Category: Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: I keep my main and only catalog on my laptop and my photos on an external hard drive. While traveling I use the main catalog on my laptop and download photos to a folder on [the internal hard drive on] my laptop. When I return home I connect the external hard drive to my laptop and from within Lightroom move the photos from the laptop desktop folder to the external hard drive. I have done this once and it seemed to work out. What are the potential shortcomings of this workflow?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Overall this workflow is perfectly fine in that it enables you to make use of your “master” Lightroom catalog while traveling, without the need to bring your external hard drive with you. The only significant concern I have relates to moving your photos from one drive to another. But as long as you have a backup of the photos before you move them to a different drive, I would say there are no problems with the approach you are taking.

More Detail: Many photographers (myself included) prefer to work with a separate catalog when traveling, just to isolate the photos from that trip in a single “traveling” catalog. The typical workflow for this type of situation involves importing that “traveling” catalog (and thus the photos captured along the way) using the “Import from Another Catalog” command.

However, if you keep your Lightroom catalog on the laptop you travel with, you can most certainly use that “master” catalog while you’re traveling, even if you’ll be downloading your photos to a storage location that differs from your “master” storage location. A common example, as outlined in today’s question, is that you might have your Lightroom catalog on the internal hard drive on your laptop, with your photos stored on an external hard drive you left at home.

In this type of situation, you can most certainly use your master catalog on the internal hard drive, and download photos to a folder on that same internal hard drive. When you return home and connect your external hard drive, you can then move the photos from the internal hard drive to the external hard drive from within Lightroom, simply by dragging the folder from one location to the other.

The only real risk involved with this type of approach relates to the fact that you would be moving the photos from one drive to another. A safer approach would be to copy the photos from one drive to the next, and only delete the photos from the source drive once you know that the files have been moved properly. But, of course, in any event you would always want to be sure that you have a backup copy of your photos.

Of course, if you have a backup copy of your photos before you initiate the move operation, then you don’t really have anything to worry about. If something goes wrong, you can always recover from your backup. In other words, if you have a backup copy of your photos before you move the source images to their final destination, there is really no problem with moving the photos between drives in Lightroom.

Today’s Question: I like to keep my catalogue and photos on an external drive. Is a “desktop” external drive more stable or otherwise preferable over a “passport” drive like the LaCie where one does not have to deal with plugging it to power?

Tim’s Quick Answer: In my opinion a bus-powered hard drive (one that gets its power through the data connection rather than from a separate power connection) is absolutely preferable compared to a “desktop” external hard drive that requires a power connection in addition to the data connection. In my view there is a tremendous advantage to not needing to use a separate power connector, and bus-powered hard drives are also generally smaller than “desktop” external hard drives.

More Detail: A bus-powered hard drive obviously has the advantage of not requiring a separate power adapter. Instead, the same connection used for data transfer also provides power to the drive. This is beneficial when traveling in terms of not having to pack a power adapter for the drive. Frankly, I always prefer bus-powered drives when possible because they also eliminate the risk of having the power get accidentally disconnected for the drive.

I have often heard about risks of data corruption or inadequate power for bus-powered hard drives, especially when connected to a USB port. From my perspective this was an issue with lower-powered USB ports in the past, but is not a real concern for most hardware available today, both in terms of computers and bus-powered hard drives.

I have extensive experience in this regard, and have never had any problems related to the lack of a power adapter for bus-powered drives. All of my photos are stored on a 4 terabyte bus-powered hard drive, with backup copies on an additional bus-powered drive. In addition, all of the content I produce, such as the video training courses I publish in the GreyLearning video training library (http://timgrey.me/greylearningnew), are stored on another bus-powered hard drive. In other words, I make extensive use of bus-powered hard drives, and have done so for many years, without any problems caused by the fact that the drives I’m using don’t have a separate power supply.

