Tip – Quickly Changing Folders in Develop

Happy Friday everyone. Here’s a quick tip. If you’re developing your photos and you want to quickly switch to another folder or collection, I’ve seen a lot of people go back to the Library module to select it. They then click the folder or collection, then find the photo, then go back into the Develop module. That’s a huge pain, right? Well, below the toolbar but above the Filmstrip (at the bottom) is a small filter area. In this area is a path that shows you what folder and photos you’re looking at. Next to it, on the right, is a small down-facing arrow. If you click on it you’ll see a list of recent folders and collections that you’ve viewed. Click here to see a graphic of what I’m talking about. Then just choose the folder or collection you want to jump to and Lightroom will take you there without leaving the Develop module. Pretty nifty huh?

Well, I hope you have a great weekend. My wife is at an out-of-town wedding this weekend so I’m Mr. Mom for 3 days. I hope my kids are ready for delivery pizza, microwaved chicken nuggets, and ice cream all weekend cause that’s about the best I can do See ya!

Worth-a-click

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

• I get asked a lot about Lightroom and Capture NX. I thought this article summed up some pretty good points on the topic, especially when it comes to working with large amounts of photos.

• My World Wide Photowalk Page is up and I’ll be doing my photowalk in Safety Harbor, FL. If you live in the Tampa area then be sure to sign up.

• The Turning Gate has a new Lightroom web gallery (TTG Highslide) that looks pretty cool. It’s got a client proofing mode as well as a slideshow mode in it. Check it out here.

• An interesting read over at the Lightroom Secrets website on single/multiple catalogs.

• My new HDR DVD is out. It covers mostly HDR but there’s some Lightroom integration/workflow included on it as well. Again, most of it is Photomatix and the HDR process. Here’s the link.
NOTE: The DVD is the same as my online training course at KelbyTraining.com

• For some inspiration for the day, check out Jeremy Cowart Photography. He’s an entertainment, travel, and portrait photographer and I think you’ll enjoy looking through his work. I liked everything I saw there, but the Music category really caught my eye.

Tip – Grid Thumbnail Sizes

Here’s a quick and dirty tip to close out the week with. Sadly, after over 2 years of using Lightroom, I just found this one this past week. Anyway, here it is. You know when you’re in the Library module and you’re looking through your photos using the Grid view (just press G). Well, if you want to increase or decrease the size of the thumbnail you see just press the + or – keys (plus or minus). That’s it. Nothing earth shattering but trust me, you’ll use it more then you think. Enjoy folks and if you’re in the US ,have a great/safe Memorial Day weekend.

Q&A Day

Hey everyone! Here’s another Q&A day for ya.

Q. Matt, is it true you’re twittering? Please say its not!
A. Yes, it’s true. So when I start putting @ signs in front of everything and typing RT (which really means I have nothing new to say so I’m taking what some one else has said instead) don’t be surprised. I don’t know why yet, and frankly, I still don’t fully know all the “how” behind it either. I haven’t settled into what I’m going to twitter about yet, but if you want to follow me go to twitter.com/mattkloskowski. It should at least be interesting to see what develops from it and I’m open to twitter ideas. Thanks @MattKloskowski (I feel so trendy now!).

Q. How do you zoom in and out of your photos quickly like you did in your video?
A. By pressing Cmd/Ctrl + or – (minus). If you look up near the Navigator Panel on the top left side of Lightroom you’ll see Fit, Fill, 1:1 and something else. Cmd + will zoom in to each of these levels each time you press it. Throw the minus key in there to zoom back out.

Q. In your Before/After video the other day the file you edited and returned from Photoshop was a TIFF file. Any reason you use a TIFF and not PSD?
A. Nope. I prefer PSD actually. I got a new computer and forgot to set my preferences back to PSD. Just go to your Lightroom preferences, choose the External Editing tab, and select PSD as File Format.

Q. The Before/After videos you did go into Photoshop with that Smart Object “thing”. Will that work with Photoshop Elements?
A. No, Elements doesn’t really have smart objects the same way that the full version of Photoshop does. You’d basically have to go Edit in Elements once. Then go back to Lightroom and make your changes and Edit in Elements again. Then combine the two layers into one document. Sounds like a good idea for a tutorial so I’ll be sure to whip one up soon.

