Lessons

Lesson Info

10:45 am - Select, Rate, & Prioritize Images

So we switch catalogs. I'm not sure if I was clear enough with that. So I decided that we we had seen enough about tv little catalog. So this is more. This looks much more like the catalogue that I would use at home. And just so you know, at the very end, probably like tomorrow afternoon, I will definitely be talking about how to merge catalogs together and how to take a bunch of images on location. Like, if you have to give a presentation somewhere and you want to take a subset of your images, I can show you how to take those with you and vice versa. So let's say you go on location, you download to a laptop and then you come back. How do you merge that database on your laptop with the database? You know, you like your uber master catalogue at home, so well, we will talk about that. I just I heard the fire hose reference again here. I usually get that I know it's a lot of information that I tried to give out, but that's, because everybody is going to pick and choose just whatever infor...

mation is relevant for them, so I'd rather get a lot of information so that everybody gets something. So ok, so we're in kind of my more master demo catalogue here and you can see that I still have something called a light image vault and why I call it that I don't know I just have been calling that forever you probably call it my photos or something normal all right then I just sort things per year that's what I find easiest a lot of people do it by date and that's fine too member on when we did the import there was an option there to import automatically into dates but if we go up to the filter area I just want to show you under meta data because I forgot to show this you can search by any date that you want so I'm in this arizona folder so it's telling me that I actually have images that were photographed on two different dates that's kind of weird which images that well that's a photo from a different location all right that's a little weird let's go up to two thousand twelve so we can get this little bit clear example here right now in two thousand twelve there's forty seven dates here so I can always go and find my image is based on date like if I mean I have no idea what I did on the seventeenth of march so I was over in santa cruz right? So I don't remember where I've been based on dates I remember where I've been based on where I think, like I would go and look, oh, I was in santa cruz, or I was in arizona more than I would say, oh, on the fourteenth of july so that's just me. Ok, so I'll click none. We will get back to that in a little bit. But that's just how I organize things. Obviously, if you do it by client, that makes sense anyway, that make sense to you. All right, what else might be different? We talked about the view options being a little bit different. We also should probably talk about our tool bar options down there, the bottom. So let's, go back. And where shall we go? Let's? Go to I think that's why? I was in two thousand twelve to arizona. All right, so here's a bunch of images, my view options air different. I'm gonna close the right hand side, that panel there so we can see more of our images down here. We've got some different tools that are listed some different ways to sort. So I prefer to sort by captured time, but even come in here and the way that they were added that at a time, the edit count, all of these different options here. We'll talk about customs sort orders in minutes we'll come back to that, but the thumbnail area over here to you know, if you don't want to just use the plus or the minus key to increase or decrease your thumbnails, you can use the slider and then right to the right of that that's how you choose what content you want to show up in that toolbar so there's some things in here that will always show up your grade, your loop, you, your survey and your compare mode, the painter tool, which is awesome, we'll get to in a little bit, and then these show you different things, like if you wanted to have some rotate button, so if you wanted to rotate your image now, we can just click a button so you don't have to know the keyboard shortcut, which is command left bracket to go counterclockwise in command, right bracket to go clockwise. So? So, anyway, so if you are, if your toolbar looks different or if it's missing, it means you've tapped the tiki take, it will happen like where my tools tap a tiki again. All right, so make sure that we talked about all this thing oh, what about zooming so the navigator panel, when I'm in the developed module, I always show the navigator pound when I'm in the library module typically close the navigator panel just because it takes up space, and I usually have so many folders in my folder and collections that I don't want this using up all the space, but it is good to just see what happens in the navigator panel when you zoom in, so I mentioned that you can tap the key to zoom in. You can also tap the space bar, so the space part will zoom you in tow. Loop you and you can see here above the navigator panel, it says fit or phil, so when it says fit, I wish there was, like a slash between them, because really, you're choosing the default for your first zoom. So in this case, when I have the space bar, it went to fit, but if I click phil, that now becomes my default. So if I go back to g for grid or something, I tapped the space bar. Now, instead of fitting in the window, it fills the window. It's not my preference, I prefer to fit so I can see the whole image. I don't wantto cropping, but then after you tap the space bar or you zoom in and you go to either fit or fill, then you're going to zoom into whatever option you choose here either one to one or something from this list, and I think it's quite amusing that they have this one going to eleven resume so well, it goes to eleven, okay, there's also to newer zoo modes that one to eight and then one two sixteen, which actually zoom you out further because, you know if