News, Discounts, and some Inspiration

Happy Friday everyone! Yep, I know it’s not Friday for most of you but it is for me so I’m posting some extra stuff today since I’ll be off tomorrow.

First off, Jeff Revell of the Photo Walk Pro blog did a review of my Layers book. Make sure you poke around the site for a while when you stop by – lots of good stuff (I mean in addition to the review ). Oh yeah, don’t forget I’m still signing copies for anyone who orders the book from Kelby Training’s website. So go ahead and participate in the “Make Matt’s Hand Hurt” campaign. (fyi… I’ve gotten lots of comments here on the blog from people who’ve already gotten the book but please keep ‘em coming. I love that stuff!).

Next up, I want to let you know about a really cool discount. I know a lot of people that visit this site are NAPP members (and some of you are probably thinking about becoming one). Here’s a discount, that pertains to all photographers, that I just found out about but you’re going to have to act quickly. You may have heard about Nik Software’s Viveza, a new Photoshop plug-in. It’s really hard to explain what it does but it uses this “thing” called U Point Technology. Before you fall asleep from technical terms like that, you’ve got to see it in action. They’ve got a really quick 2 minute video that explains what this stuff is and I’ve got to say it’s really sweet. That’s not the news though. The news is that NAPP members (for 2 weeks only) are going to be able to save $50 off of the software. So if you’re a NAPP member you’ll have paid for half your membership right there. If you’re going to join, again, that takes care of half your membership right off the bat. Finally, this news is actually so new that the web pages aren’t set up yet. They will be early next week and I’ll make sure to post the link as soon as it happens. I wanted to let you know about it right away though, so you don’t go out and buy it this weekend if you were thinking about it.

Next up is some web gallery goodness.
- Sean McCormack has some new free galleries for Lightroom and you can find them here.
- The Turning Gate has a really cool Client Response web gallery. It let’s clients rate images with comments. Neat stuff! Here’s the link.

Finally, I’ll leave you with some inspirational photography. Take a look at Gregory Heisler’s portfolio. He concentrates on portraits and photographs mainly celebrities (the Quiet section was my favorite). However, knowing that neither you or I will likely be photographing the people he does, I always approach viewing galleries like this from another point – style, setting, expression, lighting and other factors aside from the celebrity. That way, I can start to get some ideas for my own work.

Well friends, that brings the week to a close for me. I’m taking Friday off from everything related to work (at least that’s the plan) and relaxing a bit. Of course the mayhem of little league/soccer games and kids birthday parties starts up on Saturday (you know, the usual weekend stuff) so it will be short lived. I wouldn’t trade it for the world though Have a great weekend!
(photo credit: Gregory Heisler)

Video – Saving your Presets

I’ve been giving away free presets on this site for nearly 6 months and it just occurred to me today (after reading some of the reader comments of course, because I’m actually not that sharp ) that I’ve never shown how to save your presets. By now, you probably know how to load them but what happens if you get a new computer or want to move your presets from a laptop to a desktop. So that’s what this week’s video is all about. Saving presets. Not just mine but any of the presets you’ve made too. Have a great Wednesday! It’s actually Thursday for me because I’m off on Friday so tomorrow will be Friday (even though it’s really Thursday) which makes today really Wednesday but Thursday for some. I’ll stop now before this gets out of hand

Click here to watch the video. (10Mb)

It's Preset Day Again (City Nights Effect)

Hey everyone. I’m back this week with another new preset. First I’ve got to thank everyone who has ordered the Layers book so far. If you want to see a funny photo, my friend RC took this photo of me signing books. I was literally buried. When I came up with the idea to sign a copy for anyone who ordered from Kelby Training’s website I had no idea I’d get this many. I was totally shocked but totally honored at the same time. So my writing hand is hurting a bit but it’s all good. I’m very grateful for all of your support. Ok, on to the preset… This week I’m taking a really different direction with a preset geared specifically for night-time city skylines and lights. I pretty much stumbled on this one as I was adjusting a few photos I took at night the other week. I found that a few key adjustments really helped bring out the lights and the color we see at night. You’ll see there’s 3 versions and they basically range from a light version to a darker version so it’ll dramatically change your photo depending on how light or dark it started out. I hope you enjoy ‘em!

