Pt 7 left us copying images from shuttersnitch via finder to the desktop machine which I mentioned, i just archive and do not store in my Lightroom library. I prefer to synchronise the images from the mobile platform to the library using the Adobe sync mechanism.

All of my images are synced to a single folder (on a drive that is backed up every 6 hours). I prefer not to use the date formatted sub folders as this leads to an awful lot of folders containing my iPhone images (as I use the Lightroom app on my phone to take selfies, snaps and stock images).

The images are synchronised in to collections that match the name of the album that was created on the iPad. I then use this collection as the name of a folder I create manually and move the images to that folder.

As you would expect from the earlier posts, with the synchronised images only containing the title field in the metadata, I always complete the rest of the information so I can locate any image in the future. I use two plugins in my lightroom to help me manage the metadata.

Although the latest version of Lightroom allows the display of the metadata panel to be customised, I still prefer to use the Metadata preset builder from Jeffrey Friedl. My custom view is shown below. the key is it allows easy creation of a view with larger fields so the whole caption can be read.

The first stage is to select all of the images in the collection. All of the following tasks are supplied to all the images. First I apply my copyright preset. Presets can be configured to only affect specific fields. See Below.

Once the copyright is added. I ensure auto-sync is enabled (in grid view) and add the data into all of the fields in the panel (hence the custom view) except the caption. This is because the caption varies according to the title.

Now I use another plugin; J B Search and Replace . This plugin has a powerful Caption Builder that is very similar to the way Photomechanic works.

The key is to build up the caption using a combination of free text and other metadata fields from the image(s)

With all the images selected the Write Caption Field button runs through each of the images building the relevant caption. Photomechanic without doubt is one of the fastest captioning tools on the desktop if setup correctly. Using this tool is very similar, helping to caption images in Lightroom post event.

The final metadata task is to add the Keywords . I use a combination of Structured Keywords for common items plus a set I have devised myself for the sort of events I photograph. I have created Keyword Sets to speed this up.

The next post (the final post of this workflow series) will cover how I manage to keep on top of which images I have not yet edited or captioned… (with yet another plugin)

I look forward to your comments on this post as there are probably quite a few lightroom users are unaware of help that plugins can provide to this already powerful system.

Until the next post…..

J x