Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: As a follow-up to your discussion of the Adobe DNG file format, what is your opinion of setting the camera to use DNG rather than a proprietary raw capture [for cameras that support DNG as a capture format]?

Tim’s Quick Answer: As long as you don’t need to make use of camera features (if applicable) that require a proprietary raw capture format, I think it is perfectly fine to capture in DNG (Adobe Digital Negative).

More Detail: As noted in yesterday’s Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, while there are potential advantages to converting raw captures to the Adobe DNG format, I personally prefer to retain the original proprietary raw captures rather than converting.

That said, some cameras do support native capture in the Adobe DNG format. As long as doing so doesn’t cause you to be unable to make use of special camera features that are important to you, I think capturing in DNG is perfectly fine. And I should hasten to add that in my experience very few photographers make use of the types of special features that require a proprietary raw capture format.

In my view there frankly isn’t a strong argument one way or the other when it comes to choosing between Adobe DNG and a proprietary raw capture format. If one of the potential advantages for one over the other is compelling to you, then you should choose based on that.

I personally prefer to use the proprietary raw capture format, in part so that updating a backup when there have been metadata changes only requires backing up the very small XMP “sidecar” file rather than backing up an entire DNG file. But that is frankly a minor issue. Either option can be perfectly fine depending on your preference and workflow needs.

Today’s Question: I’m still not clear about the pros and cons of converting RAW files to DNG in my workflow. Can you clarify?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The primary advantage of converting raw captures to the Adobe Digital Negative (DNG) format is to avoid the use of proprietary file formats that may not be supported in the long term. The primary disadvantage is the risk of losing access to certain features that can only be accessed by using software from the camera manufacturer in conjunction with a raw capture file.

More Detail: My personal view is that the advantages of converting to the Adobe DNG format are not so compelling that I’m willing to discard my original proprietary raw captures. That said, there are some advantages to consider if you’re thinking about using the DNG format in your workflow.

One of the primary reasons the Adobe DNG format was created was to address concerns about proprietary raw capture formats that might not be supported in future software or operating systems. The DNG format is openly documented, so that even if Adobe discontinued support for the format other software developers could provide solutions. Seeing how a number of software developers (including Adobe) have reverse-engineered raw capture formats to provide support, this isn’t a significant concern in my view.

Another potential advantage of the DNG format is that the file size will generally be somewhat smaller than the raw capture it replaces, based on lossless compression. This can often reduce the file size by about 15% or more, which can obviously have a significant impact when dealing with a large number of photos.

The DNG format is also touted as not requiring an XMP “sidecar” file, because metadata is saved within the DNG file. While this does provide consolidation, there are also some drawbacks to this, such as requiring more time to perform an incremental backup because the updated DNG file is significantly larger than an updated XMP file.

The main drawback of converting to DNG is that you’re potentially losing the original raw capture data. You could always keep both files or embed the original raw capture in the DNG as part of the conversion, but to me both of these options take away some of the key advantages of converting to DNG in the first place.

For most photographers under most circumstances, converting to DNG probably won’t cause them to miss out on any important data. But if you use certain features of certain cameras, such as the automatic dust spot removal supported by some Canon cameras, you need the proprietary raw capture to be able to make use of the feature.

All things considered I don’t see any compelling reason to convert proprietary raw captures to Adobe DNG. But I also don’t think there is any significant risk in doing so for most photographers with a typical workflow. But on balance, I prefer to retain the proprietary raw capture format and not convert those images to DNG.

Today’s Question: In Adobe Bridge can you make changes on-the-fly to an existing workspace, for example the Light Table workspace without saving the changes or are all modifications saved automatically?

Tim’s Quick Answer: If you make changes to a workspace without saving, then the changes are not preserved as part of the selected workspace. In other words, if you then reset the workspace, you’ll undo the changes you made that were not saved.

More Detail: Adobe Bridge provides a pretty good amount of flexibility in terms of configuring the interface. This primarily revolves around choosing which panels will be visible versus hidden and how the visible panels are arranged and grouped.

To customize the workspace, you can start by selecting a workspace that represents a good starting point by choosing Window > Workspace from the menu and then selecting the desired workspace from the submenu. You can then choose panels from the Window menu to reveal or hide panels based on your preference. You can also drag panels around to arrange them to better suit your workflow preferences, including the option to group panels together to consolidate them.

