LR 2.0 Public Beta Q&A

[JulieM]

Matt has an informative Q&A about the LR 2.0 Public Beta on his Killer Tips blog (http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/) today. Very good reading if you have downloaded the beta or are thinking about it...

[Joe M]

Thanks Julie. I just downloaded the Beta and I'm trying to figure out how to use LR with Bridge. I'm guessing you can't use both to manage your photos?

[JulieM]

Sorry, Joe, I can't offer any help on that. I don't use Bridge (or even understand what it is....). Hope someone else will know...

[genevh]

Bridge is to CS what the Organizer is to PSE, except maybe on steroids. I don't use Bridge, though with CS3. And as far as I know, LR is not set up to work with Bridge, or vice versa. The Library in LR does allow you to add keywords and create collections, as well as edit metadata either per photo or as a batch.

LR will export your photos directly into CS or PSE if you want to for further editing once you are done editing in LR.

[CalamityJanet]

Bridge is to CS what the Organizer is to PSE, except maybe on steroids. I don't use Bridge, though with CS3. And as far as I know, LR is not set up to work with Bridge, or vice versa. The Library in LR does allow you to add keywords and create collections, as well as edit metadata either per photo or as a batch.

LR will export your photos directly into CS or PSE if you want to for further editing once you are done editing in LR.


According to Scott Kelby's '...Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers'

"Lightroom is fully compatible with Adobe Bridge, Photoshop CS3, and even CS2 if you go to Adobe's website and download the latest update to Adobe Camera Raw(ACR; its free, and you need version 3.7 or higher)."

[genevh]

Glad I qualified my statement with "as far as I know". :) And I even have Scott's book. Had to go look that up. I obviously didn't pay much attention to it because at the time I read it I didn't have Photoshop, just PSE5. And once I started using LR, haven't even seen ACR in PSE5 or CS3 as I do all those adjustments in LR now before I export to CS3 for the final touches. And LR exports to CS3/PSE as either PSD or TIFF files (mine is set for PSD), and bypasses ACR, going straight to editing. I'm getting so used to using LR for those changes I don't even think of using ACR in CS3/PSE at all any more.

If you want to use both LR and PSE/CS's ACR, and get ACR in PSE/CS to recognize the changes to your photo you made in LR, you will need to create the .XMP (sidecar) file by doing Metadata -> Save Metadata to File. This you can do on individual RAW files as you need or want to.

OR - You can have LR automatically generate the .XMP files for every RAW file it touches by doing Edit -> Preferences, then going to "Go to Catalog Settings" on the General tab. Then on the Metadata tab check the Automatically Write Changes into XMP box.

Once you create the XMP file you can then open the photo in ACR and your changes from LR will be picked up in PSE or CS ACR. I couldn't drag a file from the Film strip and just drop it on my PS or BR icons on the task bar and get the file to open, with or without the XMP file. Accordng to Scott's book I should be able to. I must be doing something wrong. :(

[Rob Sylvan]

Once you create the XMP file you can then open the photo in ACR and your changes from LR will be picked up in PSE or CS ACR. I couldn't drag a file from the Film strip and just drop it on my PS or BR icons on the task bar and get the file to open, with or without the XMP file. Accordng to Scott's book I should be able to. I must be doing something wrong. :(

You can only drag/drop out of Lightroom to another application on Mac.

I've heard rumors it works on Vista, but no one has ever confirmed that for me.

[Rob Sylvan]

Thanks Julie. I just downloaded the Beta and I'm trying to figure out how to use LR with Bridge. I'm guessing you can't use both to manage your photos?

Once you start using Lightroom you will likely save yourself some stress and headaches if you only use Lightroom to manage your photos.

I highly recommend to everyone using Lightroom to watch this video tutorial from George Jardine (http://www.mulita.com/blog/?p=42). It does an excellent job of explaining the relationship between Lightroom's catalog and your photos.

[Edmund]

Rob, I posted a question a while ago and never really got a answer. From what you feel I possibly should use Lightroom to manage my photos. Here is the link to my original request.
http://www.elementsvillage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35326
I have about 400 photos in Nikon's Capture NX's Picture project, about the same in PSE-4 organizer and a few in CS-3 Bridge. What I wanted to do was to start over and manage them all from one program and go from there. I really love the workflow that Lightroom gives the photographer. What do you think?
Eddie:confused:

[Codebreaker]

Eddie....

Excuse me for jumping in here. From my own perspective I think the Processing workflow within LR is excellent. Unfortunately I can't same the same for the Organisational abilities....just my opinion of course. I find the Keywording has some definite advantages but some serious shortcomings when trying to retrieve images. LR2 promises to be better and has a few features that are encouraging me but I still think it lacks the simplicity of Elements.

Colin

[Rob Sylvan]

Hi Eddie,

I switched to Lightroom when it first came out and now use it to manage almost 40,000 photos. I find that it has made my photos far more accessible than any program I've used previously. I also shoot in raw, and find LR's processing workflow to be excellent. I also do all my printing out of Lightroom and love it. I don't really use the web or slideshow modules much, but they have each come in handy a few times. I find the LR import/organizing/processing/output workflow fits my needs very well.

I think it would be worth test driving the 30 day trial to see how you like it. No matter what you wind up using I do think that using a single program will make your life simpler.

[JulieM]

Hi Rob,

I hadn't noticed before that you have a LR blog. I've just browsed it and wanted to say it is a great source of info and your explanations are easy to follow. Thanks!