Comments on: Backing Up My Photos With Lightroom and Zenfolio

By: Keri

Keri — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:00:00 +0000

Hello,
I am new to the Zenfolio-Lr3 Plug-In World. Kind of afraid to mess up what I already have up in Zenfolio. Normally I export to a folder in my iMacs Pictures – for ex. Spain w/a folder called Zenfolio Spain. Then I upload my photos from that folder to Zenfolio. I have about 20 albums on Zen. Would like to start using your plug-in. Is it possible to do at this point? And how does it affect the prior albums already on Zen.
Thanks
Keri from Los Angeles.

The plugin won’t change anything at Zenfolio until you ask it. If you just want to send images to an existing album, the normal export or Publish export will do it all without touching anything already there. —Jeffrey

By: Raleigh

Raleigh — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:53:51 +0000

Jeffrey, your blog is the most helpful I have found for my problem. I’m new to Zenfolio and have had problems uploading from Photoshop Elements 8 to my site in Zenfolio. Have you a plugin for that, or a suggestion, or should I drop PSE8 and go with Lightroom or??????

I hope to hear soon because I’m frustrated and under pressure.

Thank you for whatever you suggest,
Raleigh

There’s really very little overlap between Photoshop (Elements or otherwise) and Lightroom. Lightroom is for managing a photographer’s library, while software like Photoshop is for intensive one-image (photo or otherwise) pixel-level editing. Lightroom makes sense for a normal photographer. Photoshop (Elements or otherwise) can certainly be helpful here and there, but personally, I use it for less than 1 out of 10,000 photos I take. I use Lightroom for every one. —Jeffrey

By: Frank

Frank — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 23:34:01 +0000

Jeffrey, thanks for this post. I tried to do a similar setup but ran into an issue with the Gallery Name Template. I successfully used:
Hidden Group > {Path:After=My Pictures on 1TB\}

but could not get the following to work:

Hidden Group > Second Level Group > {Path:After=My Pictures on 1TB\}

When I try the above template, the Example that shows below the template is not correct. It shows only the first word e.g. Second rather than the complete name. Is there a limit to the number of levels that are allowed for this template or am I just specifing is wrong? Thanks.

It looks like it should work, I’ll take a look… —Jeffrey

By: Rod

Rod — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:11:12 +0000

Hi Jeffrey.
I’ve been using your export to Picasa plugin for a few month now — great work!
Here’s a question: I’ve been looking for a LR plugin to backup my files to DVD and can’t seem to find one. Perhaps I’m missing something, so would appreciate your help.
Thanks
Rod

I don’t know of one, but that doesn’t mean there’s not. Check out the Lightroom Exchange…. there’s a button to visit it in the lower-left of the Plugin Manager. —Jeffrey

By: David

David — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:40:16 +0000

Hi Jeffrey, love your plugins. Have you ever thought about doing a photoblog one for Wordpress, Typepad, etc? I did, but abandoned the idea when Tim Armes took up the challenge with LR2/Blog. —Jeffrey

By: Alex Singleton

Alex Singleton — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:52:55 +0000

Nice blog post. I similarly use an online service as a backup for my photos (though, in my case, I used Flickr); but I mostly rely on an external hard drive (just for pictures) and DVD-Rs which I file in the back of real-world photo albums.

By: shawn

shawn — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:14:32 +0000

trying to setup template above and copied the “Archive > {Path:After=photo\}”

and creating an exact template swapping archive for my folder name pictures
( I also tried using Archive).

I retyped the string and I also did a cut-paste. the results are the same in the Auo-dest presets I get an error “Empty Folder vale from”

It happens when I add the “>” to the string in the gallery template. everything else works fine.

Upload works if I don’t add the path string. I just had it upload to pictures and it worked but can’t get the path to work. I copied your screen shot exactly. What am I missing something?

Shawn

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:11:17 +0000

Hi Jeffrey, I just wanted say since reading this, its made me convert from SmugMug to Zenfolio. I’ve also found Zenfolio easier to use and understand, and it also loads the next few photos before you select “next” so its more like browsing your from your hard drive. I also love the unlimited hierarchical view Zenfolio provides.

Anyway, the plugin is working really well for me, I can upload a whole year of photos (over 1000) with no problems. It only has issues if you manually delete or move a photo using Zenfolio, and then try doing an “update” operation.

I’m using it (a) to make a complete, private, archive (but not in full resolution) and (b) my “showcase” photos, ie those rated 3 stars and above in Lightroom. I also use JungleDisk (Amazon S3) to archive my DNG files.

So here’s thanks for your plugin!

By: Morey

Morey — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:32:57 +0000

Your posting says that Zenfolio is free “…but hey, since its free…” I went to the web site and see things start at $25.00 a year for 1GB. The $40 annual seems a fair deal – unlimited. Is there a secret free offer somewhere?

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I meant that if you’re already using Zenfolio to host your photos, using it as a backup is free. —Jeffrey

By: Ollivier Robert

Ollivier Robert — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:29:53 +0000

I was going to mention using Amazon S3 for backuping RAW files but I see Eric has done it already. This is indeed a growing concern for photographers, especially those like who have decided to shoot RAW. In my little ways, being strictly amateur, I’ve already managed to shoot more than 56 GB worth for pictures (even though I try very hard to remove bad shots)… I use Time Machine on my mac to backup everything automatically but I still need an external HD for offsite backups. Broadband in France is rather cheap (45 US$ for 10/1 Mbps) but upload speed is still at 1 Mbps which makes services like S3 rather slow.

Thanks again for you plugins BTW, I use them regularely with LR2/Mogrify. My main gallery is using Gallery2 and the only export plugin I had has stopped working with LR2