Category: Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: I keep all my photos on a portable external hard drive, but I have outgrown the capacity of the drive. In one of your webinars, you mentioned that this happened to you, but you did not explain how you worked this out with splitting your photos onto two external hard drives. How did you approach that? What happens when I do a search and only one portable hard drive is connected to the computer?

Tim’s Quick Answer: When I got to the point that I was running out of storage space on the hard drive I use for storing my photos (https://timgrey.me/rugged5t), I moved what I considered my “lower priority” images to the secondary hard drive, keeping my “higher priority” photos on the primary drive.

More Detail: When your photo storage starts to reach the capacity limit of the hard drive, you’re using to store your photos, there are three possible solutions. You can get a hard drive with a higher capacity, you can delete outtake photos to reduce your storage needs, or you can divide your photos across more than one hard drive, hopefully with some organizational structure that will prevent confusion about which photos are on which drive.

I felt that the process of reviewing my large library of photos and deleting outtakes would involve a significant time investment. Eventually I will undertake that project, but I needed a faster solution in the short term.

I would have been happy to buy a hard drive with a higher capacity, but there isn’t a good solution here for my needs. I store my photos on LaCie Rugged portable hard drives (https://timgrey.me/rugged5t) because I typically travel somewhat extensively and want to have my photos available during my travels. The model that I use has a maximum capacity of five terabytes. There is a model with an eight-terabyte capacity (https://timgrey.me/rugged8tb), but the form factor makes this drive less convenient in my view.

So, for me, at least for now, the solution was to divide my photos across two hard drives. That meant I had to decide how to choose which photos would remain on the primary hard drive, and which would be moved to a secondary hard drive. For me the easiest approach was to move folders containing photos that I was less likely to use to the secondary hard drive, keeping the photos I was most likely to use on the primary hard drive.

What that amounted to for me was moving folders representing trips where I didn’t feel I had captured my best photos to the secondary hard drive. That would include trips that weren’t completely focused on photography, trips to locations that I didn’t find especially photogenic, or trips where the weather didn’t cooperate. You could also obviously divide photos based on age, with the older photos going to the secondary hard drive and the newer photos remaining on the primary hard drive.

The folders containing photos from my favorite trips remained on the primary hard drive, and I made a point of leaving plenty of free space on this hard drive so I wouldn’t need to move additional photos to the secondary drive for a while.

Hopefully a new portable hard drive with much higher capacity will be available soon. If not, I’ll need to make a point of undertaking a project soon to delete outtake photos in order to reduce the amount of storage capacity required for my photos.

Today’s Question: Is it okay to store external hard drives in plastic boxes for safekeeping once used and replaced? If not, what do you recommend for long term storage?

Tim’s Quick Answer: My general recommendation for storing any type of hard drive is to avoid extreme conditions. In the case of “traditional” hard drives (rather than solid state drives), I also recommend using the drive about every six months or so to help avoid having the drive components seize up.

More Detail: Computer storage devices are reasonable durable, especially in the context of general storage. As long as you keep the device safe from relatively extreme temperature and humidity, there shouldn’t be any problems with the device.

For traditional hard drives with moving components, there is the additional risk of the internal components seizing up if the drive is not powered up periodically. I don’t consider this an especially high likelihood, but it is enough of a concern that I recommend testing the drive every six months or so.

This approach of testing the drive can also help ensure you are aware of any impending failures. For example, if you test copying files to or from the drive, if there is a problem with the drive there’s a good chance there will be an error with this operation. If there are any such problems, I recommend replacing the drive with a new backup.

For solid state drives (SSD’s) this periodic testing is less of an issue, at least in terms of there not being any moving parts that might seize up. I still recommend checking the drive periodically, so you’ll know if the device has failed.

Because there is always the potential for a storage device to fail unexpectedly, even if a drive is intended for long-term archival storage, I recommend maintaining one or two backups, and ideally an offsite backup (such as an online backup) as well.

