Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: Regarding the checkbox for “Write date or time changes into proprietary raw files” in Catalog Settings in Lightroom Classic, why would I want to enable this? Wouldn’t that overwrite the capture time of the raw file?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The capture time for proprietary raw images will only be updated if you have the checkbox turned on in Catalog Settings and you actually change the capture time, such as to correct for not having changed the time zone on your camera when traveling.

More Detail: The capture time for photos will never be changed in Lightroom Classic unless you use the Metadata > Edit Capture Time command in Lightroom Classic. By default, changing the capture time will only update the information in the Lightroom Classic catalog, without updating the source images on your hard drive. This can cause a mismatch between the capture time in the file versus the capture time in the catalog.

If you do update the capture time for your photos in Lightroom Classic, the change will only be saved to the source image file if you have the “Automatically write changes into sidecar files (XMP/ACR)” checkbox turned on, which can be found on the Metadata tab of the Catalog Settings dialog.

Furthermore, even if you have the “Automatically write changes into sidecar files (XMP/ACR)” checkbox turned on, changes will not be applied to proprietary raw captures unless you also turn on the “Write date or time changes into proprietary raw files” checkbox as well.

The reason you need to turn on an additional checkbox to apply date/time changes to proprietary raw captures is that there is a small risk that doing so could corrupt the raw capture. This is not something that I consider to be very likely, but it is a risk, and so there’s an extra precaution involved. I’m perfectly comfortable having this checkbox turned on, both because I trust that Adobe tests this feature on all supported raw capture formats and because I prefer the source file to reflect any corrections to date and time that I might have applied in Lightroom Classic.

Today’s Question: What are your thoughts about using Lightroom on an iPad Pro to replace Lightroom Classic on a computer? I currently have Lightroom Classic, which I use on an iMac. Looking ahead, and wanting portability, I went to the Apple Store to look at MacBooks that I could use with a large external monitor. The gentleman I spoke with (also a Lightroom user) surprised me and suggested I think about using an iPad Pro instead of a MacBook. His reasoning was that the screen colors are far better than the MacBooks unless I get I very high-end MacBook, I can use it with an external monitor when I’m at home, and there is the capability to plug in my external hard drives on which my library is stored. Does his idea sound like a good one?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I completely disagree with the advice you received. I highly recommend Lightroom Classic to the cloud-focused version, and Lightroom Classic won’t run on an iPad Pro. You can also get excellent color fidelity on a computer without having to buy an expensive display.

More Detail: There’s no question that an iPad Pro can easily replace a computer for many tasks. With the ability to connect an external display, external storage, and even a keyboard and mouse, in many ways I think it is fair to think of an iPad Pro as a variation on a laptop computer.

However, the iPad Pro can’t run Lightroom Classic, which means you would need to switch to the cloud-focused version of Lightroom as part of the switch to using an iPad Pro instead of a computer. For most photographers I don’t recommend the clous-focused version of Lightroom, because I feel the workflow and storage logistics of Lightroom Classic better meet the needs of photographers.

I also strongly disagree with the notion that you would need to spend a lot of money to have the same color fidelity on a computer that you can have on an iPad Pro. It is true that you would spend a lot more if you opted for an Apple monitor display, but there are many high-quality displays that support (or nearly support) the P3 color space used by the iPad Pro. There are also a number of displays that support a wider color gamut, in some cases extending all the way to the larger Adobe RGB color space.

If you felt that the cloud-focused version of Lightroom was a better fit for your workflow compared to Lightroom Classic, I would certainly consider an iPad Pro to be worth considering in place of a laptop, especially if portability (and a touch screen) was a high priority for you. But if you’re happy with Lightroom Classic I would not recommend making the switch just to make use of an iPad Pro.

Today’s Question: In Lightroom Classic I have a folder labeled “Imported Photos” with 2,153 images. All carry a designation “downloaded-smart-previews”. Can I safely delete these without losing the original image? If so, what is the best way to do the delete?

Tim’s Quick Answer: As long as you don’t have any original photos that are missing that could be represented by these Smart Previews, you can safely delete the applicable Smart Preview images and the folder.

