Layers, Photoshop World and Lightroom

It’s that time of the year again. Photoshop World in Orlando is getting closer (April 2, 2008) and I’ll be teaching both Photoshop and Lightroom there. If you’ve never been to a Photoshop World then you’re missing out on a killer learning experience. It’s where the world’s top Photoshop instructors get together and share everything they know about Photoshop. And it’s fun and you’ll meet a ton of great people. A couple of things:

- First, my Layers pre-conference session is rapidly selling out. Last time in Vegas, it was one of the first pre-cons to totally sell out so make sure you sign up soon if you’d like to go. In a nutshell, it’s for those who’d like to wrap their heads around the layers concept in Photoshop and really start using them to their full potential to make your work easier and more creative.

- Next, I’m teaching two Lightroom sessions there. The first is an overall Lightroom workflow from start to finish. From importing all the way through to printing. The second one is a brand new session called “Photoshop and Lightroom – Connecting the Dots”. There I’ll cover where/when we use Lightroom and where/when we use Photoshop and how they fit together.

- Finally, other experts like Jeff Schewe, Andrew Rodney, Tim Grey and Kevin Ames will all be teaching in the Lightroom track and they’ve got some great stuff planned as well.

Registration is open and you’ll save $100 bucks if you register early so get on it. You can click here to go to the site and check it out for yourself. Hope to see you there! Don’t forget to check out the next post for this week’s video.

Video – Printing to a File

This week’s video topic comes solely from your comments and questions here on the Lightroom Killer Tips site. For a few weeks, many of you have been asking how to save a custom print template in a format that would let you send it to a printer or some one else to print. Technically, there really is no way but in this week’s video I’ve got a workaround for you. Thanks for all of the ideas! Enjoy the video.

Click here to watch the video. (11Mb)

Monday Presets – The "300" Look

Happy Monday everyone. I’m proud to report that I finished the Disney Marathon yesterday (all 26.2 miles of it!) and lived to tell the tale. Scott Kelby has a mini-report and photo up on his blog. Thanks to everyone who posted comments of encouragement and congratulations here. You guys are great!
Now to the Lightroom preset. As you probably saw from the title, this one is my take on the “300″ look from the movie The 300. It’s very similar to what I did in Camera Raw on Photoshop User TV this week, but doing it in Lightroom is even better. I actually saw a great take on this preset from Mike Lao Photography. I had a few things that I wanted to add to it to take the effect in a different direction and that’s where this preset comes from. You’ll notice there are 2 presets in the zip file. One of them is for a harsher stronger look (good if you’re looking for that gritty effect). The other one is for a softer look (better for portraits that have women in them).

Click here to see a sample of the presets.
Click here to download Matt’s 300 Look Preset
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

Friday Tip (and other stuff) – Background Color

Here are a couple of updates. If you just want the Lightroom tip then skip down to the end.

First off, I have my “blatant plug” of the day. If you’re thinking about attending the cruise this summer that Dave Cross, Moose Peterson, and Laurie Excell are teaching on you’ll need to move quickly. The ship is nearly sold out. According to the cruise line it will be sold out within the next few weeks so if you’re on the fence about it, make sure you decide soon. Click here to see a full outline of what we’ll be covering on the cruise. It’s going to be a blast, and these cruises are a great way to spend some 1-on-1 time with some great teachers so I really do hope to see you there.

Moving on. The Disney Marathon I’ve told you all about is here. First off, thanks SO much for all of the kind wishes you have all given me. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. Now, if you read my Monday post about being fairly calm and relaxed, you’ll be happy to know that feeling has now transitioned to utter panic I have to admit I’m a little nervous now. It’s normal I know, and frankly, there’s nothing I can do about it. Race day will be here on Sunday and I’m feeling good physically. Plus the weather gods appear to be in our favor with temps in the 50-60 range and cloud cover. I’d love for that cold front to speed up and make it here earlier but I’ll take cloudy and a little rain if I have to. It’s way better then hot and sunny. If you want to track me here’s the website. Just plug in my last name (spelled: Kloskowski). You’ll probably see my brother Ed pop up there too. My anticipated pace is a 10 minute mile. So that should make gaging my success easy (5 miles = 50 minutes, 10 miles = 1 hr. 40 min.).

