Let me add text notes to photo, stacks of photos, and directories of photos so that I can record shot and processing details. I'd like to be able to print the notes along with an image thumbnail.
As a professional user, using Lightroom since v1 through 4, in conjunction with PS, I have often wanted to make this suggestion: we are frequently needing the ability to use something akin to a simple 'Post-it-Note' to record 'to do' type tasks or other relevant information on an INDIVIDUAL photo in a collection. We often exhaust all our colour coding and rating options, and it would be just SO useful to have a portion of the screen where a little popup can be shown, looking exactly like a post it note, where we can jot down info about the photo. It would greatly improve our workflow, as currently, we have to use notebooks etc to write things down. It is not something you can put in the metadata etc, but an 'on the fly' popup for each photo as requqired. Would be mighty handy.
We would store customers info, print sizes, actions we wish to use, etc etc, the list is endless really. It would be a killer feature in my opinion. We use a Win 7 post it notes currently, but that is not exactly streamlined, and is not tied to each photo, so next to useless.
On the Photo drop down menu, could we get a "Notes" tab, that acts like a post it note? attach to an image. It would be real handy with development and printing. Coming back at a later date you could pop the note and see just what you were thinking. i.e. printing an image 3/4 different ways, which one seemed the best. History is no help because it records all or none, but the note could tell you. Maybe the note could be attached to, "noted in history" as well. Maybe a flag could be attached to a history item to mark a preference?
As a professional photographer and author I need to keep notes on photographs that I take. I think every photo has a story and it is hard to remember details over time. Also putting a book together in Lightroom a memo field would be exceptionally important. I small note icon could be added to the edge of the photo. When you click on it Lightroom opens a Memo Field. Since Lightroom is database driven it would seem to be a not so complex task to add a Memo Field to the data storage table and a memo window to add notes. Then in the book module you could create a text area and then past the notes from the photo in the text field.
Using quite a lot of collections in my LR catalogue (about 35 000 photos kept in the catalogue and more than a hundred collections) I would find quite useful and efficient to have a field for collection description.
I am curious why , in the Library module, comments are not supported. I really need a place to put notes; some type of free form text. Lightroom does a great job of tracking what you did to an image but provides no place to document your thought processes. I often find myself trying to remember why I made a post processing decision or things that I tried that didn't produce a desired outcome.
If you're referring to Rob Cole's CustomMetadata plugin, unfortunately Rob passed away 4 years ago and his plugins are no longer supported. You can still download it from here: https://github.com/DaveBurns/rc_CustomMetadata. I don't know how well it works in LR 8.
The Comments panel is for displaying comments that users have entered on photos that have been published to Flickr, Smugmug, etc. via a LR publishing service, so it's not useful for what you want to do.
I think Lee Jay was referring to the standard metadata fields: Title, Caption, User Comment (in the EXIF tag set of the Metadata panel), Headline. If your workflow doesn't otherwise use one of these fields, you can use it for your notes. They will expand in the Metadata panel to accommodate multiple lines.
You can select what metadata to be shown by selecting from the metadata dropdown list in the right panel. There's a subsection called 'workflow' if you select 'EXIF and IPTC' in the dropdown, This can be multi-line if you press ctrl-enter. If you select 'IPTC' in the dropdown, the subsection is called 'Status' instead (?!) Nothing will be seen on the photo but at least it can be used as a small notepad / postit substitute.
I would like to have a "metadata" field or fields associated with each Lightroom collection or smart collection folder. if that approach could also be extended to the physical folders on a disk drive that store image files, that would be nice.
There already is. Use the Filter bar. It works for every Folder, Collection, Smart collection or Keyword you have selected. If a folder is selected the Filter bar can be used for Filtering out, actually Showing, all images that meet your Filters. I say Filters because you can Select Multiple parts of the filter bar. Like Text and Metadata and even All of them. Although to select more than 2 you have to hold down the Ctrl key.
@Just Shot Me. The issue here is, "How do I set up those filters?" If I'm supposed to do keywords, that seems like an awkward approach, compared to a note like:
start culling process at file _XXX21318.NEF.
This sort of note is quick to write, and quite self-explanatory.
For what it's worth, I finally got around to making a plugin that I've been using to add notes to collections & folders fit for public consumption. Not photos, just yet, it's on the todo list.
Essentially it allows you to create and view markdown notes to the current active source (selected collection or folder).
I tried it on Windows 10 (installed Typora first). I had to restart Lightroom before it worked. I could make annotations on folders and collections but smart collections too! This is my configuration:
In Lightroom Classic there are already 2 fields for notes: 1) the User Comment field under EXIF. I use that for workflow information. 2) Under Workflow there is the Instructions field. I use that for other info I want to remember but don't want to put in the Caption.
What about notes meant for an external retoucher. So they would need to be location specific notes for each image. Like "bring skin detail out in this circled area). This will allow photographers to bypass photoshop and keep the image in its RAW form and send only one file to the retoucher. Thoughts?
I don't use an external retoucher, but I do use the User Comment to remind myself of the processes I have followed to prepare photos. For example, "Edited in Lr. Shake reduction in Ps. Heal/clone/patching in Ps. Final retouching in Lr."
I want to make remarks for folders. In the moment i can only mark them with color. Want to see it as a ToolTip or in a special window. Is it possible in the moment? Any workaround?
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