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1. Re: Just tried lightroom for the first time
John Blaustein Jan 19, 2011 7:36 PM (in response to TF22Raptor2)Yes.... in the Import dialog, set Render Previews to 1:1. The import will take longer than when it is set to Minimal, but the 100% preview will appear very quickly. The Render Preview setting is in the upper right corner of the dialog. Be sure the dialog is expanded (little triangle in the lower left corner).
John
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2. Re: Just tried lightroom for the first time
TF22Raptor2 Jan 19, 2011 8:19 PM (in response to John Blaustein)G'day John thats great thanks for that.
Just wondering do you know what this process is actually doing, is it creating a huge cache file somewhere or? -
3. Re: Just tried lightroom for the first time
John Blaustein Jan 19, 2011 9:09 PM (in response to TF22Raptor2)You are welcome. Glad to help.
I am not really a LR expert, but yes, LR is creating a cache of preview images. On my Windows XP laptop, the cache folder is in c:\Documents and Settings\User(me)\My Documents\Lightroom. Inside that folder is a folder called "Lightroom 3 Catalog Previews.lrdata." If I'm not mistaken, that's where the previews are stored. The ...\My Docs\Lightroom folder also stores your catalog file (which in my case is called "Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat"). You'll also see that LR stores backups in a folder called Backups.
The name of the catalog file can be changed, as can its location. On my desktop PC, I have the catalog and preview files on a D: drive.
John
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4. Re: Just tried lightroom for the first time
John Blaustein Jan 19, 2011 9:16 PM (in response to TF22Raptor2)Forgot to add....
In LR, click Edit > Catalog settings. On the General tab, see Location and click "Show" to see where your catalog and other files are stored. (This is on Windows.)
John
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5. Re: Just tried lightroom for the first time
TF22Raptor2 Jan 19, 2011 9:30 PM (in response to John Blaustein)Thats excellent John, got any other tricks and tips like this I (a new user) should know about on a default installation?
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6. Re: Just tried lightroom for the first time
TF22Raptor2 Jan 19, 2011 9:32 PM (in response to TF22Raptor2)PS I just did a full import of about 300raw files, while it did take some time rendering them I guess it's to be expected. Might be one of those things where you shoot during the day, and get your computer at night while you sleep to render all of these imported files.
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7. Re: Just tried lightroom for the first time
Jasonized Jan 19, 2011 10:49 PM (in response to TF22Raptor2)LR is multi-tasking, so you can do more than one thing at a time. My work flow is like this:
plug in card, let it copy onto local raid array.
eject card, plug into standalone backup. start.
Bring up LR, bring up import and move option, use main_project->year->year_mon->year_mon_day format for putting images into catalog in right place, gen 1:1 previews.
After the initial add, it starts a background process to gen the 1:1 previews. While it is doing that, I bring up the grid view, and start rating/rejecting them.
walk through list looking and rating images. x marks for reject, 1-5 for rating. Add specific keywords. By the time I'm done looking and rough rating, previews are probably done or close to it. Delete all rejected photos (these are mechanically wrong, i.e., when I was carrying the camera, and it took a picture for me).
that's it for initial work. Then it's tweaking,cropping, more keywords, making collections, etc.
Cheers!
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8. Re: Just tried lightroom for the first time
John Blaustein Jan 20, 2011 6:33 AM (in response to TF22Raptor2)How quickly LR imports new images and builds previews is a function of how powerful your computer is. I don't think it should take overnight for 300 images. And yes, you can work on one thing in LR while it is doing something else.
When I first started to learn LR (about a year ago), I found the following very useful:
http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-lightroom-20/ -- LR2 (though useful for LR3 because there is a lot of overlap)The following -- in no particular order -- are links I've saved with good information:I would also recommend using the Help menu in LR. The Help file will answer many of the questions one encounters as a beginner.John--- sorry the links look so bad. I don't know how to make them appear spaced correctly. -
9. Re: Just tried lightroom for the first time
clvrmnky Jan 20, 2011 6:42 AM (in response to TF22Raptor2)You might want to bump the raw cache from its default, and put it on a fast disk separate from the managed files (if you can.) The raw cache never needs to be backed up, and can even be put on an unsafe RAID.
There is also another property that controls the size, in pixels, of the previews, but I always forget which previews and views it is related to. But the notion is to set it to the size that is closest to the resolution of your screen. I recall this has to do more with taking up unnecessary disk space in the previews, but may affect the time to render previews, too, if you have a smaller than maximum screen res.