Finally, a Lightroom tip. You know how the background area around your photo is a neutral gray color. You can click here to see what I mean. Well, if you right click on that area you can change the color. Some folks prefer white, some prefer black – well they’re both options if you want to change it. Heck, if you’re one of the special few that prefers the Pinstripe texture because it’s obnoxious looking and totally takes away the focus from your photo then you’re in luck, as that is an option as well. Click here to see a graphic of the list that pops up when you right click. Just pick your color (or pinstripe texture) and you’re in business.

That’s it for the Friday tip (and update and stuff). Wish me luck this weekend!

Video – The Making of the Pano Print Preset

Well folks, as many of you have realized, the 5-across/pano print preset from Monday met with some challenges Instead of trying to figure out the Mac/PC/Lightroom incompatibilities, I figured I’d just show you how to create the preset itself since I do think it’s a really cool one. Along the way you’ll pick up some tips about good features to use for this in the Print module as well as tweaking the Page Setup options to get the right sized print. Enjoy.

Click here to watch the video. (11Mb)

Imaging USA Report

Here’s a Quick Imaging USA Report:

- First off, let me say thanks to all of the great people that stopped by the Kelby Training booth at Imaging USA. I can’t tell you how cool it is to have so many people introduce themselves and say that they visit this website all the time. I gotta tell you, it never gets old. Anyway, I also taught a few sessions at the booth as well as a filming a live Photoshop TV show yesterday. Click here to see a photo taken during one of my sessions (photo by Scott Kelby). Of special interest was the tutorial I did on Photoshop TV. All I’ll say is that you’re in for a treat next week for the next “Preset Monday”. Here’s a sneak peak.

- Lightroom is still the buzz. It was interesting because this time last year there were still a lot of folks asking about Aperture vs. Lightroom. This year, I never even heard the “A” word. Seriously, not even once.

- Wedding Albums were huge! Everywhere you went there were wedding album vendors, software packages, and anything else dealing with albums.

- Another trend I noticed was an abundance of questions dealing with the web. So much so that I’ve also written a post today called “Web Wednesday” that deals with your options for the web when it comes to Lightroom.

- As usual at these shows, I felt totally honored to be in the company of some of my heroes in the industry. In fact, I think one of my most memorable moments came during the dinner that Kelby Training hosted at Maggianos Little Italy on Monday night. I sat with Joe Glyda, Eddie Tapp, and Ken Sklute. Our dessert arrived and I pulled out my Canon G9 as a joke and asked Joe (who is Kraft Foods official photographer) to light the chocolate cake. Next thing I knew, there were 2 cell phones, a candle as a backlight, and a white napkin held up as a backdrop. Joe McNally came over to direct and David Ziser was just itching to add a bride and groom to the scene to make it complete. Here’s a photo of the calamity in action (Joe Glyda on left, then Eddit Tapp, and Ken Sklute).

That’s it for the Imaging USA report. Once again, thanks to everyone who came by to say hi.

Web Wednesday

I’ve been seeing a lot of questions lately about what you can do to get your photos on the web. If you’re reading this then chances are you already have Lightroom and, if that’s the case, then you’ve got some killer options.

First, I’ve got to give you what has quickly become my favorite option – Slideshow Pro. It’s actually a plug-in for Lightroom and plugs right into the web module so you don’t have to use any other 3rd party programs. Full disclosure here. Todd Dominey (co-creator of Slideshow Pro) allowed me to try out a copy of it for free. However, it is hands down the best thing out there for great looking web galleries in Lightroom. Knowing what I know now, I’d have gladly forked over $25 for it. In fact, I’ll probably be doing a full review on it in the coming weeks. It’s that good and it’s got a ton of features so I feel I’ve only scratched the surface.

Sean McCormack has a killer little web gallery. It’s a horizontal scroll gallery and I’m beginning to like this style more and more on the web. You can see it in action here and read Sean’s blog post about it here.

