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!

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