Where's Matt – Teaching Update

Hey folks, here’s a quick news update since I just finished teaching a workshop primarily on Lightroom and I figured I’d let you know where I’ll be teaching for the rest of the year. There’s another post today (another free preset) so feel free to scroll to the next post if you’re not interested in this.

Thank youI just wanted to say a great big huge thank you to everyone that came to my Great Smoky Mountains workshop this past weekend. We had a fantastic time and I made some really friends along the way. It was great getting to know all of you and the laughs we shared will stick with me for some time to come.

I also wanted to thank my friend Alessandro, from the workshop, for leaving such a nice comment here on the site. Here’s a peak if you’re interested. He totally made my day I can’t tell you how cool it is to see that I’ve helped people out like that. Thanks Alessandro (your pay off check is in the mail ) and thanks to the whole class for a great weekend!

Coming Up
OK, here’s where I’ll be for the rest of 2008 in case you’re thinking of coming out to a workshop or conference.

• May 5-6 – New York City: I’ll be teaching some Lightroom sessions at B&H photo on these two days. They’re totally free and you can find out more as well as register right here.

• Tuesday June 3 – Philadelphia, PA: I’m not sure about the details yet but I’m teaching a session for a CDW event (that is open to the public) that morning. I’ll update with details as they become available but I’ll definitely be there.

• August 9-16 – Hawaii Cruise: I’m teaching along side Dave Cross, Moose Peterson and Laurie Excel on a week long cruise through Hawaii. Folks, if you can make it out to this (I know it’s a stretch) it will be one amazing week.

• September 3-6 – Photoshop World Las Vegas: This is my favorite event of the year. It’s a 3-day Photoshop Love-Fest and hosts the best instructors in the world all in one place.

• October 15-18 – Bar Harbor/Acadia Natl. Park, Maine: This is another workshop for the Great American Photography Workshops (just like the one I taught in the Great Smokies last weekend). I’ve been to Bar Harbor before and I liked it so much that I’m going back. Sign up soon though. This is a hot spot for workshops and this one will definitely fill up.

That’s about it for now. I know there’s some more Lightroom training that I’ll be doing toward the end of the year but I don’t have the specifics yet. I’ll update here on the website as soon as I know. Thanks and I hope to see you out.

Presets – My New Auto Fix Preset

It’s time for another preset day and I thought I’d give away a brand new one that I’ve been working on. This preset is the one I apply to my photos as I’m importing them. Now, if you’ve watched any of my earlier Lightroom videos (from earlier in 2007) you may recall that I never applied a preset to my photos as I imported them. That’s changed as of late. I’ve been working on this preset and I’ve had some really good results from it. Here’s how to use it:

When you import your photos there’s a section in the Import dialog that allows you to apply a preset. Once you add this preset to your Develop module presets, it’ll appear there and you can select/apply it on import automatically.

A few things to note:
• This preset works great on just about everything I threw it at. However, realize that the Auto settings that it uses tend to overexpose the photo sometimes. Not all the time, but I found some of the photos a bit bright after it was applied (especially portraits and studio work). If that happens, the first thing you can do is adjust the Exposure setting and bring it down a little.
• Just because you applied an auto adjustment preset when you imported doesn’t mean you’re done. It’s a starting point, so you’ll definitely have to do some adjustments after.

I hope you enjoy it. Make sure you let us know what you think by leaving a comment.

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

Unexpected Tip Saturday

Happy weekend folks. As you’ve noticed it’s an unexpected blog day. I’m trying something new out by blogging on Saturday. Not because I plan to continue to blog on Saturday’s but more because I just finally got internet access on Friday night (my hotel’s wireless apparently is more like connection-less). Anyway, I’ve got some photos to share from the workshop I’m teaching at, but if you want to skip straight to the tip just scroll to the end of this post.