No storage device is completely immune to potential data loss, caused by a variety of factors. In my view, there is no need to avoid bus-powered hard drives based on fears of risk to your data. In fact, I feel that bus-powered drives offer considerable advantages. Of course, it is also always important to have an excellent backup system in place to minimize the risk of data loss.

Today’s Question: My Lightroom catalog is on my external drive, and you say it should be in the computer’s internal drive. What is the downside of having the catalog on an external drive? Or how I can move it to the internal drive?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The only real disadvantage of having the Lightroom catalog on an external hard drive is that you will likely experience slower overall performance in Lightroom. However, having the catalog on an external hard drive also helps to streamline a workflow for being able to access that catalog on multiple computers easily.

More Detail: For optimal performance, I do recommend keeping your Lightroom catalog on an internal hard drive. In most cases this will ensure the fastest access to the catalog and other related files, so that Lightroom can perform at its best. In most cases an external hard drive will result in degraded performance, and with some hardware configurations that performance degradation can be significant.

However, if you need to access your Lightroom catalog on multiple computers, keeping the catalog on an external hard drive can be a good solution. With this approach you can switch to using Lightroom on a different computer by simply connecting the external hard drive to that computer and opening the Lightroom catalog that is stored on the external hard drive.

By keeping the Lightroom catalog on the external hard drive, you are minimizing the risks associated with other potential solutions. For example, if you copy the Lightroom catalog from one computer to another as you switch locations, there is the risk of losing track of which copy of your Lightroom catalog is truly the latest version.

Many photographers have employed online synchronization solutions such as DropBox (http://bit.ly/Pix-Dropbox) to enable them to access their Lightroom catalog across multiple computers. I have tested this solution myself and found that it can work very well. However, this approach also makes me nervous about the potential for files to get out of synch, especially if you use Lightroom on a computer that isn’t always connected to the Internet.

As a result of all of these considerations, I recommend keeping the Lightroom catalog on your computer’s internal hard drive for optimal performance. If you need to share the catalog across multiple computers, then I recommend keeping the catalog on an external hard drive instead.

If you want to move the Lightroom catalog to a different location, that process is relatively straightforward. First, within Lightroom you can determine where the current catalog is located. To do so, choose “Catalog Settings” from the Lightroom menu on Macintosh or the Edit menu on Windows. Then go to the General tab and click the Show button to bring up a window in your operating system showing where the Lightroom catalog is stored.

Next, quit Lightroom so the catalog files will not be in use. Then copy the entire folder containing your Lightroom catalog to the preferred location. As a precaution, I then recommend renaming the “old” catalog folder to indicate it is no longer in use, such as by adding the word “BACKUP” to the beginning of the folder name. You can then double-click on the “lrcat” file (the actual catalog) in the “new” catalog location to open that Catalog in Lightroom and continue working.

For more detail on the options for where to store your Lightroom catalog, you may be interested in the article “Location, Location, Location”, which appeared in the August 2013 issue of Pixology magazine. For photographers who have subscribed to the GreyLearning “Everything” Bundle, you can find all of the back issues of Pixology magazine in the “Pixology Magazine” course in the GreyLearning library. And if you aren’t a subscriber you can sign up here: http://timgrey.me/greylearningnew

Today’s Question: Can you please give simple directions on how to create a travel catalog? I believe you can create one, then import it and add the photos to the main Lightroom catalog at home.

Tim’s Quick Answer: The basic workflow here is reasonably straightforward. For simplicity I recommend creating a “traveling” catalog on an external hard drive specifically for a given trip. Then import images into that catalog and onto that hard drive while traveling. You can then merge this traveling catalog with your master catalog when you return home.

More Detail: I should point out from the start that using an external hard drive as the “home” for a Lightroom catalog isn’t the best option from the standpoint of performance. However, this approach is a little simpler. So, keep in mind that you could make some changes to this workflow based on your priorities and comfort level. But for purposes of this question I’ll focus on a single approach.

