# Roll Call - Those using Lightroom to manage scanned photos



## NJHeart2Heart (May 9, 2017)

Hi all,
Visiting again after a long hiatus from Lightroom centric activities.  

This is not so much a call for help as it is a call for those sharing the same types of challenges due to the less standardized process of scanning physical photos.

I'm back at my long term family history photo scanning journey.  I recently scanned about 500 photos from a family member, and after scanning them into my now "standard" photo filenaming convention, realized I still have several groups of photos that are a mess  

I'd just like to take a quick count of who is currently or recently done a large historical scanning job, with it's related file naming / dating issues.  Thought it would be nice to start a thread for those who are focusing on this specific type of work.

It seems that @PhilBurton was the most recent poster regarding photo scanning, but I know there have been others over time.  I'm no expert, but I'd be happy to share my journey thus far and tidbits that have helped me  smooth out my process (which someone else might find helpful).

How are we all doing with our respective projects?   Care to share your current workflow?
Any questions we can brainstorm on together?

Looking forward to chatting with fellow scanner - Lightroom users.


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## Linwood Ferguson (May 9, 2017)

I'm in the middle of what will be many years worth at the rate I'm progressing.  

I love Lightroom for almost all aspects of this -- organizing, publishing, coding, (mostly) editing it works great.

My slides worked wonderfully and quickly, I photographed them using a tethered camera, edited, all done in a few days.  Literally all done.  No more slides.

But negatives are tough -- color casts, old negatives where the same type has different colors by age, and Lightroom's poor ability to do inverts and then edit make it a real challenge.  Taking to photoshop yields better results, Vuescan better still.  But I'd love a quick and easy way to do something like a camera profile for negatives that let it do the inversion easily and still do develop controls normally.


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## NJHeart2Heart (May 9, 2017)

Hi Ferguson,
Thanks for checking in!  You are far more advanced than I!  I am perfectly happy if I can just get my photos scanned and tagged with names! other than random development for photos here and there, I don't do much at all to further improve the images - at least not right now.  For times when I have been asked to provide a collection of images for a particular person (sadly, usually for funerals), I have gone into some of those collected images and done a bit of development, but just scanning and tagging keeps me pretty busy.  I definitely have little patience for much development, which is why I have never used Photoshop and much prefer Lightroom's scaled down development tools.

Since you seem to already have mastered the storage/management aspects of your project, I'm curious about what system of organization have you settled on, ie:
1- How do you name your files,
2 - Where do you store them (what folder system do you use),
3 - What naming convention do you use for date taken (to the best of your knowledge, assuming you try to date your scanned photos for historic purposes)?
4 - Where in the metadata do you incorporate the "date taken"?

I'll post my own shortly


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## Victoria Bampton (May 9, 2017)

Yep, I'm still plowing through our family archives. I'm mostly photographing prints, because scanning was just too slow for the ridiculous volume.

I photograph the prints, import as normal - but into a Scans folder structure rather than my normal Digital folders, divided into years.

Dates are pretty vague, but I can usually guess the approximate month/year, so I just set to the first of the month. 

Since the photos are organized into albums, I'm using the album number for the filename, followed by a sequence number. So 2017-1-001.dng.


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## johnbeardy (May 9, 2017)

I don't see any reason to use a different system for scanned files. After all, it's hard enough to run one system.

So my naming scheme is the same as for digital images YYMMDD_1234 Subject name.ext. The date is the date on which the image is scanned, and the 1234 is sequential. One doesn't often know the original date anyway, and this method ensures uniqueness of filenames. If I need to find these scans by date....

Files go into the same folder structure as my TIFs and PSDs - so separate from my digital originals but into an existing system. They are TIFs anyway.

I use my CaptureTimeToExif plugin to add as much metadata as I can. So I might add the camera maker and model, if I know them, and an approximate or actual date.

I'll also include references to the source, if known. So with something scanned from my own negatives, Blue2-123 means Blue folder #2 roll #123 and takes me to a negative/film sleeve. For each roll I have a contact sheet, which I have scanned and imported them into Lightroom, then added keywords and all sorts of metadata. In a few cases where there was no contact sheet, I scanned all the negatives and made a digital contact sheet - not high quality, just good enough.

Linwood mentioned negative inversion. Lightroom is designed for positive images, and life's too short for messing around with negatives in it. So I eliminate the problem by scanning to a positive or inverting in Photoshop.

But overall, I try to deviate as little as possible from my standard procedures.

John


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## Linwood Ferguson (May 9, 2017)

Most of mine tend to be vague on dates, but I can usually pin down the year, so I did something like this:

Top folder: ScannedInPhotos
Folder: 1978
   Subfolder: WashingtonDCTrip

I then put those shots I can identify with that trip in that folder.  I also scan them into a staging area, as it may take a while (or conversations with my wife, or looking for positives that may be stored somewhere different than negatives) to identify them, and then I move them to the right place.

I also am saving the negatives in sleeves in a box.  I number the sleeve, e.g. 49.1, 49.2, 49.3, etc. where "49" is a roll (or set of rolls if I can't tell them apart) and the .1, .2, etc. shows the approximate position on the roll.  I then attach a keyword to the images from that roll (e.g. 49) as "Sleeve 49.x" so I can get close to the negative later if I wanted a better copy or for some other reason wanted the sleeve.  Slides were in just groups, so they got keywords "SlideGroup1, SlideGRoup2, etc." so I could go back to them.  It's easy to do these while shooting tethered, you just enter it in once and it attaches to each, so as you change rolls, change keywords.

It is of course not all that important where they are in terms of folders, as it is the captions and titles and other keywords you attached, but I wanted them to have a path back to the original "just in case".   Hopefully I never have to follow the path.

