Clone and Heal in Lightroom!

Well folks, we’re a little off this week: the video is going up on Wednesday. The whole Lightroom Version 1 launch threw me off, but we’ll be back on schedule next week. Anyway, yep, you read the title correctly. Lightroom Version 1 has cloning and healing capabilities, and it does it all on the raw files non-destructively. Actually, there’s a little more to it and if you’re thinking that it’s just like Photoshop’s cloning and healing, well, it’s not. In this week’s video we’re going to take a look at how you can use the tool, but more importantly, where and why the tool should be used in Lightroom and when you’ll need to resort to Photoshop’s cloning and healing.

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Lightroom Version 1 is Announced!

Well, after one year in public beta, Adobe has announced the release of version 1 of Photoshop Lightroom. The last public beta release was beta 4 and I’ve got to say that version 1 has some excellent new features that make it worth every penny. According to Adobe, it will ship sometime in mid-February. However, if you can’t wait until then to find out what’s new and cool then you’ve got to see NAPP’s Lightroom Learning Center. As usual, NAPP is keeping everyone in the Photoshop industry on the cutting edge with the latest Lightroom Learning Center. Even if you’ve seen it before, make sure you take a look again. It’s been totally, 100% redone to include new tutorials, videos, articles and even exclusive interviews geared especially for version 1. Check it out here.

Adding Keywords to Multiple Photos

If you’ve got a photo that has keywords associated with it and you’d like to copy those keywords to other photos, try this. In Library grid view, highlight the photo that has the keywords attached to it. Then go to the Keywords panel. Highlight all of the keywords that you want to use there. Now press Ctrl + C (Mac: Cmd + C) to copy them. Go to the grid again and highlight all of the photos that you’d like to copy the keywords to. Finally, press Ctrl + V (Mac: Cmd + V) to paste the keywords in to those photos. Keep in mind that you can add keywords upon Import too, but if you don’t, at least you’ve got a way to do it after.

Strobist Lighting Blog

The other week I posted something about how I’ve been very interested in lighting lately. One of the regular visitors to this site, David Brenner, sent me a link to the Strobist blog. What a cool site! It’s got tips, technique, links and examples of just about everything concerning lighting. If you’ve never seen it yet make sure you visit the “First Time Here” links on the top right side of the home page. I just love the web
(Photo Credit: Cicobuff)

Customizing Your Identity Plate

If you look in the top left corner of Lightroom you’ll see a small area showing Lightroom’s product identity. But picture this. What if you could change that to show the name of your studio, your logo, or even the client’s name? Well, that is precisely what the Identity Plate is for. It lets you customize that area in Lightroom to say whatever you want. You can fill that area with text or even graphics to give the appearance (when a client is looking over your shoulder) that the software was custom made for your studio. Check it out in this week’s video tip. (photo credit: Matt Kloskowski)

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A Photo I Shot This Morning

Well folks, I really don’t have a blog where I post my recent photos. I thought about starting one but, as you can imagine, the last thing I need is another blog or website to keep up with. Instead, I thought I’d post a photo I took this morning at a local horse racetrack. I mainly went for practice and to see what the early morning light had to offer. I was really psyched when I got back and saw this though. At first glance it looks like a nice photo but then you realize the guy riding the horse is looking right at me. That changed the whole look of the photo to me. So, I figured I’d go ahead and post it. It was shot with my Nikon D-200 and a 70-200 VR lens. I was panning on a monopod zoomed to 130mm focal length at 1/250 sec at f/2.8. Pretty cool stuff huh? Click here to see a larger version.

Fill Light

Not quite sure what the Fill Light slider is doing? Well, think of it this way – when you adjust your Exposure setting, Lightroom will tend to make the entire photo brighter. This may be fine most of the time but it may eventually push some of your highlight areas to the point where they’re clipped and become all white. If you reach that point and you’d still like to make the photo brighter, you can resort to the Fill Light slider. This will adjust the midtone areas of the photo and will, for the most part, leave your extreme highlights alone. It’s a good way to brighten the overall photo without blowing out your highlight areas.

A Photographer's Sketchbook

Here’s a site I stumbled across last week. It’s called A Photographer’s Sketchbook – Notes on Lighting. It’s run by photographer John Lehmann and it’s definitely worth stopping by. I’ve been way into lighting lately and there are some great tips presented in a very clever way. For example, if you go into the “How’d ya do that?” section, you’ll see some photos using 1, 2, or 3 flashes. Then if you click on a photo, you see a sketch of the setup involved in that photo. He also talks about setup, gear, and some overall lighting principles. Check it out at www.filmlessphotos.ca.

Showing Off Your Photos on the Web

Once you’ve taken the time to get your photos looking good, you’ll inevitably want to share them. It may be your personal portfolio or perhaps you need to quickly get them up on a site so a client can review them. Lightroom’s Web module is an ideal place for this since it can automatically create some simple, elegant, great-looking web galleries. Best of all – it’s fast, so you’ll instantly get an advantage over the competition because your photos will be ready for people to see right away.

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Hiding Your Panels

One of the things that Lightroom excels at is bringing your photos to you. There are no palettes in front of your photos and there are no windows to move around. It makes it really simple to see what you’re working on. If you want to take it a step further and REALLY hide the panels that appear on the left and right side, all you have to do is press the Tab key and they’ll go away. Now if you move your cursor over to either side, they’ll temporarily pop back into view. If you press Shift + Tab, the panels on the side as well as the filmstrip on the bottom will be hidden. Just press Tab or Shift + Tab again to get things back to normal. What can I say – you gotta love Lightroom and how it makes working with your photos easier.