More Detail: When images appear as standalone Smart Previews in Lightroom Classic, it is generally an indication that at some point you changed which catalog was being synchronized to the cloud. In that situation, any images that had been in cloud storage prior to enabling synchronization for a different catalog would be synchronized to the new catalog. The result is Smart Previews that appear as standalone images.

As long as you’re confident that the Smart Previews do indeed relate to images that had previously been synchronized to the cloud, and that the original files the Smart Previews were generated from are still accounted for, then you can safely delete the Smart Previews.

To delete the downloaded Smart Previews, you can browse the folder that contains the Smart Preview downloads, select all of them in the grid view, and choose Photo > Remove Photos from the menu. In the confirmation dialog click the “Delete from Disk” button so the source files will be deleted. Then right-click on the empty folder and choose “Remove” from the popup menu to delete the folder.

It is important to keep in mind that if for any reason the source photos related to the Smart Previews have been lost, you don’t want to delete the Smart Previews because they can be used to recover reduced-resolution copies of the source images. But it is quite likely that in this case the Smart Previews are just superfluous images created based on a change in synchronization to the cloud for Lightroom Classic.

Today’s Question: When adding photos with GPS coordinates, Lightroom Classic looks up the city/state/country, but the results are faint and in italics. Do you know of a keyboard shortcut, or other way to accept the suggestions? Currently, I am typing in the same text that is suggested.

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can apply the location metadata suggestions by clicking on the label associated with a metadata field and then clicking the text on the popup. You could then synchronize metadata for multiple images to apply the updates in batch.

More Detail: If you have the Address Lookup feature enabled, Lightroom Classic will provide suggested location information when possible for the City, State, Country/Region, and ISO Country Code fields. To enable this option, turn on the “Look up city, state and country of GPS coordinates to provide address suggestions” checkbox in the Address Lookup section of the Metadata tab in the Catalog Settings dialog.

For images that have GPS coordinates in metadata, Lightroom Classic will then use the Google Maps data to determine the name of the location for each image. When it is able to determine that location information, the name of the city, state, and country will appear in faded italic text in the applicable metadata fields. This is an indication that the metadata represent suggestions, but they aren’t actually saved to metadata.

If you have the “Export address suggestions whenever address fields are empty” checkbox in the Address Lookup section of the Metadata tab in the Catalog Settings dialog, those address suggestions will be included as metadata in the exported copies, as long as you don’t otherwise disable the export of location metadata.

If you want to apply the metadata to a photo, you can click on the label for each applicable metadata field on the right panel in the Map module, such as the labels for City and State. This will bring up a popup with the suggested location text, which you can click on to confirm. The metadata will then be included as actual metadata rather than just suggestions.

If you have a large number of images to update, you can use the Sync Metadata option to process them in batch. Start by updating one image, and then select all images that have the same location details. Then click the Sync Metadata button at the bottom of the right panel, turn on the checkboxes for the applicable location metadata fields you want to update for all selected images, and click the Synchronize button.

Today’s Question: I sometimes send a file from Lightroom Classic to Radiant Photo and the adjusted file is saved as a TIFF. While the raw capture is typically around 40MB in size, the TIFF comes back in the 170MB range. If I convert that TIFF to a DNG in Lightroom Classic and select lossy compression, the file size comes down to the range of 10MB, roughly the size of a JPEG. What am I losing or gaining in this process vs. bringing the file back from Radiant as a JPEG?

Tim’s Quick Answer: In the case of the Radiant Photo plug-in, there’s no issue with converting to DNG or saving as a JPEG, as long as you’re comfortable with the degradation in quality that occurs with converting the TIFF image to a file with lossy compression.

More Detail: If you turn on the “Use Lossy Compression” checkbox when converting an image to the Adobe DNG format in Lightroom Classic, you are getting about the same result in terms of file size and image quality compared to saving the image as a JPEG. That means there will be degradation of image quality due to the lossy compression, which is how the significant reduction in file size is achieved.

This loss of quality isn’t generally a problem for images that will only be shared digitally, such as in a digital slideshow or via online sharing. However, it can be an issue when printing an image, potentially resulting in visible compression artifacts in the print.