When I start up again I may take one more run at negatives, but my thinking is much as he said above: life's too short.  But what I think I may do is invert and save as JPG, and then do editing in Lightroom.  This saves massive amounts of disk space (if you have a lot of images), and here's my (as yet untested) theory -- if I need a higher quality, I can invert to a TIFF and then apply the same edits as a starting point in LR.   Saving all these not-all-that-worthwhile (to say the least) images as large TIFF's is just of questionable value.


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## PhilBurton (May 9, 2017)

Ferguson said:


> Most of mine tend to be vague on dates, but I can usually pin down the year, so I did something like this:
> 
> Top folder: ScannedInPhotos
> Folder: 1978
> ...


How do you fix dust spots?

Phil


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## Victoria Bampton (May 9, 2017)

johnbeardy said:


> I don't see any reason to use a different system for scanned files. After all, it's hard enough to run one system.



I have a good reason - parents. I'll get a "can I have a copy of the 34th photo in the 2017-1 album please?"


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## NJHeart2Heart (May 9, 2017)

Thanks Victoria and John - Always a privilege to hear from you two, as I consider you among the best (and most pleasant) of the Lightroom experts 

Victoria - I recently got a "newsletter" from Peter Krogh of DAM Book fame (another of my favorite experts - regarding photo management), and he is finishing up a new book precisely about digitizing physical prints via digital camera.  I'm pretty happy with my scanner for now, but if I were coming into the project new, I might consider this method, and would definitely get his book! 

So your albums are basically by year?  I think once I figure out my "mystery scans" and get them indexed, I'll re-visit albums. For now I've just created collections for years or decades, or whatever I can reasonably group by for now, while it's still a WIP. One of the beautys of collections is that very ability to move files around between them so easily and to rename them as they tickle my fancy 

John - Thanks for sharing.  While I definitely appreciate the desire to keep things as standard as possible, and for my native digitals I am a total "Beardy wannabe" (your posts taught me sooo much over the years and I LOVE your workflow collections hiearchy), I will politely diverge from you here.

Concerning my scans, I'm preserving these photos for future generations who are NOT my direct descendants and will have no idea (nor much focus) how to interpret those photos that "appear" to be organized by date taken.  If they see the "date as filename" pattern in all my native digitals, and all my scans are named exactly like the native digitals, it would likely mislead them to think that the filename of the scanned photos also indicate the date a photo was actually taken (not the date the photo was SCANNED). I centralize my scans to just two scanned folders, so I don't have the added complexity of date folders which are completely arbitrary to me.  Though I know naming native digitals by date is more out of storage convenience (because hey, lightroom does it automatically and it's just as easy as it is to assign them purely sequential filenames), the traditionalist in me still appreciates that those dates do have some basic meaning.  

I don't bother having LR create  year\ yyyy\mm\dd folders for those random scanning sessions, since when they are scanned means nothing helpful to me, and only has potential to confuse an ignorant audience.  

Still, your method may work great for others, so thank you for sharing that


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## Linwood Ferguson (May 9, 2017)

PhilBurton said:


> How do you fix dust spots?


Cloning seems to work nicely whether inverted or not.  It's not as nice as Silverfast (I think that's the name) or other purpose built software I suspect.

But honestly most of my stuff from this time period is so bad that dust specs are the least of the problems.   The real problem I have is color.  Even running through Vuescan (which I found easier than Silverfast), and working afterwards with a positive, the colors are really difficult.  I think a lot of it is storage -I had everything in sleeves, but only my self-developed ones (B&W) were in sleeves that held up well.  A lot of the labs glued the sleeves to the negatives (or tape or something sticky), some just did not preserve well.  But even ones that looked decently preserved, the exact same film base would be substantially different colors in different rolls.  I assume from storage, maybe from different labs (one would think they all used the same chemistry).  And what's worse in some ways, the ones from 1970's are actually better than a lot I had from 1990's, for reasons completely lost on me (I mean in terms of preserving color fidelity).

I probably spent 5% of my time on spots and edits, and 95% on trying to clean up colors.  One thing that helps is getting the not-exposed portion visible, because that's a solid black so you can back out some color cast from that.

Makes me wish I shot all slides.  Or B&W -- the B&W stuff converted REALLY nicely and easily.

Ah, if we could just go back and do some things over.


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## johnbeardy (May 9, 2017)

Victoria Bampton said:


> I have a good reason - parents. I'll get a "can I have a copy of the 34th photo in the 2017-1 album please?"



That's why recording any physical source is important. It works in both directions too, as one might want to go looking for pictures near to one you've already scanned.


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## johnbeardy (May 9, 2017)

I'm sure Peter's book will be good, Dawn. Funnily enough, when I heard he was doing one, my first thought was "are people still interested in learning about that?" This thread is my answer.

The future generations issue is something I'm sure we all consider. I just don't think it needs to drive my storage - instead it drives me to share the photos I've gathered. 

John


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## NJHeart2Heart (May 9, 2017)

Well said John   I often have an even more difficult question in my case: "Who cares about me and my husband?" We don't have children, so I have to find other motivation.  I think the strength of my motivation is why I do this in spurts - sometimes I feel inspired and other times the inspiration is just.. dry. 

