Todd Backman Photography

First a bit of background... I use Lightroom Classic on a desktop with a single master catalog.  One of my biggest frustrations with all versions of Lightroom has been the processes around traveling. I spent quite a bit of time setting up keywords and the various presets (import, file naming, metadata & develop) and I want my laptop to access the identical configurations so I have a common workflow and results.  My primary goals when traveling are on a daily basis to clean off my camera flash cards, backup images, import into Lightroom, organize/keyword and do basic editing to help rate the images.  I typically do not attempt any heavy lift editing while traveling. Now for the issue... Being an IT guy I understand the issues and complexity surrounding multi-user networked applications.  So I understand why Lightroom is a single user application.  However, Adobe kindly allows us to install Lightroom on two different systems under the same l...

As you will hear me say repeatedly I love working with SmugMug for displaying my photography online.  My one complaint is their documentation is not very in-depth.  They more than make up for any shortcomings with their excellent support staff. I recently changed my site to use a custom domain name.  My default SmugMug nickname is toddbackman.smugmug.com.  Using their documentation found at https://help.smugmug.com/use-a-custom-domain-BymMexwJVHG and using GoDaddy for the domain registration/DNS I setup my custom domain of toddbackmanphotography.com in about 30mins.  Clear and Simple!!! Where I started running into issues was when using "default domain" URLs which do not include www.  This is where my URLs stand at the beginning: http://www.toddbackmanphotography.com - Works https://www.toddbackmanphotography.com - Works http://toddbackmanphotography.com - Cannot be found https://toddbackmanphotography.com - Cannot be found I resolved issues u...

Lightroom is a database and as such can be corrupted for a variety of reasons.  Therefore, all catalogs must be maintained and backed up on a regular basis.  Here is a link to Adobe's instructions for backup and restore.  https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/back-catalog.html   I am not typically working in Lightroom on a daily basis so for normal backups I tend to allow weekly backup and optimization.  However, after a long trip I may be working in Lightroom for hours on end and want to backup more frequently than my default schedule.  Adobe provides the option to manually optimize your catalog via the File | Optimize Catalog menu selection but they do not provide such an obvious method for performing manual backups.  Fortunately they do provide a way to perform a manual backup via the Catalog Settings | General tab.  In the link above search for "Back up a catalog manually" and follow their instructions. What Adobe fails to mention is...

Hi Everyone, I recently upgraded my photography website at toddbackmanphotography.com.  The site is hosted by the incredible team over at Smugmug!  I'm also beginning this blog as a place to store and share various comments and processes around tools & techniques I discover.