Calling Out The Photoshop Guys

I am a Photoshop Guys fanboy.  I hang on every word from Scott, Matt, Dave, Corey, RC and , occasionally, Pete (the jury's still out on him).  I read their blogs, I watch Photoshop User TV, and D-Town, and Killer Tips, and Planet Photoshop.  I buy their books, I subscribe to Kelby Training.  I spend enough to pay somebody's salary (or least it seems like it).  But, make a suggestion for a twist they put on the web by leaving a comment and the comment never gets posted.  Lately I've offered alternate ways to accomplish the topic of discussion posted by Corey Barker, Larry Becker and Matt Kloskowski.  In each case the suggestions never saw the light of day.  The latest one happened the other day.  Matt said he doesn't use the "Make a second copy to:" feature in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 (or 4 Beta) because, according to Matt, "Basically, it just stores them in a folder named "Imported on...".  The "comment" I made wasn't rude, didn't deride, was written as a humble suggestion from a fan, and, as I said, never made it past the screeners.  I'd be willing to bet Matt doesn't review the comments that come in, but whoever does isn't doing Matt or those who are his faithful followers a service by censoring helpful comments.  To find out what Matt missed in making his statement that "Make a second copy to:" doesn't fit his needs, hit the "Read More".

What Matt missed was the little tic mark way over on the right of the import dialog box on the same line as the words "Make a second copy to:'.  If you've never used it, it sits there almost as a couple of misfiring pixels.  Once you do click on it it'll open another dialog box.  In there you'll see "Choose Folder".  Click on that and it'll bring up your typical File Tree Structure.  Go to whatever drive you'd like to store the shots you're importing on, to whatever subdirectory, and create a new folder.  If you take a look at the example shown in today's image (yes, it is an image.  It just happens to be screen shots of my screen and Kloskowski's "Lightroom Killer Tips" posting. ) you can see what goes on with my second copies.  My primary set of images goes to a "K" drive.  My second copies go on a "H" drive in exactly the same file structure as on my "K" drive.

I'm religious about making the two drives look the same.  Matt Kloskowski says he backs up his drive rather than using "Make a second copy to:".  Well, I use the "Make a second copy to:" and backup my primary drive ("K") to another drive (in my case it's my "L" drive).  The big reason for that is because I work on the images that are in the "K" drive.  If I bring an image into Adobe Photoshop CS5, mess with it on a pixel level and then Save it back to LR3 (or LR4 Beta if that's where it came from) the "K" drive information will have changed.  If I didn't have a regularly scheduled back up of that drive and I lost the "K" drive, I wouldn't have a copy of the latest versions of whatever I've done.  I'd have a copy of the originals on the "H" drive and could possibly rebuild the finish work, but I don't like to reinvent the wheel over and over again.  I've had to do that too many times (it only takes once or twice) not to have some insurance.

So, while being a Photoshop Guys fanboy, I do understand that they aren't infallible.  Every once in a while they might be able to learn something from a peasant like me.