The first step would be to create a new “traveling” catalog. So, launch Lightroom on the laptop computer you’ll be traveling with and connect an external hard drive that has enough capacity for both the catalog and the new photos you’ll capture during your trip. Then choose File > New Catalog from the menu. Navigate to the external hard drive in the “Create Folder with New Catalog” dialog and enter a name for the catalog. I recommend naming the catalog based on the trip you’ll be taking, just for clarity.

During the trip you can then work with that “traveling” catalog, importing new photos to the same external hard drive that the catalog is stored on. Along the way you can, of course, perform any work you’d like within Lightroom for those images. For example, you can assign keywords, apply star ratings, add other metadata, and apply adjustments in the Develop module.

When you return home, connect the external hard drive to the computer with your master Lightroom catalog. Launch Lightroom and make sure that your master catalog is open. Then choose File > Import from Another Catalog from the menu. Navigate to the external hard drive and select your traveling catalog as the basis of the import. In the following dialog, choose the option to copy the photos to a different location, and specify your primary storage location for photos as the destination. The existing folder structure for your “traveling” photos will be retained.

With this process you are able to work with your new captures while traveling without any limitations. Upon returning home you can then merge the photos and all of the information from your “traveling” catalog into your master catalog, so that the new photos will appear in that master catalog right alongside all of your existing photos.

Note that you can see this workflow in more detail in my video course “Tim’s Real Organizational Workflow” in the GreyLearning video training library here:

http://greylearning.com/courses/lrcc-05

Today’s Question: I broke the hood for one of my lenses by bumping it into a wall. Fortunately the lens was not damaged. Do I need to buy the replacement hood from the lens manufacturer? I saw that there is a generic lens hood available that is supposed to work with any lens that has the same diameter.

Tim’s Quick Answer: I highly recommend purchasing a replacement lens hood that is specifically designed for the lens you will use that hood with, especially for wide-angle lenses. Purchasing a replacement lens hood from the lens manufacturer obviously helps to ensure you are getting a hood designed specifically for your lens, but if you can find an alternative that has the exact same shape as the original, that would work fine also.

More Detail: Lens hoods are specifically designed for the lens they will be used with. Admittedly, for a telephoto lens this is not a significant concern. You’ve probably noticed that for lenses with a relatively long focal length the lens hood has a very simple shape, similar to a basic cylinder.

For wide-angle lenses the shape of the lens hood is actually quite important. The “funny” shape of these lens hoods is a result of attempting to shade the lens as completely as possible without allowing the lens hood to actually encroach into the field of view of the lens.

Because of the importance of the shape of the lens hood for a wide-angle lens, I do recommend purchasing a replacement lens from the same manufacturer as that lens, just to be sure you are getting a lens hood that is optimally designed for the lens you’ll use that hood with.

Also, be sure to check out the latest episode of Tim Grey TV, which also features lens hoods. You can watch that episode here:

https://youtu.be/gSC7xAUjEnY

Today’s Question: FYI, there are backup applications that can do incremental backups on a block base. For large files, only changed parts (blocks on the disk) are backed up during incremental runs. For example: CrashPlan.

Tim’s Quick Answer: This isn’t a question, so much as a clarification. In yesterday’s edition of the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, I said (in the context of incremental backup) that “it isn’t possible to simply ‘update’ the parts of a file that have changed”. As noted above, my statement wasn’t accurate, as there are some software solutions that enable updating backed up files rather than backing up the same file a second time.

More Detail: The focus of my answer in yesterday’s email related to the benefits of a synchronization (or incremental) backup solution compared to creating an entirely new copy of your data (such as photos) for every backup operation.

As noted yesterday, I do highly recommend a synchronization backup solution compared to a more typical incremental backup solution. Both are incremental in the sense that they aren’t creating full copies of your files every time you backup. Instead, only the files that have changed are updated in the backup.