Q. Matt, will you be with Scott at any of his Lightroom tours this month?
A. Unfortunately no. I don’t like traveling with Scott. He’s got these weird quirks like he can only sit in even numbered rows on the plane and seats with the letter C. He insists his water be chilled to 72 degrees F at restaurants and things like that
I’m totally just kidding by the way. We have a great time traveling together but I won’t be there. However, I will be teaching the same Lightroom tour in Chicago on July 20 and New York City on July 22. Check out Kelbytraininglive.com for more info.

Q. Matt, any tips on making a quick selection when the subject is not so contrasty against the background?
A. Hey, this is a Lightroom Q&A but I’ll answer it anyway because I get this question a lot Basically, over the years I’ve found that folks want a magic way to make a complex selection. There is none. Prepare to spend some time if you’ve got a complex selection to make and the area you want selected doesn’t have a lot of contrast from the background. Now there are things to help with this (Quick Mask, Channels, etc…) but you’re still going to spend some time on it and it ain’t fun time either. There’s third party plug-ins which help, but they still take time and require lots of input from you. Some training to help out on the topic:
- Scott Kelby’s Channels Book (Channels haven’t changed one bit in years so it’s still relavant)
- Katrin Eismann’s Masking and Compositing book
- Dave Cross’ Photoshop Selections DVD over at Kelbytraining.com

That’s it for this round of Q&A’s. Thanks!

Presets – Summer Haze 2

I’m bringing back the summer haze preset from last year with a few changes. I know it’s not technically summer yet but Memorial Day is here in the US and, ever since I was a kid, that signifies “summer is here” (and if you live in Florida like I do, the torrential rain we’ve had every day for the last few days should already have you in that summery mood).

This was one of my favorite presets from last year. Its just a really cool effect to get that summery, warm, hazy feeling in a photo. The preset adjusts the white balance, Vibrance, Saturation, and Split Toning sliders. I even tossed in a bit of a Tone Curve adjustment on it in the Shadows since the other settings seemed to muddy the photo up a bit, and I thought it needed some more blacks to bring back the contrast. It works great on fun-styled outdoor portraits and even makes a pretty nifty wedding effect. Enjoy!

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

Video – Lightroom Before and After (Portrait)

I’ve got another before/after video for you this week. First off, you can watch the video in the player directly on the site but I also put a link to this one at the bottom of this post if you want to download a full size version of the video. I just thought this one needs to be seen a little larger. Back to the video – the response to the last before/after video was pretty overwhelming (nearly 200 comments) so I kinda picked up on the fact that you guys like before/afters. This time I picked a portrait instead of a landscape photo and I think it presents some interesting challenges of things we can/can’t do in Lightroom. Of course we’ll be jumping into Photoshop as well, for some filters and selections. Enjoy!

Click here to download the Video

Click here to download the Full-Res Video

Weekly Worth-a-click

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

• Nik Software Announces Sharpener Pro 3.0 Update for Lightroom 2.

• Spend an evening with Terry White from Adobe! I can tell you, there’s no man I’d rather spend an evening with Actually, the evening has already been spent a couple weeks ago when Terry was teaching Lightroom 2 workflow. But you can re-spend it by watching it online if you missed it. Here’s the link.

• Still looking for a quick easy way to learn Lightroom 2. If you like reading then Scott Kelby’s Lightroom 2 book is the best-selling Lightroom book out there. And if you like DVDs then check out my Lightroom 2 In Depth (3 Disc set) – it’s also available in an online training course. We both have similar feelings for workflow in Lightroom and it comes down to whichever way you prefer to learn.

• Michael Clark (from Michael Clark Photography and Lightroom eBook author) has released his Spring 2009 newsletter. It’s definitely worth checking out.

http://michaelclarkphoto.blogspot.com/2009/04/spring-2009-newsletter.html

• Get $25 off Lightroom 2 when you buy over at Adobe’s store.

• For some inspiration…check out the blog of Bernadette Uzcategui. She’s got a lot of fun cool photography and I really enjoyed just looking through her stuff.

Have a great Tuesday folks!

Q&A Day

Hi folks. Here’s another quick round of Q&A’s.