It is important to also take into account the software that was used to create the derivative image, and whether there is a benefit to retaining the file created with that software. For example, when editing an image in Photoshop you might create various layers and other elements that are only editable in Photoshop. Converting an image from TIFF (or PSD) to a format that does not support layers, for example, would cause you to lose the editable layer elements from the original image.

Radiant Photo does not use layers in this way, so converting the file created via Radiant Photo won’t cause any issues other than the degradation in quality when lossy compression is used in that conversion.

Today’s Question: For me the Date column on the Library Filter bar shows a list of all dates rather than the hierarchy you described in your answer. How can I switch to a date hierarchy view?

Tim’s Quick Answer: To switch from a flat date listing to a hierarchical listing in the Date column on the Library Filter bar, you can click the menu button at the top-right of the Date column and choose “Hierarchical” in the View section of the popup menu.

More Detail: As noted in Wednesday’s edition of the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, you can set a filter based on capture date for your photos on the Metadata tab of the Library Filter bar above the grid view display. The Date column can be configured to either show a date hierarchy or a flat list of dates.

With the Hierarchical option selected you can select individual years, months, or days, with the ability to expand or collapse years or months by clicking the triangle icon to the left of each on the list. With the Flat option selected you will see a list of all dates, without a hierarchy that divides the dates into years and months. This makes it a bit cumbersome to select large ranges of dates, and so in general I prefer and recommend the Hierarchical setting.

You can switch between the Hierarchical and Flat options on the popup menu accessible at the top-right of the Date column. From the same popup you can also choose whether you want the dates listed in ascending versus descending order.

Today’s Question: Sometimes when I’m exiting Lightroom Classic it says “Adobe Lightroom is not finished writing metadata changes into XMP…”. It can seem to be busy for a while. How can I check the progress and see when it’s done?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can’t actually check the progress in this context, but it is also safe to bypass the warning and quit Lightroom Classic, as it will continue writing metadata to applicable images the next time you launch it.

More Detail: When you enable the option to automatically write metadata updates to the source images (in addition to the Lightroom Classic catalog) there’s a chance that some updates won’t have been completed yet when you quit Lightroom Classic. If so, you’ll see an alert indicating this is an issue.

It is perfectly save to quit Lightroom Classic without allowing the metadata updates to be saved to the source image files, because the information will already be saved in the catalog. The next time you launch Lightroom Classic, it will resume saving metadata updates to source files that hadn’t been updated yet.

If you want to be able to see the status and be sure that all applicable metadata updates have completed, you can also manually save metadata to images. For example, you can go to the All Photographs collection in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module, make sure the Library Filter bar above the grid view display is set to “None”, and select all photos (such as by choosing Edit > Select All from the menu). Then go to the Metadata menu and choose “Save Metadata to Files”. You’ll then see a progress bar at the far left of the top panel, so you’ll know when the process is complete.

If you haven’t already enabled the option to automatically save standard metadata values to the source images, I highly recommend doing so. That information can be invaluable if you were to ever lose your Lightroom Classic catalog, for example. To enable this option, go to the Metadata tab of the Catalog Settings dialog in Lightroom Classic and turn on the “Automatically write changes into sidecar files (XMP/ACR)”. Note, by the way, that this checkbox name has been updated from earlier versions of Lightroom Classic, making it a little more clear what happens when you turn the checkbox on.

Today’s Question: How can I find a photo in Lightroom Classic when I only know the date the image was captured? I’ve had several situations where I could not find a photo when all I know is the date of capture.

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can quickly find photos captured on a specific date by selecting the All Photographs collection in Lightroom Classic and then setting a filter for the specific date on the Library Filter bar.

More Detail: When you are looking for a photo and the only thing you know about the image is the date it was captured, the first step is to ensure you are searching broadly within Lightroom Classic. The easiest way to do so is to select the All Photographs collection in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module so you’re viewing all images in the entire catalog.

