Inside Lightroom

From Lightroom to facebook to Express (and back)

Mon, 12 May 2008 06:37:50 -0800

More than any other recent time I have really had trouble writing this blog posting. Not because I did not know what I was going to write about but mainly because the topic is currently in constant flux and the entire (virtual) landscape it is built on, is littered with the corpses of beta users who have wandered here just a bit too soon. What I am of course talking about is the brave new world of virtual social networking sites and their relationship with image sharing and now even image manipulation sites that also exist in the same virtual space. I have to admit that I am one of the few photographers on the planet that was never seduced by pbase, Flickr, or any of the other photo sharing sites, but as of late I have been developing both a personal page and a number of (photo) groups on facebook. I don't care for all the silly little games on facebook, but I do like the way it allows me to easily communicate with both individuals and groups of people scattered across the planet. And even more I like the way it allows me to create special interest groups for the various projects I am working on. My most successful facebook group so far is Nikon Digital SLR Photography. I originally built the group to promote my Nikon Digital SLR pocket guides, but it is now developing into a much larger entity that has attracted close to 700 members in the last month and now has a virtual board of 20 officers that will take it into who knows what dimensions. My biggest problem is that the photo gallery on this group has only one flat file and already holds close to 1,000 images. I still don't have a solution for this problem but since the solutions on the personal (profile) page part of facebook are getting pretty sophisticated, I am hopeful that a solution for the group page photo album will soon be found. On facebook the photos that you share with various groups in the facebook world are stored in a photo database that is accessed from your personal (profile) page. There are various applications that allow you to present albums and slide shows from your profile page. Image 1 - Adobe Photoshop Express - grid view of images on my facebook photo album The newest application to stake a claim in this area is Adobe Photoshop Express. Amazingly Photoshop Express allows you to access your facebook photos directly and edit them in virtual space. I am now in the position of having used the following workflow on some of my images: 1. Originally edited in Adobe Photoshop CS and/or Photoshop Lightroom. 2. Uploaded from my computer to the Photos application in facebook. 3. Accessed and edited directly from facebook in Adobe Photoshop Express 4. Saved the Photoshop Express changes in the photo's facebook album location and/or downloaded the image back to my local hard disk drive. image 2 - Adobe Photoshop Express - the Edit Photo interface (is this the future look of image editing for most photographers?) The only thing that seems to be missing from this workflow at this time is a direct path from Lightroom to Photoshop Express and back. Who knows? By tomorrow this may exist.

Chromatic Aberration Tricks

Mon, 12 May 2008 01:00:00 -0800

It is amazing how often Chromatic Aberration (CA) shows up in my images. I think this is just a testament to how hard the high resolution digital sensors push our modern optics. And I have the best Nikkor glass available - all pro fixed and zoom lenses. So it isn't as if my lenses are sub par. At right is an image that needed some help in the CA department.

The reality is that Chromatic Aberration is easily fixed in Lightroom. The latest CA tools in version 1.4.1 and the Version 2.0 Beta are more than sufficient to remove even the worst CA issues. You can check out my previous Chromatic Aberration blog posts here and here.

I applied the following amounts of CA correction to this image (see image settings at right) - mostly it is visible on the right side of the tunnel wall where the contrast is the greatest. Also, this image was shot with a 17-35 mm wide-angle lens which is par for the course for wide angles that usually tend to show more CA than other lenses. But if you look closely, especially on high contrast images that were backlit you'll most likely see CA with any lens. Every once in a while an image has green color fringing instead of just red or blue fringing. This is because there are both red and blue fringing in the same location and hence the colors have mixed to give us green. Taking out this type of aberration (or any fringing where the colors have mixed) can be tricky. But lucky for us the engineers at Adobe have thought of this issue and have provided us with a simple way to take care of it.

