Presets – Wedding Fantasy

Happy Monday folks. I’ve got two things for you today.

• First, if you’re into that whole-spend-money-online-like-crazy thing called Cyber Monday, NAPP came out with some pretty killer deals. Now, remember I work for NAPP so I know what the prices and things normally are. I gotta say, if you’re into anything that’s on this list then they really are some killer deals so take advantage today if you’re thinking of buying anything.

• Next, more presets. I know I’ve been a little slow on the presets thing lately but I gotta say… coming up with new presets is hard as heck these days. I try to only come up with presets that I use or effects that I have used and I’ve pretty much gone through my library. That said, I came up with another one that I see a lot lately in wedding and engagement photos. Its got that ultra saturated bright look with lots of vignetting to it. Hope you enjoy!

• One more thing. I’ve got another preset lined up for next week. Its yet to be named but I figured I’d give you a sneak peak. Any name ideas then let me know

To install:
1) Unzip the preset zip file on to your desktop
2) Go to the Develop module. NOTE: YOU MUST BE THE DEVELOP MODULE
3) Go to the Presets panel on the left. Right click anywhere in it and choose Import.
4) Select the .lrtemplate files you unzipped in Step 1 and click Import NOTE: DO NOT IMPORT THE ZIP FILE

• Click here to download the presets
• Click here to see a sample of the preset.

Photoshop TV is Back on the Air

Hey everyone. After 2 to approximately 12 weeks of being off the air, I’m happy to say that Photoshop User TV is back. We recorded our new show on our new set in our new format last week and its up on the web. For those of you that always liked PSTV and the “edu-tainment” factor of the show, then I think you’ll like it even more. For those of you that fast forwarded through all the talking to get to the tutorials I think you’ll LOVE the new format. We realized that none of us have 30-40 minutes to sink into watching a show so why should any of you have to sit through a show that long. The first one is about 20 minutes (mainly because I went almost 2 minutes over on my tutorial) but we’re trying to keep the shows between 15-18 minutes and just have non-stop tips and tutorials throughout it all. There’s even some Lightroom stuff in there. I hope you’ll stop by the site and check out the new show. Let me know what you think of it. Here’s the link.
Thanks!

Worth-a-click

Here’s a few things worth checking out as you surf around today or this weekend.

• Adobe has released a beta of Lightroom 2.6 (and Camera Raw 5.6). The major thing I can see is that it now supports the Canon 7D, G11, and Nikon D3s. You can get it over at Adobe Labs if you’re dying for support for those new cameras.

• My brand new Photoshop Elements 8 Book for Digital Photographers (co-authored with Scott Kelby) is out in stores and online. Since Adobe released the Mac and PC version this time around we changed things to cover both.

• If you’re a photographer (of any level) and looking for an online presence then you’ve got to check out RC Concepcion’s new Wordpress for Photographers class at KelbyTraining.com. Folks, I see ALL of the feedback that comes in through Kelby Training and I’ve got to tell you, this class is one of the hottest to hit in a long time. RC really struck a chord with photographers who want to get online with their work, so I encourage you to take a look. He makes it really simple to get a wordpress blog/website up and running so you can show off your stuff and let people know what you’re up to.

• Check out the “31 Women in Photography Exhibition”. Its actually not until March but I mention now because the deadline to submit is today with the late deadline being in December.

• As you may have heard, onOne Software announced Plug-in Suite 5 with new versions of some of the key products. What’s really cool for us is that some of the in-house NAPP guys have presets that will be included in the suite. Here’s the link to find out more.

• Check out Timothy Armes’ new PLUS plug-in for Lightroom. PLUS is an international standard for clearly communicating usage rights for digital images. You can find out more here.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Lightroom Sharpening – Which Brush to use?

