Author: Tim Grey

Today’s Question: What would be your suggestion when I have maxed out my 20TB external hard drive?

Tim’s Quick Answer: While you could certainly find storage options with higher capacity, I do think it is reasonable to divide storage across more than one hard drive when there isn’t a practical solution to increase storage on a single drive.

More Detail: Once you get beyond about a dozen or so terabytes, there aren’t as many options available for hard drive storage, and those that are available tend to be relatively expensive. If you have specific requirements for hard drive features, your options will be even more limited. Therefore, it may make more sense to divide your photos across more than one hard drive rather than trying to find enough storage capacity in a single device.

To be sure, there are large storage options, such as hard drive arrays and network attached storage (NAS) devices. These consist of enclosures that contain multiple hard drives that appear as a single storage device to your computer. This provides a high-capacity storage solution that can be expanded over time by adding hard drives or replacing existing drives with higher capacity drives.

For example, the Promise Technology Pegasus32 (https://bhpho.to/3VqyBY0) is a hard drive array that is pre-configured with 32 terabytes of storage capacity. This is a relatively straightforward solution in that it connects to your computer via Thunderbolt 3 just like many smaller hard drive options.

A similar option is available via a NAS device, such as a Synology DiskStation (https://bhpho.to/3XukGCa) featuring six bays for hard drives, with an eight-bay model available as well. Note that in this case the device does not include hard drives, so you would need to buy those separately. A NAS device connects to a network so that any computer on the network can access the storage.

These types of high-capacity storage devices require a bit more technical knowledge than a traditional hard drive, and they can be more expensive than more basic storage devices. Therefore, if you need particularly large amounts of storage capacity you may find it simpler to divide your photos and other data across more than one hard drive.

This is an issue I’ve run into myself. Because I generally travel somewhat frequently, I prefer to use external hard drives that are bus-powered, meaning they don’t require a power adapter. Specifically, I use LaCie Rugged (https://timgrey.me/rugged5t) hard drives, which have a maximum capacity in the form factor I prefer of five terabytes. There is an eight-terabyte model (https://bhpho.to/3S8aYCt), but the size is a bit awkward in my view.

Because I’m storing my photos across two hard drives, I use one drive for the photos I’m most likely to use most frequently, with photos I am likely to need less often stored on a secondary hard drive. This system works well for me, even though I’d prefer being able to store all my photos on a single hard drive.

Of course, another option that can help is to review your photos and delete outtakes more aggressively than you have in the past. This is a project I’ve started to undertake, which could potentially get my storage needs back down to the point that a single bus-powered hard drive will be able to accommodate all my photos.

Today’s Question: I have always assumed that “Don’t Import Suspected Duplicates” only applied to photos that had been previously imported. Your response to the question [from yesterday] implies that Lightroom Classic recognizes identical copies of photos that have not yet been imported. What metadata is used to identify the duplicates? How to Lightroom Classic determine which photos get imported versus not? Will photos be deemed duplicates if they have slightly different file names?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Duplicates can be detected even when importing with the “Add” option in Lightroom Classic, though there are some limitations that can cause problems depending on how the files were renamed.

More Detail: Lightroom Classic determines which photos are duplicates by evaluating the original filename (which is not necessarily the same as the current filename), the capture date and time, and the file size. When it comes to the filename, however, in some cases a duplicate will still be detected if the filename doesn’t match, depending on how the file had been renamed.

When you use Lightroom Classic to rename a photo, the original filename will be added to the “Original Filename” field in metadata. Other software such as Adobe Bridge includes this option as well. When an original filename is found in this field, Lightroom Classic uses that as the filename being evaluated to determine duplicates.

If you had renamed the photos using software that preserves the original filename in the Original Filename field of metadata, then Lightroom Classic would still be able to accurately detecting duplicates. If, however, you were to manually rename the photos such as through the operating system, then the photos would not be identified as duplicates due to the filename mismatch.

The context of the original question in yesterday’s Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter was a photographer who had been previously using Lightroom Classic, but who wanted to start fresh with a new catalog after replacing their computer. Therefore, any renaming would have likely been done using Lightroom Classic, and the duplicates would have been detected accurately.

When duplicates are detected during the import of a large number of photos using the “Add” option in the Import dialog, you don’t have any control over which of the files will be considered originals versus duplicates. Therefore, if there is any doubt about the status of the two versions of photos being imported, you may want to import all of them with the “Don’t Import Suspected Duplicates” checkbox turned off, and then deal with identifying duplicates with a more manual process in your workflow.

