Photoshop User - USA (2021-01)

CREATE A NEW COPYRIGHT

METADATA PRESET

With a new year comes the need for a copyright metadata

preset for that year (assuming that you’re concerned

with such things). To make a new metadata preset

for this, in the Library module, go to Metadata>Edit

Metadata Presets. I typically open the Preset drop-down

menu at the top of the dialog and choose the preset

for the previous year, since most of the information

will remain the same.

For my copyright presets, I typically use the IPTC

Copyright and IPTC Creator sections. Your own needs

may vary, of course, so fill in whatever information

makes sense for you. When updating an existing

preset, I usually only change the year. So, for this

year, the only change I’ll make to my 2020 preset is

to change the year to 2021. Then, from the Preset

menu at the top of the dialog, I choose Save Current

Settings as New Preset, give it a name to reflect

the new year, and then click Done at the bottom of

the dialog.

REMOVE OLD LIGHTROOM

CATALOG BACKUPS

A regular task that I do at the beginning of the year

(and every month or so throughout the year) is remove

older Lightroom catalog backups. The primary reason to

back up your catalog on a regular basis is to allow for

a relatively smooth recovery if your catalog database

should ever become corrupted and unstable. Having

recent backups of the catalog file lets you restore

from the most recent one if your main catalog file

begins having problems. This is why I set Lightroom

to ask me about backing up the catalog every time I quit

the program.

With the start of a new year, there are some things I like to do to get my Lightroom Classic catalog ready

for the new images I’ll be adding, as well as tend to some general image catalog housekeeping tasks

that are easy to forget during the course of the year.

I don’t always back it up every time, but if I’ve done a

lot of work during that session, then I always do. You can

specify how often Lightroom Classic asks about backing

up the catalog in the General tab of the Catalog Settings

dialog (Lightroom Classic [PC: Edit]>Catalog Settings).

The catalog backups are stored in the folder you’ve

designated for them (you can see this location in the

Backup Up Catalog dialog). And, as a general backup

tip, this location should be on a different hard drive

from your main catalog file. I typically only keep the

three or four most recent backups; anything older than

that isn’t really relevant because the catalog has likely

changed quite a bit since they were created.

Depending on the size of your Lightroom Classic

catalog, if you have a lot of older backups that can

be deleted, then it’s possible you could reclaim many

gigabytes of hard-drive space. One final clarification

about Lightroom Classic catalog backups: This is just a

backup of the catalog database file. It doesn’t include the

actual image files. You need to set up a regular backup

routine for that data yourself.

Once a new preset is created, you can access it in the

Apply During Import section of the Import dialog, as well

as in the Metadata panel in the Library module, allowing

SEÁN DUGGAN

LIGHTROOM TIPS & TRICKS

PHOTOSHOP USER

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JA N U ARY 20

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