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Location Of Sidecar Files In Cs5 For Mac

Why do you have to backup the entire DNG again? It's a common myth though. Writing to DNG is safe by comparison with writing directly into a proprietary raw file. With a backup of the virgin DNG and the catalogue, you have 100% backup of your Lightroom work. Your extra backups are only a second-rate backup - missing plenty of what you do in Lightroom.

You would also get compatibility issues with other program's that assume that publicly- documented files like DNGs, TIFs, JPEGs will have metadata inside them, not in sidecars. I really don't think it will happen! John, In each of my dedicated HD's (main & backups) I have a copy of the raw files (mostly native DNG's) and of the LR catalog. As a routine I perform an incremental backup of my dedicated HD's (main into backup1 and backup2) so that they are all syncronize in respect to raw's and to catalog. In this way every time I change a metadata I force the backup to include e new complete DNG file, not just the XMP as I would prefer and as it is possibe with any other raw file format. May be I'm doing something wrong but so far I have not found any better way.

Thanks, Ario. My approach is to think of DNGs as 'virgin' and 'working'. When a DNG is first created, it is on one drive which is backed up to a hard drive which is usually kept offline, and to a DVD (the value of DVD being a write-once media should not be overlooked). So I have an archive of 'virgin' DNGs, and daily backups of the catalogue. The DNG copy that is in Lightroom is only a 'working' DNG and is on a drive which is not backed up, no matter how much I save metadata back into the DNG. Now let's say my catalogue fails - I restore its backup.

Or say my working DNG drive crashes - I restore my virgin DNGs. In either case, I'm 100% covered.

I really don't believe Adobe is likely to change this, so I think people need to reconsider backup strategies so they take advantage of DNGs - not see their existing backup practices as a reason to avoid the format. Hi Ario, You have stumbled across one of the challenges of a DNG workflow, any change to any information in the file causes a complete rewrite of the entire file and as you have noticed, another backup.

Lightroom as provided a workaround for this by holding all the metadata in the catalog so that every little tweak of develop sliders or keyword entry etc. Do not keep rewriting the DNG file. I don't think that the same can be said for working in CS. By that I am assuming that you mean Photoshop CS5 and for DNG files that really means Adobe Camera Raw and Bridge. Any edits you do on a DNG using either of those tools directly, meaning not using edit in from Lightroom, will also rewrite the DNG file and trigger a backup. One possible solution for how to share up to date metadata without triggering unnecessary copying and backups might be to use a Publish collection to publish selected originals to a folder on your hard drive where CaptureOne would then use as the input. I am not completely sure but I think that if you publish the original, Lightroom will also export the metadata from the catalog with the copy in the export folder.

Also, I like your idea of using XMP sidecar files with DNG as well a native raw. I think it makes a lot of sense when working in a editing environment. Conceptually it is really no different than what is already happening in Lightroom. It is just that now the sidecar for DNG files is currently being stored in the database instead of on your hard drive. Too bad that they don't provide the option to do both.

Think of these DNGs as a TIFF file (which they are) or a JPEG (which they are not). In these two or three non proprietary file formats LR writes the metadata to the file header because it it it most efficient for retrieving this information and because LR can do so non destructively If this were possible for the proprietary RAW formats, LR would never have to create a sidecar file.

I use a Pentax too. MySOOC RAW files are DNG too. For a long time, I diligently kept my DNG file metadata up to date with LR, The overhead associated with backing up a changed DNG is not significant.

I'm sure it is more than just updating a small XMP file, but it is a price that you need to pay if you want the other advantages that LR provides. If you have multiple computers on a network, and want to access a DNG from any of these computers, why not keep one and only one master copy of the DNG on a NAS accessible to all computers and all applications. While LR does not have the capability to permit you to keep a active catalog on a network drive, you can keep all of your master image copies on a network drive and manage them in your local LR master catalog. With one copy of the master image file, you only need to back up the NAS drive.

'Trevor, I have been editing this wedding for the last few days and now my Lightroom catalog says it is corrupted! When I opened a new catalog and reimported the photos from my hard disk I can't find any of my previous edits I worked so hard on. I am so frustrated! What did I do wrong?' Keep this from happening to you by having Lightroom automatically save your changes, but this setting is off by default.

I'll show you where to turn it on. If this hasn't already happened to you, knock on wood because surely it will. Seems like every week I see another photographer post desperately in a Facebook group about having lost all their recent edits because of a corrupted or lost Lightroom catalog. Often this means that hours of work, maybe even days or weeks is lost. However, this should never be the case if they just turn on one simple setting in Lightroom. Sadly, this setting is off by default. The reason the team at Adobe has it off by default is because at times, depending on your system and how many files you are working on at one time, it can slow things down a smidge.

