Video – Jagged ID Plates and Printing

This week’s video is on a topic that’s bit weird – jagged Identity Plates. See, if you’ve never tried to import a custom identity plate graphic into Lightroom then you’ve probably never had this problem. But if you have then you’re probably about ready to shoot somebody. Just about every time I try to use a custom graphic in the Print module as an Identity Plate it comes up jagged on the page. Notice I said “just about”. That’s because sometimes it doesn’t. Until now, there was no rhyme nor reason to it but, with some help, I think we’ve figured out a way to get around this issue so you can create some pretty cool print design right inside of Lightroom.

Click here to download the video

Q&A Day

As you know I get lots of questions through the comments here on the site so I’m picking off a few from the list to answer. Here goes:

Q) After removing the beta profiles, I see profiles for Camera D2X Mode 1,2, 3 (for Nikon only) and standard Camera profiles like Landscape, Neutral, Portrait etc. I use Nikon D90. Should camera profiles for D90 appear instead of the D2X? Or should I use standard Camera profiles like Landscape, Neutral, Portrait?

A) Yeah, this one is weird. Although the profiles are called D2X they’re actually profiles for all Nikon cameras. Honestly, I don’t really get it. But I kinda like the D2X Mode 3 profile personally and use it often. So regardless of what camera you have, don’t be alarmed that the D2X profiles show up. Unless you own a D2X you won’t see any profiles with your specific camera name.

Q) Those Camera Profiles are a neat feature in LR2.2 , but what about the two newer Canon styles released recently to improve skin tones…called P-Studio and P-Snapshot – I don’t see these?

A) From what I can see from Canon’s website, these profiles appear to be Extended function styles. There are no Lightroom equivalent profiles available for them like there are the other Canon picture styles.

Q) Is there a way to password-protect a Lightroom catalog? What I’d like is when I open LR and select a catalog, a dialogue box with a password would come up to get into it.

A) Nope. Not a bad idea though.

Q) I downloaded your print presets but I am not able to install them to my develop module?
-or-
When I try to install your print presets I get the error “The Preset File was the wrong type of preset”?

A) This means you broke Lightroom for good Just kidding. I get this question every single time I release a print preset. Probably because I usually release Develop presets and folks are used to installing them in the Develop module. First off, you can’t install any print presets into the Develop module. They are for the Print module only. If you ever get the error message listed above, it just means you were in the Develop module (or Web or Slideshow) when you installed them and not the Print module. So double check which module you’re in before you try to install the print presets.

Presets – Updated Auto Fix Preset with Profiles

Hi everyone. A while back I released an Auto Enhance preset and, to my surprise, a lot of folks out there are just as lazy as me and it turned out to be pretty popular Honestly, it’s not really laziness. It’s just that I found myself making the same adjustments over and over again and the Auto Tone settings in Lightroom coupled with some of the Vibrance, Clarity and Vignetting settings that I always use made it a perfect candidate for an auto preset to apply in the Import dialog. Well, I’ve gone and updated the preset to include 1) The new camera profiles and, 2) Better edge darkening the with the Post-Crop Vignette sliders.

So here’s the deal. First, they’re only for Nikon and Canon. Next, the preset turns on the Auto Tone setting in Lightroom and it’s just like clicking on Auto at the top of the Develop module panels. However, it also includes some Clarity and Vibrance changes in addition to the edge darkening. That stuff stays the same for ALL of them. What does change is the camera profile that is applied, which is why there’s a bunch of Auto presets. They’re intended to be used as you’re importing your photos into Lightroom. If your particular shoot was a portrait session and you’re fond of the Nikon “Camera Portrait” profile then choose the “Auto Enhance – Portrait (Nikon)” preset. If you were on a landscape shoot then try the “Auto Enhance – Landscape (Nikon)” preset or even the vivid one. If you shot a portrait with a great landscape behind it, well, you’re outta luck Actually, it kind of relies on you at least knowing which profiles you’ve become fond of because you’ll need to decide which to apply on import. Remember, if you pick the wrong one you can always change it. And don’t forget, I’ve got a video from way back called “Applying Edits to Multiple Photos” that shows you how to change a bunch of photos all at once so it’s not that big of a deal to choose the wrong one to start. Thanks and I hope you like ‘em.

•Click here to download Matt’s Auto Enhance Presets for Nikon Profiles

•Click here to download Matt’s Auto Enhance Presets for Canon Profiles

•Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

Tip – Lightroom PSDs and Drive Space

I’m going back nearly a year and pulling an oldie-but-goodie tip. The reason is because I’m not so good about following my own tips so I figured a few of you may have forgotten about this one too. It’s the tip about deleting your old PSD files. I sat down to clear some drive space today and used my own tip and I wound up getting rid of 1.2 Gig. Apparently I hadn’t done this in a while
Now, I’ll admit it’s gotten a lot better since Lightroom 2 came out. In Lightroom 1, it automatically created a PSD file as soon as you went into Lightroom, regardless of whether you saved it or not in Photoshop. In Lightroom 2, you’ve actually got to save the file. But I still end up saving a lot of PSD files that I don’t really need, hence the 1.2 gig of space taken up by them. So here’s the tip (updated for Lightroom 2):

1) Go to the Library module and click on All Photographs under the Catalog panel on the left hand side to view all of your photos.

2) Now hit the \ (backslash) key to show the Filter Bar.

3) Click on the Metadata Filter at the top.

4) If you don’t see File Type as an option to filter by at the top (and you probably won’t) hover over one of the options you do see (like “Camera” or “Date”), click on it and choose File Type near the top of the list.

5) Now click on the “Photoshop Document (PSD)” and you’ll filter Lightroom to only show the PSD files.

6) Select the PSDs that you don’t need anymore by Ctrl/Cmd – clicking on them.

7) Hit the Delete key to delete those photos. If Lightroom asks if you want to remove them from the library or delete from your hard drive go ahead and choose the Delete from Drive option.

As I mentioned, I got rid of about 1.2 gig by doing this. I realize a lot of my PSDs probably come from doing a lot of demos, but I’d still bet you’ll free up a decent amount of hard drive space from getting rid of PSDs that you don’t need anymore. In fact, I think it’d by cool to see how much space you save so leave a comment and let us know how much you free up.

Have a great weekend!