1) Lightroom 4 – Photoshop CS5 compatibility.

As you may know, Lightroom 4 (LR4) uses a completely different and new Process Version 2012. If you send a file over from LR4 to Photoshop (PS) CS5 (CS5) for further editing, you’ll get a dialog box that says LR needs Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) 7 (which has yet to be released). The dialog box allows you to ‘Open Anyway‘ which is the default or to ‘Render using Lightroom‘. The latter option is the best and should be the default, IMHO. In that case, LR will render the TIFF or PSD (depending on how you set up your preferences) and will send that to PS, so your file will look in PS exactly the way you left it in LR. So this even works with CS4 or CS3.

Another solution for CS5 users would be to install the Camera Raw 6.7 update, which is already available as a ‘Release Candidate’ over at Adobe Labs: this will allow CS5 to read LR4′s instructions when handing over the file from LR to PS, even when you use ‘Open Anyway’ but it will not allow you to edit your images in ACR using the latest Process Version. So, it’s kind of a ‘read only version’ of the new Process Version 2012.

2) Important note when you’re using point curves

Some upgraders have found that LR4 messes with their custom point curves. Point curves are the ones your parents always warned you about. Kidding . If you use point curves, you should probably wait until Adobe, who are aware of this problem, have released a fix. If you don’t even know what a point curve is, you’re probably not affected, unless you often use presets that might use Point Curves without you knowing it…
I personally haven’t encountered this problem, but I don’t use Point Curves a lot and I haven’t yet had the time to go through all of my 60.000 images.

3) Is LR4 worth the upgrade, then?

AB-SO-LU-TE-LY!
I don’t consider the first point to be a problem: it will always be like that when you use different versions of LR and PS and for those who will upgrade to CS6 when it is available, the issue will disappear by itself and furthermore, there’s a workaround. You could even turn the act of sending an image over to PSCS4 or 5 into an ‘External Editing Preset’ so you don’t get the dialog box every time.

If you use a lot of point curves, the second issue might make you wait until there’s a fix for that.

For all the others: just have a look at the before and after image below to see how good LR4 is: this simply wasn’t possible in Lightroom 3.

1. not selected
2. selected, but not the first
3. the first or ‘most’ selected image (this can only be one image)

There’s a subtle difference in the grey area surrounding the pictures. The most selected picture  is the lightest shade of grey. The other selected picture(s) are a little darker shade of grey, and the unselected ones are the darkest shade of grey. From left to right: a non-selected photo (man on the bench), two selected photos (two portraits), the most selected photo (street scene) and again a non-selected photo (fisherman). Notice the subtle but important difference in the grey tones surrounding the images. The difference between ‘Most selected’ and ‘Selected’ is important in many ways. First off, if you synchronize metadata or develop settings from one picture to other pictures, it’s always from the Most Selected picture to the others. Note that, as you can see in the screenshot, the Most/First Selected picture needn’t necessarily be the first one from left to right in a series of selected pictures. The difference is also important to understand todays question. When you are in Develop Module, any develop settings or presets will only be applied to the First/Most selected picture (note: there is one exception with Auto-Sync, as I will explain later). The same is true in the Loupe View of the Library Module: changing star ratings and other stuff only gets applied to the First Selected Picture. The logic behind this, is to help to prevent you from unwillingly changing lots of pictures. However, what do you do when you willingly want to change lots of pictures or apply the same preset to them? Well, as far as the presets are concerned, there’s three ways: 1) In the Library Module, you switch to Grid View (shortcut: G):  when you’re in Grid View, changes you make are applied to all selected pictures. In the Quick Develop Panel, you can then choose a preset next to ‘Saved Preset’ or 2) in the Develop Module, hover over one of the selected pictures in the Filmstrip and right-click, which will open the contextual menu. Go to Develop Settings and choose the desired Preset as shown in the screenshot or 3) Cmd/Ctrl Click on the Sync… button in the bottom right of the Develop Module. This button doubles as the Auto-Sync button: when in Auto-Sync mode, if you apply a preset (or any other Develop Setting) to one picture, all other selected pictures will change as well. In Lightroom 2, you have to use the Cmd/Ctrl-trick. In Lightroom 3, there’s an actual switch on the Sync… button to change it to Auto-Sync. Just don’t forget to turn it back to normal Sync once you’re done  :-).

Well, assuming that the laptop is the only computer, here’s what I would recommend. If others have different workflows or tips for this user, please comment below!

The main problem with small laptops is their limited hard drive. So I would suggest the following setup:

The fact of storing the Catalog, which is relatively small, on the laptop harddisk itself has two advantages:

1. you always have your catalog with you
2. the access time to your laptop harddisk is likely to be faster than that to an external harddisk

You will also notice that I’ve put ‘1:1 previews’ in the first row of the table. In fact, I would suggest that, upon import, you let Lightroom create 1:1 previews. Those will also be stored on the harddrive of the laptop, and if you create them on import, you won’t have to render them ‘on the fly’ when you’re zooming or doing develop tasks like sharpening that use these previews. If you don’t make the previews upon import, you’ll have to do it on the fly, which will mean that Lightroom will have to access the (slower) external harddrive to build these previews. In short: one long wait (for the previews to render upon import) is better than many instances where you’ll have to wait a short time.

Also, I would recommend that you turn off ‘Automatically write changes into XMP’ in the Catalog Settings (PC: Edit => Catalog Settings / Mac: Lightroom => Catalog Settings). If you don’t, then (almost) every one of your Lightroom moves (keywording, rating, development, …) gets written to the XMP file which is in or next to your original (Raw) photo file. Which is on your external harddrive with the slower access time, remember? So, turning this feature off will result in a faster workflow than turning it on.

If you want, you can always, at  the end of your Lightroom session, select all your photos in your Lightroom Catalog and choose Metadata => Save Metadata to file (or use the shortcut Ctrl-S (Mac) or Cmd-S (Win) to write the updated metadata to the XMP file. Note that writing metadata to file is not necessary as far as Lightroom is concerned, because Lightroom keeps all metadata (including keywords, development instructions) in your Catalog! But, if you don’t write metadata to file, you won’t be able to see the changes in an application such as Bridge, that has no access to Lightrooms Catalog and relies on the info stored in the XMP file to display your photos correctly.

In this suggested workflow, the pictures are stored on an external harddrive. I would recommend a shockproof, portable drive. Personally, I use Freecom Toughdrives, but many flavors exist. If your laptop supports FireWire, go with a FireWire model.

Now, if you’re at your desk, you can just work with the external disk plugged in. But suppose you have to go somewhere. If you only want to perform Library tasks such as keywording, rating, … then you need not even take your portable harddisk with you.

If, on the other hand, you want to do some developing, or printing (tasks Lightroom needs to access your original photo files for), then you take your portable harddrive with you.

Last, but not least, you’ll see I’ve dedicated another (this can be a bigger, not necessarily portable) harddrive for backup. It is always important (especially if your pictures are on something as easy to loose or break as a portable harddrive) to make backups. And remember that backing up your Catalog does only that: it backs up your instructions, your keywords, … It DOES NOT back up your pictures. That’s something you’ll have to do separately.