teaching adobe lightroom
at rscpc, my fellow lab instructors and i are trying to figure out the best approach to teaching the intro digital photo students how to manage catalogs in adobe lightroom. the concept of the lightroom catalog is usually brand new for the intro students, so part of the debate is deciding how much time we want to spend on this topic. on the one hand, the concept of the catalog is pretty fundamental to understanding how adobe lightroom works in general. on the other hand, it’s not nearly as sexy as learning the camera and how to shoot photos, so intro students are not always interested in learning it.
since the students must use adobe lightroom in the computer lab to create their prints, our first task is to find a simple way to get the students comfortable with what the catalog actually is. then at some point, we need to take it a step further by teaching them good workflow habits for managing their files as they begin to move their work from their home computer, to the rscpc computer labs for printing and back home again.
the strategy during the past session has been for the students to store copies of their raw images on the lab’s shared drive and their home computers, and keep their lightroom catalog stored on a portable flash drive. the intention with this approach is to allow them to work with their catalog at home and from any computer in the rscpc lab without forcing them to purchase an expensive external hard drive. the biggest challenge with this so far has been getting the students to remember to bring a flash drive to class. the next challenge is getting the catalog saved onto the flash drive in a folder the student will recognize later (so they can browse to it next time they launch lightroom). there is also the problem of what to do if a student forgets a flash drive. catalogs can’t be run off the shared drive, so the only option would be to create and save it locally, which then limits the student to that particular computer.
oy, my head hurts just thinking about this.
the two extremes of the debate we’re having right now go a little something like this:
1) the lightroom catalog is too complex a concept for a majority of intro students and we should wait until digital photo 2 to focus on a catalog workflow and file management.
2) this is a fundamental concept in digital photography that we need to make available to the intro students. after all, poor file management is akin to leaving film negatives in the back window of your car in the hot summer sun.
i’m enjoying the discussion that’s been going on about this. a lot of interesting ideas are being considered, but the general consensus seems to be that we hold off until the intermediate class to dig deeper into the concept of making your catalog “portable” across multiple computers. it’s even been suggested that we skip over the catalog concept entirely and setup a generic catalog locally on each computer which will open by default. my main concern with skipping over the catalog concept entirely is that we may be cheating those students who are a bit more computer literate than average. i also think it’s important to give students the opportunity to save their work from class to class without restricting them to the same computer for each lab session. but in an intro class, it’s a tough balance since you’ll inevitably have people at varying skill levels.
this discussion is ongoing and we will likely try a few different ideas in the upcoming sessions and see what works. i’m looking forward to seeing how it plays out. in the meantime, i’m arming myself with a few good resources to have on hand for those inquisitive students who want to know more.
a good overview of the lightroom catalog concept:
About Your Images and the Lightroom Catalog: The Library Analogy
another good explanation of the catalog along with some conscientious backup practices for more advanced users:
Loving Your Lightroom Catalog
tutorial on setting up your catalog using an external hard drive:
How to get your Lightroom Catalog onto an External Hard Drive
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