I have often picked up on this scanning project over the years due to deaths in the family - people appreciate being given (without effort on their part) a nice collection of photos of their loved ones, plus it gives me a really good way to be supportive.  
Sometimes I get intensely focused on it purely for the challenge of completing a group, or organizing (I really love to organize things).  
Other times I rationalize that my photos have other people and family in them, and thus are important for the people other than us whom they might relate to.  That's why for me keywording names is so important for my scanning project.  It makes the process of collecting a group of related photos of a person/family from across time extremely easy. There's nothing quite so useful in getting people invested in what I'm doing as their own self-interest


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## PhilBurton (May 10, 2017)

Ferguson said:


> Makes me wish I shot all slides.  Or B&W -- the B&W stuff converted REALLY nicely and easily.
> 
> Ah, if we could just go back and do some things over.



Only if you shot Kodachrome.  My Ektachromes from only 20 years ago are already showing a color cast.  And the 3 rolls of Agfachrome that I shot in Paris in 1966, they are completely, utterly faded.  Those slides would have been important historically, but now they are almost completely clear film base and nothing more.  Ditto for some other non-Kodak brands of slide film.  I did a lot of experimenting back then, but it's all lost.

Phil Burton


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## NJHeart2Heart (May 10, 2017)

@PhilBurton I'm sorry to hear that!  It is crazy how different film, and photo paper types have such different lifespans..


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## Linwood Ferguson (May 10, 2017)

Phil, have you tried photographing them in raw?  Blank of course is blank, but I had a lot that were badly faded that with a bit of exposure experimentation and then adjusting further in raw I got a lot more detail out of than I would have expected from looking at them by eye.


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## PhilBurton (May 10, 2017)

Ferguson said:


> Phil, have you tried photographing them in raw?  Blank of course is blank, but I had a lot that were badly faded that with a bit of exposure experimentation and then adjusting further in raw I got a lot more detail out of than I would have expected from looking at them by eye.


No.  I guess I should go back and give it another shot.  I have kept all my slides, even the faded ones.  Of course, I discarded the duds.


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## NJHeart2Heart (May 11, 2017)

So, here's another query - For those with heritage photos they tag for faces, what does your workflow look like?  I use keywords for named people, but due to the nature of the keyword field I can't tell for sure which photos have "complete name tags" vs. those that have "partial name tags" or "no name tags".  I am handling that via color labels that I have to manually change for the above statuses:
Red = No name tags,
Yellow= partial name tags, meaning that I have some people named, but I still want to name others, and need to do research to find the rest, and
Green = complete name tags, meaning I have satisfactorily named every person in the photo that I intend to name (this includes photos without people, so I know that the photo has been reviewed).

I've created a static collection for each set of photos I want to process, then created a smart collection with a purple label which I apply when I initially place a group of photos into the static collection for processing.
I like to work in manageable groups of around 500 photos (usually fewer) at a time so as I process them through, I can see my progress. It makes me feel productive 

I could I suppose mark *all *incoming photos with purple labels, and "someday" I might do that, but I am notoriously BAD at processing my photos with the most basic of info, including captions/titles/keywords, so for now, this process allows me to tackle one part of my very large backlog at a time 

My only problem is how to permanently mark them once they've been processed. I don't want to depend on the "green" label on all my photos, as I might want to use my color labels for a different type of process at some point and/or because it's too easy for me to get bored with a particular project and decide to "start over", meaning wiping out my color labels among other things.

Unfortunately I think I DID just that last time I was actively working with Lightroom.  I processed a big group of photos but then never added a permanent tag to them, so when I forgot the purpose of my color labels and wiped them out, I also wiped out the only indicator that those photos were completely name tagged.

My best idea for a solution so far is to create a keyword called "nametagscomplete", so that regardless of what I do or don't do with my color labels, once my photos are processed for name tags, I can select all and add one keyword. That way, they are more permanent than say a custom field that is proprietary to lightroom.

What do you all do?


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## Roelof Moorlag (May 12, 2017)

NJHeart2Heart said:


> I could I suppose mark *all *incoming photos with purple labels, and "someday" I might do that, but I am notoriously BAD at processing my photos with the most basic of info, including captions/titles/keywords, so for now, this process allows me to tackle one part of my very large backlog at a time


I'm using 'helper-keywords' instead of colorlables but essential it's the same. An example of such helper-keyword is '@AddNames' and i'm adding it to all my incoming photo's with my standard import preset. With help of a bunch of smart collections i keep track of work that has to be done.

When i have some time i select a batch (50 or so) and put them in the quick collection. When i added all names i remove the associated helper keyword. This i do for all the who, what, why, when, where and how questions.


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## NJHeart2Heart (May 12, 2017)

Hi Roelof, thanks for checking in 
Sounds like you and I work similarly.  Since I tend to second guess what I've accomplished, when I'm done using the color label to process people names, I add "PeopleNamesComplete" to the complete images. Like you I process other metadata the same way..


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## oleleclos (May 13, 2017)

PhilBurton said:


> How do you fix dust spots?Phil





Ferguson said:


> ...honestly most of my stuff from this time period is so bad that dust specs are the least of the problems.   The real problem I have is color....


These issues can be dealt with surprisingly effectively by good film scanners. I did this with thousands of my dad's slides from the 1950s and 60s. It's a fairly slow process, but it can be run in batch mode, so you just have to load the scanner every so often.

The attached scans are of one of his Ferraniacolor slides from 1961 - the first is uncorrected and shows exactly what the slide looked like; the second was scanned with Epson's automatic dust removal and colour restoring functions, but is otherwise a "raw" scan, i.e. with no further spotting or edits. I was more than a little impressed the first time I saw this.


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## Roelof Moorlag (May 13, 2017)

I have the same experience with the standard Epson scan software provided with my Perfection V700 Photo scanner, quite impressive.
For my slides i used the Reflecta Digitdia 5000 scanner which is able of 100 slides per batch. The standards scansoftware that came with it (Cyberview X) did a very good job either. Only Kodachrome slides where problematic. The 'digital ICE' technoloy does not work on those (for what i understand, the Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED is the only one that can).