Here are examples of before and after removing the CA from this BMX image. The top is before and the bottom is after. By holding down the Option (alt on PC) key while adjusting the CA sliders Lightroom will show you just the colors that are affected with that one slider, hence only Red/Cyan or Blue/Yellow. This allows you to adjust the sliders for each color independently and remove CA a little faster. Granted using the CA sliders can be a little complicated and it definitely takes some getting used to. But once you get the hang of these there won't be many situations that you can't correct. In my experience though, Nikon's Capture NX has the best CA reduction tool I have ever seen. You simply just turn it on and it removes all CA from the image. It couldn't be simpler than that! I wish Adobe could get a hold of their algorithms so it could be that simple but I am not holding my breath. That's it for this session. See you next week. Adios, Michael

Auto Sync and White Balance

Sat, 10 May 2008 18:48:08 -0800

Brandon Oelling has been extolling the virtues of AutoSync on this blog, and for good reason. It can make quick work of adjusting dozens or hundreds of images at once, especially for simple adjustments like exposure and contrast. There's one thing I have to chime in to what Brandon has covered so far: AutoSync, and it's cousin Sync, totally rock in my experience for setting White Balance for a large number of photos after the fact. Think about it. You'll normally shot quite a few shots in each lighting environment that you're in. Your exposure may shift shot to shot, but the color of the lights remain the same. So it's a no brainer. All you need is a target neutral and AutoSync. Here's a quick cheat sheet: After that, one click on your neutral and all of your images in a group are set to the correct white balance at once. Of course, you should really try to get your white balance set right out in the field. That way you don't have to spend any post-processing time dealing with it. But that's not always possible or convenient. When needed, Auto Sync can make it as painless as possible.

Lazy Man's Auto Sync

Fri, 09 May 2008 06:00:00 -0800

While processing another massive batch of images, I boasted with pride to my team how Auto Sync is streamlining my workflow. All the while, I flicked my Alt, Ctrl, and Command keys like Beethoven as I waxed prophetic on my mastery of all things quick and tricky.

Then I noticed her. She had been my mistress of the night - always there but never given proper attention: the Previous button.

Previous is more like a poor man’s Auto Sync in that it works by applying the previous images develop settings to a newly selected image, thus ‘carrying over’ your adjustments. It still requires you to work image by image, and is a bit slower than Auto Sync - but has probably been staring you in the face for quite some time.

I can safely say my arsenal is complete when it comes to quickly making adjustments in succesion:

Auto Sync will allow me to update a series of images all at once.
The Alt key will toggle in and out additional Quick Develop controls.
Previous will allow me to work image by image and ‘carry over’ my work as I fine tune my adjustments.

As I process volumess and volumes of images, the nuances of Lightroom and it’s flexibility continue to amaze me. I expect nothing less of v2.

Until next time, here’s to your Symphony No. 9

|Brandon Oelling
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Making Basic Develop Adjustments Fast and Precise

Thu, 08 May 2008 08:30:00 -0800

In the Lightroom 2.0 Develop module, there are some very useful shortcut keys you can used for the Treatment panels sliders. You can rotate through the use of the different sliders by pressing < and >. When you do, the slider you’ve chosen turns white. To change the adjustment of the slider quickly and in precise increments, all you have to do is tap the + and - keys to increase or decrease the slider position by 5 points. Press Shift and tap the + and - keys and the slider moves in 20 point jumps. It’s a really nice alternative if your mouse starts acting up. I find it’s also great for quickly experimenting with the interaction these sliders have with one another when you’re correcting an image. You can really get some nice, subtle changes. I also really like it for precisely setting overall Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation after I’ve adjusted the first four sliders…even if I did the former by dragging them. Also, it really works fast for me if I keep one hand on the mouse/pen and the other on the + and - keys. Then the quick adjustment is fast and precise and I’m right nearby with the cursor if I want to slide the slider for a subtle change.

Controlling Dialog Panels

Mon, 05 May 2008 01:00:00 -0800

Another tidbit I found in Julieanne Kost’s recent Lightroom seminar here in Santa Fe is a method to control the multiple dialog panels in any module of Lightroom. Especially if you are working on a laptop it can sometimes be a pain to scroll up and down - particularly with the right hand Develop Module panel. So, a trick to take care of this is to Option (Alt on PC) click on the triangles next to the panel names (i.e. Basic, Tone Curve, HSL, etc.). When you click on the triangle all of the dialog boxes will snap closed except for the one you chose. And when you click on another dialog it will snap all of the others closed so that you can keep your workspace neat and tiddy and not have to scroll up and down. You'll also notice that that triangles switch to a dotted triangle instead of a solid triangle to let you know what more you are in. I find this particularly useful for the right hand panels so that I can get to the history or presets quickly without having to scroll down past my massive list of presets. And each panel can be set individually so that you can customize Lightroom's panels however you like. This is a short blog post but yet again, another hidden little trick that can make life easier while using Lightroom. That's it for this session. See you next week. Adios, Michael

