Have been watching a Lightroom video @jocasta recommended which is very very helpful - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSwkDC3q7uk yet I'm confused about a few key things related ot getting organized before importing to Lightroom. Any user out there know if I need to export originals (RAW) from Aperture libraries to create the file system? And if I do that, won't I lose all my processing to date? But if I don't do that, I'm not sure that I can create an organized system since my Aperture files are not well organized.
Photo uploaded for technique challenge 36 - blurism. http://365project.org/discuss/themes-competitions/24479/technique-challenge-36-blurism
Thanks to those of you offering encouraging words as I take a break to learn Lightroom! I really appreciate it. No need to comment on any photos as I know I'm going to have limited time to comment back.
Halfway through the video... it makes a lot of sense to me, organizationally speaking, but I have been using iPhoto for organizing my own work, by date (of course, the un-recommended thing). Baby steps! :) You get a total commenting pass on my shots, fyi, so you can devote yourself to this huge task. PS - nice blur.
I actually import by date. It's easy to go from there with tags and you can create so much more. I import by date in my photos on computer. Call me tomorrow if you need to. I'm out till 3:30 but home after that.
I'm with @darylo I import by dates and then use tags. As for losing prior adjustments I think you are right but if you turned them to tiff files I think not. I have only been shooting in raw for a short time. Think this may help http://www.macworld.com/article/1057188/aperture-lightroom-import-raw-tip.html I need to look at because I have put some files in the wrong place and notice when I move them I lose the edits.
I've found the thread fascinating. I'm such a scary cat re editing. I start and then pull back. Maybe I could make it more of a focus for a 2nd year. Love the blur here.
Great blur effect and brilliant colours. I love using LR and have now, after some hours, got my files beautifully organised. I upload everything into temporary files by date; then when I've processed and tagged them I move them into a permanent file, again organised by date. I did watch a few videos, but the book I found most helpful when starting out was Victoria Bampton. I got it direct from her website (just google it) - much cheaper than Amazon, and she's willing to answer questions if the book doesn't cover them.
Forgot to say that I put the downloaded version on my ipad, which I can then use to refer to when using my desktop, where I keep all my photos (backed up on to an external drive).
interesting effect... zoom blur? or was this done in post? radial motion blur or something? i would say it does count as blurism, but i find it rather harsh on the eyes... have you tried a deliberately out-of-focus city scape? (possibly this is one, but it doesn't look like i think it would)... i think that would end up with a dreamy-er quality...
for lightroom, i took someone's advice and just started using it going forward, without making any real attempt to organize my older files... older ones are some-what organized, mind you - just different "system"... i suck at "filing" in any way shape or form, so i need to keep my system really simple... by date, and that's pretty much it... occasionally i gear myself up to add key words, but mostly that doesn't happen...
Neat effect for sure, feel like I'm rushing into the city. Good luck on the move to LR. Your discussions on how to import and catalogue are making me look into mine and see if I want to improve mine for 2015.
@northy I did it mostly in post processing. I'd taken four shots, from motion blur ones using the zoom -- interesting abstracts I thought but harsh (interesting that you saw that in this one). The problem I had with those is that I thought I didn't have enough of the original structures to know what was there, even though I liked their abstractness. So then, I took one in sharp focus and used blur in post-processing, to keep the bridge (tiny thing lower center) in focus and the rest blurring out from it -- thinking that something had to be recognizable. This is a fun challenge...given that I'm cutting back but don't want to leave 365 completely, the challenge and the LR focus are keeping me going each day with photo-thinking! Having just spent half a day trying to find photos of our house pre-fire, across 3 portable Hard Drives and 3 larger backup ones (going back to 2002), I'd give almost anything to be organized!! But, it is SO daunting that I may have to give up on that idea as it means putting of actually using LR for probably a month or two which defeats the purpose. Am now thinking of moving forward with 2015 as well as unfinished albums from the 2014 travel as it was such a unique year, and the fire related ones, so that I'd be in 2015 with the photos I'd most want to have ready access to. What do you think, given that you just moved over this past year or so, from what I remember of your album?
@taffy actually, I got Lightroom back in 2012... Up until then, my photos are "stored" on disk / external hard drives in, more or less, year by year order... Going back to 2003-ish... I lost my pre-2003 digital shots in a computer crash in 2002-ish...
I would say the most important thing is to get working with LR... Just do it... If you feel a need to organize historical stuff, maybe set yourself 15 to 30 minutes per day or something... But spend the rest of the time moving forward... At least that's what I would do / did...
On the blur thing... I need an excuse to get out today... If it doesn't rain too much (dang I hate this kind of winter) I might go to the lake and try for a blurism cityscape shot... I think I have an idea of what I'd need to do to make the idea "work", but want to try it out first to see...
@northy Makes sense...the organization is really daunting!
Will watch for your post...I like having one thing to focus on this week and if I post, great and if not, no biggie...I feel like I'm going through withdrawal! I have to force myself NOT to view and comment so I can stay with the LR tutorials in prep for a face-to-face help session tomorrow that I want to make the most of.
@taffy I just took the plunge and let LR take all my photos from the past couple of years and pull them into the catalog. I've learned some interesting things in the past 24 hrs. (1) Just doing it is more than a Nike slogan! (2) Allowing LR to do an import from my camera chip and adding my own title amount to what I was doing before - so - SCORE! (3) I needed to dig to find photos for an upcoming show and what a dream to work with the cataloging in LR! It was so much faster and easier than it would have been just yesterday! (4) I can TRULY see the benefits to using LR as part of the work flow.