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## Johan Elzenga (May 13, 2017)

If I remember correctly, Digital ICE works with infrared, which cannot be used on Kodachrome because Kodachrome contains metallic silver. I doubt that the SuperCoolscan 9000ED can change this fact, so maybe it uses another (software only) technology for Kodachrome.


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## Conrad Chavez (May 13, 2017)

I was skeptical since I have a Super Coolscan 5000ED where Digital ICE doesn't work on Kodachrome or silver B&W, but the Wikipedia entry on Digital ICE says that the 9000ED does have a newer version of Digital ICE that can clean up Kodachrome (see the section "Further Development"). And that SilverFast and Fuji have versions of that technology. Another website shows examples of the 9000ED with Kodachrome.

At the moment I'm wrestling with severe color shifts on scans of 30-year-old color negatives. After I have VueScan do initial negative inversion, fade correction, color restoration, and dust/scratch removal, in Lightroom I also have to add a Blue curve midpoint shift that finally gets the color to neutral. For these negatives anyway, the curve adjustment worked better than adjusting white balance, HSL, or camera calibration.

But then I have to add two white balance adjustments as graduated filters along the long edges of the frames because the filmstrip edges are more faded than the center...lots of fun.


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## rob211 (May 14, 2017)

It's funny about the dust removal.

When I first started scanning, I did some removal myself, and then resorted to a service to do the scanning since they had far better tools than I did. And got very good results.

But now, I don't remove. With my family, they kind of WANT the defects. Since these days anyone with an Instagram filter can make any image look old, my cleaned up ones keep getting mistaken for filter-altered images. My family likes the messed up scans precisely because they are obviously scans. And dirty like the slides and prints we've passed around. Sigh.

BTW, don't know if it's still the case but I actually ended up using Photoshop Elements to do a bunch of the scanning processing. It's out-of-the-box corrections, adjustments, and so on worked really well as a starting point.

And as to the person workflow, I use keywords. FAR more flexible than labels, and in my case I write to file. So that if I use something else with the scans I can still tell where they are in a workflow. Labels in Lr are kinda like keywords with colors assigned, and I've never liked the system though, so I  confess to a bias.


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## NJHeart2Heart (May 9, 2017)

Hi all,
Visiting again after a long hiatus from Lightroom centric activities.  

This is not so much a call for help as it is a call for those sharing the same types of challenges due to the less standardized process of scanning physical photos.

I'm back at my long term family history photo scanning journey.  I recently scanned about 500 photos from a family member, and after scanning them into my now "standard" photo filenaming convention, realized I still have several groups of photos that are a mess  

I'd just like to take a quick count of who is currently or recently done a large historical scanning job, with it's related file naming / dating issues.  Thought it would be nice to start a thread for those who are focusing on this specific type of work.

It seems that @PhilBurton was the most recent poster regarding photo scanning, but I know there have been others over time.  I'm no expert, but I'd be happy to share my journey thus far and tidbits that have helped me  smooth out my process (which someone else might find helpful).

How are we all doing with our respective projects?   Care to share your current workflow?
Any questions we can brainstorm on together?

Looking forward to chatting with fellow scanner - Lightroom users.


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## Roelof Moorlag (May 14, 2017)

Conrad Chavez said:


> I was skeptical since I have a Super Coolscan 5000ED where Digital ICE doesn't work on Kodachrome or silver B&W, but the Wikipedia entry on Digital ICE says that the 9000ED does have a newer version of Digital ICE that can clean up Kodachrome (see the section "Further Development"). And that SilverFast and Fuji have versions of that technology. Another website shows examples of the 9000ED with Kodachrome.


I did my homework 



Conrad Chavez said:


> At the moment I'm wrestling with severe color shifts on scans of 30-year-old color negatives. After I have VueScan do initial negative inversion, fade correction, color restoration, and dust/scratch removal, in Lightroom I also have to add a Blue curve midpoint shift that finally gets the color to neutral. For these negatives anyway, the curve adjustment worked better than adjusting white balance, HSL, or camera calibration.


I have not tried myself but Peter Krogh adviced to use color compensation (CC) filters: link. Perhaps worth trying?


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## davidedric (May 15, 2017)

I have the 5000ED, and I thought I was cornered when I went to 64-bit Windows because Nikon never produced the drivers. Fortunately, Vuescan scan works just fine. Just in case anyone has the same issue.

Dave


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## Klaas (May 15, 2017)

I'm too in the business of scanning old photographs (paper, negatives, Kodachrome, Agfachrome and others). I got a Nikon Coolscan V ED and it works fine. Software: Nikon Scan 4.03 Vista for Kodachrome und Vuescan for all the other brands. My PC runs with MS Windows 10 Home 64 bit.

With Nikon Scan I choose Kodachrome, but the scans show too much blue, I'm afraid. So I changed the gradadation of blue a bit and now I'm very satisfied with the results.

Vuescan was calibrated for Ektachrome. The colors are sufficient for Agfachrome too. For calibration I used a IT8.7-Target from Wolf Faust. But as already mentioned, very old pictures (Agfachrome) show very often very little color. Vuescan does for theese pictures a great job. Vuescan brings colors back, which I can't see on the original.

Klaas


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## Anthony.Ralph (May 15, 2017)

+1 for the IT8.7-Target from Wolf Faust

Anthony.