you're preparing an image for the web or online and you know you're going to export it smaller, especially if you're any vignettes and things you mount and see what that looks like because of in yet on a large image might seem softer, but when you zoom back out, you're like, wow, that's a heavy even yet on that image. So it's nice to see your image of the size that you're going to export it. So in the navigator panel in the library module, you could do you could also do this in the developmental. All right, so now we tap the space bar again it goes back to fit tap g so again, you pick which one you like, I like fit and I like one toe one as my defaults but you khun select from all those others you could also do command plus and command minus to zoom in and out if you want to all right so let's go back to fit that's enough with zooming so the nice thing is is when you close up the navigator panel uh these bars remain so you can always see anything always going to modify him okay? All right let's talk a little bit about flags, flags and ratings and stars and colors and when you use what so what do you guys using they're using how do you guys rate your images his stars or flags or stars stars I'm a stargell star go and I'm still working on it so we're ok we're going to figure it out right now so we're feeling were you feeling pressure though? Because everyone else said stars yeah so there's no right or wrong way at all for rating your images in fact, I've had like a twenty minute conversation with someone who their star rating there one star was the best and five star was the worst and that's fine until you try the book a hotel you're not going to want to use that same rating if you're booking a hotel but in light room it really doesn't matter it's whatever your personal preferences I think five stars probably logically for me more stars is better but it doesn't really matter so what I see customers dio customers that's a terrible customers and did you also notice whenever I like something that the dhobi does? I always say we but if I don't like it, I always say like, I don't know why they pick that why did they do that? I don't know, I'm terrible all right, so what? I see photographers, how they rate is let's say you just did a simple headshots, and in the past you would have had, like, no more than twelve like your film would have had twelve exposures on it, right? So it's a small number of images and you're just looking for the best one the doctor comes in, they need a picture, employees the month, whatever it is, they need that one shot that's when I see a lot of people use flanks because they're just picking the one that's going to be good and they're moving on. All right, but there really are three kind of ratings with flags because you can have a reject, a nothing and a pick. So there are three variables there, right? Just like with stars, you think? Well, you can have five stars, so you can have zero stars one, two, three, four and five. So there's actually six levels there, okay, which I think is waiting meant but we'll get to that in a minute, so let's, talk about the flags first, so let's, look at some images now here this is where everybody is different the way they view images. Some people just move from one image to the next and as they like an image, they will just flag it or rated or whatever they want to do. So in this case that the keyboard shortcuts quite easy p for pick exper reject and you for unflagging case like you make a mistake so I could go through and actually ok, I want to pick that file there's a p and then we move through oh, I like that one too. So there's a p I like that one ah, but now we get to three that are very similar right? So I see people going back and forth a lot. What I do is I tend to glance down and go oh there's three that are very similar. What if I select all three of these images now I have a number of ways. Well, two ways specifically where I can look at more than one image so one of the ways I would do this is I would go into survey mode so I can just tap survey mode has a weird keyboard shortcut it's in I think of it like if I was an engineer that would make sense I have n number of images selected I want to see and number of images up it could be any number see, I did go toe one math class, all right? So I've got the three images there, and now I can see them and go, ok, well, I like this one the best, and then I don't have to remove that spot, so if I like this one, the best, you'll notice that not only is there a moat selected down here at the bottom, but I can also come up here and then see this little white outline there that tells me that that image is is selected so I'd have to come over here and click on the image to select it, or I could use my left or right arrows. Those take me from one image to the next, and then I could go ahead and tap the peaky and pick this all right, so again, if I was coming over and I just said, you know what? I want to look at this whole set of images and do I like any of them? Yeah, okay, I like this one, so we'll give it a p and I like this one, so we'll give it a p so this is nice, like, if you've got, like, six or eight images and you are photographing, maybe a rehearsal or something, a wedding and you rehearsal that would be reception I'll just use my other words okay and so you want to just go through and quickly and you don't want to look at every image full screen do I like this one or this one or this one right? You got to say oh you know what? Let's just look at this whole group so I'll select multiple images in survey mode this is my little icon right here for survey mode if you can't remember in arrow keys moved from one image to the next I believe it's the backslash keep no and so tap and again it is thie forward slash key that will put down in automatically d selects the image that has been wild with the outline so if you were trying to narrow them down a little bit more you could use your arrow keys and move from one image the next and then just use