Today’s Question: There are many duplicate photos on my hard drive, and I want to import them into a fresh Lightroom Classic catalog. You have recommended to enable the option in Lighroom Classic to not import duplicates. If that works, what do I do with the duplicate images left on the external hard drive? Is there another program that eliminates duplicates that I should run on the hard drive before I do the import?

Tim’s Quick Answer: In this scenario I recommend a workflow that will help you identify and review the duplicates within Lightroom Classic. This would involve initially excluding duplicates from being imported, but then importing the duplicates as well so they can be compared before deletion. Labels can be used to distinguish the two categories of photos.

More Detail: The “Don’t Import Suspected Duplicates” option in the Import dialog in Lightroom Classic can be tremendously helpful when importing new photos from a memory card. Turning this checkbox on will ensure that if you had previously imported photos from a media card and then captured new photos without formatting the card, you won’t end up duplicating the first batch of photos with a second import.

However, this isn’t an ideal option when importing a large group of photos using the “Add” option in the Import dialog. That’s because while the duplicate photos will be prevented from being imported into your catalog, those duplicates will still be taking up space on your external hard drive.

To work around this, you can use a workflow that will enable you to identify the duplicates and then review them before choosing whether to delete them. To illustrate this I’ll assume the use of an external hard drive that is being used for the exclusive storage of photos.

Start by importing with the “Don’t Import Suspected Duplicates” checkbox turned on in the Import dialog. Select the external hard drive as the source of photos to be imported, with the “Include Subfolders checkbox turned on. Choose “Add” from the set of options at the top-center of the Import dialog. Adjust any other settings as you’d like and click the Import button to import only the non-duplicate photos.

Next you could mark all the imported photos as being the “original” copies, such as with a color label. Start by selecting the “All Photographs” collection in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module. Make sure there aren’t any filters set on the Library Filter bar so you’re seeing all photos. Then select all the images by choosing Edit > Select All from the menu. Switch to the grid view display so you can update metadata for all selected photos.

You can then use a keyboard shortcut to assign a color label, for example, to mark these photos. If you press the number 6 on the keyboard a red color label will be assigned, for example, but you can use any attribute you’d like for this purpose as long as it won’t interfere with any metadata that had already been assigned to the photos before import (including the duplicate photos that haven’t yet been imported).

At this point you can import the duplicate photos that were skipped in the initial import. Make sure you can see the top-level storage location on the Folders list, such as a folder representing the external hard drive in this example. If that folder isn’t displayed, right-click on a top-level folder on the Folders list and choose “Show Parent Folder” from the popup.

To import the photos that had been excluded with the first import, right-click on the folder representing the external hard drive (or other primary folder location) and choose “Synchronize Folder” from the popup menu. In the dialog that appears you’ll see a count of how many new photos will be imported. After the tally is complete, click the Synchronize button.

At this point you will have all your photos in the catalog, with the first batch having an attribute (such as a color label) that you’ve assigned and the second batch not having that attribute. You can then review the images with versus without that attribute and confirm which images are truly duplicates that should be deleted.

Today’s Question: You talked about track logs [for tracking location alongside a camera without GPS capabilities]. Could you recommend a smartphone app that does this please?

Tim’s Quick Answer: For recording GPS track logs I recommend the app “GPS Tracks” (https://timgrey.me/gpstracks) for iPhone users and “A-GPS Tracker” (https://timgrey.me/gpstracker) for Android users.

More Detail: If your camera doesn’t have a built-in GPS receiver you can still add location information to the metadata for your photos relatively easily using the Map module in Lightroom Classic. One way to automate the process is to record a track log during the time you’re capturing photos for which you want to record location details.

I use the iPhone app “GPS Tracks” for recording track logs. You can find this app in the Apple App Store here: https://timgrey.me/gpstracks. For Android users I recommend the “A-GPS Tracker” app, which you can find here: https://timgrey.me/gpstracker.

When you’ll be capturing photos for which you want to record location information you start recording a track log on your smartphone. When you’re finished you stop recording the track log and then save the resulting GPX file in the same folder as the photos it is associated with.

