Smart Collection Workflow - 1 Metadata

This article covers the Metadata section of the Smart Collections Workflow and is part of the complete Smart Collection Workflow for Lightroom.

The Metadata is the heart of the information about an image. Metadata is useful to pull later when printing, using a slideshow or publishing to the web. More importantly, Metadata is how you record your copyright. This section of the Smart Collection Workflow deals with making sure the most important Metadata is input into each image in the Current Work.


Each item in the Metadata workflow is covered under a separate heading. Changes to this portion of the workflow will appear as edits. The first rule of each portion of the workflow is that the collection name contains 'Current Work.' This is done to ensure we are looking at only the images we are working on.

No Copyright

This item shows the images with no copyright message. The rule is that the copyright status is not copyrighted. During the import, I use a standard addition of the copyright information into the images. For my workflow, this item should start out with zero images added.

No Creator

In addition to the copyright, I want to know if the creator has not been filled in as it is also an automatic addition. Unfortunately, Lightroom does not yet have the best consistency between checking fields in smart collections. As such, the creator Metadata does not have a choice for 'isEmpty.' Thus, the rule is creator is where is a blank item, no text or spaces input. This shows all images with no creator input in the Metadata.

No Location

Location is another Metadata item without perfect rules created. More importantly, the rule for the Creator doesn't work for the Location. Thus, we had to resort to workaround type two: check to see that the item doesn't contain any vowels. The rule is location doesn't contain a e i o u. I suppose we could try adding each letter of the alphabet as well, but I did not take the time to input that string.

No Label

Label may not be important for your uses, but when publishing images to the Web, Label, Title and Caption can be more important. To check for the Label, the rule is label text contains .

No Title

Similar to the Label, the rule for checking the Title is title contains .

No Caption

The caption is a Metadata item with more standard rules. Thus, the rule for checking the caption is caption is empty.

No Keywords

The more images you add to the library, the more important keyword assignment is. This rule checks to be sure at least one keyword is assigned to each image. The rule is keywords are empty.

Conclusion

There are other Metadata fields that are important to my workflow, especially when using sophisticated web publishing galleries like Lightroom Galleries LRG Complete. However, Lightroom under its current version does not allow a smart collection for every Metadata item. The best solution to this problem is to continue to ask Adobe to add these additional Metdata items, even if they only have simple 'contains' and 'does not contain' rules.

Adding additional rules can be easy by simply creating another smart collection and putting the appropriate numbers in front of the description to sort it.

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Don't forget to visit my photography web site where we sell museum quality black and white prints framed to last up to 175 years - Outdoor Images Fine Art.

VMWare: Running in a Window

The advantages of using virtual workstations on a computer outweigh many of the disadvantages. I have been running Lightroom 2.1 now in a virtual machine for over a month with no adverse effect. The virtual machine, however, uses both processors and 2Gb of the 4Gb of machine memory. There is one trick to help keep the speed of the interface up.

The viewing mode of the virtual machine is important. We easily get used to windows around our desktop and the ability to switch between them easily. When using a virtual machine, a window is a resource hog. The machine should be running and the windows should be within the virtual machine.

The best response in the virtual machine is had when the view is set to Full Screen. This is found on the View, Full Screen menu. Using Full Screen there is no part of the host machine visible. This means the computer will not have to spend as much time keeping up with the host and can focus on your virtual machine.

The next tip I will publish is regarding the screen size in a virtual machine. When using VMWare on a laptop, sometimes the docking monitor is square and the laptop screen is wide. I have an easy method to switch between the two resolutions in Windows. ... Read More!

Don't forget to visit my photography web site where we sell museum quality black and white prints framed to last up to 175 years - Outdoor Images Fine Art.

LRG Advanced User's Guide Updated

This is the first official update to the LRG Complete Advanced User's Guide. Several new items have been added including a chapter on using Digital Image Downloading.

Highlights include:

• A Chapter on using and testing Digital Image Downloading
• Using Google GMail directly with SMTP Email
• Updates and New Worksheets in the Appendix
• A Color Chart to use with Selecting Colors
• A modified version of the DID File to allow for the use of PHP Mailer Includes
• Other maintenance items

Here is the original article on the LRG Complete Advanced User's Guide.

Remember that if you have already purchased one, your link will download this update for free. ... Read More!

Don't forget to visit my photography web site where we sell museum quality black and white prints framed to last up to 175 years - Outdoor Images Fine Art.

VMWare: Synch with Blackberry at Last!

In my searching the past week I found many articles about how using VMWare and trying to synch a Blackberry using the Blackberry Desktop Manager failed. Many of these articles were 2006 and before - nothing more current. Well, I found the solution and present it here for others that are looking.

The best I can tell is that using any VMWare Workstation before version 6.5.x uses a very different method of attaching USB devices which is not direct. The Blackberry Desktop Manager uses a direct connection for security and other measures.