The key difference between what I refer to as an incremental backup versus a synchronization backup relates to what the backup copy of the data looks like. With software that I would place into the category of an “incremental” backup, the recovery process requires more time because the data must be restored in what can be thought of as an incremental process as well.

By contrast, software that I would fit into a category of a synchronization backup is making a backup that is an exact match of the “master” copy of the files. In other words, in the event of a hard drive failure if you have a synchronization backup you could essentially just replace your master hard drive with the backup hard drive and continue working (making an additional backup copy of your data first, of course).

Thank you, by the way, to the readers who pointed out my error in yesterday’s email. I love being able to help photographers find solutions to their challenges, and I appreciate it when readers catch an error and let me know, so I can pass the clarification on to readers.

Today’s Question: I think I remember that you suggested a program that would perform incremental backups as well as full backups. I run into this problem whenever I add photos to a master file and catalog. The photo file is now very large, and to completely backup a current master and catalog each time an addition is made to Lightroom would take forever. I would like to set a backup program that would do an incremental backup within some set period.

Tim’s Quick Answer: I do indeed recommend what in some ways can be thought of as an incremental backup, but that is more along the lines of a one-way synchronization approach to backing up. This helps to streamline the backup process, especially as it relates to the time required to “update” your backup.

More Detail: When it comes to large files such as the “previews” file associated with your Lightroom catalog, an incremental or synchronization backup doesn’t provide a significant benefit. That’s because it isn’t possible to simply “update” the parts of a file that have changed. Instead, every time a file is updated that entire file must be copied to the backup drive.

However, there is no need to backup your entire collection of photos just because you have downloaded new photos. This is the key benefit of an incremental or synchronization backup. When you download new photos, for example, only those new photos need to be copied to your backup hard drive, because all of your existing photos are already on that drive.

There are differences between an incremental and synchronization backup. In general, an incremental backup involves making a copy of files that have changed, but in a way that requires recovery software to restore lost files if you experience a hard drive failure, for example. A synchronization approach involves updating the backup drive so it is an exact copy of the “master” drive, so that a failure is easier to recover from.

The software I have recommended (and continue to use) for a synchronization-based backup solution is called GoodSync. You can learn more about GoodSync here:

http://timgrey.me/greybackup

Today’s Question: I’ve been a fan of yours for years, and appreciate all that you do. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you talk about the clipping displays that can be activated at the top corners of the histogram in Lightroom. Do you not recommend using these options?

Tim’s Quick Answer: While I am a huge fan of the ability to see a “clipping preview” when adjusting a photo, I don’t employ the clipping preview option you refer to. Instead, I employ the more detailed clipping preview you can display by holding the Alt/Option key while adjusting certain sliders in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw.

More Detail: I should hasten to point out that the Develop module in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop provide the exact same adjustments and related options. So the details provided here will apply equally to photographers to work in Lightroom or in Adobe Camera Raw.

Within the Histogram display in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw you will see a triangle at each of the top corners. The triangle at the top-left corner enables you to toggle the clipping display for shadows, and the triangle at the top-right corner toggles the display for highlight shadows. With these options turned on, any shadow areas that have been clipped to pure black will have a blue overlay, and any highlight areas that have been clipped to pure white will have a red overlay.

The primary reason I don’t use these clipping preview options is that they only provide an indication of full clipping to pure black or pure white. The “other” option I prefer enables me to see when an individual channel is clipping, which can be helpful information in a variety of situations.

Thus, instead of employing the shadow and highlight clipping controls found within the Histogram display, I prefer to hold the Alt key on Windows or the Option key on Macintosh while adjusting any control that may contribute to clipping. For example, I will hold the Alt/Option key when adjusting the slider for Whites and Blacks, and in some cases when adjusting the value for Highlights and Shadows.

Ultimately the clipping preview is aimed at providing detailed information about the impact of specific adjustments on an image. I prefer to have as much detail as possible when evaluating clipping for an image, and thus I use the Alt/Option key rather than the triangle buttons associated with the Histogram.

