Photoshop various questions

Thanks so much for all this help!

Jim Hess,

Yes, my workflow is a mess! (more about that below!)

The problem with the hard copy of the software is that I am overseas until September, and sending it to hear is expensive and it could go missing en route! Yes, I have all the university credentials etc.

Sailor Blue,

Any advice on how to name the external drives would be great.  Actually, I have one drive with all my photos on, and a second external drive which I delete every so often, and then copy from the main external drive to the back-up. I should look into some cloning / updating software, but meanwhile I do it the old fashioned way!

Bridge and Nikon ViewNX 2 are great in that I can plug in the drive, and through the software select the drive, and all my photos are there. All these folders are in a big mess and need a lot of organising, which I work on whenever time. So if I were to start using LR4, I should import (e.g. “catalogue”) the entire contents of the drive, and then resume organising the files and folders from within LR4, right? So presumably, like in Bridge, I can move things from one folder to another, rename a folder, create a new folder, all within LR4? And if I drag a photo file from one folder to another, an associated XMP file (from ACR) will automatically move with it (in the same way that Bridge does this)??

ACR seems to know which lens I’m using anyway?

I got rather bogged down in keywords before – perhaps over-using them, when I should have been adding some of that info to the “description” box. Need to rethink my whole keyword thing, as I’m inconsistent.

Thanks for the links. I’ll look into those.  Hard to watch the youtube clips here in China though, even with a VPN due to unbearably slow internet.

So is it fairly unanimous that LR is preferable to ACR and Bridge?

Mako2011,

I’m using a Nikon D80 (18-200mm and 50mm) and a Nikon P7100. I’m not using Active D-lighting. I recall looking up what that was, deciding I didn’t need to use it (at least at that time) and now can’t remember exactly what it is! Thanks for drawing my attention to this, but fortunately it doesn’t seem to be a concern right now.