Lightroom 2.3 Release Candidate is now available at Adobe Labs! Go to http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Lightroom_2.3 for more information and to download the files.

How often have you thought ‘it’s not a bad image but........

Collections were a great idea in version 1 of Lightroom. It was so good, in fact, that Adobe decided to expand collections in Lightroom 2. Now you can access your collections in all of the modules via the Collections panel that appears in the left panel set in every module. But did you know that collections come in different flavors? We're all familiar now with collections, collection sets, and smart collections. But you can also create slideshow collections, print collections, and web gallery collections. They even have their own distinct icons so you can tell them apart!

Before we get to the goodies this week, I wanted to take a moment to thank Mark Sirota, Bob DiNatale, Jao van de Lagemaat, Gene McCullagh, and Mike Aaland for a great set of posts this month. With 2009 in...

The introduction of localized adjustments via the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom 2 is just beginning to reveal many creative uses. One possibility that may not be readily apparent is the ability to colorize or hand paint old black and white photos. We've all seen many Photoshop tutorials on how to apply this classic and nostalgic technique. But now, it's possible to do directly in Lightroom.

Workflow is a personal thing. There is no right or wrong workflow. Oh yes, there are more efficient and less efficient workflows. But if a more efficient workflow just doesn't fit the way you approach your art, well then, it won't be so efficient! Therein lies one of Lightroom's real strengths. It is very flexible and can accommodate nearly all workflow styles.

I've recently seen enough threads on various fora to convince me that the application of, and the differences between, these three concepts remains a stumbling block for many on Lightroom's learning curve…..

Tucked away in the keyword panel is a section called Keyword Set. There is another workflow enhancement built into Lightroom here. The sooner you get some basic keywords on an image the better off you'll be later. If you get in the habit of adding keywords early on you'll be glad you did.

In helping a Lightroom user, I tripped over a shortcut for entering 'child' keywords, which I hadn't previously encountered ...

In the last post I wrote about LR2's Graduated Filter. The other localized editing tool, which many think might be the most significant addition to LR2, is the Adjustment Brush [AB]. The AB (keyboard shortcut "K" in your program) allows you to "paint" localized non-destructive effects like Exposure, Saturation, Sharpness, etc. You can then change or add parameters to the selected area and fine tune the effect to your image.

Keywords in Lightroom are at the very foundation of organizing your images. If you ever want to find those images again you had better add some keywords now! Of course, as your collection of images grows, so does your list of keywords. In a previous article I talked about using hierarchies in your keyword list. This helps bring order to your collection and unclutter you list so you can find things. To further help you organize and unclutter, Lightroom supports synonyms. Let's take a look at this powerful feature.

A short while ago, Adobe released Camera RAW and DNG converter 5.2. These freebie updates herald an upcoming update to Lightroom - 2.2 which I am looking forward to for several reasons. In the mean time, DNG converter can be...

One of the most powerful and useful features of Lightroom is its keyword capability. Not only can you create a useful set of keywords but Lightroom allows you to put those keywords into a hierarchical structure. This adds a further level of organization to your keywords. Instead of scrolling through an ever growing list of keywords, you can categorize them in a collapsible structure.

In addition to storing your raw image adjustments in the Lightroom catalog, you can also save the information to an XMP sidecar file. In this article we examine what information is not kept in XMP.

We all have come to love Lightroom 2’s new Graduated Filter [GF] tool. (That’s keyboard shortcut “M” in your program.) A common use of this filter is to affect the sky, very similar to photographing using split filters… adding blue...

Here’s a second take on Michael Clark’s earlier article on post-shoot work flow, where my event photography processing leads me to a different approach….

New Lightroom 2.1 RC available for download

Adobe has been kind enough to feature my Lightroom workflow eBook Adobe Photoshop Lightroom: A Professional Photographers Workflow on the Adobe website. It is a great honor to be included with other excellent Lightroom books by such well known authors...

I have talked to several photographers that have asked if there is a way to preserve the look of their images as they appeared on the back of their camera once they are loaded into Lightroom. In the past, this...

In my last post I talked about the new camera profiles available for Lightroom 2.0 and Camera Raw 4.5 (available here). Along with the new profiles, Adobe is providing a Profile Editor, making it possible to create new profiles, or...