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## NJHeart2Heart (May 15, 2017)

Hi Rob 211,
Thanks for mentioning your name tag process, though I'm curious how you use keywords to indicate relative completion of name tags on a photo.
For me, the color labels are easiest to apply on the fly while I'm reviewing. I apply my names, than a quick press of 6-8 and on to the next photo.  I think with keywords, I'm afraid I'd forget to remove one keyword once a photo moves to another stage of completion.  Although, as mentioned when I finish the naming process I do add a keyword to all photos which have complete (or at least as complete as needed) name tags.


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## Klaas (May 15, 2017)

NJHeart2Heart said:


> ... about what system of organization ... ie:
> 1- How do you name your files,


I don't change the file names used by the camera, I can't see any reason for it. For scanned pictures I name them with 001, 002 and so on.


NJHeart2Heart said:


> 2 - Where do you store them (what folder system do you use),


I created some general folders like abstract, events, persons, locations and so on. Within these folders are subfolders. For instance within events I use folders for each journey. My name convention YYYY-MM Location (1998-07 London).

Best regards
Klaas


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## Roelof Moorlag (May 16, 2017)

Klaas said:


> I created some general folders like abstract, events, persons, locations and so on.


And what do you do with a photo of a certain person on a certain event on a certain location? Duplicate it and put it in all associated folders?
I would use collections or (hierachical) Keywords for this and just let Lightroom place the image files on the standard date based location.


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## Klaas (May 16, 2017)

Roelof Moorlag said:


> And what do you do with a photo of a certain person on a certain event on a certain location? Duplicate it and put it in all associated folders?


You should have priorities  And naturly no duplicates. The reason: You haven't always Lightroom available, for instance streaming from a NAS (network attached storage device) to a beamer. In that case you only can follow the folder structure.


Roelof Moorlag said:


> I would use collections or (hierachical) Keywords for this and just let Lightroom place the image files on the standard date based location.


Keyword are set additionally, so that I can find a person whereever the picture is.

Best regards
Klaas


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## Victoria Bampton (May 17, 2017)

Peter Krogh's new book on the subject is available now. I received a review copy this afternoon, and from a quick glance, it looks as comprehensive as I'd expect from Peter. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## CloudedGenie (Jul 23, 2017)

I bought a copy of Peter's book, and did a quick read-through. It will require another, more detailed read...

I have a question regarding the recording of custom metadata. Most of my own negatives were color film that I sent out to be scanned. I can update the EXIF info with the camera and ISO information, but I'd like to also record the film type and perhaps how the scan was generated, in case I want to re-scan some of them... I would also like to record the film processing date - I know the all photos on that film were taken before that date. 

Is there a plugin that creates and exposes these fields and can perhaps sort on these custom fields, or is that something that would be a totally custom development?


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## Roelof Moorlag (Jul 23, 2017)

CloudedGenie said:


> Most of my own negatives were color film that I sent out to be scanned. I can update the EXIF info with the camera and ISO information, but I'd like to also record the film type and perhaps how the scan was generated, in case I want to re-scan some of them... I would also like to record the film processing date - I know the all photos on that film were taken before that date.


In his book Peter describes he's putting this kind of information in hierachical Keywords (Chapter 12).
For personal notes (how the scan was generated i.g.) you could use the 'Big note' plugin from John Beardsworth


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## johnbeardy (Jul 23, 2017)

My Capture Time to EXIF is designed as an easy way to add dates and other EXIF to scanned images.


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## CloudedGenie (Jul 24, 2017)

@johnbeardy, I've been using your plugin to change the capture date and time for the photos where I have that information (such as our wedding photos), or the camera make and model for my two Pentax bodies.

What I'm struggling with, is finding the best way to record e.g. Film type. I know Peter Krogh suggests a keyword, but I feel it should be treated like the other EXIF info. Similarly, if I could capture the frame number in a field, I could use that for sorting (I'll often have a good handle on the dates for two or three photos on an entire roll of film).

This is even harder now that my mom sent me a box with all our family photo slides (loose, unsorted ), some from about 2 years before I was born... I have at least sorted these into separate films (based on the processed date stamped on it) and then ordered it by the exposure number...

I discovered an AnalogEXIF extension of the XMP schema -- this is not supported by ExifTool or Lightroom, and I could only find applications that run on Android. Would it be possible to build something similar for Lightroom and expose these fields for smart collections, or is is this too much work for the expected amount of gain?


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## Anjikun (Aug 3, 2017)

I am planning to digitize a bunch of old photos but haven't started. I have to admit I did not even realize I could photograph them instead of scanning them. I have scanned a few things and find it very slow, although I don't know maybe I set the resolution too high. People on here using scanners, how do you know what to set the scan specifications to?


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## Roelof Moorlag (Aug 3, 2017)

Anjikun said:


> I am planning to digitize a bunch of old photos but haven't started. I have to admit I did not even realize I could photograph them instead of scanning them. I have scanned a few things and find it very slow,


You can accomplish very good results with 'camera scanning'. There is a new book about the subject from Peter Krogh 'Digitizing Your Photos with Your Camera and Lightroom', i liked it very much. Lot's of tips and practical advice. I wrote a (dutch) review on this book yesterday.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Aug 3, 2017)

@Roelof Moorlag - is there anything really new in there in doing color correction of (raw) negatives with Lightroom?  Tried to make it through a Google translate of your review, and it sounded like it was more of the same - try inverting, and if not use Silverfast or Photoshop (or etc)?

I'm still trying to find a good lightroom-only workflow so as not to have to create TIFF's of everything, without much success.