Here's my advice: Get as much of your stuff in one place (external hard drive) as possible. I have a 5TB right now and that seems to suffice for my shots from the past couple of years. You said you use a system similar to the one I described (with dates and descriptors). Then just let LR build the catalog. See #1 above!
@voiceprintz Tomorrow's the day!! I have all of 2014 now on one external drive. If I have time in the morning, based on what you said, I'm going to my earlier photos on other drives and will save as many out to the one place. But they are all in Aperture libraries, not as separate files. Is that what you did?
@taffy There has to be a directory structure to your stored files. I did just what I said I was going to do. I imported a single month's directory - all of the accompanying subdirectories for daily shots as well as a trip. I watched to see what happened and all went smoothly. So, I jumped both feet (and more than a little liquid fortification as evidenced in yesterday's photo!). Voila! This morning there were over 125K pictures all cataloged. That's what I did. Good luck! *fingers crossed*
After doing a backup (belt and braces), I started in on doing the big jump today too, and found some advice by Derek Story (The Digital Story podcast) about preparing for this. http://www.ct-digiphoto.com/import-aperture-libraries-lightroom-5-7/ Currently in the process of generating said previews which has taken hours and still has a while to go before I'm prepared to do the import to LR. More tomorrow when the real jump happens - I hope.
Never played with lightroom either I use aperture however I may have to have a look. My organization of images isn't very good. I too am hoping to get that sorted, I have multiple libraries and looks like I lost many images with the difference in versions and originals which is a pain. Good luck and looking forward to seeing what 2015 brings.
so... yesterday early afternoon we had a snow storm... then, after a couple hours of white-out conditions and a few inches of snow, it started to rain... and it rained and it rained and it rained... so didn't get out last night...
but another thought about adding blur in post processing occurred to me... are you using photoshop? i often add blur for a soft focus effect in photoshop and you can use masks to let one part of the image come thru more clearly... (i can explain this if you don't know what i mean)...
@northy We are in the midst of the snowstorm now...ugh, ugly stuff that is supposed to turn to snow and below freezing temperatures with 30 below wind chill by tonight. Heading out shortly to a flower show at the conservatory -- seems a good contrast to what is going on outside! I have used Aperture to create blur, but it isn't mask, it's more of a paintbrush setup, with sliders for intensity. I now have PS as part of the LR / PS package that the university has as a site license (yay!). That's why I suddenly have gotten so into learning LR as my system, combined with Aperture support from Apple at an end. My next goal is to learn PS, but I'm holding off on that until I've got LR under control (not mastered, but at least understand it as the two programs work together). I also need to understand how Silver Efex coordinates with LR as I use that so much. Can I take you up on the offer of learning about blur/masks down the road (I'm guessing about 3 weeks from now). Between & beyond subway, penquin, and b&w composition/lighting, I will continue to stalk you for ideas!!
Helpful conversation, I realized I was exporting all wrong this holiday when I attempted to print some photos. I didn't realize they didn't stay raw unless I exported directly from iphoto, I had been dragging them. Much to learn!
What informative comments, I've definitely learnt a few things reading through and think Northy's paragraph about limiting time spent on historical stuff and moving forward is sound indeed! @northy Enjoy your time away from commenting/posting but as someone said in another thread somewhere this site is definitely a Hotel California type of place! Ps Happy New Year and great blur :)
Very cool shot...just moving my eyes around the picture gives the realy effect of moving in and out!
Can't help re Lightroom as I just Bridge and Adobe CameraRaw, then Photoshop to save to folders.
January 6th, 2015
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for lightroom, i took someone's advice and just started using it going forward, without making any real attempt to organize my older files... older ones are some-what organized, mind you - just different "system"... i suck at "filing" in any way shape or form, so i need to keep my system really simple... by date, and that's pretty much it... occasionally i gear myself up to add key words, but mostly that doesn't happen...
I would say the most important thing is to get working with LR... Just do it... If you feel a need to organize historical stuff, maybe set yourself 15 to 30 minutes per day or something... But spend the rest of the time moving forward... At least that's what I would do / did...
On the blur thing... I need an excuse to get out today... If it doesn't rain too much (dang I hate this kind of winter) I might go to the lake and try for a blurism cityscape shot... I think I have an idea of what I'd need to do to make the idea "work", but want to try it out first to see...
Will watch for your post...I like having one thing to focus on this week and if I post, great and if not, no biggie...I feel like I'm going through withdrawal! I have to force myself NOT to view and comment so I can stay with the LR tutorials in prep for a face-to-face help session tomorrow that I want to make the most of.
Here's my advice: Get as much of your stuff in one place (external hard drive) as possible. I have a 5TB right now and that seems to suffice for my shots from the past couple of years. You said you use a system similar to the one I described (with dates and descriptors). Then just let LR build the catalog. See #1 above!
but another thought about adding blur in post processing occurred to me... are you using photoshop? i often add blur for a soft focus effect in photoshop and you can use masks to let one part of the image come thru more clearly... (i can explain this if you don't know what i mean)...
Can't help re Lightroom as I just Bridge and Adobe CameraRaw, then Photoshop to save to folders.