{"id":956,"date":"2008-10-06T22:08:28","date_gmt":"2008-10-06T13:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2008-10-06\/956"},"modified":"2008-10-06T22:08:28","modified_gmt":"2008-10-06T13:08:28","slug":"backing-up-my-photos-with-lightroom-and-zenfolio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2008-10-06\/956","title":{"rendered":"Backing Up My Photos With Lightroom and Zenfolio"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

By far the most popular goodies for Adobe Lightroom<\/a> that I've published are my\nexport plugins, for\nZenfolio<\/a>,\nSmugMug<\/a>,\nFlickr<\/a>,\nPicasa Web<\/a>,\nand\nFacebook<\/a>.\n\nI don't<\/span> use any of these services to host my own photos (I generally<\/span>\npublish what I want<\/span> here on my blog and in my photostreams<\/a>), but\nI do<\/span> use a unique<\/span> aspect of\nZenfolio – their hierarchical gallery system – as a cheap<\/span> and\nconvenient way to back up my photos. It also allows<\/span> my wife convenient\naccess to all my photos without her having to learn Lightroom.<\/p>\n\n

As I describe on My\nPhoto and Blog-Writing Workflow<\/a>, I keep all<\/span> my photos on my local\nmachine in a set<\/span> of folders with a date<\/span>-based hierarchical structure. For\nexample, the photos I took<\/span> the other day that ended up in the\npreschool-gymnastics post “Jumping”, Revisited<\/a> reside\non my hard disk in a folder<\/span> named:<\/p>\n\n

     C:\\photo\\2008\\10\\02-Jumping\\<\/pre>\n\n
with the leaf folder name “02-Jumping” consisting of the day of the month (the photos were taken on October 2nd) and the event name.<\/p>\n\n
Here's how it appears in Lightroom, and, after backing up to Zenfolio with the method described below, how they appear\nin my Zenfolio account:<\/p>\n\n\n
In Lightroom...<\/th>\n    <\/td>\n    At Zenfolio...<\/th><\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td><\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
I'll say up front that it's not a perfect<\/span> backup system because I shoot<\/span> in raw format<\/a> and\nZenfolio does not accept raw-format files, so I'm limited to backing up\nfull-sized high-quality JPGs. This would not be sufficient if it were my\nonly method to backup my photos, but hey, since it's free, it's nice as an\nadded backup. (Zenfolio actually does accept TIFF files, so if I didn't<\/span>\nmind the 20× increase in upload time, I'd consider<\/span> that.)<\/p>\n\n\n
Once it's set up, it's very easy to invoke a backup,<\/span> but first I'll show the setup.<\/p>\n\n
First, I create<\/span> an export preset that encompasses what kind of export I want.<\/span>...<\/p>\n\n
<\/div>\n\n
That shows full-size JPGs at a fairly high quality, but the most\nimportant aspects are in the Zenfolio: Upload Destination<\/b> section. The hub of<\/span> this export as a backup<\/span> system is the “auto dest” (automatic\ndestination) preset, which I created<\/span> via the button highlighted by the red\narrow.<\/p>\n\n
The automatic destination preset dialog in my Zenfolio plugin looks like this:<\/p>\n\n
<\/div>\n\n
The most important aspect here is how the target album is derived from\neach photo, and that's given in the center Gallery Name Template<\/b>\nsection:<\/p>\n\n
      Archive > {Path:After=photo\\}<\/pre>\n\n
This is a template<\/i> as described on Preset Templates in My Lightroom Plugins<\/a>,\nand, for example, takes an image lying in:<\/p>\n\n
     C:\\photo\\2008\\10\\02-Jumping\\<\/pre>\n\n
and turns it into a Zenfolio gallery named “02-Jumping<\/b>” in the\n“10<\/b>” group, itself in the “2008<\/b>” group, itself in the base\n“Archive<\/b>” group. The folder\/group hierarchy for each photo depends\non the location on my local hard disk for each source image, and will be\ncreated by my plugin as needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the way, I understand<\/span> that the template I use<\/span> above might be a bit<\/span>\ndifficult to understand without brushing up on the\ndocs<\/a>, so I'll point out that it's similar to the easy-to-understand\ntemplate shown in the dialog snippet at right, which you can see produces\nthe same result as above for this example.<\/p>\n\n
The two differ when an image lies in a folder<\/span> whose path does not match\nthe year\/month\/date-event<\/b> appropriate for the date the photo was\ntaken, such as the daily photos I take<\/span> of the bentos that Fumie makes<\/a> for\nAnthony. (I no<\/span> longer post them daily, but I still<\/span> take them, and\naccumulate them in one big “BENTO” folder.)<\/p>\n\n
Once the auto-destination preset has been created, I return<\/span> to the\nExport dialog and select it as the destination. As the green<\/span> arrows\nhighlight in the earlier dialog screenshot, the export is set to process\nonly images that have not been exported to Zenfolio, or ones that have\nchanged since they were last exported to Zenfolio. Thus, I can invoke<\/span> this\nexport on my entire library, and any images that has been added or modified\nwill be archived. These particular selections are perhaps not appropriate\nfor someone who wishes to use Zenfolio both for image presentation and\narchiving, but they are perfect for this scenario.<\/p>\n\n
As the blue arrow highlights, I have the<\/span> plugin keep the list of images\nwithin a gallery<\/span> sorted.<\/p>\n\n
As the yellow arrow highlights, I also use<\/span> my Metadata\nWrangler<\/a> export filter to eliminate some of the bulkier useless items\nfrom the rendered image files, such as the embedded thumbnail that Zenfolio\nwon't be using anyway.<\/p>\n\n
Okay, so once the export dialog settings have\nbeen adjusted as I like,<\/span> I encapsulate<\/span> it all in a new<\/span> Lightroom Export\nPreset that I name<\/span> “Archive @ Zenfolio”. That's the setup, and\nit's done just once.<\/p>\n\n
I actually perform a backup on a daily<\/span> basis, after importing images to\nLightroom, or editing images. It's as simple<\/span> as selecting the photos, and\ninvoking the preset....<\/p>\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Lightroom then generates the images, and the plugin starts uploading\nthem to Zenfolio. I often<\/span> invoke this on a large<\/span> batch of images just\nbefore I go<\/span> to bed, but if I stick<\/span> around, I'll be kept informed of the\nprogress with the ETA that my plugins calculate and display, as shown at\nright.<\/p>\n\n
As I noted earlier, it's not a perfect backup system, but perhaps this\npost has offered some interesting ideas.<\/p>\n\n
By the way, I should<\/span> note that Zenfolio has provided me with a free<\/span> pro\naccount, because of my Lightroom plugin work. For that matter<\/span>, SmugMug and\nFlickr have as well. Either could certainly be used for archiving as well,\nif you didn't mind the lack of hierarchical albums. In fact, if you go with\nSmugMug and subscribe to their per-month per-megabyte storage service\nSmugVault, you can<\/i> archive your original raw files.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By far the most popular goodies for Adobe Lightroom that I've published are my export plugins, for Zenfolio, SmugMug, Flickr, Picasa Web, and Facebook. I don't use any of these services to host my own photos (I generally publish what I want here on my blog and in my photostreams), but I do use a unique aspect of Zenfolio – their hierarchical gallery system – as a cheap and convenient way to back up my photos. It also allows my wife convenient access to all my photos without her having to learn Lightroom.<\/p> 
As I describe on My Photo and [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}