LR2 Learning Curve - Advice needed

[mjs1973]

I recently installed LR2 and spent most of the weekend working with it. I have been using Scott Kelby's LR2 for Digital Photographers book to help me get my feet wet.

Here are a few thoughts that I have, and I'm wondering what others think. I imported over 50,000 photos from 2 external HD's in an effort to better manage my entire photo library. I was really looking forward to the asset management capabilities of LR2, but so far I am not too excited about it. LR2 was unable to recognize over 600 of my PSD files. These are the layered final versions of some of my best photos. The ones I spent a lot of time on tweaking. These are the photos that are the most important to me, and LR is telling me that I need to resave them... it will take a lot of time to track them all down and resave them.

LR2 seems to have slowed down my computer to the point where I'm not sure if it is worth it. (I was expecting this to some extent) Not just for looking at photos, but to import new photos from my memory card. Canon's Zoombrowser utility downloaded my images much faster than LR2 does. Perhaps that is because Zoombrowser was downloading my files to an internal HD where I have LR2 downloading to an external USB 2.0 drive. Also, I set the import up to down load a backup copy of my files to a separate external HD and it failed at that.

The Develop module uses almost the exact same tools as Adobe Camera RAW so I don't see that as a plus or a minus. I do like the idea of being able to do some local edits with LR2, but that really isn't a big deal for me as I can do them in PS just the same. I also think that ACR has a much cleaner layout when developing my RAW files than LR2 does. I get a much larger image also.

I haven't used the slideshow module yet, and I'm not sure that it's something I will ever use. I don't create slide shows for clients or for myself. Perhaps something I would do in the future, but not at this time.

The print module also seems to be something that I will not use. I don't print anything myself so I don't know if there is anything in there that will be of use for me.

I am excited about the web module. I have looked at some of the templates built in, and they look very nice. Nicer than what is available in PS CS3. I plan on installing CS4 this week, so it will be interesting to see what that offers for web galleries.

I'm giving some serious thought to completely uninstalling LR and going back to my Photoshop workflow using Bridge and PS. I hate to give up on LR2 without giving it a fair try, but right now, I really don't see it as a benefit to my workflow.

I guess the point of my ramblings are to get opinions from the more experienced LR users. Did you experience these same types of issues? Did it take some time to really develop a liking to the new LR workflow? Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction or give me some advice...

[SmartWombat]

I'm using Lightroom 1.4, maybe you'll have better luck when it gets to 2.x ?
I will be getting 2.0 for Christmas so I can give you more feedback then, but I always view a .0 release with caution. Even though it's not from Microsoft (their motto: "third time lucky").

So, bearing in mind the old and inferior is 1.4, not the new and improved version 2.

>> LR2 seems to have slowed down my computer ... import new photos from my memory card.
I don't use LR to import from the memory card.
I see no benefit from using an application to do what I can go better and quicker.
I copy files off the card into dated/subject folders on disk.
Like 2008/GFoS, 2008/LM24H and then import into Lightroom from there.
Leaving the files alone, in their original location.
I have never let it touch my memory cards.

>> Perhaps that is because Zoombrowser was downloading my files to an internal HD where I have LR2 downloading to an external USB 2.0 drive.
Definitely, using external disk is far slower than using internal.

BTW I found Zoombrowser totally unworkable, completely useless. Because I will put all 2000 shots from a race weekend in one folder, and ZoomBrowser fails abysmally to show the contents of such a folder.
Even worse is nested subfolders, like 2008 which contains 21168 images in 16 first level folders, ZoomBrowser and Digital Photo Pro (hah! I wish!) fail completely to open it.

>> LR2 seems to have slowed down my computer to the point where I'm not sure if it is worth it.
Seems like PS will create its previews in the background, and that is cpu intensive after a load of a few thousand images. Also when I open up LR it goes and checks that it can find all the image folders.
If the images aren't on a fast drive that can be slow, particularly on my laptop.