Next, go to the grid view, and make sure the Library Filter bar is enabled, choosing View > Show Filter Bar from the menu if it isn’t displayed above the grid view. I then recommend choosing the None option first to confirm all filter sections are closed, followed by clicking on the Metadata tab to bring up the filter columns.

If the left-most column on the Metadata tab isn’t set to “Date”, click the current heading for the column and choose Date from the popup. This will populate the column so that it lists every year that is represented by the capture date of at least one photo in your catalog. You can click the triangle to the left of the applicable year to expand the list showing the months of that year and then expand the applicable month to show the days. Click on the specific date representing the image you’re looking for, and you’ll now be browsing all photos in your catalog that were captured on that specific date.

If this results in a large number of photos, you can also use other metadata attributes to help narrow the field, such as to select the camera that was used, set a star rating, or any other option that will help you locate the specific photo. Note that it is also possible to select a range of dates to filter by, such as for situations where you don’t know the specific date. For example, you can click on the first date in the range you want to filter by, then hold the Shift key and click on the last date in that range. Similarly, you can select multiple days, months, or years from anywhere on the list, such as by holding the Ctrl/Command key to toggle the selection of individual values.

Once you’ve located the photo you were seeking, you can right-click on it and choose “Go to Folder in Library” from the popup menu to automatically navigate to the folder containing that image. You can also then set the Library Filter bar back to “None” if you want to see all photos in the folder in the context of the image you just located.

Today’s Question: With respect to the Assisted Culling, another question arises. Is there any way to change the assisted culling status of an individual image before selecting batch option? For example, if there is one image that fails a focus test, but you’re okay with that and want to work on the image anyway, can you remove it from the cull or change its status before accepting the status of the remaining photos?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can change the status for images analyzed with Assisted Culling in Lightroom Classic by right-clicking the icon that indicates the Select versus Reject status and choosing the option to reverse the status.

More Detail: When images are analyzed by Lightroom Classic based on the settings you’ve established for Assisted Culling, an icon at the top-right of the image thumbnail in the grid view will indicate whether an image was identified as a Select (with a checkmark in a green circle) or as a Reject (with an “X” in a red circle). If you disagree with the status assigned to an image, you can right-click on that icon and choose the reverse the setting.

For example, if you have enabled the “Subject Focus” option any images with relatively narrow depth of field might be determined to be out of focus, even though the narrow depth of field was intentional. For such an image you can right-click on the icon indicating the image was identified as a Reject and choose “Mark as Select” from the popup window.

If you apply the Batch Actions feature as outlined in yesterday’s answer on a set of images where you changed the Select versus Reject status, the updated status will apply for that batch processing for adding attributes to an image such as a star rating or reject flag, for example.

Today’s Question: I’ve tried out the Assisted Culling feature in Lightroom Classic, but don’t understand how I should then be marking photos as favorites versus outtakes based on the automatic review. Can you explain what that workflow should be?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can assign attributes such as a star rating and reject flag to favorites and outtakes by clicking the Batch Actions button at the bottom of the Assisted Culling section in the Library module.

More Detail: When you enable the Assisted Culling feature on the right panel in the Library module in Lightroom Classic, based on the settings you use images will be marked as Selects or Rejects based on image analysis. However, this does not assign actual metadata attributes to the images for actions like filtering images by attribute or automatically deleting rejected photos.

However, you can assign attributes to images based on their status from the Assisted Culling feature by clicking the Batch Actions button at the bottom-right of the Assisted Culling section on the right panel in the Library module.

Clicking the Batch Actions button will bring up a dialog where you can choose which attributes to assign to images based on their status. Images identified as Selected are those that were determined to meet the criteria for image quality. In the Selected section of the Assisted Culling Batch Actions dialog you can turn on the checkbox for the applicable attribute, such as “Apply rating” to select a star rating you want to assign to these images. Similarly, you can turn on a checkbox in the Rejected section for the outtake images, such as “Apply flag” to select a reject flag.

Once you’ve selected the attribute (or multiple attributes) you want to assign to Selected and Rejected images, you can click the OK button to apply the change. The attributes will then be assigned, so you can then filter or otherwise work with the images based on the attributes assigned.