Click here to see a before/after sample of the preset.
Click here to download Matt’s City Nights Preset

Friday Tip and Weekend Reading

Once again, I’ve been shown a tip by one of my readers. That’s one of the reasons why I’m really happy that I turned comments on way back. Okay, here’s the tip. I’ve written about the fact that you can hold down Alt/Option and drag on the Exposure and Blacks slider to get a temporary clipping preview. But I never knew you could do the same with the Recovery slider. It sounds silly but it’s kind of cool because I’m not really one to turn on my clipping warnings all the time since it shows big red blotches on my photo. But I use Recovery all the time and this trick is a good way to get a preview of what the slider is doing. So I’d like to say thanks to Jason for showing me this one.

OK, a couple more things. First, Marc Rochkind has been doing some cool stuff with his LRViewer software. Sounds like a neat idea and you can read more here.

Finally, some weekend reading. Jon Tehero has an interesting article on Aperture vs. Lightroom when it comes to presets. Hey, I know this is a Lightroom site but it’s always good to see what other software can/can’t do. Click here to read the comparison.

Well campers, that’s it for the week. I called you “campers” but I’m actually the one going camping this weekend. My son is in cub scouts and we’ll both be braving the wild this weekend. Luckily it’s only about 10 minutes from the house so if he gets scared (read: I can’t figure out how to put the tent up), we’re really close to home. Wish me luck!

Video – Printing 101

I’ve gotten a lot of requests to delve into the print settings in Lightroom and take a closer look at how to get that great print. So this week’s video is going to do just that. Think of it at Printing 101. The cool thing about it is that I don’t think there’s going to be a printing 102 video. There’s a few print settings in Lightroom and once you’ve seen them there’s not much more to it. While I’m at it, I’ll head off a question that usually follows whenever I teach this and that is a) Do I do all of my printing myself and, b) If not, what lab do I use? Yes I do some of my printing myself. I’ve got an Epson R2400 that does an amazing job. Lately though, time constraints and ink/paper costs have lead me to look more into sending my printing work out and I have to say that Mpix.com is making it harder for me to print myself. They do one heck-of-a job and their quality/turn around time is amazing. Will I still continue to print myself – you betcha. But I’m liking the idea of a lab more and more these days. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts so feel free to leave ‘em here as a comment. See ya tomorrow!

Click here to watch the video. (14Mb)

Jill Greenberg Video and a Birthday

Guess who’s birthday it is this week? Nope, not mine (that’s next week in case you want to send presents). This week marks the one year birthday of the official release of Lightroom 1.0. Yep, it’s been a whole year. Actually, it’s been longer then that since LR was out for about a year in beta before that. But most people didn’t really start using it until the launch last February. So happy birthday to Lightroom. What was your workflow like 1 year ago?

EVB (sorry, they didn’t leave their full name) posted a comment yesterday that I wanted to share with everyone. He/she pointed out a link to a video interview done with Jill Greenberg. Her photography has been talked about here a number of times as well as a lot of other places on the web. While she doesn’t share exactly what she’s doing both in camera, and in Photoshop, you can get a good insight into some aspects of her work. I found it really interesting to look at the catch lights in some of the work to see the lighting setup. Anyway, here’s the link.

One last thing. I forgot to mention that the Lomo preset from yesterday was actually on the list of suggested presets from the other week. So congrats to Tiffany for winning a one month subscription to Kelby Training’s online training site.

Preset Monday – Lomo Arigato (Mr. Roboto)

It’s a brand new week and I’m kicking it off with a really cool preset. First off though, I have to thank everyone who pre-ordered my Photoshop Layers book. I posted about it on Friday and got a few responses from folks that pre-ordered. However, the pre-order sales I saw over the weekend showed me that a lot more of you actually ordered then commented here and I just wanted to say thanks – so Thanks!

Now for the preset. This one is based on a Lomography effect, hence the name “Lomo”. Sorry for the lame Styx reference but everytime I hear the word Lomo that’s all I can think of Anyway, Lomography really has it’s roots in an old camera that produced a certain styled photo (you can read more about it here if you’d like) but I’ve seen a bunch of requests over the months to recreate it in Lightroom. If you think it sort of looks like a cross-processed effect then you’re right. It definitely has hints of it. However, this one is a little bit different and doesn’t produce quite the “greenish/yellowish” effect that a cross processed look will. So have at it. There’s only one version and I’ve found it works great for portraits as well as landscapes.

Click here to see a before/after sample of the preset.
Click here to download Matt’s Lomo Preset

Friday Stuff

Here’s some quick Lightroom news, websites, inspiration, and yes… one of Matt’s blatant plugs (I know, we haven’t seen one of those in a while). Let’s get started.

