Lightroom 2.4 (and Camera Raw 5.4) Available

Happy Wednesday folks. I’m on my way out to San Jose, CA to visit the mother ship (Adobe HQ). But I wanted to let you know that the Lightroom 2.4 update is out (and Camera Raw 5.4). Its mainly a camera update (D5000 support woo hoo!!!) but there’s some minor bug fixes as well. Check out Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty’s blog for more details and visit the link below to download the updates.

Click here to go to Adobe’s Update page.

Video – Before/After

Happy Monday folks. I hope all the dads out there had a nice Fathers Day yesterday. I know I did. Its been about 150 degrees F here in Florida lately (well, it feels like it at least) so I spent the day in the pool with the kids. Anyway, today I prepared another Before/After video. It uses a lot of the same techniques as before and I thought about redoing it with another photo after I finished. Then I realized… but this is real. I use these same techniques all the time so why go and fish for another photo just to show you something different (and that I probably don’t run into as much). I know its got a few different angles on things in it, but more importantly I think it should start showing you that the toolset we use between Photoshop and Lightroom can be very simple. Enjoy!

Click here to download the Video

Click here to download the Full-Res Video

Is it wrong to steal Lightroom presets?

Whew! Who knew an innocent tool from a talented guy would incite a discussion like we had the other day. I held back from posting so I could respond here with my thoughts. Before we get to it, a couple of things:
1) I was extremely impressed with the quality of comments. Its definitely a touchy subject and very important to some people. For the most part (yes there were some meanies who had to resort to name calling), the comments were all in good faith and people were respectful of each other (which is hard to find in this online world of anonymity).
2) What you’re about to read below will definitely incite some equally heated comments. All I ask is that you keep them respectful – whatever your opinion is fine. Just be respectful to each other (oh and to me too). Cool? Thanks!

First off, I feel for Mike WiacekI feel for Mike. He created a cool program that did something really neat. Over 2000 people downloaded on that first day. One person from another country complained and threatened legal action. Mike, not knowing the legalities of lawsuits coming from that country, decided to take his tool down. I don’t blame him. The threat of legal action from some one in another country sounds scary. I’m no legal expert by any means, but I’m pretty sure he’s OK and has nothing to worry about so I hope he puts it back up. But that doesn’t change the real debate here because, regardless of country of residence, there seems to be a fundamental difference of opinion here of whether or not this “preset lifting” is right or not. So I’m leaving legalities out of it (since I don’t really know what’s right or wrong here) and just concentrating on the artistic/ethical issue of whether this is right or wrong.

Just look at the drug companiesPage (one of the commenters from the post in question), brought up a great point. Just look at some of the medicines in the drug stores. Advil, Nyquil, Sudafed, etc… all of them have generic equivalents that you can pick up at Walmart. Same ingredients with a different name. Advil makers can’t do a thing about the WalMart-Vil equivalent of their product. They can’t copyright or own 150mg of Propylparaben in their drug (or any combination of ingredients) just like you can’t copyright or own f/2.8 at 1/250th or a Vibrance setting of 35 (or any combination of develop settings).

Lets move to an art exampleLets say I create a piece of fine art with various woods and plastics. You know, the kind you see in a fancy art museum or gallery with a price tag of $45K that no one would ever buy What tools did the artist use to create that art? Take the illegal mind altering substances out of the equation and you’re left with maybe a hammer, glue, maybe a miter saw, screwdriver, drill, and other various tools. Can they declare that they own a 45 degree setting with a 9 degree bevel of the miter saw since that’s the setting they used to create the art? Can they own 8 turns of a phillips head screwdriver because that’s what they used? Its silly to even think about right?

Now, lets keep it simple when it comes to a photography exampleOK, lets break this down to a really simple example. Lets take 3 settings – Aperture, shutter speed and focal length. Those 3 settings are included in the metadata of a photo right? Now lets say I take a photo at Mesa Arch in Utah. You know, one of the ones with the sun rising through the arch that I posted a while back (and a photo that tens of thousands of people have likely taken while standing in the same spot). Then I post that photo on Flickr (or any website).