Great Smoky Mountains Workshop Update/Photos
I’m about halfway through my workshop in the Great Smokey Mountains and we’re having a blast. As always, I’m meeting some really great people and within a few hours you’d think we all knew each other for years. Plus, I’m incredibly impressed at the number of great photographers in this workshop. It really is inspiring to be shooting along side these talented folks. I thought I’d share of few of my photos so you can see the kind of scenery that we’re in.

Photo 1 – Here’s one from our sunrise shoot on Thursday (shot with my Nikon D300 and a 17-55 lens)

As you can see, the sky wasn’t anything spectacular and was pretty much a bust. So, I did what any self-respecting photographer would do… I ditched the wide lens and put the 70-200 zoom on and started looking for the photo within the photo. Here’s a few more

Photo 2 – Another from the sunrise shoot (Shot with 70-200 Nikon VR lens)
Photo 3 – Yet one more from sunrise (Shot with 70-200 Nikon VR lens)
Photo 4 – This is a church we saw on the drive through Cades Cove (Shot with 17-55 lens)

And Now for the Saturday Tip
I was actually reminded of this tip by Garth (Alan Sisto) Brooks, a guy in my workshop this weekend. We joked around because if you put a cowboy hat on him, he’s a dead-ringer for Garth Brooks. Anyway, let’s say you apply a bunch of changes in one of the panels in the Develop module. For example, maybe you tweak a bunch of sliders in the HSL panel. Later, after making a bunch of other changes, you decide you want to reset the sliders in the HSL panel. You could manually drag each slider to 0 but that’s a giant pain the butt. Instead, hold down the Alt (Mac: Option) key. The panel will then display Reset Saturation (or whatever panel you’re in) button. Just click on it to reset the sliders for that panel but not everything else in the Develop module. It works for all the panels though so make sure you give it a try.

I hope you’re having a good weekend. We’ve got an early AM shoot on Saturday morning (I’m writing this on late Friday night). It looks like it’s going to rain so we’ll be heading under some trees to shoot the streams in the mountains. Cross your fingers that I don’t fall in : )

Q&A Day – Multiple Catalogs and Lightroom

It’s Q&A day again. I’m actually leaving for Knoxville, TN this afternoon for the Great American Photography workshop I’m teaching at this weekend. I’ve got a sold out workshop and we’ll be shooting the Great Smoky Mountains all weekend. I’m psyched and I’m really looking forward to meeting everyone this evening. If you ever get a chance to go on one of these workshops (with me or anyone for that matter), trust me, you’ll love it. They’re always a fun, inspirational, and learning-packed weekend and I come back with some great new friends from every single workshop.

Anyway, on to the Q&A. Here it is:

Question: Why should I use multiple catalogs in Lightroom?Answer: There’s a few different reasons to explore using multiple catalogs. I’ll list the reasons as well as some candidates for multiple catalog use here. I’ll also tell you how to create another catalog at the end.

1. Your existing library is getting too big. When I say too big, I mean in the tens of thousands of photos too big. Originally, it seemed like 30,000 photos was thrown around as a limit for the catalog size before Lightroom started to slow down too much. I was actually talking with Tom Hogarty (Lightroom Product Manager) at Photoshop World earlier this month. Tom said that the 30,000 limit isn’t necessarily true. He’s coming across plenty of folks that have catalogs twice as large as that and Lightroom still runs just fine. At any rate, you’ll start to see things slow down if you get too many photos in there. If that happens, it’s a good idea to start breaking your catalog apart into another one.

2. You share a studio and computer with some one. This is another good chance to use another catalog. If you share a computer with somebody else then consider making a catalog for each of you. That way you won’t get mixed up or potentially do something to the other persons photos that they didn’t want.

