[Leica] musings on Lightroom

[images at comporium.net (Tina Manley)]

At 01:51 PM 12/22/2007, you wrote:
>This is really useful if you are an expert user of a program, but 
>unbelievably terrible if you are learning how to use the program. 
>Imagine you are sitting there with your Lightroom manual reading 
>about how to use hierarchical keywords and you want to try it out. 
>The manual is, like all modern manuals, terrible, and it doesn't 
>tell you whether the hierarchy goes from left to right or right to 
>left. So if you want to assign a keyword Animals:Mammals:Horses to a 
>picture, you don't know whether your should say Animals > Mammals > 
>Horses or Horses > Mammals > Animals or Horses < Mammals < Animals, 
>so you try it to see what happens. Experimenting is the right way to 
>learn things, eh?
>
>Brian Reid

I'm ambivalent about Lightroom, too.  I use it for almost everything 
that I used to use PSCS3 for except keywording - I don't want my 
keywords alphabetized - I still have to go to PSCS3's File Info to 
fill in keywords in the order that I want them.  Spotting and 
enlarging I still do in PSCS3, too.  I'm also still using iView Media 
Pro for cataloging.  I just don't trust the Lightroom catalogs yet 
and can never find them when I need them.  Lightroom is great for 
editing, assigning ranks, adjusting white balance and tones - 
everything I need to do before I bring only the selected photos into 
PSCS3 for final processing - so it does save me tons of time.  I've 
asked on the Lightroom forums that future upgrades give us the choice 
of whether we want keywords alphabetized or not.  I'm hoping they'll 
continue to improve it.

Tina

Tina Manley
ASMP, NPPA, EP, PI
http://www.tinamanley.com