In Lightroom Classic you can then synchronize the track log with the applicable photos. Select the photos, and then in the Map module click the track log (zig-zag icon) button on the toolbar below the map. Choose “Load Tracklog” from the popup, and select the GPX file. Then, with the track log loaded and the photos selected, click the track log popup again and choose “Auto-Tag Selected Photos”. This will synchronize the selected photos with the track log so that GPS coordinates are added to the metadata for the photos based on the capture time and your recorded position at that time.

Today’s Question: I’ve run into an issue where if I select the Crop tool in Photoshop, then change my mind and switch to another tool, the image gets cropped without asking if I want to apply the crop. I don’t think this was always the case, but is there a way to disable this unwanted cropping?

Tim’s Quick Answer: If there is a crop set with the Crop tool in Photoshop, you must click the “reset” or “cancel” button on the Options bar (or press the Esc key on the keyboard) to cancel the crop. If you simply switch to a different tool the current crop will be applied to the image.

More Detail: There have been a number of changes to the Crop tool over the years that I have found frustrating, but the change in behavior where you are no longer asked if you want to apply the crop when you switch to a different tool from the Crop tool is particularly frustrating.

In the past, if you selected the Crop tool but then switched to a different tool, a dialog would appear asking if you want to apply the crop. It appears this was changed with a recent update to Photoshop. If you had the crop tool set to a specific crop ratio, such as 1:1 to crop to a square, that setting would remain when you then switched back to the crop tool while working with another image later.

In this scenario, simply selecting the Crop tool by mistake and then switching to the actual tool you intended to use will cause the image to be cropped to a square.

To avoid this issue, you need to be sure to either press the Esc key on the keyboard, click the “cancel” button (the circle with a slash icon) on the Options bar, or reset the Crop tool settings by clicking the “reset” button (the counter-clockwise arcing arrow icon) on the Options bar.

Unfortunately, I don’t know of any way to permanently turn off this automatic crop other than to reset or cancel the crop. I would love to be able to prevent this behavior, as I don’t think it makes any sense at all.

Today’s Question: In previous versions of Lightroom Classic, I enabled a setting to automatically eject the memory card following import. In recent versions, I have not been able to find the configuration setting. Is it still available somewhere?

Tim’s Quick Answer: If the “Eject after import” checkbox is not shown at all in the Import dialog in Lightroom Classic, it is an indication that the card you’re importing from is being treated as a hard drive rather than a media card. This would be the case with some of the newer cards such as CFexpress and XQD.

More Detail: The “Files” versus “Devices” categories in the Import dialog can be a little confusing, especially since most memory cards will appear under both “Devices” and “Files”. There are some issues in the background that led to this, and in general you’ll get better performance by making sure you select the source under Files rather than Devices.

For removable media devices that support being automatically ejected, you’ll see a “Eject after import” to the right of the Devices heading on the left panel in the Import dialog. Even if you select the media card as a source under the Files section (as is recommended) if you have the “Eject after import” checkbox turned on the media card will still be ejected via the operating system. That means the card can be removed from the card reader without having to go through the process of ejecting through the operating system.

However, some of the newer types of memory cards are designed in such a way that they are treated as an external hard drive by the computer, rather than a removable media device (even though external hard drives can and should also be “ejected” through the operating system). For these cards the “Eject after import” checkbox won’t be displayed and therefore you’ll need to eject the card manually using the “Eject” feature on Macintosh or the “Safely Remove” feature on Windows.

Today’s Question: The Print button is grayed out in Lightroom Classic. I can print from Photoshop but not Lightroom Classic. How can I fix this?

Tim’s Quick Answer: This is an indication that you have the “Print to” option set to “JPEG File” in the Print Job section at the bottom of the right panel in the Print module. Change that to “Printer” and you’ll be able to print again.

More Detail: The Print module in Lightroom Classic is obviously focused on enabling you to print your photos. Templates can be used as the foundation of creating a print layout, which makes it easy to print a single photo of a given size, to print the same photo multiple times on a page, or to print multiple different photos on a page.

In addition to being able to print your photos based on the layouts you create, you can also generate a JPEG file that reflects the same page layout you might otherwise prepare for print.

This can be very helpful when you need to share photos with clients, for example. You might create a contact sheet layout for a batch of photos, and then generate JPEG files for each page of the print job to deliver via email rather than having to share printed pages with the client.