the forward slash in order to get rid of the images that you don't want right and then go through a go no that one's blurry and use the forward slash and the last left with the three images that you do like okay so that's kind of one way that survey mode survey mode is also super handy if you're trying to sequence something because you could say, well, you know what this person wants a trip tick so what's that going to look like in between them so you can rearrange these to help tell your story. So that's what's quite nice about survey now, when you're looking at compare mode, compare mode is really handy because it's, one of the modes that you can use to zoom in so let's, go down all right, so here I've got four images, and here I actually want to compare them, so I'm going to tap the seiki for compare. You have probably compared images before, even if you didn't know it, because you were probably in the developed module, and you probably tapped the sea key to get the crop tool, and all of a sudden, you're like, wait a minute, I'm in the library module, and I've gotta selecting candidate what's going on, so the seiki will always take you to compare, regardless of where you are remember how I mentioned like, if I tap the d key that will actually get me to the develop module, or when I went command p I actually got to the print module, so some of these keyboard shortcuts work and take you to different modules in the developed module. The seiki is not the shortcut for cropping. The short cut for cropping is are because it's great, and it re sizes and rotates your image so just what's that or reduces it, but it could also in large it's so no, you can't you can't crop it bigger, but okay, so anyway, so you'll tap you will tap the sikh because everybody does, but it takes you to the compare mode. Now, this is in survey you can zoom in, but in compare mode you can but you could only ever see two images of the time, but you'll notice down here at the bottom. So we've got the white diamond in the black diamond, so our white diamond is going to be the select and the black diamonds gonna be the candidate, and the goal here is to just try to get the best image as your select. So, again, this works really well with the flagging or the pics of your image, because you're just like, all right, what do I like better? And look, if we tap the tab key one time, I'll get the panel bank, tap it again, and now I have more space, so those panels just hide themselves, and now I can't okay, which do I like air b, which one's better? And I say, well, I can't really tell. Well, then I could click and zoom in or out I could oh, I've set my zoom percentages give me back my panel for a minute. Fit and one toe. One needs to be my default there. Ok, so now all zoom in and let's zoom into an area. All right, so this area sharp, I can tell in this image and now I can see that that area is not sharp on the other image by default. Compare motives locked. So as I move around, you can see that both images air moving. All right, so now we get over here and I go, ok, so what do I want to? I want the grass, the little stringy part and focus or do I want this part in focus so you can go and you can look and especially like if you're checking focus with an eye or something. Now, if the person's moved a little bit, you can unlinked thiss all right, so let's, go ahead. And now I can zoom in independently, like on this side and screwed around, and I can zoom in on this side independently and move around so that if they were, you know, different locations. I could get both both the image could have the eye there, and I could say, all right now, let's, go ahead and lock that, and then you could move around both images together. So compares really handy for zooming in tow one the one you can also, if you're off and you want them to sink, you can click the sync button right here and then there's some shortcuts, so you've got the four images selected down there. We're seeing two of them if I like my candidate better than the select, I want to promote it, so to promote it is an up arrow, so I would just use my up arrow. And now all of a sudden look at the icons down here. So now my select, which is the white diamond, is over here and now, it's showing me the next image and I say, yeah, I don't like that image better, so I use my right there, okay? Because I just want to go to the next image, and I say, well, I like that one better, so I would tap the up arrow because that promotes it, and now I say, ok, great. So now I've gone through my twenty images of the head shot or something, and I'll always end up with my best image on the left hand side when you're really looking for the best image of a sequence and you do need to compare and check focus and stuff compare mode really works well. If you're just looking over, you know, like twenty images and you want three from people dancing or something, then you might want to use survey mode and just going up. I want that one. That one. Okay. All right, let's, go back to grid mode for a minute. Let's talk about the star ratings. So star ratings, this is what I see used all the time when you need different levels because stars just seemed easier. Right? So the nice thing is, well, picks work this way as well. Or flags you can flag against our you can color label, and you can base collections on these attributes that you're giving it. So if I was a wedding photographer, which is way too hard for me and I could never do that, I think you have to, like people were gonna be have tired you like, give, like, interact with people that's, that's hard for me that might cost me. So I gotta be thankful about that. They have to like you for some reason because they know I don't like people all right, so so when you photograph something, then you need different levels. Like I might say, ok, I've got two thousand images that I photographed, I want to put five hundred on the web. And then so that's a subset, right? And then I have a subset of that of eighty images that's