If you do regular backups of your catalog (and I’m hoping you do when you see that dialog above, which appears when you quit Lightroom Classic), it will make a COPY of your entire catalog. Each time you hit that ‘Back up,’ it makes yet another backup copy. Sure, it compresses that backup quite a bit, but still…those backups can get really large in file size. Worse yet, after a couple of weeks, they’re so outdated that those older ones become useless anyway.

If you did wind up with a corrupt catalog (rare, but it can happen), you would restore from your most recent backup, right? So, what are you doing with all those old updates from months ago, years ago? Nothing. They’re just eating up space for no reason, and that’s why today, Friday, is the perfect day to “Delete your old Lightroom backup catalogs.”

Look inside your Lightroom folder (the one where your catalog(s) are stored) (mine was inside my Pictures folder on my Mac), and look for a folder named “Backups.” Inside that folder, see if you don’t have a whole bunch of backups that are way out of date (as seen above) and just eating up hard drive space for no reason.

If you don’t see a folder named ‘Backups,’ that’s because you don’t have any backups (ack!), so if disaster strikes (your catalog gets corrupted), you will be starting over from scratch in Lightroom. For more information on backing up your catalog, check out this article we did on backing up your catalog (why you should and how to do it), and hit this link.

I still had some old backups from June of 2023 hanging around. If somehow my catalog got corrupted, I would want to use a backup from Late July of 2024—not one from a year ago and so on. So those outdated backups are doing just one thing—eating up space. Now’s the time to pitch ’em, seeing as it’s ‘Delete Your Old Catalog Backups’ Friday!

I hope that this process frees up some space for you. If you looked in your Lightroom folder and didn’t even see a folder named ‘Backups,’ maybe it made you quit Lightroom. Then go and hit that ‘Make Backup’ button so you at least have one on hand in case disaster strikes.

Here’s wishing you a “Football’s almost here” type of weekend!

-Scott

The post It’s ‘Delete Your Old Lightroom Backup Catalogs” Friday! appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

If Lightroom Classic opens and all seems exactly the same as when you last quit the program, then you are good to go, and move on using the new version. However, in some cases what seems to happen is that Lightroom Classic creates a copy of the wrong catalog, upgrades that copy, then opens it in Lightroom Classic. Upon opening, one might see all photos missing or some amount of recent photos missing. In my experience, this means that the catalog you were using is still sitting unchanged exactly where it was when you last quit the program, but maybe you had an old (possibly empty) catalog sitting in the default location, and Lightroom Classic mistakenly grabbed that catalog instead. I don’t know why this happens, but I see or get the reports of it happening every time a catalog upgrade is required.

The Solution

The fix is easy if you can find your previously used catalog file. All you need to do is quit Lightroom Classic, navigate to where your actual catalog file is stored, and double-click it to open it into Lightroom Classic, which will trigger the catalog upgrade process on that catalog, and when done, you should be good to go.

A LrC catalog file has a .lrcat file extension. You may need to change the settings in your operating system’s file browser (Finder on Mac or Explorer on Windows) to show file extensions if they are not visible on all files. It helps to change your file browser to show a list instead of icons for this task.

The default location for your catalog is in a folder named Lightroom within your Pictures folder. So, that’s the first place to look. If you have a lot of files in that location, you might check out my post on which are safe to delete (but don’t delete any .lrcat files until you’ve found the one that contains all your work).

If the catalog containing all your work is not in the default location, then think about where you may have created it originally, as some people will keep the catalog (and related files) on an external drive and navigate to that location.

Note that each time you open a catalog file to check its contents you will likely be instructed to upgrade a copy of that catalog before it can open in the new version of the software. While this is the only way to verify what’s inside, you can save yourself some trouble by checking the last modified date and file size of the .lrcat file first. If the file size is pretty small (like under 2MB) then it is probably empty and if the modified date is very old it is probably not the catalog you are looking for at this time. Look for a .lrcat file with a very recent modified date (like from right before you installed the new version of the software) and a large file size.

Once you find, upgrade, and open the correct catalog, be sure to set that one as the default catalog so that it opens each time you launch LrC in the future.

If, heaven forbid, you can’t find the desired catalog, then you’ll want to fall back on your most recent backup copy of the catalog. Hopefully, you are regularly using the built-in catalog backup function. If you don’t use the built-in backup function, then check your full computer system backup location. Here’s how to restore from a backup catalog. I hope this never happens to you, but if it does, you now know how to recover without any panic.

The post Updated Catalog Looks Wrong? appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

You can buy this course by itself for $29.99 or watch it as part of a KelbyOne Pro Membership, where you can watch all our Lightroom courses (I don’t think there’s anyone out there with nearly as many full-length courses on every aspect of Lightroom and Photoshop)as we do).

