Some are able spell these various words, without thinking twice, but for some of us, the older generation, remember being forced to look words up in a physical dictionary.
Being dyslexic, some form of dictionary lay by my side when ever I was writing something.
Yes, I would find the word in question, without issue, because of the alphabetization of all those words, but every now a then, my eye would wander, and I would be caught up in just browsing…
Flipping the page, eyes running down the columns searching for something to stand out…
Never know what it was, until it was “found”…
A new knowledge nugget implanted into the neurons…
Only to start again!
Anyhow, during my morning newsfeed/wall reading, I came across “Letter of Recommendation: The Oxford English Dictionary” by Maria Bustillos of the New York Times Magazine, in which she expresses her ‘hidden’ desire to find the words within words, or Etymology.
Another cord was struck.
Having a degree in Physics, generally forces one to learn many ‘roots’ for various words, or studies.
No problem there, especially with my dictionary by my side.
My dictionaries also provided security.
During my early days on the internet, I used the words on the spines of my dictionaries, as Passwords…
I never had to write them down, but they were always available.
Over the past couple of years, I have really begun to start listening to more books, then actually ‘reading’, and for me, it has opened a whole new world! (60+ books in 3 years)
But I still, every now and then, have to return to my trusty Dictionary!
In this book, the author introduces us to the complexity of creating the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and one is left with nothing by amazement that such at task could have been done!
So as you go about your day, and use your words…
Remember to choose your words carefully…
They have been around since then early days of humanity, and may carry ideas that you are not aware of…
I’ve been using Adobe Lightroom ever since it first came out, and during that time, I have always used Keywords for my images (40,000+). Lately, however, I have revisited my ‘home made’ Keyword List, and have stumbled onto a whole sub-topic within Lightroom that I wish I had found MUCH earlier!!
Here is one of the best tutorials on the subjects, which I found on lightroomqueen.com –
It is not that technical or difficult, but the challenge is how deep you want to get into keywords.
What got me revisiting my Keyword List was a need to publish more stock photography, which requires keywords, and the more the better!
What is also kind of fun, along with frustrating, are the words and the various synonyms! As you go through the List, you realize that a given Word can have so many meanings or spellings, especially in English!
Getting Started, Again!
As mentioned earlier, I have been using the Keywords since I started, so essentially it was just a straight alphabetized list of words, without any organization.
I never Exported my ‘homemade’ List as a Backup BEFORE I started.
Oops…
So I have the GIGANTIC list of Words, some of which are organized, but most not…
I should have organized my ‘homemade’ Key Word List first, and then Imported the Foundation List.
Lessons Learned
At the moment, I have spent SEVERAL hours, going through my new Keyword List, and reorganizing it into a hybrid.
Again, I wish I had started this from the beginning!
That being said, here are some things learned, so far…
Keywords not equal
Even though the Keyword list itself is nothing more than an ASCII text file, having a Word on a single line does NOT mean it (the Word) will be Counted correctly in Lightroom.
Each Keyword is supposed to be on a Single Line, but there is a big difference between a Word and a [Tab space] BEFORE the Word!
This gets into the heart of Categories, which is covered very well on photo-keywords.com in their Tutorial.
It does make sense, when you think about it, and thankfully Lightroom gives you a much easier way to move Keywords into the Categories.
Yes, you could do the SAME thing in the Text file, BUT if you are unsure of the meaning of the Word, you can not “see” that, but in Lightroom, you can call-up the images, and “see” the Keyword’s meaning, and Edit from there.
Time to Clean-Up
As you edit your keyword list, you will find ‘bad’ words, for what- ever reason, and here is a get chance to clean-up the list!
At some point, do open up your “working” version of your Keyword list in a Text Editor, and run a Spell Checker on the List.
Lightroom becomes sluggish
While moving Keywords around, I began to notice Lightroom becoming sluggish, and after several large Keyword ‘moves’, I realized Lightroom is re-writing meta-tag data back into the various files!
You Create/Update a Keyword;
The Keyword is Created/Updated in the Lightroom database;
The metadata is rewritten into the file (xmp, psd/psb, tiff, jpg, etc.)
Needless to say, you are going to want to do these operations across fast hard drives, and if possible, have your main collection of images on a separate disk(s) from where Lightroom is installed, so there will be less of a bottle-neck in processing the keyword “move” requests.
Also, remember to back-up and Optimize your Lightroom catalog!
You will also want to back-up your original images too, since these keyword changes are also re-written into the various files: xmp, tiff, psd, psb, jpg, etc.
Procedures
If you are starting Fresh, download one of the various Keyword Lists that are available.
