Video – Lightroom and Photoshop Automation

Last week at Photoshop World in Boston, I taught a class on Lightroom/Photoshop integration. The class went over really well and I think it gave people a good look at why and when you’d go between the two programs. Well, during the class a did a tutorial on how to automate Lightroom with a Photoshop action and a Droplet. Now there’s two things you should know about this technique: 1) It’s really cool, and 2) I totally screwed it up during class and missed a tiny step. So I came back home and naturally had to 1) Figure out where I messed it up and, 2) Do a video of the technique to regain my confidence back

Anyway, if you were at the show and saw me mess up, then you’ll get to see this run flawlessly. And if you weren’t at Photoshop World, then you’ll get to see it run flawlessly, all the while never knowing the humiliation I suffered last Friday. Enjoy!

Click here to download the Video

Presets – Vintage New York Look

Happy Monday! I’m heading up to Boston this week to teach at Photoshop World (and the first ever Lightroom Conference at Photoshop World) but I wanted to add a preset here that I’ve been updating. A while back, I released a Vintage New York styled preset. Well, I was working on another effect this week and I realized that it looked very similar to the one I just mentioned. However, after a couple of tweaks I liked this one better so I’ve updated it. You can keep both or delete the old one and just use this one. Either way, I think it’s a cool effect. It’s primarily geared toward portraits. One thing you’ll notice if you look at the settings after you apply it, is that I bumped up the Orange and Yellows in the HSL panel to bring back some life to the skin. As I mentioned earlier, this is mainly geared towards portraits but give it a try on other types of photos as I’ve gotten some really fantastic results.

• See the Before/After view of the presets here
• Download the presets here.
• Click here to see a video on how to install presets .

Video – Auto Advancing Your Photos

This time around we’re going to look at a small setting that makes a big difference in the Library module. It’s called Auto Advance and it makes sorting through your photos work a little bit more like you’d think it should. In a nutshell, the setting automatically moves you to the next photo in the Library module once you apply some sort of rating or flat to it. It’s easy to turn on and I think once you’ve used it for a while you’ll wonder how you ever did without it. Enjoy!

Click here to download the Video

Presets – Polo / Ralph Lauren Style

Hey there! I got some inspiration for this preset while looking through a magazine this past weekend. I saw a Ralph Lauren/Polo ad and I noticed their photos have a very distinct look to them. As always, I made it my mission to recreate the effect and I think I got pretty darn close. As you’ll see, it’s got a hint of green to it with a slightly desaturated look. I tried it out on some actual polo sport photos but I also tried it on some wedding photos and it had a very neat look to it. It’s worth mentioning that it seems to work best on brighter photos, so darker sunset photos or photos taken indoors probably won’t look as good. But give it a try and let me know what you think. Thanks!

Click here to see a sample of the Polo/Ralph Lauren Preset preset.
Click here to download Matt’s Polo Preset
Click here to see a video on how to install presets .

Tip – Previously Viewed Folders and Collections

Moving around in your folders and collections is pretty easy when you’re in the Library mode. You’ve got those two panels on the left hand side that you can get at right away. But when you’re in the Develop module how do you get to another folder or collection easily. I hear a lot of complaints on this one but there is a way (well kinda). In the small black bar above your filmstrip you’ll see the path to your photos. Right next to it is a small down facing arrow (see below).

If you click on that arrow, Lightroom will pop up with a list of your recently viewed folders and collections (all the more reason to use collections more). Just select the folder from the list and it’ll show you those photos but keep you in the module that you’re in. It’s a big time saver and may keep you from having to bounce back and forth between Develop and Library a bunch of times.

That’s it for this week. Have a wonderful weekend.

New Nikon DTown TV is Up!