Now you look at my metadata and find that I shot it at f/22 with a 1/10 of a second shutter speed, at 17mm using my Nikon 17-55mm lens. You take your Nikon camera, your 17-55mm lens and set up exactly where I did and shoot the same photo at f/22 with a shutter speed at 1/10 of a second at 17mm. Did you break any laws? Nope. Artistically or ethically, have you done anything wrong? Heck no! So why when you add a Vibrance setting to the metadata or a Contrast slider setting does it become a problem? There is no governing body that states that I can copy your shutter speed and aperture setting but I can’t copy your Vibrance setting. They’re all part of the metadata and as far as legalities are concerned, I don’t think the law can/will discern between the two.

Does knowing my settings make your photos great?Its funny this came up because Scott Kelby and I had a discussion the other week about a question we get a lot. Somebody will see a portrait or a photo that one of us has taken and say “Hey, that’s a great photo. What was your shutter speed and aperture setting for that photo?”. Its almost as if they think knowing that information will make their portraits better. If I take a photo of my cute kid outdoors at a park at f/8 and 1/250 of a second, it doesn’t mean that if you take a photo of your kid at a park using the same settings yours will be just as good. There’s the light, the time of day, the location (under a tree or not), the lens, the distance the child is from me, the expression, and a number of other things that contribute to my photo being good. Just because you copy my settings doesn’t mean you have a great photo.

Here’s another example. I give away free presets on this site all the time. Just because you apply my presets (which look good on my photos), to your photos doesn’t mean they’re going to be great. There’s still a lot of things that need to happen for your photo to be great.

Good isn’t GreatOne commenter wrote: “Am I alone in believing, with all the presets, EXIF rippers, digital editing programs in general, that it no longer takes much talent to be a photographer?”. Come on! Seriously? Do you really think talent is no longer required?

Things get better, easier, faster and with better quality all the time. Its easier to be a good photographer today then it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, it was easier to be a good photographer then it was 10 years before that. But good isn’t great. And great is what counts in just about any field. Can anyone look at a portrait and copy its settings and add them to their own photos. Of course. Does it mean they’ll have a great photo. Of course not. They still need a great subject, shot in great light with spot-on exposure settings and with great quality equipment. Remember, good isn’t great. While technology (like Mike’s preset extractor) makes it easier to be a photographer with nice photos (honestly, this happens in just about every other profession and hobby out there), it also ups the bar. The great ones will always be great because they’ll find a way to make it work.

Get over it!Sorry, but I’m going to close this by saying get used to it and get over it. Regardless of whether photography is just a hobby or you’re a pro, worrying about your develop settings ain’t gonna help. You’re going to need something more then your precious Develop settings. Whether you like it or not, your effect/style will be copied and shown to the masses if its a good one. Dare I say that you should be so lucky to have people care about your work that much to copy its style. In a way, its the ultimate form of flattery. That doesn’t mean they can copy your photos from your site onto theirs and claim them as their own. That’s stealing and illegal. But copying your style and your recipe is not. Its what sets the bar higher and higher and forces us to get better and better.

In the end, you can’t copyright and own Vibrance=15, Clarity=52, Temp=6750. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

Note: Remember. Before you click the Submit button on your comment take a deep breath. Read it again and make sure you’re not a meanie.

Lightroom Flickr Preset Extractor

Mike Wiacek wrote a little program that extracts a Lightroom preset from a Flickr photo. Basically, if you see a Flickr photo you like, you can try out the Preset Extractor to create a Lightroom preset of the effect. The extractor looks at the metadata and tries to reverse engineer it into a preset. Of course it only works if people don’t strip the EXIF data from their photos before posting them and it only seems to work with the latest versions of Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw. Here’s the link. Stop by and give it a try.

Worth-a-click

Here’s a few links worth checking out while you’re web surfing today:

• Scott Eccleston over at Weekly Photo Tips featured me in a Q&A.

• Tim Armes has a new plug-in that exports your photos and preserves the folder hierarchy during the export for the new images.

• Cool product of the day alert. I haven’t tried the Eye-Fi memory cardsout yet but I think I’m going to have to. Wireless transmitting of photos to your computer has got to be cool!

• Sean McCormack over at the Lightroom Blog has released a couple of plug-ins that export photos to your Twitter.com account. One is called LR2TweetPhoto and the other is LR2Tweetpic.