If you are starting with an existing list, be prepared to spend some time on this project, but it will be worth it!
Backup your Original List, “as is”
Review the Keyword List Structure (Foundation List) you have Chosen in a Text Editor
Organize your Original List (and Backup)
Import the new Keyword List Structure into Lightroom
Reorganize and Edit
In just reorganizing my list, I have noticed numerous other Keywords that could easily describe a given image, which can only help during my workflow in publishing to the stock photography market!
As mentioned several times, I wish I had started this sooner!
I hope that you have picked up some new ideas with this post, and feel free to comment or ask questions!
It is always a pain to move to a new computer because there are so many files and settings that need to be redone for the user to really get productive again.
With this idea in mind I offer the following tips and advice in regards to moving an Adobe Lightroom User from one machine to another.
This guide is geared towards people who are technically proficient on the Windows operating system, but should be able to serve as a guide to those working in a Macintosh environment.
If you have any other ideas or tips please feel free to send them my way!
Transferring the Data
As any User of Lightroom knows, the Catalog and Image files are the heart of your work and business, and if you are moving to a new machine, you need to consider what to do with them as you move forward.
On the “C:” drive of Old Machine –
There are several of options available to you, if your original catalogs and Images are still on the main “c:\” hard drive of your old machine.
Transfer files across the Network
If both machines are still attached to a network, you can easily transfer the catalogs across, but that is going to take time, and chew up various network resources.
Remember, depending on the number of Images you have, your catalog directory could easily reach several gigabytes worth of data,in my case: Catalog: 12.7 GBs & Images: 261 GBs
Remove the old hard drive –
If you remove the hard drive, you have two basic options, but before you begin, backup your files on the old machine in your normal manner.
Install in new computer –
By simply taking the hard drive out of the old machine, and installing it into your new machine, is most certainly the easiest of the options, and also gives you a second HD spindle when dealing with I/O operations in Lightroom.
But before you remove the hard drive, be sure to check the compatibility of data interfaces on your new machine – Can the new machine deal with the older IDE interface?
An example I can give, is my new machines, that is based on the Asus Z87-Pro motherboard, which does not have any IDE connections.
Also keep in mind, that if you connect the old “C:” drive, and it wants to reinitialize for whatever reason, and you have not backed up your data…
External case –
This is another good alternative, and does give you the flexibility to move to different environments with little issue, and also gives you the additional spindle speed during I/O, but is subject to the port speed when you plug-in, assuming that the chipset on the external drive is the faster of the two.
Backups
There are three critical areas that need to be transferred to your new machine for it to work in a fashion that you are used to: Images, Catalogs and Preferences.
Images –
Do I really need to say more?
Catalogs –
As mentioned earlier, catalogs can easily reach several gigabytes worth of data, but does all that data need to be transferred to the new computer?
Again Users of Lightroom know, and unless they have change the default settings, the program will prompt you to do backups, which are located in a sub-directory of the main catalog directory.
c:\My.Adobe.Lightroom.Catalog\Backups\
By simply looking into the backup directory, one could easily save time and the amount of data that needs to be transferred, by simply cleaning out old unnecessary files, but this is completely user based.
Just check to see which “Date – Time” named directories really need to be moved.
Preferences –
Since this is most likely a new software install, none of your preferences will be in place, so where are those files located?
Like all other User preferences, they are stored in the operating system’s Users profile directory, that is hidden through the normal interface, that can be easily accessed with a little forethought.
Once installed in the new directories, Lightroom should have no issue accessing the “.lrtemplate” files. (BTW – If you really want to be geeky, you can open up these files in a text editor and play with them to your heart’s content)
Conclusion
When I moved to my new machine, I used a combination of techniques described above.
On my old machine, the Lightroom catalogs and images were already located on an internal secondary SATA hard drive, so I just removed the old hard drive, and installed it into the new machine.
From there, I copied the images and catalogs (approx 275 GBs) to the root directory of my new machine, creating a new backup of the files.
Even across the SATA III bus, this still took several hours, and I could smell hard drive smoke. (just kidding!)
When I got to my preferences, I connected to my old machine across the network and simply copied the files into the associated directories.
From there, I reconnected the Lightroom catalogs to the local main image directory, now located on the root of my main “c:\” drive.
Finally, I rewrote my old robocopy script to include the additional external hard drive, that I added for redundancy in my backup solution.
Some may argue, that having all my data on the “c:\” will produce bottlenecks, while I would agree in theory, I also have to wonder with my usage of Intel’s RST technology, reduces this as an issue.
