Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: I have a TV set up as a second display that I sometimes use when editing photos, but the quality of the TV display for editing is poor. Are there any products you know of that can function as a decent monitor for photo editing and also be used as a television?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can treat a computer monitor and television as being the exact same thing as long as the necessary features are included for both ways you intend to use the display.

More Detail: From the standpoint of the display itself, a computer monitor and television can be thought of as being exactly the same type of device. The real difference relates to connections and features. In other words, one display can be used as both a computer monitor and a television if you buy the right display.

On the computer side things tend to be a bit simpler. You just need to be sure the monitor includes an input that will be supported by your computer. For most recent model computers that means an HDMI connection, which is available in the vast majority of displays sold as computer monitors or televisions. If your computer only supports something other than HDMI, just be sure the display you purchase includes a supported input type.

There are some other features you may want to have included in the display in order to use it as a television. For example, you might want to have built-in speakers so you can listen to television without the need for an audio accessory.

You may also need the display to have a coaxial input if you’re using cable for your television input. You may also need to have either an Ethernet port or WiFi support if you’ll use Smart TV features such as with online streaming services.

I think the easiest way to think of the right solution here is to purchase a television that includes an HDMI port you can use for your computer. That may mean you want a television with at least two HDMI ports, so you have a port for the television signal input as well as for the computer. Most televisions include at least two if not more HDMI ports, so this is an easy issue to solve for.

In general I would suggest getting a relatively small television for this purpose, since you’ll likely be relatively close to the display when using it as a computer monitor. That would generally mean opting for a 32-inch television, for example, though you could certainly use a larger display if you’ll be sitting a bit of a distance from it when using it with your computer.

You can find one example of a 32-inch television that supports 4K resolution and could certainly be used as both a television and monitor display here:

https://bhpho.to/3UDBDZv

Today’s Question: I am considering converting my Lightroom photographs which are largely in raw format to JPEG images and storing them on a portable hard drive. I would like to bring the folder structure with the photographs so that the hard drive contains the same description of photos that I have in Lightroom. I know I can export the photos in each folder. Can you suggest a more efficient method to achieve my goal?

Tim’s Quick Answer: While there are approaches you could use in Lightroom Classic to accomplish this goal, I think the best option is to use the “Folder Publisher” plugin created by Jeffrey Friedl, which you can find here:

http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/folder-publisher

More Detail: Lightroom Classic includes an export feature, obviously, which provides considerable flexibility in terms of creating copies of original images that are saved outside the context of your catalog. There is even an option to add the exported photos back to the catalog if you had a reason to do that.

However, the export feature in Lightroom Classic doesn’t provide a way to duplicate the existing folder structure for the exported copies of photos, other than to store all exported copies in the same folder as the original. It is possible to save photos in the original folder, so that you could even select all photos in the entire catalog and export copies in a different file format, with each exported copy being saved in the same folder as the original image.

That would work in terms of creating additional copies of your photos in the same folder structure, but would not enable you to create a separate folder structure for the exported photos that matched the folder structure of the originals but in a different storage location.

Fortunately, there is a plugin for Lightroom Classic that enables you to export photos and retain the original folder structure while saving the exported copies in a different location than the original photos, which is exactly the aim outlined in today’s question. That plugin is called “Folder Publisher”, and was created by Jeffrey Friedl, who has also created a variety of other helpful plug-ins for Lightroom Classic.

You can learn more about the “Folder Publisher” plugin here:

http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/folder-publisher

Note that this plugin uses a “donationware” license. The plugin is free to use, but after six weeks the features become restricted. You can get a full license with a donation of any amount you choose.