• Sherri Meyer did a top 10 Lightroom tweets of the week. Even if you hate twitter, there’s some good links there to check out.

Tip – Don't forget about History

Hey folks. I’m out in the Palouse region of Washington state teaching my GAPW workshop and getting up at oh-dark-thirty every morning. Seriously, we were driving to our sunrise shoot today (well Thursday which is when I’m writing this) at 4:10am and the sky was already blue. By 4:45 there was sun and by 5am it was bright as can be. It’s even more odd when we were shooting the sunset at 8:45pm that same evening. That is one long day but I’ve got a great class here and we’re having a really fun time. Anyway, on to the tip…

I always forget how cool the History panel is in Lightroom. It’s basically undo’s forever, of whatever you’ve done to your photo. If you’re in the Develop module and you’d like to jump back to a specific point in the editing history of your photo, just look at the bottom left side of the interface for the History panel. Lightroom shows you every single history state that your image has gone through. It’s just like Photoshop but when close your image in Photoshop, Photoshop forgets about the history. Lightroom doesn’t. This really helps though when you’re not sure what point you want to step back to and you don’t feel like pressing Control/Command – Z a bunch of times. Just look for the specific step in the History and click on it to jump to that point. Hope you have a great weekend everyone! Get some extra sleep for me

Teaching, Seminar, and Overall Learning Update

Hey, its posts like these that let me get my shameless plugs in for where I’ll (and my friends) are going to be teaching. So in case you’re interested, read on. If not, just read the next post for today for some Lightroom stuff.

• Lightroom Seminar Tour Dates – I’ll be teaching a full-day Lightroom seminar for Kelby Training in Chicago on July 20th and in New York City on July 22nd. You can find out more about the tour and the full-day schedule here.

• Great American Photography Workshops – Later this week I’m heading to the Palouse Region of Washington to teach a full 3 day Photoshop/Photography workshop. If you’re scratching your head saying “What is the Palouse”, then check out this portfolio I found from photographer Chip Phillips. There’s some really nice photos of the area. Anyway, these workshops are a great opportunity to get some one-one-one learning, as well as learn how to bring your photography and post-processing work together since we’ll be shooting as well as spending lots of time in the classroom.

• Bogen is putting on a free Webinar. It’s called A Budget Safari – Wildlife Photography at Your Local Zoo: Roundtable with Julie Larsen Maher. Click here to find out more.

• Photoshop/Photography Cruise – Dave Cross, Corey Barker and I are teaching on a week-long cruise. Now, its not until October and I know that’s a long time to think ahead. But, when it comes to cruises time is running out so if you’re thinking of going you can actually sign-up and reserve your spot (in the seminar and on the cruise) for only $100. You can also check out the website and see the full seminar schedule.

Hope you can make it out to one of these events.

Tethered Shooting Options with Lightroom Update

Hey there my fine tethered friends (that was such a bad joke – sorry). I wanted to give you guys a quick update on tethered shooting options for Lightroom. As usual, there’s a few different options and most of them are for Nikon shooters. If you’re wondering why, its because Canon DSLRs come with a free program that takes care of tethered shooting.

1) Canon EOS Utility (Mac/PC, $Free, Canon only) – This is the program if you’re shooting Canon. You use it to tether your camera to your computer and transfer files into a folder that you set up. Then you set that folder as a watched folder for Lightroom to automatically import from.

2) Nikon Capture Control Pro (Mac/PC, $150+) – If you’re a Nikon shooter then this is probably the most stable option. Its from Nikon and works great when you set it up with Lightroom. It’ll run you at least $150 but if you’re doing this for a living you’ll make that money back pretty quick.

3) Sofortbild (Mac only, Nikon only, Free) – This one is a newcomer to the market and looks really good. I haven’t personally tested it out but Scott Kelby has and is incorporating it into his next Lightroom seminar so I’ll probably do the same. Speaking of Lightroom seminars, I just happen to be teaching one in Chicago on July 20th and New York on July 22nd. I’m just sayin’

4) Mountainstorm Studio & Lightroom Tether (Mac only, Free, Nikon only) – I’ve had pretty decent luck with this one. Plus, it supports Live View which is kinda cool. They have a very easy-to-follow manual and you can get a good idea of how it works from reading it (takes about 2 minutes to read).