If you haven't let it complete the post-import generation of previews, then it will attempt to continue whenever you open a folder. So you see slow performance until it has finished.

I imported 193173 files from my network NAS in two days. And then let Lightroom stew for another couple of days while it built its low resolution previews. That's far slower than you're going to see with your internal HD, because the images were left on the NAS and the previews were build by reading the NAS - that has a peak of 10MB/s across the network.
I have a few PSD files and it hasn't failed to open any of them.

>> Photoshop workflow using Bridge and PS
I never wanted to use Bridge or Photoshop. PS is just far too slow to load.
I saw Aperture first, and thought hard about buying a Mac just for that.
Then Lightroom came out in Beta and I was saved

>> I really don't see it as a benefit to my workflow.
I shoot exclusively in RAW and so it functions as raw viewer and non-destructive raw editor. I don't convert until I need an output in another format, or I need editing in Photoshop. Then I let it create TIF which is its preferred format.
>> I do like the idea of being able to do some local edits with LR2, but that really isn't a big deal for me as I can do them in PS just the same.
Big thing for me is that editing in Lightroom is non-destructive. I don't need to go out to PS for most work that I do, simple clone/heal operations.
So I don't have to sit around waiting for PS to load, I don't have to save in another file, and I don't use extra disk space having copies of my image as PSD or TIF files.
The UI of LR is far better suited for me than Photoshop 9, I feel that with PS CS2 I'm taking a step backwards. But if I couls afford a more up to date Photoshop maybe Lightroom would look dated ?


>> Did it take some time to really develop a liking to the new LR workflow?
About 30 minutes. I couldn't wait for it to get out of Beta.

>> Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction
Well, its main feature that we were meant to use it for is the library functions, you haven't mentioned using keywording and metadata searching at all !
It's as important to be able to find your images later than it is to put them in the library to start with. That's where keywording comes in.
Also if you are uploading images for people to search (and hopefully buy) in a service like Fotolibra, then keywording is essential to customers finding your image.
Tip: Getting in the habit of putting in the keywords as you load the images is essential.
It's going to take me years to keyword the hundred thousand I've got now !


CPU usage.
Get a fast one !
A dual core 3.2GHz is faster than a Quad core 2.3GHz.
Though with quad core the machine is more responsive while Lightroom is running.

Memory.
Get lots !
I've got 2G of RAM and Lightroom will use all of it, and then 1.8G of swap space.

[EOSThree]

Lightroom is very computer intensive. I am using a MacBook Pro 2.5 ghz Core 2 Duo with 4 gig RAM and LR in 64 bit mode. I still see the spinning beach ball(akin to the hour glass in Windoze)quite a bit when working with LR. LR is a memory hawg. That being said I still like it.

Here's what I found with a little research on importing files to LR:

"Photoshop format (PSD)
Photoshop format (PSD) is the standard Photoshop file format. To import and work with a multi-layered PSD file in Lightroom, the file must have been saved in Photoshop with the Maximize PSD and PSB File Compatibility preference turned on. You’ll find the option in the Photoshop file handling preferences. Lightroom saves PSD files with a bit depth or 8 bits or 16 bits per channel."

I have found one solution for importing .psd files which would not import even though saved with maximum compatibility!! They were just too big. Lightroom won't import anything over 10,000 pixels wide. Files 10043 and 10067 pixel wide files that would not import could be imported just fine when I down sized them to 10,000 pixels width.

This means that I can't save some scanned work at the scanner resolution - I have to down res it to get it into Lightroom. It probably also means that Lightroom can't handle files intended for really large prints (I have some print files that are for 15"x43" prints).

[SmartWombat]

I also find Lightroom capable of bringing my PC to a standstill.
It has 2GB of memory.
I got an alarm that there were only 64KB of memory free !
And checking with "Spotlight on Windows" I also had 1.9GB of virtual memory in use and was paging over 1000 pages/sec - everything was dead !

Lightroom 1.4 definitely needs better memory management. I don't know if there is a setting to limit its use - but I suspect it's to do with the database engine.