Here’s a link to the course.

Have a great Monday, everybody, and here’s to finally getting really organized, backed up, and loving your Lightroom experience.

-Scott

P.S. If you use Lightroom ‘cloud’ edition, I have a separate version of the SLIM system just for you folks. Here’s the link to the cloud version.

The post New Course: My Simplified Lightroom Image Management System (the “SLIM” system) appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

On Thursday, I’m creating a brand new course just on Importing for Lightroom Classic users. It should be out in just a few weeks, but again – this is a topic I get asked about a lot, and I had recorded a course previously on this, but it’s time for an update using the latest version, so that’s what’s up next.

My Budapest Workshop is Sold Out!

It sold out in just one day, and it’s going to be awesome! (everybody going is a photographer who has been to one of my previous workshops, which is so fun – it’s like a family reunion). Iceland with Erik Kuna and me, the Lofoten Islands with Dave Williams, and one more with Mimo this fall are all still coming up. More on those as we get closer (though Iceland will be open for tickets soon).

I hope y’all have a kick-butt Monday. The Bucs have a Playoff game tonight, so….well…we’ll see how it goes. hey, ya never know, right?

-Scott

The post Check Out: “How to Organize & Backup Your Images When You Travel” appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Do you know where your catalog is tonight? A lot of us don’t – we know it’s “somewhere,” but if you want the best performance from Lightroom, you hear us talking again and again about how your catalog should be on your fastest internal hard drive, but if you don’t know where your catalog is in the first place, it makes things kinda hard.

Well, it’s easier to find it than you’d think, thanks to a simple “find it for me” button in Lightroom.

STEP ONE: Go to your Catalog preferences (they’re under the “Lightroom Classic” menu on a Mac, and I believe they are found under the File menu on a Windows PC (you’ll let me know if this is not the case).

STEP TWO: When the Catalog Settings window appears (shown above) to the right of “Location,” click the “Show” button (I circled it here in red above). That’s all there is to it.

Above: Hitting that ‘Show’ button opens the folder on your computer (or on your external hard drive) where your catalog is stored (as shown above). Now you know where it is, and hopefully, it’s in the right place (on your fastest internal hard drive). If it’s not, then read this article on how to move safely and easily from your external hard drive back to your computer.

I finally posted some photos from my London Travel Photography Workshop

Yes, it’s taken me this long to make an Adobe Express page with the images and Behind-The-Scenes shots (here’s the link to check it out). Well, only because I basically forgot to do it. Well, I actually did make a page from my project on the London Tube, which had to do with a course I recorded while in London on what to do when you’ve been to a place before as a photographer and you need something new to shoot – a personal project based on your location. It’s really about taking something your enjoy or you’re passionate about and marrying it with your trip, and that all makes a lot more sense when you watch the course, so here’s a link if you’d like to check it out.

I’m doing the Keynote at FotoClave next month

Super psyched about this one – it’s my first time at the FotoClave photography conference, and my first time back in California since right before COVID hit, and I can’t wait. It’s Feb 17-19, 2024 in San Ramon.

My keynote presentation and my regular session on the conference track are both about travel photography, and I have a lot to share, so I hope you can check out the conference. There are loads of great instructors, including the incredible Frans Lanting. It’s a can’t-miss West Coast event. Here’s the link with more details.

Thanks for stopping by, and here’s wishing you a safe, happy, decent weather weekend, and a big Playoff win for the Bucs (hey, it could happen. Right? Hello? Anybody?).

-Scott

The post How To Find Out Exactly Where Your Lightroom Classic Catalog is Actually Stored appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

I am officially declaring today ‘Delete Your Outdated Lightroom Catalog Backups” Monday!

Simply put: Check to see if you’re accumulating a bunch of useless outdated backup catalogs, and throw the ones away you don’t need anymore to free up space

You see that dialog above — the one that appears when you quit Lightroom Classic, asking if you want to make a backup copy of your catalog? Each time you see it, it asks you to make a COPY of your entire catalog. Each time you hit that ‘Back up,’ it makes yet another backup copy. Sure, it compresses that backup quite a bit, but still…those backups can get really big in file size. But worse yet, after a couple of weeks, they’re so outdated that those older ones become useless anyway.

So, go see how many backups you have (you really only need one or two very recent ones).

Look inside your Lightroom folder (the one where your catalog(s) are stored (mine was inside my Pictures folder on my Mac), and look for a folder named ‘Backups.” and inside that folder, see if you don’t have a whole bunch of backups that are way out of date (as seen above), just eating up hard drive space for no reason.