But these days our computers keep getting more and more powerful and often we will not even notice any difference in speed. You will find the setting in the Catalog Settings of Lightroom. MAC Lightroom Catalog Settings Metadata PC Edit Catalog Settings Metadata The important setting that I would recommend having checked is 'Automatically write changes to XMP.' By having this button checked you are telling Lightroom to constantly be 'saving' the changes you make to your images. If you are working on proprietary RAW files such as.CR2 or.NEF files you will see a.XMP sidecar file created alongside your image file in its folder. That XMP file contains all your changes you have made to the file in Lightroom.

Which means if your Lightroom catalog gets corrupted, lost or for whatever reason is not working right all you will need to do is reimport the images into a new catalog and Lightroom will automatically read those XMP files in the same folder and apply those changes immediately to the files. Then you can wipe those tears away knowing all your hard work wasn't lost. If you are working with DNG, JPEG, TIFF, or PNG files the XMP information will be stored directly inside your files so you will not see the accompanying XMP file in the folder, but if you were to send those files to someone and they opened them in Lightroom they would see the edited version of the image. So again, if you had to reimport the DNG files into a new Lightroom catalog because the old one got corrupted - no worries, no tears, your work is all there and up to date.

Keep in mind though that the history of your edits is not stored in the XMP file which is one of the benefits of the Lightroom catalog. So if you don't already have that box checked in the Lightroom Catalog Settings, stop what you are doing and go turn it on now. Do some editing and see if you notice it slowing your computer down. Hopefully it does not.

If so, the other option you have is keep the setting off but every few hours when you want to take a break from editing hit the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+S to save the metadata to files. That will do the same thing, it just won't be autosaving as you work. If this was helpful please share so we can save the world of angry and depressed photographers who have worked for days only to find out a Lightroom corrupted catalog has lost all their work. UPDATE: For those more interested in learning a good technique on how to back up Lightroom Catalogs, check out this article and accompanying video on Fstoppers, '.'

I understand how one might think that at first, and for some folks that may well always be the case, but I can tell you that in my 7½ years working with Adobe on Lightroom (and for some of that time as an employee working for Adobe on Lightroom) that horror stories have popped up about it bogging down systems in strange and unexpected ways. Sometimes the 'unexpected' was because you didn't think about it deeply enough, and sometimes it remained a mystery. Remember, for example, that every XMP update to all but proprietary raw files results in a full read-and-rewrite of the entire master image file. Work with DNG and just loaded a 10-gig shoot to work on? You're going to read and rewrite that 10 gigs over and over and over again as you update keywords, ratings, and other metadata, then dive into the develop phase. Have any large panos that you update a single keyword on and didn't budget the time to wait for 100GB to be read and rewritten with every minor move, then be prepared to wait.

Ripple effects including trashing your OS disk cache and having to re-backup gigabytes of stuff after some seemingly innocuous catalog maintenance. Smarter backup solutions may help mitigate that last issue, but you're still reading and writing your master image files; many folks prefer to keep them read only. (Some folks have asked for sidecar files for all image formats, which would mitigate many of these issues, but would raise its own set of issues). I'll repeat: the idea of auto-write is not bad, but turning it on blindly is a bad idea.

That problem with the 100GB file, in your example, isn't an inherent problem with the automatic saving of metadata. It's an inherent problem with how LR deals with large files. In short, it doesn't. Or at least didn't. In earlier versions, if you were working on large files LR would choke whether the auto-save feature was on or off. Recent versions are significantly better but LR is still not the optimal solution for large image files. You're still only offering broad 'have a good backup solution' comments without specifics.

Are you suggesting the CTRL/CMD+S idea or are you suggesting no saving of the metadata? DNG is not a panacea. Nor is it a 'one-size-fits-all' solution. Plenty of thought needs to be given to it before switching from a RAW workflow to DNG. Are you going to outline the considerations that need to be made there? Rather than simply criticise, do something. Offer a valid alternative with specifics.

Ask the Fstoppers folks if you can write a guest post to outline your ideal LR workflow. I was just struggling with sluggish performance of Lightroom. Turning OFF this setting resolved my issue. For what it's worth, here is what I have been doing: I have some old folders of images saved on external hard drive (USB 3 connected).

Location Of Sidecar Files In Cs5 For Mac Free

I am addding this folders to the LR catalog and assigning keywords to all images. With the setting turned on, it has to create or update an XMP file for every file I touch. Since I'm doing them in batch, that is a LOT of files.

Furthermore, some files are updated multiple times as I add more than one keyword. I realized turnning off this setting is what I needed to do to improve performance because when I quit LR, I got a message stating that it was not finished updating XMP files. Given my current workflow, it makes more sense to finish adding folders of images and keyword them and update XMP files only when I am finished. I've had this setting turned both on and off and have never seen a performance difference between the two.

That's on four computers; two desktops/two laptops, with vastly different hardware configurations. I think the tone of your message is, perhaps, drowning out the actual information of the message. The article wasn't well written. A better approach would have been to make sure the same information that is includedin the video is also included in the text. That is true. But the pissing contest going on now doesn't really serve any purpose either. You're all big swinging dicks in the photography world.