Today’s Question: I just upgraded my iPhone to the new iPhone 14 Pro, mainly to take advantage of the RAW image options. When I set the image size to 12 MP, I have no problem acquiring images, transferring them to Lightroom on my laptop, and then working with the images. When I switch settings to acquire a 48 MP image, the image looks fine on the phone, and it looks normal in the tiny image preview on my laptop after I airdrop the image. However, when I then open the image in either Lightroom Classic or Photoshop, the image is MUCH darker than how it appeared on my camera – at least 2 stops darker, maybe more. This is happening with every 48 MP image, but never with a 12 MP image. Help! What is happening?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can solve this issue by changing the Profile (in the Basic section of adjustments) to “Apple ProRaw”. I suspect the issue will be fixed in a future update from Adobe.

More Detail: Adobe has indicated that the iPhone 14 is not yet officially supported as a camera for Lightroom Classic or Photoshop. At the moment, iPhone 14 captures created with the raw 48-megapixel setting appear very dark in Lightroom Classic (and Photoshop). Images captured with the 12-megapixel setting appear normally.

Changing the profile to “Apple ProRaw” corrects the issue, providing correct interpretations of the iPhone 14 captures. In particular, updating the profile will correct the dark appearance of the 48-megapixel captures without changing the brightness of the 12-megapixel captures. The Profile popup is found near the top of the Basic section on the right panel in the Develop module.

Note, by the way, that you can use the automatic synchronization feature in Lightroom Classic to update all photos, whether it is for the profile as in this case or for other types of adjustments. Start by selecting the photos you want to apply the adjustment too, and then in the Develop module turn on the “Auto Sync” switch found on the left side of the Sync button at the bottom of the right panel. With that option enabled all changes made will synchronize to all selected photos.

Today’s Question: You’ve written about using a synchronization approach to backing up your photos, but what exactly is involved in recovering from such a backup when a hard drive fails?

Tim’s Quick Answer: With a backup created via synchronization, such as with the GoodSync (http://timgrey.me/greybackup) software I use and recommend, recovery can literally be as simple as using a backup drive in place of the failed original.

More Detail: Today’s question is topical for me, as I just had another hard drive fail last week. While the hard drive that failed was my primary drive for my most important data other than my photos, the hard drive failure didn’t cause me any concern at all. The only real consequence was that I needed to buy a new hard drive so I would still have two backups in addition to the primary drive.

Because I use GoodSync (http://timgrey.me/greybackup) to back up my external hard drives, each backup represents an exact match of the original data, with all files and folders in the exact same structure as on the primary drive. Therefore, when a hard drive fails, all I need to do is connect a backup drive and start using it as the primary.

If the failed drive is being used to store photos that are managed by Lightroom Classic, there is one additional step required so that the hard drive will match what Lightroom Classic is expecting. For Macintosh users that simply means changing the volume label for the hard drive to match that of the original, which can be done by simply right-clicking on the drive and choosing Rename. For Windows users you’ll need to assign the same drive letter to the new drive as had been assigned to the original drive, which can be done with Disk Management utility.

While the recovery from a backup created with software such as GoodSync is remarkably easy, it is important that you make sure to replace the failed hard drive with a new backup. I always maintain at least two backup copies of each hard drive and rotate between the backups. When a drive fails, I still have a backup, but then I buy another hard drive so I will again have two backups along with the original.

Today’s Question: I can choose to display the point of focus of an image when I am playing back the image in the camera. Is it possible to show that when viewing the image in Lightroom?

Tim’s Quick Answer: There is a plug-in for Lightroom Classic that enables you to view which focus point was used. However, this plug-in currently only supports a variety of cameras from Canon and Nikon, with some support for Sony cameras being added.

More Detail: The focus point that was active when you captured a photo is generally stored in metadata by the camera. However, you generally aren’t able to see that information later unless you’re using software provided by the camera manufacturer. Fortunately, for some cameras a plug-in for Lightroom Classic enables you to see the active focus point for your photos.

The “Show Focus Points” plug-in for Lightroom Classic is an add-on that enables you to view the focus point for supported cameras. Note that the focus points won’t be shown directly within the previews you view in Lightroom Classic, but rather will be displayed in a window when you activate the feature for a selected photo.