going to be my my album and then I've got twenty images and those are my hero shots where we're gonna print in large, so that is the perfect time to use one star two star three star four star now, whether or not you are able to do this uh, at once or if you have to go back and refine them is going to be kind of where you are on your continuum of photography like and and how much what I'm trying to say is if it's immediately apparent to you people just say, ok, well, there's a four star where there's a three star where there's two star but what I see a lot of people when they're beginners is they'll come in and they'll say, ok that's good that's a two star go to the next one oh, I like that better that's a three star and five stars is too many like really, I think your brain can only handle like three levels like one, two and three stars, but then what will happen is we'll go and actually like, oh no, oh, well, that that's like it well, that should be like a three and found three let's go back yeah then that's got to be more than a three so let's make that a four and then actually you know that first one I think I'm gonna give that up to now and then they'll go for the that one is even better ok no this is a force so now I need to go back here and remote that to a three and then what you will never get through your at it ever so if you're if you're just starting off what I would recommend is you go through your edit and maybe you only focus on one stars you go ok anything that means this criteria I'm giving it one star especially if you like landscape photographers and it also gives you a great life if you photograph the whole day and then you want to just go back through your whole shoot why sit there and make your mind go who is that a one star two star or three star because you don't know what you have yet you don't know all of the images you have committed in the memory you were taking pictures now you're back so you'll go through it once was like if it means this criteria it gets one star because then we can filter it so let's just do that really quickly and maybe you know you could do this in grim view right I could go to great view and I could make my I could make my thumbnails larger so I don't even have to go through one image of the time but a lot of people like to so let's go into loop you and we'll just go through and we just say ok there's one star one star oh no no yeah that one was good one star no uh uh yeah one star one star now that I just did to that were very similar as one stars but I'm not going to spend five minutes right now looking at each one of those because once I get my one stars I'm just going to filter limit so there's a one star there's a one star no no all right you get the idea I don't think I need to spend much time doing this there's one star one star you know and then I also see this a lot too well maybe that'd be a one start if I go to the develop module so then all of a sudden you get sucked into the develop module which is the funnest place and light room to be and it's where we spend the most amount of time but don't do it before you raided all your images because you might go spend like twenty minutes and develop module and then you come back and you go to the next image like that was even better you know oh, you just wait twenty minutes, all right? So you go through and I will just do this quickly in fact, I'm gonna go back to great view and I'm gonna show you a really cool tool called the painter tool the painter tool you can load up with whatever you want so now you don't have to keep using all these keyboard shortcuts you can just say, hey, I'm going to give one star ratings right? So you can change rating you could do flags, labels, all sorts of stuff here, but I'm gonna go do ratings and they say, yeah, that's a good one so I click on it, you know, kind of like that one. I like that one and then you go who I really like these two so you go click and swipe and it just wherever you paint over with the mouse down, it'll rate all of those are labeled them or whatever you're choosing so, you know, you kind of go through your chute and I think that's enough, I've got enough set toe one but you know, imagine that we went through the whole the whole shoot. Now you come up here to your attributes filter so you've got all these filters across the top and you can say, just show me my one star ratings so now I'm only looking at those one star ratings except for the few that I well okay, let me clarify this is one star and above so rating is greater than or equal to if I wanted to see anything that I didn't star I could come down to rating is equal to and then take it off of one so now I can see everything that didn't make the cut but if I want to see everything that didn't make the cut I would say rating is greater than or equal to one star so now hopefully like one out of ten images got one star so if I'm shot a thousand images I'm down to one hundred right now because I am brutal and added a lot all right so it's a little weird that these two have to so let's just take those off all right? So now I would say ok, well now I'm just looking for the best images of those tonight they will between these two now I like this one better so it gets two stars between these two that one's better now the red doesn't really fit I don't really like that one yet this one's better I'll take this one I'll take that one I don't really like those others much anymore I might want to do a trip dick with this one and this one and the other one that was lighter color and I like that one in that one. So now I have my two stars, so if you only want to see your two stars, you're gonna filter based on two stars, so this is kind of the most simple way that you can filter. We can also make collections based on stars, though, and collections are a little bit more permanent, but we won't talk about them quite yet. All right, so we did our picks, our flags. We did our star rating. If I want to take this filter off, I just click where it says none.