Today’s Question: I am moving my photos from one external hard drive to another with a slight change to the folder structure in the process. Is it recommended to just create a new catalog for the new folder structure by just importing with the “Add” option? If I do that, will I lose track of all the modifications that I’ve made in the past within Lightroom Classic?

Tim’s Quick Answer: No, I do not recommend re-importing photos to account for a modified folder structure. Rather, you should modify the folder structure from directly within Lightroom Classic.

More Detail: There are two potential problems created by making changes to your overall folder or storage structure outside of Lightroom Classic.

First, if you make changes to the folder structure outside of Lightroom Classic then the connections to your photos will be lost. You would then need to reconnect the missing folders and photos, which could be an arduous task if the changes to the folder structure were significant.

If you try to overcome this issue by importing the photos from their modified folder structure into a new catalog using the “Add” option, then you will lose at least some of the information about your photos. If you had enabled the option to automatically save metadata updates to XMP sidecar files in the Catalog Settings dialog, then most standard metadata would be preserved.

However, with this approach of importing photos from a new location you would lose Lightroom-specific features such as collections, virtual copies, and the history within the Develop module, among other information.

Therefore, I strongly recommend making any desired changes to your folder or storage structure from within Lightroom Classic. That includes the ability to rename folders, create new folders, move folders or photos to a different location, and more. The key is to perform all of that work within Lightroom Classic to avoid disconnected photos or missing metadata.

Note that these issues (and much more) are covered in my comprehensive video course “Cleaning Up Your Mess in Lightroom Classic”, which you can learn more about here:

https://www.greylearning.com/courses/lightroom-mess

Today’s Question: With recent backup options you mentioned, do these also backup movies and mp4 files? I have used Carbonite, but they do not backup movies and videos.

Tim’s Quick Answer: Both tools I use to back up my photos and other important data include video files as part of that backup. That includes GoodSync (http://timgrey.me/greybackup) for my local backup and Backblaze (https://timgrey.me/onlinebackup) for my remote online backup.

More Detail: Some online backup services may exclude video files from the backup, which obviously can be a concern for photographers. For example, Carbonite requires that you upgrade to a “Plus” or “Prime” plan for videos to be included in your online backup.

The Backblaze online backup service I use (https://timgrey.me/onlinebackup) does not have this limitation. With a standard Backblaze plan you can include videos as part of your online backup, with unlimited file sizes and unlimited total capacity.

In addition, the GoodSync software I use for local backups (from one hard drive to another) will backup all files on the source drive you have designated.

Needless to say, it is important to make sure that your backup solution is indeed backing up all of the files you think it is. For example, you’ll want to ensure external hard drives are included as part of your backup, not just the internal hard drives on your computer.

Today’s Question: Can Lightroom Classic show me only photos captured with the selfie lens (or the main lens) the way I can in the Apple Photos application?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can filter images in Lightroom Classic based on which lens was used, which in the case of a smartphone means you can filter based on images captured with the “front” camera (such as for selfies) or the “rear” camera (for “normal” captures).

More Detail: Lightroom Classic includes a wide variety of options for filtering your photos, which can be tremendously helpful for locating a specific image. As I often say, with the various metadata filtering options there’s a good chance you can locate a photo based on whatever details you can actually remember about the image.

This filtering includes the option for showing only photos captured with a specific lens. For smartphones that generally include both a front and a rear lens, you can filter images based on which of those lenses were used to capture photos. That means you can effectively filter based on photos captured with the “selfie” lens versus the normal lens.

Not all capture attributes are included in the filtering options in Lightroom Classic, which does create some limits for smartphone captures. For example, you can’t filter images captured as a Live Photo or in Portrait mode for iPhone captures, nor can you easily filter images captured as panoramas.

However, despite the limitations, the filtering options within Lightroom Classic do provide very effective options for locating specific photos.