As you make changes to the current workspace, those changes are not saved as part of the workspace you selected. The changes will simply be retained until you make a change or choose a different workspace.

If you want to preserve the changes you’ve made to the workspace, you can go to the menu and choose Window > Workspace > Save Changes to this Workspace to update the current workspace to reflect the changes you’ve made. If you want to preserve the existing workspace and save a new workspace, you can choose Window > Workspace > Save as New Workspace.

Note that after making changes to an existing workspace, you can also revert to the saved version by choosing Window > Workspace > Reset to Saved Layout.

You can learn more about customizing the interface in Adobe Bridge in the video “Customizing the Interface”, which is Chapter 1, Lesson 2, in my video course on “Adobe Bridge for Photographers”. This course is included at no additional cost in my GreyLearning Ultimate Bundle, and is also available as a standalone course here:

https://www.greylearning.com/courses/adobe-bridge-for-photographers

Today’s Question: In Lightroom Classic, is there a way to apply a profile to only part of an image? I do not see how and assuming I am correct, is there a way to determine what settings the creator of the profile used so that I can duplicate that as a preset and then use masks?

Tim’s Quick Answer: No, it is not possible to apply a profile to part of an image with the Masking feature in Lightroom Classic (or Camera Raw). Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to easily mimic the results of a profile because they aren’t based on adjustments in the Develop module.

More Detail: The Profile option found in the Basic section of the right panel in Lightroom Classic (or near the top of the Edit panel in Camera Raw) enables you to apply a baseline interpretation of an image to alter the appearance or apply a creative effect. While choosing a profile will alter the appearance of the image, the effect is not the same as a preset with saved settings from the Develop module, but rather a basic interpretation of the image data. For those familiar, you can think of these profiles as being more like an ICC profile used for color management rather than a preset from the Develop module.

When you select a profile for an image it affects the entire image, altering how the image data is interpreted before the adjustment settings from the Develop module are applied. The profile option is not available as a targeted adjustment for the Masking features.

Furthermore, it is not possible to reveal what the underlying profile is actually doing to the image, at least not easily. The included profiles are part of the application, not separate profile files. Third-party profiles are XMP files, but without a clear indication of what they represent in terms of how the image is affected.

Therefore, the only real way to reproduce the effect of a profile for a targeted adjustment is to evaluate the effect of the profile and try to reproduce that effect as best you can using other adjustments in the Develop module. If the intent is to use the effect for a targeted adjustment, that task is made more difficult by the fact that the Masking features don’t include all adjustments that are otherwise available in the Develop module.

Today’s Question: If I import photos into the Lightroom app on my tablet while traveling, how do I get them into Lightroom Classic when I return home?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Photos imported to the Lightroom mobile app will appear in your Lightroom Classic catalog as long as you have synchronization enabled. You can them transition those photos to your normal workflow.

More Detail: Photos added to the Lightroom mobile app, Lightroom in a web browser, or the Lightroom (non-Classic) desktop application will automatically synchronize to the cloud. As long as you have synchronization enabled in Lightroom Classic, those photos will then appear within your catalog.

First, make sure you have synchronization enabled for Lightroom Classic. You can do so by clicking the cloud icon at the top-right of the interface, making sure that the button at the bottom-left of the popup shows “Pause Syncing”. This indicates that synchronization is enabled, and that clicking the button would pause that synchronization.

Next, I recommend going to the Lightroom Sync tab of the Preferences dialog and turning on the “Specify location for Lightroom’s Synced images” checkbox. Then click the Choose button to the right of the checkbox and choose the folder where you want the photos to be saved.

Photos you add to Lightroom’s cloud-based storage outside of Lightroom Classic will then appear in the folder you designated within your Lightroom Classic catalog. From there they can be transitioned to your normal workflow.

I recommend first marking the photos in some way to identify them as having come from cloud-based storage, such as by assigning a color label to them. You can then select the photos in the folder you designated for synchronization and drag-and-drop the images to the desired storage location.

While dragging the photos to a different folder will cause them to be moved to that folder, they won’t be automatically removed from cloud-based storage. I recommend removing them from cloud storage to avoid confusion, since synchronization is managed via collections in Lightroom Classic.

