left panel in the Develop module in Lightroom Classic you can right-click on any preset you’ve saved or imported (not those included with Lightroom Classic) and choose “Show in Finder” on Macintosh or “Show in Explorer” on Windows. That will open a window in your operating system showing the location where the preset is saved, with that preset highlighted.

You can open the XMP file with a basic text editor, and then read the details of the adjustment. Unless you’re familiar with the Extensible Markup Language (XML) formatting, this won’t necessarily be an easy task. But you fill find lines that indicate adjustment settings that are being modified by the saved preset, such as this:

crs:ColorNoiseReductionSmoothness=”80″

The above line references a change for the Smoothness slider for Color Noise Reduction to a value of 80, up from the default value of 50. Note, however, that some of the names of adjustments won’t be particularly obvious relative to the name of the slider or control in Lightroom Classic.

Obviously, it would be nice if Adobe provided an easier way to discover the contents of a Develop preset, since within Lightroom Classic you pretty much only have the name of the preset to go by. However, in the meantime reviewing the source XMP file does provide a reasonable solution.

Today’s Question: Can (or should) old Lightroom Classic catalog files be deleted?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, I do think that older catalog files should be deleted to avoid confusion and clutter, and to some extent to free up hard drive space. The only additional consideration is how soon those older catalog files should be deleted.

More Detail: In Lightroom Classic it is critically important to ensure you’re always working with the correct version of your catalog. In general, I recommend that photographers only use a single catalog to manage their photos with Lightroom Classic, so that basically means always working with the most recent catalog.

Over time you will also accumulate “extra” copies of your catalog, such as when the catalog file needs to be updated for a new version of Lightroom Classic. That was the case with the upgrade to Lightroom Classic version 11, for example. When your existing catalog is upgraded from version 10 to version 11, you’ll end up with a new catalog for version 11 but the existing catalog from version 10 will remain.

You will also accumulate multiple backup copies of your Lightroom Catalog, assuming you’re using the built-in catalog backup feature, which I strongly recommend making use of so that your catalog can be checked for errors and optimized as part of that backup process.

When it comes to deciding when to delete older catalogs, I recommend trying to find a balance between the potential utility versus the potential for confusion. For example, even if I were to completely lose all recent copies of my Lightroom Classic catalog, I don’t imagine I would ever want to recover from a backup that was created ten years ago. There would be so much recent information missing from that catalog that recovering from it wouldn’t be of much help.

I generally consider any catalog more than about one year old to be of minimal value to a photographer who is actively capturing new images. So, in general I would say it probably makes sense to delete catalogs that are older than about one year.

Of course, it is also a good idea to be somewhat conservative when deleting files that have potential value. Therefore, you might consider an intermediate step of moving files that could be deleted to an archival storage location. For example, as soon as a catalog is updated for a new version of Lightroom Classic you could move the previous version files to an archive folder. The backup copies of the catalog should also not be stored in the exact same folder as the current catalog (by default they are stored in a “Backups” folder within the folder that contains the catalog).

The key is to avoid confusion about which catalog is your “real” catalog, to avoid clutter related to your catalog, and to avoid consuming hard drive space unnecessarily. As long as your current catalog is working properly and you have several backup copies, older files can certainly be deleted or at least archived.

Today’s Question: I continue to scan in old paper photos to build up a digital archive of my travels past and present. The photos are 5×4 prints. I have made good progress with the Lightroom Classic to Photoshop workflow, but the problem of sharpness and noise remains. Would Topaz help? Or can you suggest anything extra/extraordinary in the Lightroom Classic to Photoshop process?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I think Lightroom Classic is very well suited to improving the overall look of these photos. For that purpose, I would focus on noise reduction and sharpening, as well as Texture, Clarity, and possibly Dehaze. If there are blemishes that need to be dealt with, I would primarily use Photoshop for that work.

More Detail: The first step here is to try to ensure you are getting the best original digital image from your analog originals. A flatbed scanner can do a good job in general, but you’ll actually likely get better results by photographing the originals. I recommend using a copy stand with lights set at a 45-degree angle above the original. I also recommend avoiding the use of glass over the original if possible, opting for a document holder that will hold by the edges to keep the print flat.

Once you have a digital image, of course, you’ll want to optimize that result. If there is color noise that can be handled very well with Lightroom Classic. I would use a moderately high value for Smoothness (around 75 or so is reasonable), a relatively low setting for Detail (generally under 10), and a moderate setting for Color (the actual noise reduction amount) as needed. The Color slider will probably call for anywhere from around 25 to perhaps as high as 75 depending on the source image.

Sharpening can be applied in the normal way but being careful not to increase the Amount too high, resulting in an enhancement of paper texture and grain, for example, rather than the overall sharpness. I would take a very modest approach to sharpening.

For the overall texture of the image, I would generally use a positive value for Clarity in order to enhance midtone contrast and perceived sharpness. Values of at least 20 and possibly much higher can be helpful. For some images you may also find that increasing the value for Dehaze helps to enhance contrast and perceived sharpness.

It is possible that a positive value for Texture could help to enhance fine detail and the overall appearance of sharpness. However, having scanned an analog print there’s a good chance that Texture will lead to problems. Instead, you might consider a slightly negative value for texture (perhaps around -10 depending on the image), with a positive value for Clarity. This will diminish fine detail from the paper and film grain, for example, while enhancing midtone contrast for the actual photo.

Obviously, the general adjustments such as Whites, Blacks, Highlights, and Shadows can also be helpful for these images. And as noted above, if there are blemishes you need to deal with those are probably best worked on in Photoshop, where among other things you have the Content-Aware technology available with several of the image cleanup tools.