Lightroom Galleries is a website dedicated to just that – Lightroom web galleries. There’s some great looking galleries there and they’re all free.

If you use Flickr, SmugMug, or Zenfolio then you should pay a visit to Jeffrey Friedl’s blog where he’s got some plug-ins for Lightroom that allow you to directly export for those sites.
Update: Jeffrey Friedl posted in a comment: FYI, I have an “Export to PicasaWeb” plugin in addition to my plugins for Flickr, Zenfolio, and SmugMug: http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/lightroom-picasaweb/ – Thanks Jeffrey!

Finally, don’t forget the Airtight Interactive galleries that were added directly into Lightroom’s web module last year. These galleries look totally different from other Lightroom galleries and I know a lot of folks missed them. You’ve actually got to go into the Web module and look in the top right of the screen under the Gallery tab. You’ll see ‘em right there.

Well everyone, I hope this little look into the options available in Lightroom when it comes to the web helped out. Have a great day!

Some Monday News

I’ve got some quick news to kick the week off. Also, don’t forget to scroll to the next post for the Monday Preset. First off, I’m really excited to report that my Adobe Certified Expert Exam Boot Camp class just went live on Kelby Training’s website. It’s based off of the live workshop I used to teach at Photoshop World. There is absolutely nothing like this out there when it comes to the Photoshop exam prep and I’ve already gotten some great feedback from it. You can take the class, try the first 3 lessons, or view the outline here.

Next up, Jack Reznicki and Katrin Eismann are teaching a two-day Lightroom workshop in New York City on January 12-13. Jack is an amazing commercial photographer and President-Elect of Professional Photographers of America. Katrin is a Photoshop Hall-of-Famer, best-selling author, and Chair of the MPS in Digital Photography degree program at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. If that ain’t enough, they’re both just all around good people and I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with each of them so I know you’ll learn a ton and have a good time doing it. Take a look at the Digital Guru Workshop home page to find out more.

Lastly, I’ve got just 6 days until the Disney Marathon (26.2 LONG miles). I’m actually very calm and relaxed at this point and the week should be a breeze because I barely have to run at all. Basically, the idea is to rest up big time the week before the race so that’s just what I’m going to do. I’ll run a couple of miles on Wednesday and that’s it. I appreciate all of the kind wishes you left last week. I’ll report later on in the week with my bib number so you can track me online during the race if you want.

That’s it for now. Scroll to the next post for the Monday Lightroom Preset.

Monday Presets – 5 Across Print Preset

This week, I’ve got some really sweet print preset. First, I was looking at a frame that a friend of mine (RC) picked up for me at IKEA. It was one of those 5-across layouts. I thought “Hey, I can do that in Lightroom”. Then it actually got even cooler after I started thinking about the other week’s video on stacking panos in Lightroom. I was getting the presets ready for this week and accidentally clicked on several of the photos in my panorama stack. I looked at it and thought “Hey, now that’s pretty cool!”. It’s kind of like a fake pano spread across the layout. Now I know the photos aren’t actually stitched together but I still think it looks pretty darn cool. That said, it wasn’t created for that purpose so you can just use it for any photos. But the pano does look pretty sweet too. Enjoy.

Click here to see a sample of the preset.
Click here to download Matt’s Pano Print Preset
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

Come Say Hi at Imaging USA

I’m really excited because this weekend kicks off Imaging USA. See, most of the time we have to travel to conferences and events around the country but this time it’s right in our backyard. So, if you’re going to be in Tampa this weekend (and early next week) for Imaging USA make sure you come say hi at the Kelby Training booth. I’ll be teaching Lightroom at the booth as well as some other stuff. I’m on at 12:00pm and 2:00pm on Sunday and Monday. Then on Tuesday at 11:30am, Scott Kelby, Dave Cross, and myself are filming a live Photoshop TV episode. They’re always fun (and never good ) so make sure you stop by to see it. Speaking of Scott, he’s got a post on his blog about the Kelby Training schedule for those two days so you can see it here. I hope to get to meet some of you there. Oh yeah, scroll down for the Friday tip. It’s a good one.