3. If you’re a wedding photographer and you’re filling up your catalogs in a matter of weeks then multiple catalogs may be the way. A few wedding photographers I know actually make a new catalog for every wedding they shoot. It helps them keep the catalog sizes down as well as making it easy to keep things organized. There is a downside to this. Your keywords and collections and all that other fun stuff won’t be shared across multiple catalogs. So if you’re in the “Smith Wedding” catalog, don’t think you can search through to find photos from the “Miller Wedding” catalog. Not such a big deal for wedding photographers since you’ll typically want to keep things separated. That doesn’t work so well for me though, as I like to open Lightroom and find all photos that were keyworded with, say, ‘ocean’ no matter where they are. I couldn’t do that if I did the multiple catalog thing.

4. You’ve got lots of personal photos and lots of work-related photos. This is another great reason for multiple catalogs. I actually have a separate catalog for all of my work photos from photos shoots and trips etc…, then another catalog for all of my personal family photos, and finally another one that I teach from. That way, when I start Lightroom I can fire up the catalog that I need at that time.

Question: How do I create another catalog?
Answer: Lastly, if you’re not sure how to work with multiple catalogs just go to the File menu and choose New Catalog. Lightroom will ask you for a name and place to store this catalog (I choose my photos folder) and you’re set. If you want to switch between catalogs just choose File > Open Recent and your recent catalogs will be there.

Question: How can I move photos from one catalog to another one?Answer: No sweat. Open the catalog with the photos you want to move. Go to the File menu again and choose Export as Catalog. That creates a folder that I store on the desktop (that’s not where your photos will be stored though). Then open the new catalog that you want to put the photos into and choose File > Import from Catalog.

Well that’s it for Q&A day. I’ll be shooting and teaching a lot over the next few days but I’ll try to post some shots here. Oh and make sure you let me know in the comments if you have another way or reason of working with multiple catalogs. Take care!

Presets – Deep Blue Sky

Happy Tuesday everyone! I’ve got a brand new set of presets for you this week targetted directly at blue skys (or lack of). Here’s the deal: There’s 3 different presets in this one each making the sky a deeper blue. Go ahead and develop your photo first (Exposure, Recovery, etc…) and then apply this preset. But there’s a couple of things to note:
1) You’ve got to have some degree of blue in your sky for this to work. Don’t think you can hit a gray overcast sky with this preset and turn it blue. It’s got to be somewhat blue to start with.
2) Anything else that’s blue in the photo is going to be affected so watch out if you’ve got people in there (Thanks Dave Alton for mentioning this in the comments)
3) Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Meaning, your sky may be just fine to start with. These presets will really bring out the blues and if you use them (especially Level 3) on a sky that is already pretty blue it’s going to look fake.
Sound good? Well, I hope you have a great day. Enjoy the presets and, as always, let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Click here to see a sample of the preset.
Click here to download Matt’s Deep Blue Sky presets
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

Video Tip and Some News

I’ve got another quick video tip for you today (I mean really quick – like 60 seconds quick). It’s on a little known feature that helps out when using the Remove Spots tool and spotting your photos in general.

Click here to watch the video. (6Mb)

Now for some news and links…• Legendary wedding photographer (and just one all around really nice guy), David Ziser, has a workshop coming in July. David truly has a gift when it comes to photographing a wedding and working with people. Anyone who has been in one of his workshops comes out knowing it was worth 10 times what they paid. If you’d like find out more check out this link.

• You’ve heard me mention it before but Dave Cross, Moose Peterson, Laurie Excel and myself are teaching on a one week cruise through Hawaii. It’s got a great itinerary and a perfect mixture of classroom time, shooting time with the pros, portfolio review time with any of us, and free time to enjoy the cruise and the Hawaiian Islands. I’ve been to Hawaii once and it’s so darn cool because you’ve got landscapes, people, wildlife, flowers, fabulous sunrises, sunsets all in one place. Find out more and see the itinerary at Cruising Through Life’s website. Oh yeah, mention that you’re a NAPP member and you get a discount.

• I’ve been visiting the Weekly Photo Tips blog lately and Scott has some really nice finds on there. I’m especially liking his blog since he did a review of my Layers book Seriously though, review aside you’ll find some neat stuff on the website and Scott brings some unique posts to blogosphere.