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## Roelof Moorlag (Aug 3, 2017)

I'm not sure what your workflow is in Lightroom to 'flip'  negatives to positives but Peter is focusing on getting the most efficient workflow. His goal is to scan the negatives with as good as quality possible with high volume and little time. He admits that a better quality sometimes is needed and that you can use Silverfast than. In that case your workflow is a lot less efficiënt indeed. 
I don't think the Lightroom techniques he discribes are very 'special' but i found it helpfull to see him at work in the video's, making presets for the different brand and types film you used.
The only thing i didn't know before reading the book was that the facerecognition of Lightroom does not work on photographed negatives (even when 'flipped' to positives). For some that alone could be a reason for 'routing' via Silverfast i think.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Aug 3, 2017)

Thanks.  To me facial recognition doesn't work period, so no great loss.  What I've been doing lately (well, besides "putting it off" which is most of what I have been doing) is taking an image with a camera, trying to invert it and get decent color in lightroom.  If not, take it to photoshop and invert there and output a JPG which I touch up in Lightroom.  The theory is that 99% of the images are never going to be used for anything and the JPG is good enough; if I need one I'll re-invert to a TIFF in PS and the touchup changes in Lightroom will still be applicable, just copy over to the JPG.

The JPG's are 1/10th the size of the TIFF's, and while size is not all that relevant with cheap disks, I have a ton of old negatives.


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## johnbeardy (Aug 3, 2017)

CloudedGenie said:


> @johnbeardy, Would it be possible to build something similar for Lightroom and expose these fields for smart collections, or is is this too much work for the expected amount of gain?



Sorry, I missed this post. Take a look at my BigNote plugin which is unencrypted and intended to allow you to create your own custom fields in LR.

John


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## Roelof Moorlag (Aug 3, 2017)

Ferguson said:


> The theory is that 99% of the images are never going to be used for anything and the JPG is good enough; if I need one I'll re-invert to a TIFF in PS and the touchup changes in Lightroom will still be applicable, just copy over to the JPG.


Yes, one of Peters arguments is to scan for inventory. With that inventory you can much better decide which negative is worth to revisit and scan it with more attention (or let it scan by a specialized service) to get the most out of it.


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## NJHeart2Heart (Aug 4, 2017)

Anjikun said:


> I am planning to digitize a bunch of old photos but haven't started. I have to admit I did not even realize I could photograph them instead of scanning them. I have scanned a few things and find it very slow, although I don't know maybe I set the resolution too high. People on here using scanners, how do you know what to set the scan specifications to?



I scan my photos at 900 dpi I think, which is I believe more than enough for even large reprints if desired.  It takes about 3 minutes to scan 3-6 photos depending on size.  When I do a scanning session I set aside a couple hours at least, since it does take a bit.  My process has evolved and I'm pretty happy with the timing.


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## NJHeart2Heart (Aug 4, 2017)

I've been working on a series of articles covering my process for creating digital files from paper prints and adding metadata in Lightroom.  These are probably basic for you all here who are well practiced using smart collection workflows, but if you know of anyone that has relatively little experience with LR and who wants to work with heritage photos, these might be helpful.

Legacy Photos and Lightroom - Google Drive


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## Linwood Ferguson (Aug 4, 2017)

NJHeart2Heart said:


> I scan my photos at 900 dpi I think, which is I believe more than enough for even large reprints if desired.



Maybe.  Depends on how "large" large is.

Assuming 35mm film enlarged to 16x20, this gives a magnification of about 14x and becomes about 64dpi which is likely usable but not ideal.  

Bay Photo (just used them so they were handy) recommends 250dpi, which I think is higher than needed at 16x20, but to get that you would have to scan at 3500dpi.  A more modest goal of 180dpi requires 2540.  All this assumes no crop horizontally to get the 20".

This is one reason I decided to use a camera.  With a D800 you get about 5200 dpi equivalent, which for a 16x20 gives 368dpi.  A D700 would give 212dpi. 

All that said (and no implications of Dawn's images of course) - my old negatives are pretty bad, not just badly preserved but I was an awful photographer with cheap equipment in much of my life.  There's nothing much in there which merits an enlargement, much less that kind of resolution.  But if your trove of old negatives is more worthwhile, it is worth doing the math.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 4, 2017)

If you scan film, I would use the native scanner resolution. If you scan prints, then between 300 - 600 ppi is enough. Anything higher will only produce more pixels, not more detail.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Aug 4, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> If you scan film, I would use the native scanner resolution. If you scan prints, then between 300 - 600 ppi is enough. Anything higher will only produce more pixels, not more detail.


I realized that Dawn said "photos" so I may have lept to the wrong conclusion it was negatives (her second post that mentioned paper prints and mine overlapped).  Sorry.  Though the math is always worth doing if someone is scanning negatives, to see what you are getting. It is also worth noting that some scanners' maximum resolution is really interpolated, i.e. it might scan 800dpi, but then offer 1600 or 2400 as an option by basically upscaling like photoshop would (and thus pointless to do in the scanner as it adds time and size without detail). Check your scanner specs for true resolution (or check online for testing/reviews).


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## NJHeart2Heart (May 9, 2017)

Hi all,
Visiting again after a long hiatus from Lightroom centric activities.  

This is not so much a call for help as it is a call for those sharing the same types of challenges due to the less standardized process of scanning physical photos.

I'm back at my long term family history photo scanning journey.  I recently scanned about 500 photos from a family member, and after scanning them into my now "standard" photo filenaming convention, realized I still have several groups of photos that are a mess  

I'd just like to take a quick count of who is currently or recently done a large historical scanning job, with it's related file naming / dating issues.  Thought it would be nice to start a thread for those who are focusing on this specific type of work.

It seems that @PhilBurton was the most recent poster regarding photo scanning, but I know there have been others over time.  I'm no expert, but I'd be happy to share my journey thus far and tidbits that have helped me  smooth out my process (which someone else might find helpful).

