All seems well until you launch Lightroom the next time and see Edit in Adobe Photoshop (not found).

But you know CS5 is installed because you can launch it directly just fine! So, thinking this is a Lightroom problem you might trash your Lightroom preferences or uninstall/reinstall Lightroom to no success. The issue is that Lightroom relies on a registry setting created by Photoshop when it is installed. However, when you uninstall the older version of Photoshop it removes that registry setting and Lightroom becomes blind to Photoshop’s existence.

Adobe has a TechNote that provides 2 solutions to fixing the problem. Both solutions work. Most people seem more comfortable with the reinstall of Photoshop option over the registry edit. Unfortunately, the only way I know to avoid the problem is to uninstall the old version first, then install the new. Hope that helps you plan ahead or at least regain your sanity after discovering the problem the old fashioned way (by accident).

If Lightroom, or if your entire system, crashes shuts down unexpectedly this preference file can become corrupted, which can lead to problems ranging from more crashing to Lightroom not starting to all manner of odd and unexplainable behaviors. Sometimes a fresh do-over is just what the doctor ordered!

Here’s the basic steps:

1. Open Lightroom
2. Go to (Mac) Lightroom > Preferences or (Win) Edit > Preferences, and make a note of all your settings in your head or on paper. You’ll need to reconfigure those later.
3. Close Lightroom.
4. Navigate to the preference file (locations listed below) and delete it.
5. Restart Lightroom and reconfigure preferences.

When you restart Lightroom a fresh clean preference file will automatically be created taking you back to the default settings. Important: Lightroom stores the location of your Lightroom catalogs in the preference file, so when the new preference file is created Lightroom will no longer know where your catalog was located. It will simply look to the default location for catalogs and open the one it finds there or create a new empty catalog, which can be confusing. Make sure you know where your catalog is stored before you trash the preferences by going to (Mac) Lightroom > Catalog Settings or (Win) Edit > Catalog Settings and check the General tab to see its location. If the wrong catalog opens go to File > Open Catalog and navigate to the right one.

Here’s where you will find the preference file on different operating systems:

On Mac, open Finder and navigate to the [ username ] \Library\Preferences folder, drag the (LR1) com.adobe.Lightroom.plist and (LR2) com.adobe.Lightroom2.plist to the Trash. If you’ve installed Lightroom 2 Beta then also trash the com adobe.Lightroom2Beta.plist or the Lightroom 3 Beta, then toss the com.adobe.Lightroom3Beta.plist file too. If you don’t see the Lightroom plist file then you may be looking in the wrong folder (don’t go to Library/Preferences, go to [ username ] \Library\Preferences).

On Windows Vista and Windows 7, open Windows Explorer and navigate to the Users/[username]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Lightroom/Preferences folder, delete the (LR1) Lightroom Preferences.agprefs, (LR2) Lightroom 2 Preferences.agprefs, (LR2 Beta) Silvertone Preferences.agprefs  and (LR3 Beta) Lightroom 3 Beta Preferences.agprefs files.

On Windows XP, open Windows Explorer and navigate to the Documents and Settings/[Username ]/Application Data/Adobe/Lightroom/Preferences folder, delete the (LR1) Lightroom Preferences.agprefs, (LR2) Lightroom 2 Preferences.agprefs, (LR2 Beta) Silvertone Preferences.agprefs  and (LR3 Beta) Lightroom 3 Beta Preferences.agprefs files.

Note to Windows users, sometimes Windows likes to hide folders from you (for your own protection), so a shortcut to the Preferences folder is to open Lightroom, then go to Edit > Preferences > Presets and click the Show Lightroom Presets Folder button. This will open Windows Explorer to the Lightroom folder (listed in the path above) that holds the Preferences folder.

Be sure to stop by the Help Desk live if you have any Lightroom questions. Pete will know where to find me!

Here are the alternatives I came up with that could be used once the import is complete.

You could select all (Ctrl/Cmd+A) the newly imported photos and then drag them to an existing collection or press Ctrl/Cmd+N to create a new collection and add the selected photos to that collection at the same time by checking the “include selected photos” box. Those options work in Lightroom 1 as well.

However, the new Target Collection feature in Lightroom 2 presented another alternative. Here’s how to make it work. First, Right-click (Mac: Ctrl-click) an existing collection and choose Set as Target Collection. This means the Target Collection takes the place of the Quick Collection. Then once this is set you can select photos and just press B to add them to the Target Collection. 

You can’t make a Smart Collection the target collection, but others are fair game. This little feature can speed up the process of adding new photos to any collection you choose to target.

The current Target Collection is marked with a + sign after the collection’s name.

Let’s say you have a photo with a landscape orientation, but you want to create a portrait orientation crop within it. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Select the photo and press R to jump to the Crop tool.
2. Choose the aspect ratio you want to be applied.
3. Close the lock icon to “lock in” that aspect ratio (press A to close/open the lock).
4. Grab a corner resize handle and drag to the opposite corner along the longest edge until the orientation of the crop rectangle flips.

Since the aspect ratio is locked in, as soon as you decrease the length of the long side to the point that it is no longer the longest side the orientation has to switch to maintain the aspect ratio. Once the orientation has changed you can re-position the photo for best composition. Believe me it is easier to do than explain! Give it a try.