There are, of course, a wide variety of other ways you might put this feature to use, creating JPEG images based on page layouts with photos designed in the Print module. To “print” to a JPEG image rather than the printed page, select “JPEG File” from the “Print to” popup in the Print Job section of the right panel in the Print module. You can then configure the output settings and click the “Print to File” button to generate the JPEG image(s) based on the current layout.

When you want to print to paper again, simply change the “Print to” popup back to “Printer” and the Print button will be available again.

Today’s Question: I’m about to buy a new 4K screen for post processing my photos but I still have a doubt about the size. What do you recommend: 27-inch or 32-inch?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I recommend 32-inch when running a 4K resolution, as long as that size is comfortable with your setup.

More Detail: When it comes to resolution, more is not always better. And when it comes to a monitor display, bigger isn’t always better. Instead, I recommend finding the right configuration for your specific needs and preferences.

I personally don’t find a display with a 4K resolution (about 4,000 pixels across) to be particularly helpful for photographic applications. In general, I find that at a 4K resolution text and various interface elements tend to be a bit too small to see comfortably. Instead, I tend to prefer display resolutions closer to around 2,000 pixels across, such as 1920×1080 pixels.

I also favor displays that aren’t too large. Personally, I find a 27-inch display to be the largest I tend to be comfortable with. Of course, this is influenced by the fact that I prefer to be relatively close to the display. I don’t want my nose pressed right against it, but I don’t like having the display more than about two to three feet away from my face.

Admittedly, this largely comes down to personal preference. I have known many photographers who very much prefer a 32-inch display even if it is positioned really close to them. I’ve known even more who love a 4K display and never want anything at a lower resolution.

I highly recommend visiting a store where you can see various displays to get a sense of what works better for you. At the very least I recommend getting a good sense of what size and resolution you tend to prefer, making sure that the display you’re evaluating in a store is set to the native resolution of the display so you’re getting an accurate look at the display resolution.

Once you have a good sense of the size and resolution you prefer for a display, you can filter the available options to look or other important features, such as color space support and more.

Note by the way that I do maintain a list of specific products I recommend for photographers. Most of the list is focused on photography gear, but there is some computer gear on the list as well. You can find the list here:

https://www.greylearning.com/pages/photo-gear

Today’s Question: In my wildlife photography I sometimes have a need to count the number of birds or animals in the frame. This can sometimes be a challenging task. Can you recommend a way to mark up the photo in Photoshop to help keep track of which animals have been counted?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes! The Count tool in Photoshop is designed exactly for this type of purpose, enabling you to count objects by clicking on them within the image.

More Detail: The Count tool has been included in Photoshop for quite a while, but I feel it is one of the least-known tools on the toolbar. Admittedly, probably a relatively small percentage of Photoshop users ever try the Count tool, but it can be remarkably helpful when you need to count objects in a photo.

The Count tool is associated with the button for the Eyedropper tool on the toolbar in Photoshop. So, the first step is to select the Count tool by right-clicking on the button for the Eyedropper tool (or the related tool that may be on the top if you had recently used something else) and choosing “Count Tool” from the popup menu.

To count objects in the image you simply click on them. As you click a marker will appear with a dot and a number indicating the count number for that object. You can continue clicking on each object you want to count, with the number incrementing for each marker as you go. To make it easy to know what the actual count is you can simply look at the “Count” value toward the left end of the Options bar.

If the markers aren’t easy to see on the image you can adjust the size and color to help. On the Options bar you’ll find a color swatch you can click to bring up the Color Picker dialog, so you can choose a better color. The same color is used for all markers, so you’ll want to try to select a color that will stand out across the entirely of the image. I generally use a highly saturated color, like a really bright magenta.

You can also adjust the size of the marker dots using the Marker Size field on the Options bar, or adjust the size for the number associated with each marker using the Label Size field. You can hide the count markers by clicking the eye icon on the Options bar, which will toggle the visibility.

When you’re done counting, or you need to reset the count to start over, you can click the Clear button on the Options bar. There’s even an option for creating multiple groups so you can count the number of different categories of objects within the same photo.

If you save the image as a Photoshop PSD or TIFF with the count still present for the image, the markers will be saved along with the image. In other words, when you open the image again the count markers will still be there for you to review.

Today’s question has inspired me to include a comprehensive article on the Count tool in the January 2023 issue of my Pixology magazine for photographers. If you’re not already a subscriber and would like access to back issues and upcoming issues, you can learn more and sign up on the GreyLearning website here:

https://www.greylearning.com/courses/pixology-magazine