Today’s Question: Since any image has at least SOME discernible noise, and if the intent is to print large whether on paper or some other medium, why not use noise reduction software all the time?

Tim’s Quick Answer: As long as the noise reduction settings are relatively modest, it is absolutely not a problem to apply noise reduction to all photos. In fact, many software tools for processing raw captures (including those from Adobe) will apply a small amount of noise reduction by default.

More Detail: Every digital photo will exhibit at least a small amount of noise, and so it is reasonable to apply some degree of noise reduction to all images. The key is to make sure the noise reduction settings applied by default aren’t too strong.

I recommend being especially conservative when it comes to luminance noise reduction. For color noise reduction you don’t need to be quite as careful, because it takes rather strong settings for color noise reduction to have a negative impact on a photo.

For example, by default Lightroom Classic applies a small degree of color noise reduction but does not apply luminance noise reduction. I consider this the safest approach in terms of applying noise reduction to all photos.

If settings for luminance noise reduction are too strong, overall texture and detail in the photo can be degraded, sometimes significantly. That is because noise reduction operates in part by averaging out pixel values, and when that relates to tonal values the edge contrast is reduced, leading to a softer appearance for the photo.

With color noise reduction it takes a much more aggressive application before obvious color issues are created. With very strong settings for color noise reduction, for example, you will see a loss of overall saturation and a blending of colors along contrast edges.

But again, as long as your settings for noise reduction are relatively modest (or extremely modest when it comes to luminance noise) I do consider it safe to apply noise reduction to all photos.

Today’s Question: I use Lightroom Mobile to make raw captures on my iPhone, and I sync the captures via Adobe Creative Cloud, from which they are automatically downloaded to my Lightroom Classic catalog on my computer. After this download, I move the images within Lightroom Classic from the Pictures folder on the Mac to an external hard drive, where I keep all of my photos. Can I then delete the photos from my iPhone, or will that cause the photos to be deleted from my external hard drive as well?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Once you have moved photos within Lightroom Classic from the synchronized folder to another storage location (such as an external hard drive) you can safely delete the cloud-based copy of the photos from the Lightroom mobile app without losing the photos on your external hard drive.

More Detail: The Lightroom mobile app includes an option to capture photos in a raw capture format, producing an Adobe DNG (digital negative) file. Those photos are then synchronized to the Adobe Creative Cloud, so they are available through your Creative Cloud account elsewhere, including within Lightroom Classic if you have synchronization enabled.

This provides a convenient way to get the photos captured with the Lightroom mobile app into your normal workflow that revolves around local storage (on an external hard drive in this example).

Once those raw captures have been synchronized to your computer, they will appear in the location designated in Preferences on the Lightroom Sync tab. By default this is within a “Lightroom” folder in the Pictures folder for your operating system. You can drag-and-drop those photos to a different storage location, which will move the source images to the destination location you specify.

However, the photos will remain in your Creative Cloud storage, creating redundancy that can be confusing. Therefore, when you have finished moving the synchronized folders to your preferred local storage location, you can delete the original captures through the Lightroom app on your mobile device. The local copy of those photos managed by Lightroom Classic will not be affected.

Today’s Question: I work exclusively in Lightroom Classic and work on an external drive with nothing on my computer. Backups are critical but when I drag and drop the folder [containing the catalog] to the backup it does not give the option to replace but copies it. The result is the latest folder is inside the prior folder and the process takes 2-3 hours. What am I doing wrong and how do I do it correctly to replace?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I recommend using Lightroom Classic to back up the catalog, I strongly recommend using a synchronization-based backup solution rather than copying files through the operating system, and I recommend discarding older backup copies of the catalog.

More Detail: The built-in catalog backup feature in Lightroom Classic includes options for checking the catalog for errors and optimizing the catalog, which is why I recommend using this backup option even if you are already backing up the catalog with other software.