The plug-in currently supports a number of Canon and Nikon cameras, with support being added for some Sony cameras (currently just the Sony A77II). Hopefully the plug-in will be updated to support a wider range of cameras in the near future.

This plug-in is free to use, though you can also support the developer with a donation using a link on the downloads page. You can learn more about the “Show Focus Points” plug-in here:

https://www.lightroomfocuspointsplugin.com

Today’s Question: If I am going to be away from home for a period of time (possibly a month or more), and I use Time Machine as one of my backups on an external HD (not SSD), what is your suggestion if I don’t want to take that 10TB drive with me? I have read that those drives don’t like to be left idle.

Tim’s Quick Answer: I recommend ensuring you have a good backup left at home for any hard drives you won’t bring with you. For hard drives you will bring with you I recommend having a backup drive for each in addition to a backup left at home.

More Detail: There is nothing wrong with leaving a hard drive idle for a month or more. For traditional (non-solid state) drives there is a risk of leaving the hard drive disconnected for a very long time (such as a year or more) with no activity. But for shorter durations it is not a problem for the drive to be idle. For a Time Machine backup drive you’ll get alerts about the fact that a backup hasn’t been conducted in a while, but that isn’t a problem as long as you’re maintaining at least one ongoing backup for data security.

For an internal hard drive on a Macintosh computer the Time Machine backup is a great option. If you’ll be leaving a primary Time Machine backup drive at home you can simply travel with a smaller drive used only for backing up the internal hard drive on your laptop.

If you’ll be traveling with any external hard drives, I recommend traveling with a backup drive for each of those. I personally use GoodSync (http://timgrey.me/greybackup) to maintain a backup for these drives, where the backup is an exact copy of the primary drive.

For drives left at home I simply recommend making sure you have a good backup (or two) for those drives, along with leaving behind at least one backup drive for each drive you’ll be traveling with.

Another good supplement to a backup workflow is to maintain an online backup so you’ll have an additional offsite backup to recover from should there be a significant issue that causes you to lose multiple hard drives, including primary and backup drives. I use Backblaze (https://timgrey.me/onlinebackup) for this purpose.

The key is to make sure that you are backing up the data you’re traveling with, and that you have additional backup copies of that data left behind. In addition, you want to ensure that all drives left behind also have a good backup in place, ideally with an online backup as a supplement to local backup copies.

Today’s Question: I want to share JPEG images to the Adobe Creative Cloud that I’ve exported from Lightroom Classic. I think I need to import them into Lightroom Classic, create a collection of them, and then synchronize them to the cloud (as an album). Make sense? Also, can I rearrange the order of the photos on the cloud into a custom order?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Maybe. You may prefer to synchronize the original photos rather than import JPEG copies created from the originals. In either case, once you’ve synchronized photos to the Cloud you can create a custom sort order in the Lightroom mobile app.

More Detail: You can make selected photos in your Lightroom Classic catalog available from virtually anywhere by synchronizing them to the cloud (via Adobe Creative Cloud). The basic process involves adding photos to a collection and then enabling synchronization for that collection. The images will then be available from the Lightroom mobile app or through a web browser pointed to https://lightroom.adobe.com/.

If you exported JPEG copies of original photos and then applied various adjustments to those JPEG images, you may indeed want to import the JPEG copies into your catalog and add those versions of the images to a collection for synchronization. However, in general you may prefer to instead add the original images to the collection, assuming those represent the versions of the photos you want to share.

When you synchronize photos to the Creative Cloud from Lightroom Classic you won’t be copying the original images (such as raw captures) to the cloud. Rather, Lightroom Classic will create reduced resolution Adobe DNG copies of the images for this purpose.

Whichever images you prefer to synchronize can be added to a collection with synchronization enabled, and then representations of those photos will be available from virtually anywhere.