Lightroom 2 Beta - Creating a Bluer Sky with Selective Color Control

Sun, 04 May 2008 20:35:47 -0800

More often than not, we end up with a washed out sky when we would like something really dramatic. There are of course some really complicated methods for dealing with this in Photoshop CS but in Lightroom we have been given a very simple way of dealing with the problem in just a couple of very easy steps. 1. Open your image in the Lightroom Develop Module. 2. Open the HSL Panel to get at the Hue, Saturation and Luminance controls. 3. Select the Luminance control panel. 4. Select the Target Adjustment Mode button. That little circle the cursor is pointing at in the top left hand corner of the Luminance panel. 5. Click on an open sky area on your image and drag your mouse down to darken the sky. Notice the Target Group Luminance read-out in the panel at the bottom of the window. The final effect is sort of like a digital polarizer. 6. Check too see that there is not too much noise created by your action and adjust the Noise in the Detail Panel if necessary. The second monitor screen below shows a Compare view of the before and after images.

Creating Panoramas in Lightroom 2.0 Beta

Fri, 02 May 2008 08:06:13 -0800

First, my apologies for being a day late with this post. We’ve been doing some remodeling and I was hijacked into painting. I’d much rather be behind the camera or keyboard! One of the new features I was happy to see in the Lightroom 2.0 beta was the additional integration with Photoshop - Merge to HDR, Merge to Panorama, Open as Smart Object, and Open as Layers. All of these options are exciting on their own, but the one that grabbed my attention is the Merge to Panorama since I seem to be doing quite a few of these lately. To get started, select the images for your panorama and do any editing tasks that you have planned. For this panorama, I did some color correction and spot removal. Now make sure you have all images selected and right click on one of them. Choose Edit in Adobe Photoshop CS3 > Merge to Panorama.

It’s interesting to note that Lightroom 2 isn’t making copies of your images at this point. It’s working more like Adobe Camera Raw, opening the RAW images with your adjustments. Very logical when you consider that you’re creating a new document from the merged images, so there is really no reason to create new TIFFs before exporting.

After selecting the options for positioning the images, Photoshop chugs along for a bit to merge the images together. A little fine tuning of the positioning is often in order at this point. When completed, you can just save the new panorama and it will be added to your library.

Of course, this wouldn’t be quite so useful if the Adobe team hadn’t also increased the size limits on files - up to 30,000 pixels rather than the 10,000 pixel limit in Lightroom 1.x.

That’s it for this week. I’m back to painting.

Alt-ered States

Fri, 02 May 2008 06:00:00 -0800

Continuing on with my exploration of time-saving keyboard tricks, I have become a huge fan of using the {Alt} key (mac or PC) to quickly access two functions I use daily: Tone Control and Export as Catalog.

During my first pass on a large job in the Library module, I not only rate images and select rejects, I also use the Tone Control controls in the Quick Develop panel to adjust exposure. With a quick flick of the {Alt} key I can also slap the saturation around and if necessary, sharpen up any obvious soft images. It’s a quick way to reach controls normally relegated to the Develop module.

Once a job is completed, I often spend a few minutes overlooking all my work in grid view within the Library Module. When I am happy with what I see, I again tap the {Alt} key and select Export as Catalog and send the job on its way.

I really like how this quick shortcut saves me from having to bounce in and out of the Develop Module or application menu(s).

Are there any other special key combinations that you use to sped up your workflow?

Best Wishes,

|Brandon Oelling
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Lightroom 2.0 Print Promise

Thu, 01 May 2008 08:30:00 -0800

The Print Module in Lightroom 2.0 has added one of the most time and money-saving features I’ve yet seen in an image editing package. Seldom is there a time in a portrait or product shoot when either the subject, the client, or both, don’t want an image printed in several different sizes and quantitities. The fact that Lightroom 2.0 makes it easy to put multiple size images on a single page isn’t all that revolutionary. But the “new trick” is: You can have multiple pages of multiple picture layouts. See the image below. All you have to do is click on an image size and Lightroom will add that size to the page your’re working on. If it won’t fit, it simply adds a new page. You can also click on a border and then re-size the borders by dragging a handle. You can often get even more pictures out of the print job for very little increase in ink and paper cost. A few complimentary prints or spares for future reference never hurts. Another big bonus in the 2.0 Print Module is the ability to print straight to JPEG and to attach a profile. That means that you can make these print packages for a client and let them print their own pictures at their local "cheap and fast" print-outlet and end up with something that they can easily cut up and hand-out. And you don't even have to worry about it...though it's a good idea to try a few of the print shops in the neighborhood that provide profiles and know who to recommend. That way, your photos will represent you as you want to be represented.