How are we all doing with our respective projects?   Care to share your current workflow?
Any questions we can brainstorm on together?

Looking forward to chatting with fellow scanner - Lightroom users.


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## Anjikun (Aug 5, 2017)

Hi all. Thanks for all these responses. I really appreciate the help. I am just so useless when it comes to figuring out resolution, image size, pixels and such. I am very visually oriented and my abstract math-type skills are extremely poor (like learning disability level bad). So I keep trying to figure it out by reading stuff but I can never actually figure it out. I am also planning to digitize my drawing and painting portfolios. Of course for the paintings I will have to photograph them. But for the small sketches/drawings I have the choice of scanning them. I almost want to photograph everything just because I have no idea how to set up the scanner! The main thing I want to do with the digital files of my past sketches/drawings is to display them on my screen (5k iMac screen) possibly zoomed up so I can crop details to use as reference images for future drawings/paintings and I may try to put these in slideshows or composites made in Photoshop (combined with photos) as reference material for abstracts. So, my sense is that I need maximum size so that I can zoom in and crop but that ppi does not make a difference, as my intention (at least right now) is not to print these. Is this basically right? If so, would it be faster and better for me to photograph or use my scanner (HP Photosmart)?


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## CloudedGenie (Aug 7, 2017)

Anjikun said:


> The main thing I want to do with the digital files of my past sketches/drawings is to display them on my screen (5k iMac screen) possibly zoomed up so I can crop details to use as reference images for future drawings/paintings and I may try to put these in slideshows or composites made in Photoshop (combined with photos) as reference material for abstracts. So, my sense is that I need maximum size so that I can zoom in and crop but that ppi does not make a difference, as my intention (at least right now) is not to print these. Is this basically right? If so, would it be faster and better for me to photograph or use my scanner (HP Photosmart)?



@Anjikun, it may be easier for you to simply photograph everything. That is also the approach the Peter Krogh is taking in his new book Digitize Your Photos with Your Camera and Lightroom.

As far as you scanner is involved, I would set to TIFF or to high quality JPG, and then to the highest native resolution your scanner can do (measured in dpi/ppi or dots/pixels per inch) - that means it will give you the largest image size possible, so you can zoom. This is not the same as the resolution at which you are going to print the file (If you were going to).  Most of the commercial scanning places will give you an option between 300 and 600 dpi for scanning prints, and 600 dpi is plenty!

For faster scanning - remember, you can place a number of small sketches / drawings / documents on the scanner glass and scan them at the same time. You can then import the file in Lightroom and make separate crops for each document, that you can then rotate / export as a separate file - a good reason to scan the original set as a TIFF file, if you can.


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## CloudedGenie (Aug 7, 2017)

I feel like a total idiot... I spent a good few hours going through the BigNote code, and finally came to the conclusion that some of my brain cells have committed suicide sometime between now and when I was 25, because the new custom metadata addin for Lightroom making me rich, is just not going to happen... 

The entire XMP extension idea that I had... is totally unnecessary. There are already fields for things such as Scanner make and model, software, scan date, operator, resolution, and Film Brand, Film Roll Number and Film Frame Number and original medium in the EXIF specification as part of the FlashPix tags, that can be accessed using exiftool.

FlashPix Tags


Which means -- @johnbeardy and the Capture Time to Exif – released – John Beardsworth tool to the rescue 

Now I just need somebody (or Adobe) to expose those tags (and the SubSecondTime) to the Lightroom Metadata Panel


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## Anjikun (Aug 7, 2017)

Thanks CloudedGenie! I am going to start taking photographs of my larger sketches (that won't fit on the scanner anyway and see how it goes).


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## PhilBurton (Aug 13, 2017)

CloudedGenie said:


> ... because the new custom metadata addin for Lightroom making me rich, is just not going to happen...


There are other areas where custom metadata support would still be beneficial, even if all the fields listed below were supported in Lightroom.


> The entire XMP extension idea that I had... is totally unnecessary. There are already fields for things such as Scanner make and model, software, scan date, operator, resolution, and Film Brand, Film Roll Number and Film Frame Number and original medium in the EXIF specification as part of the FlashPix tags, that can be accessed using exiftool.


Are these fields implemented in Lightroom's database?  Any other "unusual" fields supported?


> FlashPix Tags
> 
> 
> Which means -- @johnbeardy and the Capture Time to Exif – released – John Beardsworth tool to the rescue


And which also means that once again Phil Harvey is an all-around good guy.


> Now I just need somebody (or Adobe) to expose those tags (and the SubSecondTime) to the Lightroom Metadata Panel


+1 for this idea.

Phil


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## Mathew (Aug 16, 2017)

Hi,
I am new to this forum. I searched the forum for my next question, i didn't find my answer.
I scan Polaroid pictures with LR Auto Import feature. When i export the picture from LR to Pshop, i am missing the XMP file necessary for link vice versa. 
Is it possible to ad XMP file to the scanned Polaroid picture and how to do that. 
Regards. Mathew


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 16, 2017)

Mathew said:


> Hi,
> I am new to this forum. I searched the forum for my next question, i didn't find my answer.
> I scan Polaroid pictures with LR Auto Import feature. When i export the picture from LR to Pshop, i am missing the XMP file necessary for link vice versa.
> Is it possible to ad XMP file to the scanned Polaroid picture and how to do that.
> Regards. Mathew



You don't need an XMP file, because those scans are not camera raw files. The metadata from Lightroom will be passed on to Photoshop by embedding them.


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## Mathew (Aug 16, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> You don't need an XMP file, because those scans are not camera raw files. The metadata from Lightroom will be passed on to Photoshop by embedding them.