If you don’t see a folder named ‘Backups,’ that’s because you don’t have any backups (ack!), so if disaster strikes (your catalog gets corrupted), you will be starting over from scratch in Lightroom. For more on backing up your catalog, check out this article we did on backing up your catalog (why you should and how to do it), hit this link. 

I still had some old backups hanging around from 2020. If somehow my catalog got corrupted, I would want to use a backup from December of 2023 — not one from April of 2020, and so on, so those outdated backups are doing just one thing — eating up space. Now’s the time to pitch them, seeing as it’s ‘Dump Your Outdated Catalog Backups” Monday!

Hope at the very least it frees up some space for you, and if you looked in your Lightroom folder and didn’t even see a folder named ‘Backups’ maybe it made you go and hit that ‘Make Backup’ button so you at least have one on hand in case disaster strikes.

What a great football weekend! Alabama gets into the National Football Playoffs; The Bucs actually won a game (and the Saints lost, which we needed). It was a rockin’ great weekend. Hope your Monday is just as good.

-Scott

The post It’s “Delete Your Outdated Lightroom Catalog Backups” Monday! appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Super helpful article on the blog from Adobe’s own Julieanne Kost – so much good stuff here, so if you’ve got a minute, this is highly recommended.

Here’s the link.

This Friday we’ll be kicking off deals on joining KelbyOne (our best deals of the year), and then Erik Kuna and I will be live on Monday with a Webainer on our brand new “Phototgrapher’s Fast Track.”

Hope your Thanksgiving Week is off to a great start. Have a great Monday, everybody!

-Scott

The post Julieanne’s “15 Tips For Working With Catalogs in Lightroom Classic appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Before I get to that (and I do straight away in the video below), I want to thank all folks who came out to my “Ultimate Photography Crash Course” full-day seminar, whether you were there in person with me in Orlando or if you watched it live online as it was happening. It was my largest attended one-day seminar since probably 2018, and I’m very grateful to all you lovely folks out there who were a part of it. I was thrilled to be teaching in front of a live audience again, and the day was very special for me, so thank you all very much.

Now, onto answering the question, how Lightroom catalogs should you have? Just one, or is it better to use multiple catalogs?

Well, wonder no more. LOL!!!

Football is back, and I’m super psyched! #GoBucs, but what I really can’t wait for (and it’ll be here very soon) is Alabama Football (#Rolltide!).

Have a great weekend, everybody!

-Scott

P.S. Heads up: The BILD Expo Photography and Video Conference up in New York City at the Javits Center next month (produced by the folks at B&H Photo) is shaping up to be a HUGE event. Over 90,000 sq. feet of exhibits from all the big-name camera companies and leading vendors, plus a big education track (I’m doing one of the keynote sessions). Details and tickets at this link.

The post How Many Lightroom Catalogs Should You Have? appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Just a quickie today, but it’s kinda important — especially if you’re working on a laptop or a desktop computer where you’re constantly running out of free space.

I am officially declaring today ‘Dump Your Outdated Catalog Backups” Monday!

Simply put: Check to see if you’re accumulating a bunch of useless outdated backup catalogs, and throw the ones away you don’t need anymore to free up space

You see that dialog above — the one that appears when you quit Lightroom Classic, asking you if you want to make a backup copy of your catalog? Each time you see it, it asks you to make a COPY of your entire catalog. Each time you hit that ‘Back up’ it makes yet another backup copy. Sure, it compresses that backup quite a bit, but still…those backups can get really big in file size, but worse yet, after a couple of weeks, they’re so outdated that those older ones become useless anyway.

So, go see how many backups you have (you really only need one or two very recent ones).

Look inside your Lightroom folder (the one where your catalog(s) are stored (mine was inside my Pictures folder on my Mac), and look for a folder named ‘Backups” and inside that folder, see if you don’t have a whole bunch of backups that are way out of date (as seen above), just eating up hard drive space for no reason.

If you don’t see a folder named ‘Backups’ that’s because you don’t have any backups (ack!) so if disaster strikes (your catalog gets corrupted), you will be starting over from scratch in Lightroom. For more on backing up your catalog, check out this article we did on backing up your catalog (why you should, and how to do it), hit this link. 

I still had some old backups hanging around from 2019. If somehow my catalog got corrupted, I would want to use a backup from March of 2023 — not one from April of 2019, and so on, so those outdated backups are doing just one thing — eating up space. Now’s the time to pitch ’em, seeing as it’s ‘Dump Your Outdated Catalog Backups” Friday!