Rather than depending on an approach that involves using the operating system to manually copy files you want to make an additional backup copy of, I recommend using software that can streamline this workflow. I use GoodSync software (http://timgrey.me/greybackup), for example, to back up my photos and other important files. With this approach only new or updated files are backed up, which can save considerable time. In addition, with this type of approach the backup is an exact match of the original, which is particularly helpful if you ever need to recover from a backup.

Finally, I recommend deleting older copies of your Lightroom Classic catalog backups rather than retaining the clutter and additional storage requirements of numerous backups. When deleting old catalog backups I typically keep the most recent few backups, a backup from several months ago, and perhaps one backup from about six months ago. Keeping older backup copies provides a potential solution in the event that a backup represents a catalog that had already become corrupted, though this is not a very likely scenario.

Today’s Question: Would you comment on the new “enhance” feature in Lightroom [for enhancing detail and enlarging photos]. The description sounds great but the instructions are not very clear.

Tim’s Quick Answer: The new “Enhance” features in Lightroom and Camera Raw include both a “Raw Details” feature for improving the appearance of detail in a raw capture, and a “Super Resolution” feature for enlarging the image to double the linear dimensions (four times the total image area). These features promise to improve the quality of large output for photos.

More Detail: The “Enhance” features make use of Adobe Sensei, which employs artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve the quality of photos, especially for large output.

While my testing has shown that the Raw Details feature does create a visible improvement to the image, that improvement is not dramatic. There is a minor enhancement of edge contrast and smoothness within the photo, which can contribute to a better appearance in a large print.

I’ve been less impressed with the Super Resolution feature. With all of the images I tested the results of Super Resolution did not appear better compared to simple enlargement within Photoshop. In fact, in most cases the Super Resolution version of the image looked worse, with more texture that appeared as noise in what had been smooth areas of the image.

Therefore, I would certainly consider using the Raw Details feature for photos I wanted to print at a large size, but my testing has convinced me that the Super Resolution feature is not providing an advantage in terms of enlargement quality. Hopefully as this feature is improved in the future it will start to provide a clear advantage.

These features can be applied to photos in Lightroom Classic by selecting an image and choosing Photo > Enhance from the menu. In Camera Raw you can right-click on an image in the filmstrip and choose “Enhance” from the popup menu.

You can turn on the “Raw Details” checkbox if you want to enhance details for a raw capture. If you want to enlarge the image, you can turn on the “Super Resolution” checkbox. Note that the Raw Details feature is only available for raw captures (and only those with a Bayer or X-Trans sensor pattern). The Super Resolution feature can also be applied to TIFF and JPEG images.

When you enable Super Resolution, the Raw Details feature will automatically be enabled for supported raw captures.

There is also a “Create Stack” checkbox in the Enhance Preview dialog in Lightroom Classic. I recommend having this checkbox turned on, so that the newly created image will be included in a stack with the original, keeping the images together and making it easier to manage them.

You can then click the Enhance button, and the selected features will be applied to your image.

Today’s Question: For Lightroom Classic, would it be OK to just back up the catalog and not the previews? My previews take forever to back up.

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, it is perfectly safe to exclude the previews from a catalog backup for Lightroom Classic. In fact, the built-in backup feature that I recommend using automatically excludes previews from the backup.

More Detail: I strongly recommend backing up your Lightroom Classic catalog to help ensure you are safeguarding the information about your photos. Obviously, you should also be backing up the photos themselves as part of your overall backup workflow.

There is no need to back up the previews that are included in the folder along with the actual Lightroom Classic catalog, because those previews can easily be re-built later should you need to recover from a backup of your catalog.

Even if you are backing up your Lightroom Classic catalog using other software, I still recommend using the built-in backup feature to back up the catalog on a somewhat regular basis. That is because the built-in backup includes options to check the catalog for errors and to optimize the catalog. I recommend making sure both checkboxes for these features are turned on in the dialog that appears when a catalog backup is initiated.