Sync, or be Sync'd

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:00:00 -0800

Auto Sync has changed my life.

I have easily squeezed an hour out of my workflow by making Auto Sync a primary tool in my arsenal.

I won’t go so far as to say Auto Sync is a ‘hidden’ control, rather it’s just a bit out of the way in the interface - accessible via the {Ctrl} key on PC or {Command} key on Mac. Let’s look at a sample workflow.

Here we have a series of 3 images that I want to correct:

First, I’ll select all the images I wish to correct, then hold down the {Ctrl} key on PC or {Command} key on Mac and select Auto Sync:

Before I make any adjustments I also increase the size of the thumbnails to get a feel for the adjustment(s) as they propagate across my selection:

Once all my adjustments are complete, I hold down the {Ctrl} key on PC or {Command} key on Mac and select to set things back to the plain old Sync mode we see as the Lightroom default.

The possibilities are endless with this tool. You can auto sync not only develop panel adjustment … but also croppings, even spot removal!

This is one of those techniques that allows us all to work SMARTER and not HARDER … which is always a step in the right direction in my book.

Until next time … happy sync’ing!

Brandon Oelling
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Lightroom 2 Beta - Working with two monitors to speed up the workflow.

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:25:41 -0800

Sometimes the solution is so simple that it takes forever to find it. If you have been reading my recent posts you know that I have been looking for a way to illustrate the second monitor in this blog. I have been using a number of different screen grabbing utilities for so many years now and none of them will let me grab the second monitor. It of course never occurred to me that there could a really simple solution, the built in Apple OS X solution of simply using the keyboard command - Command/Shift/3. Could it be any simpler? The only problem with this solution is that it creates a full resolution PNG file (which Lightroom can not read), but the problem was easily solved by using Photoshop CS3 to reduce the size and save the image as a JPEG file. Image 1a - the main screen in the Library Module - I have set the viewing area to the Thumbnail Grid mode so I can easily sort the images. Image 1b - the second screen in the Library Module - I have set the second screen in the Loupe mode so I can see a detailed view of the image I have selected on the main screen. Image 2a - the main screen in the Develop Module - As you can see I have selected my crop marks but not finalized the crop setting yet. Image 2b - the second screen in the Develop Module - On the second monitor monitor I can see the crop selection enlarged to the size of the second monitor, before I have made the final crop decision on the main screen. As usual I apologize for being late with this posting (especially to my fellow blog posters), now that I have solved the screen grab problem, I will hopefully be able to get back on schedule.

Dealing with Pop-up Panels

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:00:00 -0800

I often work with Lightroom in Full screen mode and also have either the right or left panel hidden to maximize the view of the image and one of the annoying things with the panels is that they inadvertently pop open when I move the cursor too far to the left or right. While attending a Julieanne Kost seminar here in Santa Fe recently, presented by the fine folks at ASMP New Mexico, she offered up a nugget that I never knew existed. Within Lightroom, if you right click on the far edge of Lightroom - where you would click to open or close a panel there is a little dialog that appears that allows you to customize what happens when you mouse over these far edges of Lightroom. The dialog (at right) gives you the option to have Lightroom Auto Hide and Show (default), Auto Hide or Manual.

Selecting Auto Hide will automatically hide the panel once your mouse leaves the panel space but you have to manually click the edge to open the panel in this mode. Manual will hide it or open it only if you click on the edge (or the little triangle icon). So the good news is that with this set to Auto Hide or Manual your side panels will only open when you actually click on them and want them to open. And by the way, this is a "sticky" feature that only applies to the panel you right click on and it is an individual setting for each different panel and module. So if you right click and change your setting for the right and left hand panels in the Library module it will not affect your panel settings in the Develop module. Hence it is is not a one-click-fix-all thing. You'll have to go in and change it for each right and left panel in each module. For me this is one of those eureka moments that will help alleviate one of the most frustrating elements of the Lightroom interface (there aren't that many). I am amazed I haven't heard of this option before but here it is. Enjoy your day and good hunting in Lightroom. That's it for this session. See you next week. Adios, Michael