Our 3rd DTown TV show is up today. This week we cover color spaces and which one to set your camera to as well as the Info panel on the back of the camera and how best to use it. We also take a look at the battery grips you can pick up for certain cameras and why they’re useful. OK, so here’s your marching orders for the day:

1) Head over and watch the new show if you’re into that kinda thing.
2) Then scroll down and read today’s “Worth-a-click” post.
3) Don’t leave any comments about how I shouldn’t post anything about DTown TV on this site. It won’t do any good, I’ll ignore them and I’m still gonna post about it (check the comments too – I elaborated on this a bit)

Here’s a link to DTownTV.com.

Weekly Worth-a-click

Here’s a few things that I found worth a quick visit this week.

• Sean McCormack’s LRB Portfolio plug-in for Lightroom has been updated to version 2.0. Check it out here.

• Bogen Imaging has an free online webinar on Friday March 13 called The Language of One Light: Roundtable with Will Crockett. It definitely looks worth watching if you can make it.

• My favorite web gallery plug-in for Lightroom, SlideShowPro, has been updated to version 1.4. If you haven’t seen this one yet then at least take a look at their website. It’s got one of the neatest looking web galleries for Lightroom that I’ve seen to date.

• My fellow Photoshop Guy (and Layers TV star), RC, has some brand new courses up on Kelby Training. They’re geared toward the web and getting your work up online so stop by and watch a few of the samples if you get a chance.

• I mentioned this one on Photoshop TV last week but I know a) Not all of you watch the show, b) most of you don’t watch it all the way through anyway and skip to just the tutorials (hey that’s cool!), and c) even if you do watch it all the way through, you’re probably so sick of hearing us talk that you don’t catch all the links (again, that’s totally cool ). Well if you missed this one, then it’s definitely worth checking out www.BlogsOfPhotogs.com. They showcase various photography blogs, so it’s not just pointing you to one blog, it’s pointing you to a whole bunch of ‘em.

That’s it for today. See ya! Bye! Adiós!

Plug-in Review – Nik's Viveza for Lightroom

Plug-ins are getting really popular these days. I see this all the time in comments, forums, and questions from people I meet. Everyone asks about plug-ins lately. Now, since more and more of them seem to be integrated with Lightroom I figured I’d start picking away at some of the popular ones and doing a quick review on them. There’s also a quick 2-minute video demo but I had a couple problems with the video. As soon as I sort them out, I’ll post the video so check back later in the morning.

This time around we’ll take a look at the newest LR plug-in: Nik Software’s Viveza Plug-in for Lightroom 2. It was just announced last week and already has a lot of chatter around the industry. First off, I’m a big fan of Nik’s filters. True story: when I had to wipe out my laptop a couple months back and reinstall everything from scratch, Nik’s plug-ins were one the first things I installed after installing Photoshop. The Viveza plug-in has been on my favorite list for a while and I think it’s actually one of the easiest plug-ins to use too. Okay, now on to the review.

Who
As I mentioned, this one comes to us from Nik Software. Nik Software makes a lot of other popular plug-ins like Silver Efex Pro (for black and whites), Color Efex (for special effects), and Dfine (for noise removal). They also make Capture NX – the full photo editing program.

What?
Nik’s Viveza is a plug-in that’s extremely simplistic in nature. If you think about it, what are the two biggest keys to your photos besides the subject? Color and light. Viveza let’s you drop these little control points (dots) on to parts of your photo. Then you control how big of an area they affect. Finally, you can increase the brightness, contrast or enhance color of whatever you dropped the control point on.

How?
Viveza uses something called U Point Technology. The idea behind it is that you don’t have to worry about selections or masks (things that typically take the most time in Photoshop). You simply drop the control point on to an area in the photo and then selectively control that color or tone in the photo without affecting everything else. In practice, I’ve found it works very well and most of the time it saves me a lot of hassle. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect though. I have seen some spill over from the control point area into surrounding areas but it’s always been minimal in the photos I’ve used it for. All in all, I’ve been really happy with it when I need it.