Hope at the very least it frees up some space for you, and if you looked in your Lightroom folder and didn’t even see a folder named ‘Backups’ maybe it made you go and hit that ‘Make Backup’ button so you at least have one on hand in case disaster strikes.

I Just Had A Spot Open Up For My Lisbon, Portugal Photo Workshop

The workshop has been sold out for a while now, but I just had somebody have to cancel, but you can grab their spot. It’s coming up one month from now (April 12-15, 2023). 

Check out the short video below, and if you want to grab that last spot and join us in Lisbon, this is your chance – here’s the link: (NOTE: the button says Sold Out, but if you click the button, you’ll see there’s now one ticket available).

For more details on the workshop, visit scottkelbyworkshops.com – I hope to see you, with me, in Lisbon next month.

Here’s wishing you a great ‘Dump Your Outdated Catalog Backups” Monday.

-Scott

The post It’s ‘Dump Your Outdated Lightroom Backup Catalogs” Monday appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

If like me, you like to embed your copyright and contact info directly into your images (handy in case you share images on Instagram, FB, Twitter, etc.), then it’s time to update your Lightroom Classic copyright info template for 2023 for the new images you take and import this year. It’s really simple but not super obvious, so here we go:

STEP ONE: Go to the Library Module; go under the Metadata menu up top and choose Edit Metadata Presets as shown above (NOTE: if you don’t already have an existing Copyright template in place, you use this same menu to create one from scratch, so either way you would choose this Edit Metadata Presets to get started).

STEP TWO: When the Edit Metadata Presets window appears (shown above), choose the name of the preset you want to Edit, and it displays your copyright template info (as seen). In my case, I’m editing last year’s Copyright preset, but if you don’t already have one, just start typing your info in the IPTC Copyright and IPTC Creator sections, as I have above.

STEP THREE: Go to the IPTC Copyright section, and click on the field to the right of Copyright (as shown above), then just type in 2022 right over where it previously said 2022. If you’re creating your first Copyright template, just go ahead and type in 2023 and your name in the Copyright field, and then under Copyright Status, choose “Copyrighted” from the pop-up menu.

STEP FOUR: Once you’ve updated the date, it’s time to save your new preset by going to the Preset pop-up menu at the top of the window and choosing “Save Current Settings as New Preset,” as shown above.

STEP FIVE: This brings up a small dialog where you can enter the name for your New Preset (as seen above).

STEP SIX: If you don’t have any old 2022 images you haven’t yet imported into Lightroom, you can choose to delete last year’s preset if you want (you won’t be using it again if you’ve already imported all your images from last year), so if you want to delete it (totally up to you  — you don’t have to – you can keep multiple year’s templates, no sweat), first choose the old 2022 Preset from the pop-up menu; then go to the same pop-up menu again but this time choose Delete Preset “Scott’s Copyright 2022” (or whatever you named it), then click the Done button.

STEP SEVEN: APPLYING YOUR NEW COPYRIGHT PRESET: There are two ways (OK, probably more) to apply these presets, but my favorite is to embed this copyright data into your images right during the Import process. In Lightroom Classic’s Import window, in the “Apply During Import” panel (seen above right), where it says “Metadata,” choose your Copyright preset from that pop-up menu. Now, as your images are imported, your copyright status and your contact info are automatically embedded into each photo. The second method is for images you’ve taken this year already and already imported into Lightroom.

STEP EIGHT: If you have images taken in 2023 and they’re already imported into Lightroom, then select all those images, and then, in the Library module of Classic, go to the Metadata panel, and right near the top, you’ll see “Preset.” Click on that pop-up menu (as shown above) and choose your Copyright preset, and it will be applied to all those photos you selected at once.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Embedding this info into your image does not provide you with official copyright protection. I am not an attorney, so this is not legal advice, but what embedding this info does is let people who download your image know that:

a) This is a copyrighted image and is NOT free for you to use.

b) it gives them your contact info if they want to buy or license your image.

But just to be clear, doing all this DOES NOT actually copyright your images — that is done separately (at least here in the US) by the govt. copyright office. If you want to learn how to actually copyright and protect your images (so important if you’re going to be sharing your images online), then check out this fantastic (and actually fun) course from Intellectual Property attorney Ed Green and Photographer’s Rights Advocate Jack Reznicki over at KelbyOne.com (here’s the direct link to their course).

OK, we’re off and running in a new year, and here’s wishing you a safe, happy, healthy New Year – one with lots of lightrooming and Photoshopshopping and photography, and football, and lots of other fun stuff.

-Scott

The post It’s Time To Update Your Copyright Info Inside Lightroom For 2023 appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.