After extensive reading on here (I searched before posting) I decided to go with Lightroom for organization and minor edits. I've tried iPhoto but found that it didn't have very robust tagging (you can't batch tag items that I can see), smart collections, and the editing features aren't quite up to snuff. (The red eye reduction feature leaves you with overly-black pupils oftentimes.)
However, the downside with Lightroom is that it requires more skill than iPhoto. I'm just an amateur (if that) and have very little Photoshop experience. You guys might still recommend iPhoto, but I really like the smart collections feature. I've found some helpful tutorials online for editing purposes, but I couldn't find tutorials for the other things that you have to do. So I have a few basic questions:
Basically, I need a quick tutorial from "plug in your camera" to "quit Lightroom," with the above goals in mind. I like having access to my photo files without them being buried in a catalog, and I want to minimize my HD footprint. I have a ton of photos that I want to organize and don't want my photos to balloon to 3x or 4x their actual size like I've read can happen with iPhoto easily.
However, the downside with Lightroom is that it requires more skill than iPhoto. I'm just an amateur (if that) and have very little Photoshop experience. You guys might still recommend iPhoto, but I really like the smart collections feature. I've found some helpful tutorials online for editing purposes, but I couldn't find tutorials for the other things that you have to do. So I have a few basic questions:
- I'd like to minimize the harddrive footprint as much as possible. Ideally, I'd like to import my photos into a new event folder, make edits, and then just have one set of finished photos, minimizing duplicates. It seems that LR's use of metadata and nondestructive edits is conducive to this, but how can I further minimize the footprint?
- All of my previous photos are left in their place in Finder like I have them organized, but for future photos, I'd like them to be placed in a new folder for the event within the year folder--not buried within the LR catalog. Is this possible?
- Once I've made my edits under the Develop module, how do I export the finished folder of photos to Finder? I use Picasaweb for sharing so having the edited JPGs isn't a big deal for that because I've found a plugin to export there, but for getting prints made or making books or collages on Shutterfly, I'll need those edited JPGs.
Basically, I need a quick tutorial from "plug in your camera" to "quit Lightroom," with the above goals in mind. I like having access to my photo files without them being buried in a catalog, and I want to minimize my HD footprint. I have a ton of photos that I want to organize and don't want my photos to balloon to 3x or 4x their actual size like I've read can happen with iPhoto easily.