Lightroom
Lightroom preferences (mac os x only)
01/30/2008 @ 09:39 PM Filed in:
Photography
I decided to take a look at
Lightroom's preferences using OS 10's defaults command earlier this
evening.
Found a few interesting settings (use caution modifying application preferences):
1. useSpeechRecognition = NO;
This one has to be the most interesting. Speech Recognition in a photo app? Seems useful in the library, but I can't imagine adjusting images using my voice as it seems too difficult for the end user. Problem is I don't know what verbal commands, if any, Lightroom responds. Please let me know if you come up with anything.
2. animationSpeed = 1;
-This appears to help make the GUI a bit snapper drawing the interface. I noticed the side panels draw immediately as opposed to drawing gradually.
DEFAULT VALUE: 1
NOTES: I set it to 2 and it appeared slower and I set it to 0 and it appeared faster. I think I'll keep it at zero.
3. "AgLightsOut_screenShade" = 0.5;
-I haven't tried modifying this setting's value but I assume changing its number will affect the amount of shading Lights Out mode has.
4. "AgProgressView_visible" = NO;
-I see "progress", "view", and "visible" and I immediately assume this enables/disables a progress window, sheet, etc. However, whenever I change this to YES, the app seems to reset it to NO on launch. Thus I have yet to see this functioning with its value set to YES.
5. useTestUpdateSite = NO;
-Switching this over to YES and then launch Lightroom, you'll immediately notice some sort of debugging window. However I have yet to figure out how to use it. Please let me know if you find a use for this.
Found a few interesting settings (use caution modifying application preferences):
1. useSpeechRecognition = NO;
This one has to be the most interesting. Speech Recognition in a photo app? Seems useful in the library, but I can't imagine adjusting images using my voice as it seems too difficult for the end user. Problem is I don't know what verbal commands, if any, Lightroom responds. Please let me know if you come up with anything.
2. animationSpeed = 1;
-This appears to help make the GUI a bit snapper drawing the interface. I noticed the side panels draw immediately as opposed to drawing gradually.
DEFAULT VALUE: 1
NOTES: I set it to 2 and it appeared slower and I set it to 0 and it appeared faster. I think I'll keep it at zero.
3. "AgLightsOut_screenShade" = 0.5;
-I haven't tried modifying this setting's value but I assume changing its number will affect the amount of shading Lights Out mode has.
4. "AgProgressView_visible" = NO;
-I see "progress", "view", and "visible" and I immediately assume this enables/disables a progress window, sheet, etc. However, whenever I change this to YES, the app seems to reset it to NO on launch. Thus I have yet to see this functioning with its value set to YES.
5. useTestUpdateSite = NO;
-Switching this over to YES and then launch Lightroom, you'll immediately notice some sort of debugging window. However I have yet to figure out how to use it. Please let me know if you find a use for this.
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Lightroom Configurations
01/26/2008 @ 04:47 PM Filed in:
Photography | News
I don't have much to report at the
moment as I've been rather busy with my day job.
I mailed my print to The Center of Fine Art Photography for the upcoming group exhibit this morning. And I have been invited to participate in another group show (should have 4-5 photos in this one) which will be in the Spring or Summer of this year. I'll have more details of the show hopefully soon.
I just stumbled on an interesting web site earlier today that allows users of Lightroom to modify which metadata fields are shown, how they are displayed, etc. Visit this blog entry on Jeffrey Friedl's Blog for more info.
I mailed my print to The Center of Fine Art Photography for the upcoming group exhibit this morning. And I have been invited to participate in another group show (should have 4-5 photos in this one) which will be in the Spring or Summer of this year. I'll have more details of the show hopefully soon.
I just stumbled on an interesting web site earlier today that allows users of Lightroom to modify which metadata fields are shown, how they are displayed, etc. Visit this blog entry on Jeffrey Friedl's Blog for more info.
iVMP to LR Applescript
11/03/2007 @ 12:43 AM Filed in:
Photography
FINALLY!!!
exiftool is my answer to my migration to Lightroom troubles. I use the tool quite a bit for reading metadata from image files but for some reason its writing capabilities totally escaped me until someone at work reminded that it will do what I need it to do.
For a month or two I have been on the hunt for a tool that will aid me to move particular metadata (ratings, keywords , and title are most important to me) from my iView Media Pro catalogs to Lightroom. For some reason I thought I needed a XMP merge utility which I couldn't find. iVMP is Applescript scriptable, but Lightroom isn't (thanks Adobe). I tried to script Photoshop CS3 but never found a way to set an image's rating (don't know why this isn't available).