Q. Is there a way to add music to a web gallery created in Lightroom’s Web module?
A. Nope, you can’t add music to a web gallery. Thankfully. But the more important question is why do you want to? I’m sorry to be the one to break this to ya’, but nobody likes a web page that automatically plays music. It’s horribly intrusive and I’ve never met anyone that auto-music in a web page doesn’t incite anger and rage in them. I’m just sayin’

Q. Can I resize my image in Lightroom without exporting?
A. No. You can crop to a specific dimension but you can’t resize. Actually, you don’t really want to resize your original in LR. Remember, the images you look at in LR are your negatives. They’re your original source files. You’d never do permanent damage to your negatives back in the film days and the same goes here. If you need to resize then go to File > Export and do it there.

Q. Can I apply a frame inside of LR?
A. There’s are some fake ways to do it with identity plates. Sean McCormack has a video on it over at his blog. Honestly, none of the “workarounds” with identity plates are really that great though. I mean, they word but in the end, they’re just workarounds and you’re probably not going to fall in love with the results. However, onOneSoftware’s PhotoFrame plugs directly into Lightroom so you can go from LR into PhotoFrame to add the frame and then back seamlessly. It’s really your best alternative unless you want to go into Photoshop.

Q. Should I break up my libraries into multiple catalogs?
A. Personally, I create a catalog for my “work” related stuff and one catalog for my “personal” photos. Honestly though, I don’t even always follow it because it’s just easier to store everything in one catalog. I also know a lot of wedding photographers that create a new catalog for each wedding and store that catalog with the wedding photos. That’s about it though. I don’t know of many other reasons to add the complexity of multiple catalogs. One thing to keep in mind with multiple catalogs is that you can’t search across them. Plus it’s just more hassle to manage. So if you’ve got a reason to create multiple catalogs then go for it. For me, it just complicates things and I’m a member of the keep it simple club.

Q. How about an easy tutorial on how to pick a White point and a Black point in Lightroom? Please.
A. Well, since you said “please” Here goes. There is no way to set the white and black point like you’re used to in Photoshop’s Levels adjustment (or Capture NX’s double threshold feature). There are no white/black point eyedroppers. You can, however, hold down the Alt/Option key when adjusting Exposure and Blacks. This shows you which areas begin to clip so you can adjust the white (Exposure) and black (Blacks) sliders accordingly. However, those two adjustments have nothing to do with color so you’re not color correcting anything when you move them. That’s what the white balance settings and eyedropper are for.

Thanks for reading! Keep the questions coming.

Relaunch and Optimize Your Catalog Today

I hope you had a great weekend. I just wanted to say a quick thanks for all of the great comments on Friday’s video post. I’ll definitely be mixing some of the Before/After videos here on the site. I’ve also decided to create (and already started working on) a “Lightroom/Photoshop Before and After” class and DVD for Kelby Training. I’ll keep you updated on the progress.

Anyway, on to the topic of today’s post. I was poking through the Catalog settings menu in Lightroom and realized I hadn’t optimized my catalog in a while. Adobe recommends optimizing when your catalog grows in size. What size you ask? No one really knows but I use 10,000 as a good number. It’s not big in terms of how big catalogs can grow, but it’s still a substantial number of photos. I usually optimize after I’ve imported a lot of photos (thousands) and also deleted a lot of photos. Lately, I’ve been doing some catalog maintenance (importing older photos and deleting a lot too) so I figured it was a good time to try it again. I can’t say that Lightroom was completely sluggish before I did it but I remember thinking to myself a few times that things should be happening a little faster. After I optimized it did seem like things moved a little zippier (I love that word!) then usual.

So give it a try when you have a few minutes today. For all of you number-crunching techie folks out there, I’ve not found statistics on exactly what percentage of optimization or zippiness (there’s that word again) you’ll get from it but it can’t hurt to try it out. Remember that at it’s core, Lightroom’s catalog is like a database file (let the snoring begin). And databases consistently need to be optimized and things moved around once in a while to help them perform better. So that’s pretty much the same deal here.

To optimize, go to your Catalog Settings dialog (Lightroom menu on a Mac and Edit menu on a PC). Go under the General tab and click the Relaunch and Optimize button at the bottom. Mine took about 5 minutes for a catalog with around 20,000 images in it so go grab yourself a cup of coffee (or coke zero) when you do it.

Video – Before and After Photos

Ask and you shall receive they say right? This week’s video is going to take you through the editing process of a couple of Moab photos I posted last week. Some of you posted (in the comments) that you’d like to see where the photo started and what settings I applied to them. Personally, I love before/afters so this was really a fun one for me to do. So enjoy, leave a comment to let me know what you think, happy Friday, have a great weekend, and all that other stuff

Click here to download the Video