First you need to enable Show Image Info Tooltips in the Filmstrip. Just right-click (Ctrl-click) a photo in the Filmstrip and go to View Options  and make sure Show Image Info Tooltips is checked. Once enabled, all you need to do is place your cursor over any photo in the Filmstrip to make the tooltip appear.

The information displayed is the same that is shown in the Info Overlay when you are in Loupe View, which means you can customize what you see in the tooltip. Pretty cool! This works the same in both Lightroom 1 and 2.

In a nutshell, exporting is the way to apply the changes you have made in Lightroom, everything from Develop adjustments to keywords, to new copies of your imported photos. The key word to keep in mind is copies. Lightroom is not applying these changes to your source photos.

Read Understanding the Lightroom Export Process over at peachpit.com.

Read Rendered vs. Raw in Lightroom over at peachpit.com.

Everything you do inside Lightroom, from adding keywords to making tonal adjustments, is recorded into Lightroom’s catalog file. Therefore, it’s crucial that you take good care of the catalog file and keep it backed up to protect yourself from data loss.

Highlighting the importance of the catalog, Lightroom contains a built-in function inside the Catalog Settings dialog box that allows you to schedule how often to run backups. When the backup process runs, it saves a working copy of your current catalog to a location of your choosing. It’s important to understand that the only thing backed up in this process is the catalog file. Lightroom doesn’t provide a function to back up your photos, which means that you need to back those up using a different application outside of Lightroom. Adobe assumes that you already have a full system-backup process in place that takes care of all your important data.

Let’s go through the steps for configuring the backup schedule:

In Lightroom 2 and 3Beta, go to Lightroom > Catalog Settings on Mac or Edit > Catalog Settings on Win to open the Catalog Settings dialog box (see Figure 1). While we’re here, take a look at the Information section of the General tab. Some key information about your catalog is displayed here, including the catalog’s location, filename, and size. If you ever need to open the folder containing the catalog file, just back come here and click the Show button.

In the Backup section on the General tab, click the arrow button to open the “Back up catalog” drop-down menu, and choose the frequency with which you want the backup to run (see Figure 2). This is where you need to make a decision. Should you ever need to use a backup copy to replace a lost or corrupt catalog, you’ll want it to be as fresh as possible. Your choices here range from “Never” (not advised) to “Every time Lightroom starts.” The frequency you choose should reflect how often you use Lightroom. If you’re working in Lightroom every day, backing up daily might be best. If you’re not using Lightroom that often, a weekly schedule probably would be a safe choice. Click OK.

Lightroom 2 Tip

The backup process runs only when Lightroom 2 starts. If you’ve just put in a long day of work and want the security of backing up your catalog immediately, choose File > Catalog Settings, select “Every time Lightroom starts” from the list, click OK, and then close and restart Lightroom. Granted, that’s not an elegant solution, but until Lightroom has a “backup during shutdown” option, it’s the best you can do.

New to Lightroom 3 Beta

There is a change in functionality in Lightroom 3 Beta in regards to catalog backup. The backup function now runs on exit from Lightroom instead of on startup. This means that you can rest knowing that all the work you just did is backed up at the end of the session.

When you launch Lightroom 2 or exit Lightroom 3 Beta and the timing corresponds to the backup schedule you selected, you’ll be prompted to back up, as shown.

One difference in Lightroom 3 Beta is that the relaunch and optimize function was added to the backup dialog box and removed from the Catalog Settings dialog. I suggest leaving this checked.

Follow these steps to make your backup:

If desired, click the Choose button to change the location where you want the backup copy to be saved. Navigate to the desired folder and select it. This is where you can tell Lightroom to save the catalog to a different drive.

Select the “Test integrity of this catalog” option. This feature is really the best reason to use Lightroom’s catalog backup function, as it can provide an early warning if there’s a problem in the catalog. Integrity testing adds a bit of extra time to the backup process, but I think it’s worth doing. I’ve seen cases where a catalog can become corrupted, but still be operational. The corruption isn’t detected until the backup process is run. If you have iterative backup copies to fall back on, you should be able to go back to an earlier, uncorrupted state.

Note: Every time the backup process runs, it creates a new copy of the catalog and ignores any existing backup copies. The upside of this approach is that in time you’ll have multiple iterations of catalogs that reflect different points in the catalog history. The downside is that, left unchecked, your catalog backups eventually will fill up that drive. With that issue in mind, choose a different drive then the one your working catalog is on and that has ample free space, and remember to delete outdated backup copies periodically. I typically delete all but the last two backups.

Click the Backup button to start the backup process. Lightroom warns you that the backup process can take several minutes. When the process is complete, Lightroom opens, or in the case of Lightroom 3 Beta shuts down.

If you’re pressed for time or want to just get to work rather than waiting for the backup, click the Skip Now button to bypass the backup process until the next time. Don’t skip too often, but it’s good to have the option.

Once you’ve set up your backups, you just need to remember to manage the backup copies as they grow.

Restoring from a backup catalog

Here’s hoping you never have to, but the process is very simple if you do:

1. Close Lightroom
2. Open the Lightroom folder containing your working catalog file in Finder/Windows Explorer.
3. Move the “bad” catalog file out of that folder to another location for safe keeping.
4. Move the “good” backup catalog copy into the Lightroom folder to replace the bad one.
5. Double-click the catalog file to open it into Lightroom and take it for a test drive.