5) There’s is another free option for Nikon (only tested on some cameras) but it’s only for Windows users. It’s called DiyPhotoBits.com Camera Control 4. Here’s the link. Interesting side-note: There also appears to be a script for viewing in Bridge as well.

So while the Lightroom/Tethered party isn’t a fun one yet it definitely looks like things are getting better. Software developers seem to recognize the need for tethered shooting and are coming out with new versions of their software to help out. Should be interesting to see where it goes in the future.

One more thing. If you’ve got experience with any of the above-mentioned products then let us know in the comments. It think it helps others out as they’re trying to figure out which software will work best for them. Thanks!

Tip – Choosing the Name of your PSD files

Back in Lightroom 1, we didn’t get to choose how our PSD’s were named once we left Lightroom into Photoshop. But in LR2, you get to choose exactly what these edited files are named. Go to Lightroom’s preferences (press Cmd-, or Ctrl-, [that's a comma]). Then click the External Editing tab and at the bottom fo the dialog you’ll see the Edit Externally File Naming section. Here you can add your own custom name or one of the preset naming templates.

That’s it for today. Hope you have a great weekend!

Lightroom Q&A Day

Hey folks! Here’s another Q&A day for ya. Keep the questions coming, I’ve been getting a lot of good ones lately.

Q. Can you go into more depth on what tablet you are using and how Lightroom deals with tablets?
A. Sure. I use the Wacom Intuos 4 medium sized tablet. I have a small size that I travel with but the medium sized one is what sits on my desk. I’ve used tablets ever since I can remember and, in my opinion, there is no other tablet that even holds a candle to the Wacom tablets. I will be honest and say I kinda strayed from using a tablet for a while but the Intuos 4 and all the cool stuff you can do with it got me back into it. When it comes to Lightroom, the tablets will only come into play when using various brush-related tools (Adjustment Brush, Spot Removal, Red Eye). The main one is the Adjustment Brush though. It uses pressure sensitivity to increase or decrease the brush harshness when you paint so you can get a little more fine-tuned control around the edges. Plus you can use your other settings on the tablet to quickly increase or decrease the size of the brush.

Q. Can I filter by focal length? So if I want to know all photos shot at 24mm how would I do that?
A. There is a Focal Length field in the EXIF data but, unfortunately, you can’t search/filter by it in Lightroom (nope, I don’t know why). You could however go to View > Filter Bar. Click the “Text” option and choose Searchable EXIF and type the exact focal length that you want to find.

Q. When using presets, is there a way to layer presets with out effecting the previous preset layer?
A. Well, kinda of. First off, Lightroom doesn’t have layers so you can’t add preset “layers”. Let’s say you add PRESET #1. It was built to change white balance, vibrance, and vignetting. Then lets say you add PRESET #2. It was built to change the white balance and exposure settings. In the end, you’ll have the white balance and exposure setting from PRESET #2 (because that was what was added last), and the vibrance and vignetting setting from PRESET #1.

Q. If I backup to a second external hard drive during import, is that second drive linked to LR automatically?
A. Nope. The backup is literally just a backup of your photos. Lightroom has no idea it even exists. If your primary drive ever fails, then you can right click on a folder in Lightroom and choose “Find Missing Folder”. Then point to the secondary external drive to link Lightroom (and all of its changes to your photos) to those backup photos on the drive.

Q. In my haste to get the camera profiles into LR I didn’t realize I already had them as part of LR 2.3. So I now have both beta and non beta versions. Is there any way to get rid of the beta profiles?
A. There sure is. I covered it a while back here on the blog. Here’s the link on how to remove them.

Q. My camera doesn’t shoot in Raw mode. How can I work with JPEGs in Lightroom? (this also applies to you if you can shoot in raw mode but just prefer JPG for sports or other reasons).
A. No sweat. That’s what is cool about Lightroom – it doesn’t care. Raw, DNG, JPG, TIFF, PSD… they all work the same in Lightroom. For the most part, the only tiny thing you’ll really miss if you’re not shooting Raw or DNG are the camera profiles (I covered them in a previous video if you want to see what it’s all about).

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