The good news is that I was successful 'out of the box' with Blackberry Desktop Manager 4.6 (current as of this writing) and VMWare Workstation 6.5.0 Build 118166.

I use Windows XP SP2 to run VMWare Workstation and I am running Windows 2000 with SP4 to run the Blackberry Desktop Manager.

Have at it! ... Read More!

Don't forget to visit my photography web site where we sell museum quality black and white prints framed to last up to 175 years - Outdoor Images Fine Art.

New Frost for Winter

In the southeast we have mild winters compared to the north and cold winters compared to the deep south. The advantage is we get a little bit of both weather patterns. Yesterday we had high humidity at night with temperatures right at the freezing mark. The result was a fantastic opportunity for frost photographs like the one below.



I shot this with my Leica M8 and a 90mm f/2.8 lens on f/4 at 1/90 second, handheld, at the closest focus. The beauty of a rangefinder is the ability to do this. Had I thought in advance, my tripod would have been with me. However, I was bringing our children to school and the tripod was not on my mind.

I took this shot and several dozen more at about 8:30am EST. I found a small water collection basin on a large piece of commercial property nestled in the trees. The sun was warming the air around the water, but not directly as the trees were blocking the sun's direct rays. The combination gave me a fog across the pond and shelter to keep the frost intact.

While you cannot tell here, the frost crystals on all of these shots are intricate and very detailed. The best part of this type of photography is the contrast and grading tones throughout the image. The frost highlights the shape of the leaves and provides extreme detail in an otherwise smooth medium.

Don't miss a chance this winter to get out and find some unique opportunities. Remember that weather can turn an ordinary dull subject into something unique and spectacular. Weather is never the same twice.

Several things I learned here: a) keep the tripod in the trunk, no matter what!, b) I really need that macro lens!

Enjoy!

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Don't forget to visit my photography web site where we sell museum quality black and white prints framed to last up to 175 years - Outdoor Images Fine Art.

LR2 Bug: Collection Sets and Rejects

In my continuing efforts to create an easily customizable Smart Collection Workflow, I come across some inconsistencies in Lightroom 2 (and 2.1) with what one would expect to happen. I am calling these inconsistencies 'Bugs,' but since extensive documentation on the functionality of Regular and Smart Collections does not exist, I will use inconsistencies for the moment.

This report discusses issues with Collection Sets, Collections and Rejected images. The bottom line is that the rejects marked in a Collection do not move up to the Collection Set level. More importantly, they do not appear to be recorded in such a manner that Smart Collections can pick them up either.

Here is what I did to test it:

1. Create a Collection Set to hold multiple collections: say 'Test Set'
2. Create a Collection within the Collection Set: say 'Test Collection'
3. This is important, put a group of images into the 'Test Collection', but make sure they are the original images, not virtual copies.
4. Mark a few random images as flagged and a few random images as rejected.
5. Mark a few random images with a star rating, the number of stars is irrelevant.

Now, go back and view the parent Collection Set. You will notice that none of the images show a pick flag or a reject flag. However, the star ratings do appear.

EDITED, 11/4/2008:
Now, go back to the Catalog, All Photographs. Notice that the images there also do not show a pick flag or a reject flag. However, the star ratings also appear here. This is by design as Adobe has indicated that flags are specific to a collection. So, the Test Collection flags set will not show up in the Catalog, All Photographs. Nor should any flags set in Catalog, All Photographs show up in the Test Collection.

Now, pick one of the images in the 'Test Collection' and view the metadata. The Copy Name is blank indicating it is the original image file. The rating shows.

Why would this happen? More importantly, this would be counter-intuitive to what I would expect, especially if the star ratings are captured. EDITED 11/4/2008: I would expect all the pick flag information to transfer to the Library and to the Collection Set at the parent level - No, this is by design. I would also expect Smart Collections to be able to pick up on the data.

The result of this bug is that it is difficult to use Smart Collections to analyze a collection of images.

... Read More!

Don't forget to visit my photography web site where we sell museum quality black and white prints framed to last up to 175 years - Outdoor Images Fine Art.

New Links

I have been terribly remiss in some of my maintenance here, so please forgive me! I have added two new links to the sidebar under Images & Adobe Lightroom. You may have the links, but I wanted everyone to have quick access to using them when the thought strikes. Here they are.

First, the Lightroom Forums housed at http://www.lightroomforums.net is an outstanding group and if you haven't had a chance to participate, I urge you to take a look.

Second, even with all the tremendous amount of work and efforts put into Adobe Lightroom, bugs still creep in. That is a price we pay for all the functionality of this great program. So, I have also attached a link to the official Adobe Bug Report and Feature (Wish) Request form. This is on Adobe's web site and as far as I know, is the only official reporting location, unless you happen to be on the software development team.

... Read More!

Don't forget to visit my photography web site where we sell museum quality black and white prints framed to last up to 175 years - Outdoor Images Fine Art.