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Lightroom - the concepts by Art P Suwansang - part 3 of 1 2 3

Published 01/02/2009

Understanding the ways Lightroom (LR) works and deals with your files is one thing, setting up and finding a storage idea or concept that fits your needs is another topic all together. LR offers such a broad range of set-ups, and it doesn't help when there are many numerous set-up suggestions out there. One possible set-up involves creating a new catalog for every single client that you've photographed for. The claimed upside to this is smaller catalog size, which supposedly translates to a faster more responsive LR.

The downside is searching for an image across a span of multiple catalogs, which means that you would need to open up most, if not all, of your catalogs to search for one image. The catalog and image files could easily be scattered on the hard drive or computer, which makes it hard to find and/or back up. And lastly, many of us would be stuck using LR on just one computer, the machine that initially imports the images into LR. If we are stuck with one computer, what happens if the hard drive should fail or the computer malfunction? Not only are we at risk of losing those images, the down-time also holds up our workflow.

This led me to devise a new way of utilising LR to store images. Since the program was designed with a Digital Asset Management System, let's use this capability to its fullest potential, hence I have added a new concept to Lightroom: Singularity Storage Concept (SSC) - for short I'll call this Singularity. Singularity simplifies how LR works with and stores your digital images, by storing the Library and the Catalog in one place, it allows for scalability, portability, flexibility and minimal down-time.


The set-up for Singularity is based on the two basic concepts of Lightroom, the Library and the Catalog. Singularity should be set up on a portable or an external hard drive to maximise its potential. This will not only offer portability, but also knowing that the images are not stored in a hard drive inside one computer gives Singularity flexibility. In terms of scalability, Singularity can expand with your infrastructure and digital needs.

For instance, let's say you start out with a 500GB external drive and find that three months down the road you need more space. Well, amazingly enough the content on the 500GB hard drive can be copied to a 1TB hard drive and you can continue to add images to your library. Singularity also makes it easy to back up, either in real time using RAID mirror, or passively for off-site storage, as everything is stored on its own hard drive, resulting in a safe storage solution for your precious image data. Because Singularity combines the catalog and images on to one hard drive, it is no longer computer dependent. This means that the Singularity set-up will allow you to run your library from any computer which has Lightroom installed. So, we can all now say good-bye to hold ups from computer malfunctions.

Understanding the concepts of Lightroom and organising your set-up in terms of access to imagery, flexibility and storage capacity makes Lightroom an invaluable tool. Portability protects you from being tied down to one computer and limited to a singular work site. Effective use of your time allows you to spend more time on the quality of work you make available to your clients and testifies to the professionalism you bring to the marketplace.

Born in New York, Art P. Suwansang had the additional benefit of growing up on two shores, in two cultures. This duality has repeated itself in his choice of careers, giving him a proficiency in the worlds of logical thinking and creative inspiration. Originally studying computer engineering at Cal Poly, Pomona, Art was smitten by the photographic image and finding his passion, changed his life's path to photography. Graduated at the top of his class, Art now joins the rank of elite instructors at Brooks Institute. Art also continues to serve as a mentor at Brooks, providing technical and field advice for lower division students. Art Suwansang has already established himself in the professional world through his growing wedding photography business.


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1st Published 01/02/2009
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