Over the last few months, I’ve done a few of those Before/After videos that involve sharpening as one of the steps. Each time I’ve done it, I go into Photoshop and do the sharpening there. I’ve noticed a number of good comment/questions asking about why I don’t use the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom to sharpen instead. So it got me thinking about why. I mean, I knew sharpening was there in Lightroom and that I could selectively do it with the Adjustment Brush but I never really find myself using it. So here’s the answer(s) that I’ve come up with:

1) Old mentality of sharpening last
I’ve had a habit throughout the years, like many, of sharpening last. Its one of those “workflow” steps that lots of people are taught and I’ve followed it for years. So when I work in Lightroom and then go over to Photoshop I consider that my final step so it just seems logical to sharpen there. I do, however, pay less attention to WHEN I sharpen so this isn’t as much a factor anymore. I sharpen when its convenient. Usually after retouching and all that stuff but again, that’s not a steadfast rule for me anymore.

2) The Adjustment Brush is still a little quirky to me
First, let me say that I LOVE the Adjustment brush. I use it all the time and it works great for larger changes that don’t require a lot of detailed work. However, I find it tedious to work with when I have to do constant resizing of the brush as well has opacity and size control. In Photoshop, my brush and my Wacom tablet just seem like a natural fit for doing more detailed work. So if I’m selective sharpening something Photoshop still feels right for the task.

3) I hate the whole only-view-your-sharpening-at-100% thing.
In Lightroom 2 you need to be zoomed into 100% to view your sharpening. Do you know how big these digital images are getting today? Sometimes 100% is way closer than I want to be. That said, Lightroom 3 Beta has changed this and now you can view your sharpening at other zoom levels. So we’ll see if that changes anything for me as I start using it more.

4) The Adjustment Brush Sharpening isn’t any good myth
I stayed away from sharpening with the Adjustment Brush for a while because I didn’t think it was that good. Its only got one slider so I thought “How good can it be?”. I want control right? Turns out, I’ve done some tests. Sharpening with the Adjustment Brush is pretty darn good compared to Photoshop. So that myth is busted and I can’t use it as a reason anymore, but it did affect my use of the Brush for a while.

5) Old habits die hard
This one almost leads us right back to #1 above. I’ve been sharpening in Photoshop for many years. Its what I’m comfortable with. Sharpening in Lightroom with a brush has only been around for about a year.

So what’s the end result of this story? I probably won’t change anything just yet. I do find myself using the Adjustment Brush for sharpening more and more lately when I don’t take a photo into Photoshop. But that’s rare since I take just about everything into Photoshop for some minor retouching. I figure while I’m there I might as well do my sharpening since I like the tools and brushes better.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the topic so feel free to chime in with a comment and let us know your favorite way (and place) to sharpen.

Tip – Fading a Lightroom Preset

I’ve got a big article due for Photoshop User magazine this week so I’m gonna make this one short. In fact, I’m being so lazy today that I’m stealing a tip from some one else. See, for a while now I’d have to say the most common preset-related question I get is how to fade a preset. Say the effect is just too strong and you don’t feel like going through each slider and lessening the amount it applies. Instead you basically want a volume control for the preset. Well the other day Piet (one of the blog readers) posted a comment pointing me to a video he’s done on fading Lightroom presets. Now before you get your hopes up, there is no “Fade Preset” feature in LR that you’re missing. The tip that’s been out there for a while involves going to Photoshop and Piet’s tip is no exception. But I thought he had a really slick way to do it and one that I hadn’t seen before. Here’s a link to Piet’s video. Enjoy and thanks Piet!

Tip – Graduated Filter Modifier Keys

First off, thanks for all the great feedback on the Before/After video the other day. For those of you who watched it (and commented on it), the grayish pumpkin that I darkened was brought up a few times. I thought about trying to do something more with it, but then I showed the photo to several people including the mom in the photo. I asked about the pumpkin and the resounding answer was “What pumpkin?” – mission accomplished in my book But I’ll probably try to tweak it as a personal mission to see if I can add just a little color back in without looking to fakey.

Tip #1: Anyway, I thought of a couple more tips while doing that video that had to do with the Graduated Filter that I used in the video. The first grad filter tip is to hold down the Shift key when you’re creating a gradient with it. In the video, I wanted my gradient to be slightly tilted. But if you don’t you’ll go crazy so just hold the Shift key down while dragging to keep it straight.

Tip #2: The second one is to hold down Option (Alt: PC) while dragging. This moves the faded edges of the gradient closer to, or further away from, the center of the gradient depending on which way you drag.

Hope you guys had a great week and an even better weekend ahead. See ya.