Today’s Question: What is your recommended workflow for a TIFF file? I have scanned and imported all my old slides into Lightroom as “.tif” files, and now wish to print/display some of them. From your excellent guidance I now use Lightroom for the vast majority of my adjustments, but find I prefer the spot healing brush tool in Photoshop to eliminate the dust that has permeated my slides. Occasionally I also use Photoshop to create masks for specific adjustments. Finally many of the Lightroom adjustments for a TIFF file do not seem to transfer to the Photoshop image for me. Currently I first create a “.psd” file for the healing brush in Photoshop, and then go back to Lightroom and use this file for the adjustments. There must be a better way.

Tim’s Quick Answer: For general optimization work my preference would be to simply send the “original” TIFF image to Photoshop to work on it there. Then save the changes and close the image file to update that image in Lightroom. Note that the Lightroom adjustments will not be visible while you are in Lightroom, but they will still be applied when you return to Lightroom for that image. For print preparation I would make an additional copy of the TIFF image, and that copy could be either a TIFF or PSD.

More Detail: In the case of working on the “original” TIFF image created from the scan, I would be perfectly happy to work on that same image file for general adjustments in Photoshop. In other words, when prompted about how I want to handle the image upon sending it to Photoshop, I would choose the “Edit Original” option. I would then use a completely non-destructive workflow (with adjustment layers, additional image layers, and layer masks, as needed, for example) so that none of the original pixel values are being altered. When you’re finished working with the image in Photoshop, simply choose File > Save (not “Save As”) and then File > Close from the menu to save and close the changes so you can return to Lightroom.

As noted above, the adjustments you applied in Lightroom will not be visible while you are working in Photoshop. This can obviously be a little frustrating, but it is generally not too difficult to work around this limitation. The Lightroom adjustments will still be applied when you are back in Lightroom after finishing your work in Photoshop.

If you will be performing any “destructive” work, such as for printing, then I would want to make an additional copy of the image with the Lightroom adjustments applied. For example, if you plan to resize and sharpen the image for a specific output size, that is altering the underlying pixel information in the image. In that case I would choose the option to create a copy of the image with the Lightroom adjustments applied when sending the photo to Photoshop. Then perform all the work that is needed and save and close the image. That image would then be ready for final output based on the output size you designated for the image, but you could always return to your “original” scanned TIFF image as needed.

Today’s Question: You say you keep your Lightroom catalog on you laptop but your photos on an external drive and this makes sense if the laptop is your primary computer. Would you not want your catalog and photos together on an external hard drive when using a laptop for travel but then transfer the catalog with photos to a desktop when you get home? Otherwise would you not need to move the catalog to the external drive every time you want to transfer to a desktop?

Tim’s Quick Answer: In my case the decision is easy, because my laptop isn’t merely my primary computer but rather my exclusive computer for working with my Lightroom catalog. For those who need to work across two computers, keeping the Lightroom catalog on an external hard drive can be a reasonably good solution, though it is important to keep in mind that this approach will generally lead to a degradation in performance for Lightroom.

More Detail: One of the challenges many photographers face when using Lightroom is that there isn’t an easy solution for working with a single catalog across more than one computer. You can certainly copy the catalog back and forth across multiple computers, but to me this is a very risky approach because you need to keep track of which copy of your catalog is truly the latest version (and be sure not to use an outdated version).

Another approach is to keep the catalog on an external hard drive. However, as noted above, this can in degraded performance in Lightroom. In some cases this degradation in performance can be significant.

Some photographers employ a solution such as DropBox to synchronize a catalog across multiple computers. However, this approach makes me nervous, because connectivity issues can cause synchronization to fail in problematic ways.

As a result, to me the best solution is to keep Lightroom on a single computer if at all possible. That, in turn, is part of the reason I have opted to use a laptop as my primary computer, including for my Lightroom-based workflow.