• Terry White, author of the critically acclaimed Terry White’s Tech Blog (and one heck-of-a great photographer) wrote a cool post about controlling the whole studio from his laptop. It’s definitely worth a read and I’m sure you’ll find some other good stuff on his site.

And finally, an inspirational update…
• There was a lot of interest in the architecture and real estate post I did a few weeks ago. Well I got an email from one of the guys I mentioned (Thomas Grubba) and he pointed me to a Flickr group for Real Estate photographers. Not only is it inspirational but it’s educational too, as a lot of the photographers share their setups and experiences. The real estate market being what it is today, you can get a great competitive advantage if you work in this area by visiting this group. Heck, even if you’re selling your own home you might as well be the one taking your photos if your realtor pulls out their $110 point-n-shoot. Thomas also let me know that he and Scott Hargis (another really popular photographer in the business) are working on a DVD. Sign me up for it when it comes out!

Well campers that’s it for today. And yes, whenever I end a post with the word “campers” you know what that means. Yep, another cub scout camping trip this weekend. Say a prayer that the bird-sized mosquitos don’t get the best of me. See ya!
(photo credit: Thomas Grubba)

Confessions of a Lightroom Addict

I thought I’d share some of my Lightroom confessions in the hopes that I would either a) get a quick laugh from you as you realize you’re not the only one that does something odd in Lightroom or, b) undermine my professionalism and credibility by showing you some of the silly things I do. Make sure you leave a comment here if you have your own confession or just want to second your favorite of mine. Here goes:

1. Whenever I go into Photoshop I set the bit depth for 90% of my photos to 8 bit instead of 16 bit. Yes, I know I could easier call some of your first born ugly as opposed to choosing 8 bit but that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

2. I don’t keyword my photos nearly as much as I should. I mean, I know the benefits of keywording. I keyword about 80% of the photos I import into Lightroom. But that’s not enough because you can bet whenever I search for photos, the ones I want to find end up being part of the 20% that I didn’t keyword. It probably has something to do with that 80/20 rule thing.

3. I’ve accidentally synchronized the develop settings on ALL 480 photos in a folder (on more then one occasion). While the settings I used may have worked on a few photos, the majority look really bad with the same develop settings. The worst thing is, that sometimes I didn’t know I did it and I’d later look through my photos cursing myself, wondering how the heck I could be such a bad photographer.

4. I hate metadata. I’m sorry, I had to say it. I can’t stand it when I look at feature lists for Lightroom (or any other product for that matter) and I see anything with the word “metadata” listed as a feature. It’s important stuff, I know, but it’s also very boring. I just assume it should be there but don’t try to sell it to me as a feature.

5. I love the benefits of metadata. The Metadata panel rocks and the benefits of good metadata support is very important. That’s what makes me feel bad about the #4 confession above. It’s an inner struggle I deal with daily

6. I add an edge darkening vignette to everything. I think it’s safe to say I’m addicted to the Lens Vignetting setting.

7. I avoid the slideshow module at all costs. If I’ve got a quick slideshow to show a friend or client near my computer then sure I’ll use it. If I’m presenting in front of a group I use Fotomagico on the mac. (iPhoto on the Mac or Slideshow Pro on the PC are really good too).

8. I NEVER EVER EVER EVER use Lightroom’s noise reduction feature. While we’re on the topic of things I never use, I don’t use the Camera Calibration and the Snapshots panels either. Oh and I rarely use anything other then the 3 contrast presets in the Tone Curve panel. Hey… this is confessions right. I’m just bein’ honest here.

9. I have 3 backups of all of my photos. However, I just realized that I only have 1 backup of my catalog. So if I’m so paranoid about losing my photos you’d think I would be just as paranoid about losing all of the work I’ve done to them right? Well I just realized as I wrote this that my Time Capsule (my backup drive for my mac) is the only backup I have of my Lightroom catalog. If something happened to it and my laptop (which are both in my house) then I’d be in trouble. That’s going to change today though, as I’ve started another Time Machine (the backup program on a Mac) backup at work.