Video – Before & After Family Photo

Here’s another one of those before and after videos for you folks. I know these are popular because they really show the workflow and the link between the two programs we tend to use most – Lightroom and Photoshop. I thought this particular photo made a great candidate because I was able to do some very neat things in Lightroom (more than a lot of people think is possible) but I also needed to move into Photoshop for some quick retouching. Hope you enjoy it. I’m actually taking the day off to spend with the family since they’re off from school, but have a great Veterans Day / Wednesday.

Click here to download the video to your computer. [Right-click and choose the "Save As" option]

Scott's Top 10 (+ 3 of my own)

If you haven’t seen it already, Scott Kelby posted a “10 Things I Would Tell New Lightroom Users” article over on his blog today. Its a must read if you’re a new-ish Lightroom user and I’ll be you’ll find something cool on there even if you’ve been using Lightroom for a while. However, I wanted to add 3 of my own.

1) Lightroom saves all of your history states… forever!
Ever notice that when you’re working in Lightroom you never actually have to save your image? In Photoshop we’re always going to File > Save but not in LR. That’s because Lightroom has a History panel in the Develop module (on the left side panel group). It automatically saves every single thing you do to your photos. The cool part is that unlike Photoshop (which discards your history when you quit the program), Lightroom saves this forever so you can always go back to it.

2) Lightroom’s Backup feature only backs up your catalog, not your photos.
Don’t forget that Lightroom’s backup feature only backs up the catalog – not the photos. So if your computer crashed and you had your backup, you could reinstall Lightroom and revert to the backup you created from Lightroom. But you’d only have your catalog with all the “stuff” you’ve done to your photos. You wouldn’t have your actual photos unless you’ve specifically backed them up separately (which is really easy if you follow Scott’s advice on where to store your photos).

3) No matter what you do, if you shoot in raw, editing in Photoshop will create a copy of your image.
I hear this one a lot. People are surprised that after they go to edit a raw photo in Photoshop, there’s a copy of the photo when they return to Lightroom. This will always happen. You can’t change it because you can’t edit the original raw photo in Photoshop. Lightroom has to render a copy of the image out and you’ll have that copy (in PSD or TIFF format) when you return to Lightroom. Your raw photo is still there, by the way, and it will still have all of your Lightroom-related changes in it, but only the copy will contain any Photoshop edits you’ve done.

So there’s my 3 add-ons to Scott’s post. Take care!

Tip – Rotating Identity Plates in Slideshow

Your tip for today falls victim to one of those little things that I never knew about before and found out about the hard way. It has to do with the Slideshow module. You know how you can put an Identity Plate on your slideshow right? You can also put other various text overlays that show some metadata about your photo (which is exactly what people really want to see when they’re watching a beautiful slideshow by the way)

Anyway, I ran into some one who showed me their computer and the fact that their ID Plate was rotated 90°. Naturally, I’m used to working with the ID Plate in the Print module so I just assumed there’d be a little rotation option next to it like there is in Print (you know, 0°, 90°, 180°). But there’s not. I sat there stumped for about 3-4 minutes trying to figure out why their ID Plate was sideways. Finally, I just switched Slideshow presets for them and the ID Plate showed up the way it was supposed to.

But for the next 5 nights I couldn’t sleep because it just didn’t make sense (ok maybe not, but it really did bug me). Finally, while working on something in the Slideshow module today I realized there’s two little rotation icons in the toolboar (see the image for this post in the top left). I realized they’re not for rotating your photo but for rotating any text overlays that you’ve added to the slides. In fact, unless you have text overlays on the slide they’re grayed out.

I know! It’s a tiny thing but hopefully I saved you much frustration and many sleepless nights if you ever run into this. Take care and have a great weekend.

A Few More Dates for David Ziser's Tour

Hey folks. I’ve mentioned David Ziser’s Digital Wakeup Call tour before and I just wanted to let you know there’s a few more dates left. Of course you’ll learn lots of stuff about shooting weddings but David is also a master at Lightroom and he’s got some great things to share when it comes to the production end of things. Here’s his website and here’s a write-up I did a while back after attending his seminar. If you have the chance to go, its definitely worth it.