First up, let’s start off with my blatant plug. I’m ecstatic to report that I held a copy of my newly printed Photoshop Layers book yesterday. See, I wrote this book back in June of 2007. Because of some publishing schedules and a few other factors it’s just now being printed. As you can imagine (after having waited nearly 7 months) it’s a really cool feeling to finally hold a printed copy. So if you’re a Photoshop user (and I know you are) and you’re trying to get your head around that whole Layers concept this one is for you. Everyone that has seen it so far, loves it. Oh yeah, I’ll be signing the book for anyone who orders it from Kelby Training’s website so click here to get your copy signed.

Update: I forgot to mention, the Layers book hit the top 250 of all books on Amazon yesterday. It made it to the top 7 of all books in the Computers and Internet category. And it’s not even out yet! Sweet!!! Thanks to anyone who has already ordered it.

OK, now that we have that out of the way, check out some results of the aged texture preset from the other week. I love this stuff.

If you’re looking for some inspiration then you’re gonna like this one. I just spent about 15 minutes on Chromasia.com. It’s got a mix of documentary, portrait, beauty, and landscape photography and is well worth a visit.

It’s old news but one of my blog readers started a Flickr group for all of my presets a while back (now over 420 members strong!). That’s not the real news though. There’s a Lightroom Flickr group that’s really gained some traction over the last year. It’s not only got some great photos to look at but the comment section has spurred some really valuable discussions. Make sure you pay it a visit here.

If you’re looking for a Lightroom forum then here’s a couple of resources. First off, if you’re a NAPP member then the NAPP member website has a dedicated forum for Lightroom. The folks in the NAPP forums are awesome and you’ll thoroughly enjoy your time there. If you’re not a NAPP member, check out the Adobe forums or the ones over at LightroomForums.net.

Finally, if you need even more Lightroom stuff to keep you busy over the weekend, Adobe has been doing a great job of keeping up to date Lightroom content out there. So if you get tired of hearing my voice or reading my stuff make sure you take a look at their Lightroom Design Center. I’ll warn you now though, I pop up on there a few times so if you are tired of me, seeing my stuff there could push you to that tipping point where you destroy all of your camera gear. So stay away from anything with my name on it

That’s all I got for today. Thanks for listening to my blatant plug. Make sure you stop by Kelby Training and buy lots of signed copies (hey, I’m excited). Of course, if that’s not your thing, just make sure you have a fun and safe weekend. See you next week!

Q&A – Is Lightroom Destructive to JPEGs?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a Q&A and I’ve been getting this question a lot lately. So here goes:Question Is Lightroom destructive to JPEG photos?
Answer You probably know that you can import JPEG, Raw, TIFF, and other image formats into Lightroom just fine. We know that nothing we do to a Raw photo is ever destructive but does the same hold true for JPEG photos? Are the changes we make to a JPG in Lightroom actually changing the photo permanently? The answer… nope. It’s basically the same deal as when developing a Raw photo. Lightroom is storing each change, every slider move and preset click in some little database on your computer somewhere. It’s only changing a preview of the image on screen which is why it looks like you’re changing the photo permanently but you’re not. Just like a raw file, if you ever want to get back to the original JPEG just click the Reset button in the Develop module and it’s like nothing happened at all.

Now, the next logical question is how do I permanently change the JPG file? Say you want to email a processed photo to some one or post it on a website. No sweat. Just go to File > Export and export the modified photo as a JPG. Lightroom will apply the changes you’ve made and save a new JPG to where ever you point it to. Your original will still be stored in Lightroom safe and sound without any destructive changes made to it. The JPG you exported is essentially a copy of it with changes applied and it doesn’t change anything about the original that you’re working with in Lightroom.

Well my questioning (and answering) friends, there you have another edition of Lightroom Q&A. I’ll see you back tomorrow to finish up another week.

New Presets – Burnt Tone

As you may have seen, I took a couple of days off but I’m back from my quick trip out west and I’ve got another free preset for you. This one was actually inspired by a poster I saw in Las Vegas this past weekend. The effect was a very strong burned feeling and I set out on the flight back home to recreate it.

When you download the presets (and unzip the zip file), you’ll notice that there are two presets in this package. One of them is for people and the other is for anything with a sky in it. One thing I noticed when creating it is that skies reacted differently (mostly in a bad way) to the people preset so I made a couple of changes to account for anything with sky in it (which ended up doing bad things to skin tones, hence the “sky” name). That said, rules are made to be broken so feel free to give either preset a try on any photo to see which one you like better.

Click here to see a before/after sample of the preset.
Click here to download Matt’s Burnt Tone Preset