Even if you only shoot raw the reality is that we all still have a lot of rendered files on our systems too. What are rendered files? These are the photos rendered in pixels as opposed to the raw capture data produced by our cameras.… Read More »Tutorial: Rendered vs. Raw in Lightroom
Another significant yet subtle improvement in Lightroom 2 is the means to reconnect missing and offline folders and photos. While preventing your photos from being inadvertently disconnected from the Lightroom catalog is still just as important as it was in Lightroom 1, it’s good to know there are tools to help you get things back in order if you find yourself looking at a catalog full of question marks.
Creating new folders and moving photos from folder to folder is a fundamental aspect of file management. It is also a fundamental task that should only be performed from within Lightroom in order to maintain the connection between the Lightroom catalog and the imported photos.
Lightroom is often referred to as a “metadata editor,” meaning that the work you do in Lightroom isn’t applied to the pixels in the source photo, but rather is saved as a set of metadata instructions (inside the catalog file) that are only applied to copies of the source photo during any type of output. Everything you do inside Lightroom, from adding keywords to making tonal adjustments, is recorded into Lightroom’s catalog file.