Why?
There’s a few reasons you’d look at a plug-in like Viveza.
• The main one is time. Using the photo above, if you wanted to brighten the brides dress you’d simply drop a control point on it and increase the Brightness setting. You don’t have to select or create any sort of mask to do this. And you don’t have to worry about using the Adjustment Brush tool in Lightroom (or Camera Raw) to brush in a small area to brighten it without affecting everything else.
• The other reason a lot of folks like Viveza is because it has a significantly easier learning curve vs. Photoshop and/or Lightroom. Not everyone who works on photo is a Photoshop wiz. With a plug-in like Viveza, you can easily show an assistant how to enhance the brightness or color of one part of a photo, without teaching them the nitty gritty details of Photoshop or Lightroom.

How Much?
If you already own Viveza, then the Lightroom plug-in upgrade is free. If not, Viveza runs about $250. It’s a little steep, I know. I’ll be the first to say it because I know somebody reading will As a professional photographer, I can tell you that you WILL make your money back. Think of it this way. Say Viveza saves you 5 minutes per image in time of brushing and masking in LR or PS (and I think it easily saves you that much). Then after 60 images you’ll have paid for the product (I’m assuming a $50/hour rate). If you’re not a pro photographer or making money from your photography then you’ll need to figure out if it’s right for you and your budget. If making great photos is a passionate hobby, but you don’t necessarily enjoy the tedious selecting and editing process, then Viveza may enhance your enjoyment of photography and post-processing. Again, that one’s up to you.

EDIT: Holy Crap! I just realized late this morning, there’s a NAPP member discount running until March 16. You’ll save $100 off the price of Viveza so that takes it down to $150. I still think the collection (mentioned below) is the best deal though.

One more thing about cost. Viveza will run you $250. However, you can get the entire Nik LIGHTROOM collection (Color Efex Pro, Dfine, Silver Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro and Viveza) for $299. The key here is it’s for LR only, not the Photoshop plug-ins. Not bad for an extra $50 though.

The Verdict
The Good: I really like that Viveza integrates seamlessly with Lightroom now. No longer do I have to go into Photoshop just to go into Viveza. Now I can go straight there from Lightroom.

The Bad: One of my biggest hang-ups with the plug-in isn’t really with Nik’s software, but with plug-ins in general when it comes to Lightroom. See, they all basically open a separate program (all plug-ins, not just Nik). I’m really looking forward to the day when plug-ins make me feel like I’m still in Lightroom. Now, to be fair, this isn’t Nik’s fault at all and any plug-in I’d review would get the same comment. But I really want my LR plug-ins to use the Lightroom interface and not make me “feel” like I’ve entered into a totally different program.

Here’s the deal. I think Viveza rocks but don’t take my word for it. Download a free demo. I tell every one that asks me about plug-ins that all companies offer a free trial. So use it. Try it out. If you like it, you’ll be hooked and it’ll be some of the best money you’ve spent in a while. If you don’t find yourself using it a lot during the trial, then you just saved yourself 250 bucks.

Click here to download the video

Video – Stripping the Metadata from Your Photos

What’s really great about this website is that I get to share my experiences of teaching Lightroom (and the questions asked) with all of you even if you can’t be there. Today’s video is one of those cases where I wrote down a question last time I taught Lightroom that I heard multiple people ask through out the day. What they were looking for is an easy way to strip the metadata (typically the EXIF data) from the photos that they send to a client or post on to the web. They simply didn’t want others to be able to see the aperture, shutter speed, ISO, lens, etc… that were used for the photo. Well, Lightroom has a feature that does just that and we’ll take a look at it in this video.

Click here to download the Video

New D-Town TV Show is Up

I’ve got a video tip coming later today but I wanted to make a quick (late) post. We got a lot of great feedback from our first D-Town TV show last week and now Episode 2 is up. This week we cover a very slick zoom tip on the back of your camera, some HDR shooting tips, and the real deal when it comes to using your VR (Vibration Reduction) lenses. Make sure you stop by and check out the new show.

Here’s a link to DTownTV.com.

And don’t forget to stop by later on Friday for a video tip as well.