Adobe Lightroom is commonly used nowadays from many photographers to edit and post process digital images. It’s a very useful and powerful application on a more affordable price than Adobe Photoshop which undoubtedly is Adobe’s crown jewel for digital image editing. Lightroom also provides digital image files management along with the editing, as well printing and publishing capabilities which makes it very popular choice among both hobbyists and professional photographers.
Lightroom stores metadata about all digital files imported into its catalogs but so far doesn’t offer any analytics of the metadata. Questions like, what is the most frequent used focal length by a photographers in a certain catalog or time period? Or how many images have been processed with a certain noise or sharpness settings? Also no visualization of these metrics is currently provided by Lightroom.
I found a software application which can easily answer these and many more questions: Lightroom Analytics
Once Lightroom catalog is exported and imported into Lightroom Analytics application, different metrics and pie charts are created to reveal the details from the metadata. Why this is important one might ask?
Related: New DSLR and Lenses Are Not Enough
For example: If you bought an expensive 400mm L telephoto lens after seeing beautiful images of birds in flight but your Lightroom metadata shows you only have 5 or 10 images taken with this lens last year, isn’t time to put this lens for sale and pick another lens which would better serve the current needs? Or if one finds most frequently to use f/4 and higher, does he still needs the expensive f/1.2 or f/1.4 lenses in his back?
Of course, this application doesn’t provide all answers or can be a definitive guidance on which lens or camera settings one should keep or use but offers good insights into the camera settings, post-processing settings and lenses used in the past.
Conclusion:
Analyzing your Lightroom catalogs can reveal useful information about the usage pattern of the lenses, focal lengths and apertures you have been using. As a wedding or portrait photographer, this is a valuable information to understand which lenses you most frequently use, as what focal length and aperture. You can make a decisions based on this information by utilizing the information from the Lightroom Analytics. If you are looking to learn about what mistakes to avoid as a photographer, consider reading my other guide: Top 10 Mistakes Every Professional Photographer Should Avoid
Think differently, agree or disagree? Drop me a line or comment below.
About the Author:
Trifon Anguelov Photography is a Premiere Bay Area Wedding Photographer in Mountain View, CA. Many clients in the entire San Francisco Bay Area have entrusted us with capturing their wedding days. To learn more about the wedding photography services we offer and book a wedding or portrait appointment, visit our Wedding and Portrait Photography Site
March 1, 2014 at 8:37 pm
Fun app! I gave it a try and enjoyed it. Personally, I find that the library metadata filters are sufficient to see what I use for my best photos but the presentation of this app is really excellent.
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October 10, 2014 at 5:31 pm
Thank you for the feedback. Lightroom provides limited functionallity but this app takes to the next level. I do end-of-the year analysis to see how many times I used a particular lens, or what is the focal length and aperture I use the most. useful stuff, agree.
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October 14, 2014 at 10:50 pm
I am glad you find it useful. I have been using for sometime and gives me useful information.
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June 18, 2015 at 6:10 am
Hi there! Quick question that’s totally off topic.
Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My blog looks
weird when viewing from my iphone4. I’m trying to find a theme or
plugin that might be able to fix this problem. If you have any recommendations, please share.
Thanks!
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June 18, 2015 at 5:28 pm
Most wordpress themes are mobile friendly. Search their library or third party theme developer sites. Most have a mobile friendly in their descriptions, but best if you download and try it how it looks on your phone. Here are few sites you can use to check it:
http://mobiletest.me/
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
Hope that helps.
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July 1, 2015 at 4:36 am
This info is invaluable. Where can I find out more?
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July 1, 2015 at 2:17 pm
Visit us back. I try to post new blog articles every week.
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August 2, 2015 at 10:48 am
It’s awesome designed for me to have a web page, which is useful in support of my know-how.
thanks admin
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September 23, 2015 at 8:10 am
First of all I want to say great blog!
I had a quick question in which I’d like to ask if you do not mind. I was curious to know how you center yourself and clear your thoughts before writing. I have had a difficult time clearing my mind in getting my thoughts out there.
I truly do take pleasure in writing however it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are usually wasted just trying to figure out how to begin. Any ideas or tips?
Kudos!
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September 27, 2015 at 10:32 am
I love it when wedding photographers share their knowledge. Great website, continue the good work!
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October 6, 2015 at 7:23 pm
Downloaded the app and ran a report for my LR catalog. This tool is amazing. I love it. Thank you for sharing. Keep up the great job.
Kim
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November 25, 2015 at 4:56 am
Easy to install and use plug-in. Thank you for sharing the link. Helped me to figure our I barely use my nifty-fifty f1.8 lens. I guess it is going to eBay.
Enjoy reading your photography blog. Regular reader now. Keep up the great job.
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