To remove the photos from cloud-based storage, go to the “All Synced Photographs” collection in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module. Select the photos you want to remove, which can be streamlined by filtering based on the color label or other attribute you updated for the photos that were added via synchronization. Then right-click on one of the selected photos and choose “Remove from All Synced Photographs” from the popup menu.

Today’s Question: Is there a way to handle metadata conflicts [in Lightroom Classic] in bulk? I want to maintain the metadata in the catalog for a large number of photos that were updated outside the catalog.

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can select multiple images in Lightroom Classic and handle the metadata conflict for all selected images in one step.

More Detail: Metadata conflicts in Lightroom Classic occur when an image is updated outside the catalog. For example, if you open an image with Camera Raw or apply a metadata update in Adobe Bridge, the metadata in the file won’t match the metadata in the catalog. This is one of the reasons that if you’re using Lightroom Classic to manage your photos all updates should be made within the catalog.

Fortunately, you can resolve metadata mismatches for multiple images at once in Lightroom Classic. In fact, you can even filter images based on those that have a conflict by using the Metadata Status option for one of the columns on the Metadata tab of the Library Filter bar.

To get started, select all photos that have a metadata conflict in the grid view. If you use the loupe view and select multiple photos on the filmstrip, you need to enable the Auto Sync option to update multiple photos. Once you’ve selected multiple photos in the grid view you can click the badge indicating the metadata conflict at the top-right of the thumbnail for one of the selected images.

Clicking the metadata conflict badge will bring up a confirmation dialog, where you can choose an option for how to handle the conflict. In this case you would click the “Overwrite Settings” button to save the metadata from the catalog to the source files on the hard drive. If you wanted to preserve the metadata in the photos you could click the “Import Settings from Disk” button to update the catalog with the metadata from the source files.

When you handle the metadata conflict with multiple images selected in the grid view, the option you choose in the confirmation dialog will be applied to all selected images.

Today’s Question: Today I clicked on All Photographs [in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module in Lightroom Classic] to look at my map and saw that I had 231 images set as rejected. I would like to review those to be sure before deleting from disk. How do I do so?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can review all photos with a Reject flag by simply setting a filter based on the Reject flag attribute while browsing the source folder or collection that contains the photos you want to review.

More Detail: When you are reviewing photos in Lightroom Classic to determine which are your favorites and which should be deleted, I recommend assigning a Reject flag to the images you want to delete, rather than deleting them immediately. This helps to maintain a more streamlined workflow and provides an opportunity to review the photos to confirm you really want to delete them.

When you’re ready to review rejected photos, first navigate to the folder or collection that includes the photos you want to review. This can include selecting the “All Photographs” collection in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module if you want to review all photos in your entire catalog.

You can then set a filter for only photos with a Reject flag, such as by using the Library Filter bar above the grid view display (choose View > Show Filter Bar from the menu if the Library Filter bar isn’t visible). Go to the Attribute tab and turn on the option for the Reject flag, which is the third icon to the right of the Flag label. Make sure all other filters are disabled so you’re seeing photos with a Reject flag assigned without any other options set.

You can then review the rejected photos to determine if you want to delete them. If there are rejected photos you don’t want to delete, you could change the Flag status to Pick (press “P” on the keyboard) or Unpick (press “U” on the keyboard). When you’ve reviewed all the photos you can select all those that still have a reject flag and choose Photo > Remove Photos from the menu. In the confirmation dialog I recommend choosing the “Delete from Disk” option so the selected photos will both be removed from your Lightroom Classic catalog and deleted from the hard drive.

Today’s Question: I have been using Lightroom Classic on a desktop since its inception. I always convert my CR2 [Canon raw] files to DNG on import. I have recently acquired an Android tablet and installed the Lightroom mobile app. I don’t see any option to convert to DNG. Is it possible?

Tim’s Quick Answer: No, there isn’t an option to convert to DNG with the mobile (or web) versions of Lightroom, and the desktop version of Lightroom only provides an option to create a DNG file when exporting a photo.