10. I get upset every time I find myself constantly hitting D to go into the Develop module with a photo, then pressing G to quickly get back to the Library grid to pick another photo. Then pressing D again, and then G again, and so on. Truth be told, I guess I’m paranoid because I feel like I’m missing something because I never hear anyone else complain about this. So I quietly keep doing it.

11. I have WAY too many Develop presets. 156 to be exact. But I love ‘em so I don’t see it changing anytime soon.

12. Since I’ve gotten Lightroom, I’ve found I get just a little ticked when I have to take a photo into Photoshop for further editing.

13. Unless a feature is so good I just can’t stand it, I typically wait about 1 week before installing Lightroom updates.

14. It bugs me a little when people don’t believe that I didn’t “Photoshop” a photo. I may have Lightroom’d it, but I didn’t Photoshop it. And so what if I did!

I hope you enjoyed my confessions and leave one of your own as a comment here. Whether you agree or have a totally different one, go ahead and let us know.

Presets – The Surreal Edgy Look

It’s funny how things happen sometimes. Just when I was trying to decide which preset I would share this week I got a email from some one asking how I accomplished that gritty/HDR-looking/surreal/dramatic effect. If you recall from a while ago I had made a video on this technique and it became wildly popular. Well, I went to point them to this website to download the preset and realized I never did a preset for this technique (insert light bulb above head sound and graphic here). So that’s what you’ve got this week.

Here’s the low-down on the specifics of the presets in this bundle. There’s 4 of them in total ranging from light to really dark. Because of the nature of this preset I had to adjust the Exposure and Blacks settings but feel free to adjust them after you apply if needed (try watching the video link above for some ideas). You’ll find most of your changes will revolve in those two settings to either lighten the photo or enhance the blacks more. Personally, I find myself going for the dark or really dark versions but every once in a while the light one works great too.

As usual, please let everyone know in the comments what you think and if you have any other suggestions for this one, or if you find another setting that works well. Thanks everybody!

Click here to see a sample of the preset.
Click here to download Matt’s Surreal Edgy Effect presets
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

It's Back! LR 1.4 (Take two!)

Yep, the Lightroom 1.4 update is back again. If you recall from some posts a few weeks ago, Adobe released the 1.4 update and then recalled it. Personally, it worked fine for me and I ran into lots of people that left it as is and never uninstalled the 1.4 update and things continued to work fine. But I know lots of folks that it didn’t work with as well. That said, whether you did or didn’t install it back then, it is back up again. It probably wouldn’t hurt to wait a few days before downloading it though
However, if you’re the kind that can’t wait, please post a comment with your findings here on whether things are still running ok. Thanks!

- Here’s the link for Mac users
- Here’s the link for PC users

Friday Video Tip

Happy Friday folks! I’ve actually got the day off since my kids are on spring break this week but I’ve got a quick video tip for you anyway.

At first glance there doesn’t look like a way to save your slideshows into a format that you can send to some one. If you look a little further you’ll see you can indeed export them though. It exports the whole slideshow into a PDF Presentation (much like Photoshop’s PDF presentation automation). However, it won’t include any music tracks you’ve added in Lightroom. Well there’s a workaround if you’ve got Acrobat Professional. You can go in after the fact and embed the music to the presentation and get close to the same effect. Make sure you watch the video and leave a comment if you’ve got any ideas on how to take what I showed even further. I’m always amazed at what you guys come up with.

Anyway, I hope you have a great weekend. I’m tackling crown moulding in my living room this morning, which is sure to be loads of fun . Then we’re hitting Busch Gardens this afternoon. Finally, I’m teaching a whole day hands-on class on Saturday in Sarasota, FL at the Digital Technology Centre so make sure you come by and say hi if you’re around. See ya!

Click here to watch the video. (16Mb)