Setting Lightroom Preferences

Before you do anything further in this class, make sure you have completed THIS ASSIGNMENT.

If you’ve backed up all your supplies and you’ve built your file folder framework, organizing all your scrapbooking items in folders by kit and then kit folders in designer folders, you are ready for the instructions in this post.

If you have not yet completed that step, please take the time to go back and get your file folder framework finished before you move forward.  Once you have the physical folder structure organized, you are ready to begin.  

Lightroom Setup
There are a few things you will want to setup in Lightroom to make things run optimally for what you are doing.  First thing we will do is setup a new catalog.

•  Choose File > New Catalog.  Navigate to where you want your catalog stored.  Some store it in their pictures folder.  Personally I chose to store it under my user name on my main hard drive.  You need to create your catalog on your main hard drive so it is always accessible even without your EHD connected.

• Choose Lightroom or Edit (PC) > Preferences > File Handling.  Set the Cache size to 50 GB. On a PC you may need to access Preferences through Edit > Preferences.

• Choose Lightroom or Edit (PC) > Catalog Settings > General and set the backup catalog to Once a day, when Lightroom exits.  This means once a day Lightroom will backup and optimize your catalog.  The catalog is ONLY THE DATABASE part of your organization system it does not backup photos.  Make sure you have another backup solution for all of your photos.  Catalog backup is important because catalogs can become corrupted over time and optimizing your catalog daily helps it to run faster and you all know how I feel about backups.

• While still in Catalog Settings, under File Handling, choose to automatically discard 1:1 previews after one week.  This keeps your catalog size smaller. 1:1 previews aren’t as important with digital supplies as they are with photos – but we will get into that in class.

• Lastly, in Catalog Settings, under Metadata (this is the most important setting) – check the box next to “Automatically write changes into XMP” – this is critical because now the tagging you do will be written to the file automatically every time.  No more trying to remember to write all your metadata work to your files.  This does slow down your catalog a bit, however, it makes the metadata you write instantly recognizable in other programs – no chance for your keywording and tagging to get lost – which is a very good thing!