More Detail: I don’t actually recommend converting original raw captures to the Adobe DNG format. But if you do want to convert to DNG, you’ll likely find it best to either use Lightroom Classic for this conversion, or to use the free Adobe DNG Converter software (https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/using/adobe-dng-converter.html).

The mobile versions (for iOS and Android) of Lightroom do not provide an option to convert to DNG. The web-based version of Lightroom (https://lightroom.adobe.com) similarly does not include this feature. The Lightroom desktop application (non-Classic version) enables you to create a DNG by exporting a copy of an image. Lightroom Classic, on the other hand, includes the option to convert to DNG both during import and for any photos in the catalog.

Since you’re already using Lightroom Classic in your workflow, if you want to convert your photos to DNG I would do so in Lightroom Classic. If you want those photos available in Lightroom mobile, you can add them to a collection in Lightroom Classic that has synchronization enabled.

If you are adding raw captures directly into Lightroom mobile, those images will appear within Lightroom Classic, so you could convert them at that point. Just note that if you add photos via a cloud-based version of Lightroom you may want to be sure to remove those photos from cloud storage after you’ve transitioned them into your folder-based workflow in Lightroom Classic.

Today’s Question: After reading your newsletter today [Monday], I looked in my Pictures folder to find the files [for the Lightroom Classic catalog] you referred to. While I found those, I also noticed a “Lightroom Library.lrlibrary” folder that I had never seen before. Can you tell me why it’s there? Can I safely delete it?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The “Lightroom Library.lrlibrary” folder represents the equivalent of a catalog for the cloud-focused version of Lightroom (the non-Classic version). This file is a local cache for Lightroom, and can be deleted especially if you’re not using the cloud-focused version of Lightroom.

More Detail: Lightroom Classic is known as the version of Lightroom that uses a catalog, while the non-Classic version is known as revolving primarily around cloud-based storage. But in a way both applications use a catalog.

The difference for the cloud-focused version of Lightroom is that the catalog simply represents a local cache of your cloud-based data, rather than the primary store of data related to your photos. As such, you can safely delete the “Lightroom Library.lrlibrary” folder, especially if you’re not using the cloud-focused version of Lightroom.

The presence of this folder indicates that you have installed and used the cloud-focused version of Lightroom on your computer. If that was not intentional, you can uninstall that version using the Creative Cloud application, so you won’t be confused by the “other” version of Lightroom being installed.

Note, by the way, that while it is entirely possible to adopt a workflow that involves using both the Classic and non-Classic versions of Lightroom on the same computer, I do not recommend doing so. In my view trying to use both Lightroom desktop applications can lead to confusion. Having said that, even if you’re using Lightroom Classic I do recommend that you consider making use of the cloud-based Lightroom ecosystem to provide greater flexibility and utility in your workflow.

Today’s Question: I sometimes get kicked out of Lightroom Classic for no apparent reason. When I try to reopen, I get a screen that says the catalog can’t be reopened because another application already has it opened. But if Lightroom Classic has for sure been closed, how can the catalog be open in another application? Any suggestions?

Tim’s Quick Answer: This issue is most likely the result of a “lock” file being left behind alongside the catalog. Removing that file should enable you to open the catalog in Lightroom Classic again.

More Detail: When you open a catalog in Lightroom Classic, a set of three temporary files are created, one of which is used to indicate that the catalog is in use. The other two are files related to the database the catalog represents. The files should be cleaned up when you quit Lightroom Classic, but they can be left behind if the software crashes. That can lead to an issue where the catalog can’t be opened because Lightroom Classic thinks it is already in use.

In this scenario, you’ll likely find three files in the same folder as the catalog. They’ll have the same base filename as the catalog, with filename extensions of “lrcat-shm”, “lrcat-wal”, and “lrcat.lock”. The last of these is the “lock” file, and its presence will generally prevent you from being able to open your catalog.

Fortunately, you can simply remove this file from the folder with your catalog, and you should then be able to launch Lightroom Classic normally with your catalog. Once that’s the case, you can permanently delete the “lrcat.lock” file that you moved.

Note that the default location for the Lightroom Classic catalog is in a folder called “Lightroom” within the Pictures folder for the operating system. So as long as you’ve left the catalog in its default location you can find it there, but otherwise you can navigate to whatever location you’ve saved your catalog so you can remove the “lock” file.