Like I said eventually someone told me that exiftool will write to XMP but without damaging pre-existing XMP files (my image adjustments were too valuable for me to loose). So I wrote up an Applescript that gets particular metadata from iVMP and then sends that data to exiftool as an argument which then writes that data to the associated XMP file.
Anyway, it works pretty good as I've been using it all night. The big drawbacks I've seen thus far is 1. its kinda slow. Takes a minute or two to process 50-100 files and 2. I designed it to process only one container (directory, catalog set, etc) at a time. Has its advantages and disadvantages. I wrote the script in this manner so I could then re-read the XMP for each folder once the script is finished in Lightroom.
Download here.
There is more documentation in the header of the script. The script is provided for free (as *all* scripts should be) and strictly "AS IS". I'm unable to provide any level of technical support. If you want to improve it in anyway, please email me the changes so I can merge them in and allow the general community access.
exiftool is my answer to my migration to Lightroom troubles. I use the tool quite a bit for reading metadata from image files but for some reason its writing capabilities totally escaped me until someone at work reminded that it will do what I need it to do.
For a month or two I have been on the hunt for a tool that will aid me to move particular metadata (ratings, keywords , and title are most important to me) from my iView Media Pro catalogs to Lightroom. For some reason I thought I needed a XMP merge utility which I couldn't find. iVMP is Applescript scriptable, but Lightroom isn't (thanks Adobe). I tried to script Photoshop CS3 but never found a way to set an image's rating (don't know why this isn't available).
Like I said eventually someone told me that exiftool will write to XMP but without damaging pre-existing XMP files (my image adjustments were too valuable for me to loose). So I wrote up an Applescript that gets particular metadata from iVMP and then sends that data to exiftool as an argument which then writes that data to the associated XMP file.
Anyway, it works pretty good as I've been using it all night. The big drawbacks I've seen thus far is 1. its kinda slow. Takes a minute or two to process 50-100 files and 2. I designed it to process only one container (directory, catalog set, etc) at a time. Has its advantages and disadvantages. I wrote the script in this manner so I could then re-read the XMP for each folder once the script is finished in Lightroom.
Download here.
There is more documentation in the header of the script. The script is provided for free (as *all* scripts should be) and strictly "AS IS". I'm unable to provide any level of technical support. If you want to improve it in anyway, please email me the changes so I can merge them in and allow the general community access.
Thoughts on DAM software
07/22/2007 @ 06:23 PM Filed in:
Photography
DAM software meaning "Digital Assist
Management software". Some popular examples are Adobe's Lightroom,
Apple's Aperture, Microsoft's Expression Media (formally known as
iView Media Pro).
My current number one problem with all of these software titles is not one provides the ability to adopt it well. Say you are currently using iView Media Pro for your DAM software and Photoshop for your image editor. Then Lightroom is just released; the all in one package from Adobe. When you use Photoshop your record all your image adjustments to disk using Adobe's XMP files. Today you want to switch to Lightroom because you like some of the features and think it would be better to use a single software application to handle all your needs. Great. One question? How do you get your metadata out of iVMP and into Lightroom? Well iVMP will export metadata using XMP files. Awesome you say. One problem. Using iVMP to export the metadata to disk will overwrite your image adjustments that currently exist. All your hard work adjusting images will be all down the drain. What to do?
Great question. Who has an answer? I want to switch to Lightroom, please help. Email me here.
What amazes me the most about this problem is not one of the big DAM software companies produce such a mechanism to perform an easy and quick adoption. They seem to expect that photographers will have no problem dropping their current solution and pick there's up at a drop of a hat with no problems. No one has time to figure this out and certainly no one has time to solve this problem manually. XMP helps but without the ability to merge XMP files, it isn't a complete solution.
My current number one problem with all of these software titles is not one provides the ability to adopt it well. Say you are currently using iView Media Pro for your DAM software and Photoshop for your image editor. Then Lightroom is just released; the all in one package from Adobe. When you use Photoshop your record all your image adjustments to disk using Adobe's XMP files. Today you want to switch to Lightroom because you like some of the features and think it would be better to use a single software application to handle all your needs. Great. One question? How do you get your metadata out of iVMP and into Lightroom? Well iVMP will export metadata using XMP files. Awesome you say. One problem. Using iVMP to export the metadata to disk will overwrite your image adjustments that currently exist. All your hard work adjusting images will be all down the drain. What to do?
Great question. Who has an answer? I want to switch to Lightroom, please help. Email me here.
What amazes me the most about this problem is not one of the big DAM software companies produce such a mechanism to perform an easy and quick adoption. They seem to expect that photographers will have no problem dropping their current solution and pick there's up at a drop of a hat with no problems. No one has time to figure this out and certainly no one has time to solve this problem manually. XMP helps but without the ability to merge XMP files, it isn't a complete solution.