In the Lightroom mobile app on a smartphone or tablet you can also sort the photos in a variety of ways, including a custom sort order. When browsing your photos in the Review mode on the mobile app tap the ellipsis button (three dots) at the top-right of the interface. Choose the “Sort by” option (which will reflect the current sort order) to bring up a list of sorting options. One of those will be “Sort by Custom”, and after choosing this option you can tap the “Edit” link to the right so you can drag images around to change the order of photos, then click “Done” at the top-right to finalize that custom sort order. You can then switch between the other sort options and the Custom sort option, and the Lightroom mobile app will remember the custom sort order for the collection of photos.

Today’s Question: Somehow I find myself in Lightroom Classic without access to my left or right panels, bottom panel thumbnails, and top panel options. What I now get is an option at the top left of Grid/Loupe/Compare/Survey and nothing else. Can you help me?

Tim’s Quick Answer: This is an indication that you’ve enabled a second Lightroom Classic window intended for a second monitor display. You will need to turn off the secondary display to enable you to see the primary window for Lightroom Classic.

More Detail: Lightroom Classic includes a very helpful feature to open a second window, which is aimed at using that window on a second monitor display. This allows you to leverage two different views of your photos, such as to have a grid view display on a secondary display while applying adjustments in the Develop module to individual images on the primary display.

Of course, if you accidentally enable this feature especially on a computer with only a single display it can be very confusing, causing you to only see the limited interface of the second window without being able to see the primary window.

You can hide the secondary window from the menu by choosing Window > Secondary Display > Show. Note that rather than hiding the secondary window you can also switch it to a floating window by choosing Window > Secondary Display > Full Screen. Both of these menu options are toggles, meaning you select the command to turn the feature on and select it again to turn it off.

The display of the secondary window can also be controlled with a pair of buttons found at the top-left of the bottom panel in the primary Lightroom Classic window. The two buttons each show an icon representing a window, with “1” for the primary display and “2” for the secondary display. You can click the “2” button to show or hide the secondary window. Just keep in mind that if the secondary window completely obstructs the primary window, you’ll need to hide (or float and move) that secondary window to get back to the full set of controls in the primary window.

Today’s Question: I was surprised to read that you don’t recommend keeping backup copies of the Lightroom Classic catalog that are older than six months. I understand recovering from such an old backup means you will have lost all work done in the last six months. But isn’t that better than losing everything?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Part of the reason I don’t feel the need to retain very old backup copies of my Lightroom Classic catalog is that the vast majority of the metadata that I care about most is preserved with my original photos, for which I maintain multiple up-to-date backups.

More Detail: I highly recommend enabling the option to write metadata updates directly to your photos, so updates made in Lightroom Classic are stored both with your photos as well as in your catalog. Among other things, this provides a good recovery option should you ever lose your Lightroom Classic catalog for any reason.

If you have enabled the option to save metadata to the source photos, recovering from a catastrophic loss of your catalog is quite simple. You just create a new catalog and import all your existing photos to that catalog. If your photos are stored in one location (such as on an external hard drive that contains all your photos) you can perform a single import from that drive and be back up and running.

It is important to keep in mind that if you create a new catalog and import your existing photos that have had the metadata saved to them, you will not retain all information that had been contained in your original catalog. There are some features specific to Lightroom Classic that can only be saved within the catalog, not to the metadata for your photos. This includes collections, virtual copies, pick and reject flags, and the history list in the Develop module.

However, with this approach you would retain all standard metadata (and the folder structure) for all your photos. You would therefore still have all your keywords, star ratings, key labels, and other standard metadata updates. This approach also preserves the adjustment settings from the Develop module, even though those can be thought of as specific to Lightroom Classic.

To enable having metadata updates written to the source image files in addition to the catalog, go to the Catalog Settings dialog by choosing Edit > Catalog Settings on Windows or Lightroom Classic > Catalog Settings on Macintosh from the menu. On the Metadata tab of the Catalog Settings dialog turn on the “Automatically write changes into XMP” checkbox. Lightroom Classic will then write standard metadata out to all existing photos, and will apply future updates to the photos as well.