I opened the Polaroid picture in Photoshop as a smart object, then i Converted it to be linked [to LR]. When i make changes to the pictures in PS these changes are nicely saved in LR.
The problem is, when i make changes to this pictures in Lightroom these changes does not catch up in PS. IMHO due to the missing XMP file!


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 16, 2017)

Mathew said:


> I opened the Polaroid picture in Photoshop as a smart object, then i Converted it to be linked [to LR]. When i make changes to the pictures in PS these changes are nicely saved in LR.
> The problem is, when i make changes to this pictures in Lightroom these changes does not catch up in PS. IMHO due to the missing XMP file!



There isn't a missing XMP file. Like I said, XMP files are only used with proprietary camera raw files. I believe you have to update the smart object from within Photoshop before the changes show.


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## Mathew (Aug 16, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> There isn't a missing XMP file. Like I said, XMP files are only used with proprietary camera raw files. I believe you have to update the smart object from within Photoshop before the changes show.



Yes that's right generated in LR. Maybe there is somewhere a program that it can do it!
BTW; very nice landscape photography! I love it.
Thanks for your time.
Mat


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 16, 2017)

Mathew said:


> Maybe there is somewhere a program that it can do it!



If you mean make an XMP file, then forget about it. Adobe applications do not read XMP files that don't belong to a proprietary camera raw file.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 16, 2017)

Mathew,
Have you tried this? This is how you update a linked smart object from within Photoshop:

1: You'll see the smart object icon has changed by having a yellow warning sign on it.
2: Go to Properties and right-click on the link.
3: Choose 'Update Modified Content'.

No need for an XMP file; this was done with a TIFF file placed as smart object.


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## Conrad Chavez (Aug 16, 2017)

Mathew said:


> I opened the Polaroid picture in Photoshop as a smart object, then i Converted it to be linked [to LR]. When i make changes to the pictures in PS these changes are nicely saved in LR.
> The problem is, when i make changes to this pictures in Lightroom these changes does not catch up in PS. IMHO due to the missing XMP file!


I don't think this is about a missing XMP file because Lightroom can embed its edit metadata into the image file. If the scan of your Polaroid image is in any non-raw format like TIFF or JPEG, I think the real problem is that editing the picture in Lightroom only edits metadata. Photoshop is not going to notice or render visual metadata edits for an image that is not raw, so it's normal for Photoshop to not update a linked Smart Object if visual edits were applied only using metadata.

There are two ways to make this work.

*Method A:* First export a copy of the scan (which will apply the Lightroom edits to the pixels) and then have Photoshop link to the exported copy. Each time you edit the scan in Lightroom, export an updated copy and Photoshop will see the changes. The disadvantage is that this requires that extra copy.

*Method B:*

In Photoshop, choose File > Place Linked.
Select the Polaroid scan file.
For both the Format and Enable menus, choose Camera Raw. If you do not see these menus, click the Options button.
Click OK. Camera Raw appears; just click OK through it.
Each time you edit the original file for this linked Smart Object in the Develop module in Lightroom, make sure you choose Photo > Save Metadata to File. Now when you return to Photoshop, the linked Smart Object will update.
Step 3 forces Photoshop to place the scan through Camera Raw, which does interpret the metadata edits from Lightroom. This should work with TIFF and JPEG files.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 16, 2017)

Even simpler: If you use 'Edit - Open as Smart Object in Photoshop' from Lightroom, you will already get Camera RAW when you edit the smart object. Even if the original is a TIFF or JPEG. You will have to change it to a linked smart object, thereby overwriting the original however. Some people may not like that idea.


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## Conrad Chavez (Aug 16, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> Even simpler: If you use 'Edit - Open as Smart Object in Photoshop' from Lightroom, you will already get Camera RAW when you edit the smart object. Even if the original is a TIFF or JPEG.


But doesn't that place it as an embedded smart object (unlinked copy that won't see future Lightroom edits) rather than linked?


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 16, 2017)

Conrad Chavez said:


> But doesn't that place it as an embedded smart object (unlinked copy that won't see future Lightroom edits) rather than linked?



Yes, I added that later. You would have to change the smart object from embedded to linked, and when you do this, you would have to overwrite the original. Some people may not like that idea, but the advantage is that your smart object Photoshop file is automatically saved back to Lightroom, so there is no need for adding it manually.


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## Conrad Chavez (Aug 17, 2017)

Oh, OK I see that it was edited after I posted. Looks like we have several ways to get it to work.

However, I think this points out the basic problem here: It would be better if Adobe provided a more direct way to maintain a dynamic link between Lightroom and Photoshop for metadata edits. All of our workarounds are more labor intensive than they should be.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 17, 2017)

Conrad Chavez said:


> Oh, OK I see that it was edited after I posted. Looks like we have several ways to get it to work.
> However, I think this points out the basic problem here: It would be better if Adobe provided a more direct way to maintain a dynamic link between Lightroom and Photoshop for metadata edits. All of our workarounds are more labor intensive than they should be.



Agreed 100%. It is odd that Adobe does not provide a 'Edit in Photoshop as linked smart object' option, when it does provide linking through XMP files. It's also odd that you have 'Open as smart object' for a single image and 'Open as layers' for multiple images, but not 'Open as smart object layers' (so multiple images, each as a smart object, in one layered Photoshop file).


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 17, 2017)

I haven't tried it myself yet, but this seems like the possible answer: Jeffrey's "Photoshop Layers" Lightroom Plugin


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 20, 2017)

I moved a new question to a new thread. This thread is getting very long, with totally unrelated questions, except that they are in some way related to scanned images. It does not make sense to do that, or else we could have just one thread in the entire forum titled 'Lightroom questions'.


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