Egos stroked? What does 'substantial performance impact on Lightroom and your backups' mean? That's not overly specific either. What kind of 'horror stories'? What are the reasons for the performance impacts? How does it affect backups? What is your alternative recommendation?

Having a 'solid backup solution in place' is pretty vague. You want to actually elevate the discussion or just criticise? If your computer can't handle even lightroom and you are worried about performance impacts, maybe you should be rethinking your career choice. Since its blatantly obvious you aren't making enough to even cover basic gear. Why wouldn't it be a no brainer? Why wouldn't I want to conveniently and discretely have my computer automatically back up all my hard work at regular intervals? What kind of horror stories have you heard from people who so hatefully had their work backed up?

Please elaborate on your 7.5 years experience working with the now not-even-8-years-old lightroom. To this point, you still have not backed up any of your blatant claims. I'd like to see some evidence and not just some cry for attention through back-handed words and obvious condescension. Note that CTRL/CMDS only works if the images currently selected are the images which changed.

If you don't have the edited images selected, they aren't being written to. Test this: Hit CTRL/CMDD to deselect everything. Then hit CTRL/CMDS. Nothing happens - no dialog. Now select a couple of files: CTRL/CMDS See the dialog? Anyone reading this would think CTRL/CMDS is a panacea that will save them. Without first selecting the changed files, it does nothing.

The incomplete advice offered here is potentially dangerous. There are somethings contained within the LR Catalog that are not included in XMP.

Mac

Location Of Sidecar Files In Cs5 For Mac Free Download

Had all these disaster-ridden photographers followed a reasonable backup regiment, or at least backed up their catalogs frequently (and properly) there would have been less gnashing of teeth and wailing in the darkness and far more information would have been saved that Autowrite or CTRL/CMDS could have offered. The bigger fear is that people will abandon good backup strategies thinking Autowrite or CTRL/CMDS has their back. @Rick - I am pretty certain it says in the video that if you are going to choose not to have it auto-write the XMP data and instead use the Ctrl+S or CMD+S it says to select the files first. I believe it also mentions the fact that not everything is contained in the XMP files (for instance the LR history.) If you watch the video it is there. But I do understand not every one has 4 minutes to watch it so I appreciate you spending the time to comment here and clear that up. I think there also might be a misunderstanding that this article is saying to abandon all other LR workflow systems - which it is not. This is definitely not a detailed explanation of an entire LR data backup workflow - just covers one aspect that is quite useful for many people and often ignored.

Hopefully it is helpful for those photographers.;). BTW my name is spelled Rikk. There are many who never look at videos and only read the text.

Location Of Sidecar Files In Cs5 For Mac

I never click on a CNN story if it has a video icon-why? Because I want to read-not watch.

The question you need to ask yourself is: Do many of my viewers/readers do the same? And, if they do, do I dare put anything in text that will misinform them if they fail to watch the video. I want happy Lightroom users-that is my end goal and that means informing them properly.

Thank you for the opportunity to respond. @Rikk - I absolutely agree that not everyone will stop to watch the video. I don't always do it myself.

But I would say that if someone is going to stop to comment and say that the 'incomplete advice offered here is potentially dangerous' then I would hope that at least they took the time to consume the content before disagreeing with it. Also there are much better ways of adding value to an article in the comments versus trying to discredit it.

Like you, I want happy Lightroom users as well - hence the reason I have put out numerous videos giving them tips and information to help them out. You can find more of them here on my YouTube page. I would like to see if I can add light onto what Jeffery is saying. I learned this the hard way and wish someone would have explained the pluses and minuses before I committed my workflow to converting my RAW images to DNG. I too wanted my images to be 'self-contained', no XMP files needed.

Location Of Sidecar Files In Cs5 For Mac

I turned on the auto update flag, there wasn't any day to day performance hit that I noticed. I have a decent PC, no problem. The trouble for me happened in my backup routine.

All those writes to the DNG's trigger the backup attribute for this file (and any others) to be rewritten both to my local copy and my cloud backup. This was causing me NOT to be backed up, they weren't able to finish over night.

The simple act of trying to organize my collection with keywords killed any productivity. It took me a lot of investigating of why all these images were being backed up again, I didn't edit them, but it finally hit me, I had triggered a update by adding flags, keywords etc, this was happening to all my old scanned images as well.

Location

Some of those are bigger TIFF's then the DNG's. As Jeffery was saying, it's not the XMP files that are the issue, its when you have chosen to convert to DNG (or any non-RAW format) that auto update has impact, as least for me it did. The solution for me was to turn off the auto update, life was good again. @Rikk just for giggles I grabbed a full size CR2 file, changed every single slider in the Lightroom Develop module including Lens Correction.

I then did 46 spot removals, 52 different adjustment brushes (before I got tired of doing any more), 3 graduated filters, 1 radial filter, red-eye reduction - basically everything I could think of to try and push the size of the XMP file. After all that I got it to 154KB as seen in this screen shot. Even with all those edits (which I would never do in LR) the size still seems quite small to me and one that should be pretty manageable for a computer these days.

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