Making efficient collections in Lightroom 2.0

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:30:00 -0800

One of the many things that Lightroom 2.0 does to revolutionize the efficiency of your workflow is to make it much easier to keyword your images. It then goes another big step further by making it much easier to instantly find huge groups of images by a number of cross-referenced criteria. You can use those criteria to instantly add to a new type of Collection called a Smart Collection. Smart Collections allow you to automatically group your images into special purpose collections. Once you define the criteria for those collections and have gotten in the habit of entering consistent keywords, any time you want to put together a stock submissions or create an up-to-date portfolio for one of your specialties it's already been put together for you. All you have to do is export it to the file type and location you want it presented in and then use Lightroom to make the web site, slide presentation, or printed portfolio directly from that export file. Talk about magic! So this afternoon, I became intrigued with the idea of working out an efficient way to use Lightroom 2.0 to categorize my images and then use the new Filter Bar (click the first image below)

to find them so that I could then sub-categorize them using words from the Keyword List (click the second image below). Let's say I want to create Smart Collections for submitting images to a stock agency. The first thing I do is add the keyword "Stock photo" to every shot in my library that I think might be worth submitting for any reason whatsoever. To do that, I press G to enter the Library Module's Grid mode. I choose All Photographs in the Catalog panel, click the Paint Can in the Toolbar, enter the words "Stock photo" in the Paint: Keywords field, drag the grid's scroll bar to the very beginning of all my photos, and then start clicking the page down key. Every time I see anything I think belongs in the Stock Photo category, I click the center of that image. If there are several contiguous images that qualify, I select them all, then click the Paint Can in the center of any of those images. I just keep pressing Page Down and repeating the Paint Can routine until I've added Stock Photo to every single image that could be a candidate. Next, I press Cmnd/Ctrl + F to bring up the find bar, click Text and type in Stock Photos. Now I see nothing but thumbs of all my stock photos. In the Paint Can field, I type in the sub-category keyword for the first image I see at upper left. I then repeat the Page Down and Paint click routine to stamp that keyword into ever image that meets the category. Sometimes I'll see an eraser instead of the Paint Can because the word in the Paint Can has already been assigned. If I mistakenly click anyway, it will remove the word, but all I have to do is click again to put it back. Since I currently shoot more Nature shots than anything else, I usually start with Nature, then tag all the Landscapes, then all the Trees, then all the Flowers, then all the Animals, then all the Sunsets, etc. Then I go to People, which I subdivide into Men, Women, Kids, Girls, and Boys. I sub-divide each of them into Portraits and Candids. I sub-divide them into Business, Fashion, Glamour, Expressions... Anyway, I think you get the idea. Now, when I'm done with all of this, I can press Cmnd/Ctrl + F and get the Find bar and use it to very quickly call up just about any collection I want. If I know that I'm probably going to want to keep adding to this collection as life moves along, I just use the same criteria to create a Smart Collection. Then, anytime I Import my images from a card to a new Folder, all I have to do is use the same routine to keyword that collection that I used to keyword all my images. Any that belong in the pre-defined Smart Collections will automatically end up there.

Localized Adjustments in Lightroom 2.0 Beta

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:13:56 -0800

It seems like every portrait session I shoot there’s a request for at least one hand colored look image. Until now, that meant a trip to Photoshop, even if that was the only adjustment to be made. With the addition of the Masking brush in Lightroom 2.0 beta, I can now do much of this right in Lightroom. It’s a different approach than Photoshop though, and it’s one that had me wondering about the usefulness for this type of editing. In Photoshop, I’d typically add a grayscale layer to the image and then mask out the area I wanted to see in color. With Lightroom, I have to work in the opposite direction - I desaturate everything except the area I want in color. To start out, I’ve selected the Mask brush, and set the Paint effect to Saturation. To get grayscale, I adjust the Effect to -100. I

I’ll normally start with a large brush size to clear the bulk of the image up. The Auto Mask option helps here, and does a good job of protecting edges from adjustment, and when you’re dealing with something like the bouquet in this image, that’s a welcome helping hand. After the initial pass, I’ll go back in with smaller brush sizes to clean up areas. In the example shown here, I needed to fix the bride’s chin where some color had been left, and the groom’s flowers where I desaturated them. You can see the multiple pins showing where each mask is

Of course, if you make a mistake, you can always delete that mask, which has the added benefit of watching the nifty little cloud animation (hey, I’m easily amused, what can I say?). The new tools in the Lightroom 2.0 beta look very promising, and I’m finding new ways to avoid that trip into Photoshop, and speed up my image processing time. I’d love to hear how you’re making use of the new features. Here are the before and after versions of the image: