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Stolen Preset – LR on a laptop Identity Plate
One of our editors for Photoshop User Magazine, Mike Mackenzie, recently sent me a link to a really neat Lightroom add-on/preset/whatchamacallit. It’s called Gavin’s Greyscale Gradient (from photographer Gavin Gough) and its an identity plate preset that shows you the tonal changes from white to black in 19 stages. Basically, it allows you to check that you’re seeing all the tones that you want to be seeing. Why? Well Gavin points out that most of us calibrate our main screens, but since many of us are often working on a laptop, a small shift in viewpoint (or the angle at which we’re viewing our screen) can totally change the way the colors and tones look. I’d even argue that many folks don’t even calibrate their main screens (and certainly not once a week like you’re supposed to) which makes this even more useful. Anyway, here’s the site to download the identity plate and they’ve even got directions on how to install it. Have at it!
UPDATE: I learned that there’s a version 2 of the graphic. You can get to it here.
21 Comments to “Stolen Preset – LR on a laptop Identity Plate”
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Hi Matt. Again, thank you very much for this and many, many very useful tips. By the way. Have you any chance of using LR and PS CS4 in Snow Leopard? If yes, perhaps, you might want to share the experience. Again, thank you.
Hey Matt! Speaking of laptops. When I’m at a wedding reception, I bring along my laptop and a 22inch monitor and have a slideshow of the couple’s engagement photos playing at the guestbook table. The thing is, even though my laptop is not st to turn off or anything, and neither is the monitor, once the slideshow has played through once, the screen just goes blank! I click it once and lightroom shows up, and then I have to click play again. Why? I’ve go the repeat option under the slideshow options clicked so that it should repeat, but it doesn’t! Your help would be muchos appreciated brother!
Thanks, Matt! Now I have a reason to expand that top panel.
I found it helpful to put a white line on the far right side of the image to indicate the edge of the graphic. Otherwise, you couldn’t tell if you were running a bit dark and missing the last black bar or not (well, without counting the bars, which seemed too hard.)
Thanks for the link Matt. Version 2 of the Greyscale/Grayscale (you say tomato, I say tomato) can be found at http://www.gavingough.com/2009/08/lightroom-gavins-greyscale-gradient-v2-0/.
This version makes it easier to see the ends of the scale.
Matt, I have a lightroom catalogue question. I know you can export folders from one catalogue to a new one but it creates copies of the folders. As a concert photographer, my database is filling up quickly, and originally I created just one catalogue with all my photos (personal, travel, studio, concerts). Now I would love to separate them into 2 ways. By type of shooting (like what I listed above) and/or by year – but would LOVE to do this without having to create duplicates of my folders using the export to new catalogue option while of course, maintaining all my xmp info and changes made.
Any help or advice?
thanks, Sara.
Added note: I am using Lightroom 2.4 on a Mac running Leopard.
HELP!! I accidentally deleted a picture from Lightroom. I was able to recover it from the trash, but I lost the hours worth of editing…can I recover that also?
To Sara: If you have set up your original catalog to “Automatically write changes into xmp” in your Metadata Catalog settings, you just need to create New Catalogs for each type of shooting. I did this for a friend and it seems to work faster than exporting the catalogs. The new catalogs should still show the ratings, labels, keywords, etc.
To Troy: If your catalog setting for metadata is set to: “Automatically write changes into xmp” and you recovered the image file together with its xmp, I believe, you should be able to see your latest edit of that image.
I hope these helps.
Arnel: Thanks for the suggestion. I didn’t have that checked in my large catalog…. would that have to be checked from the beginning? Because I checked it, optimized my catalog, shut it down, reopened, then created a new catalog. Imported all the band/concert photos and my editing changes had not been saved, nor did any keywords exist in the file.
Any more suggestions?
side note. My EXIF > write date or time changes into proprietary raw files is unchecked as well. Does that matter?
Thanks for all the help.
To Troy above, If you truly “deleted the picture from Lightroom,” your editing may be a goner, but if you deleted the picture from outside of Lightroom and the reference is just gone, restore the picture from the trash, go to it in Lightroom and when it offers to let you find it, direct it to its new location. Your edits should still be there. From the context of your message, I suspect it’s the former, in which case I, at least, know of no fix.
Okay, so what happens if I’m viewing it and my three black end boxes look the same? I’m ’supposedly’ calibrated. i just did it a week ago with Spyder2Pro. Now what do I do?
An even better method to check calibration is to simply keep a full-blown calibration chart in your library. I kind of like my personalized identity plate and prefer to keep it there.
To Arnel, you may find some information on how Photoshop CS4 works with the new Snow Leopard here;http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/08/adobe_snow_leopard_faq.html
To Sarah. I strongly suggest that you always check the box “Automatically write changes into xmp” for all your catalogs, in which case you can just always create a new catalog if your present catalog gets messed up. My friend, has messed up his catalogs several times and we have rebuilt easily because we have xmp files. I guess in your case, you have to go the longer way of exporting and reimporting your catalogs. I have not used the “write proprietary files”.
To Al Marsh: Thank you very much for the Snow L link.
Arnel,
Thanks so much, again. Once I get my next external HD I will do that.
First, in no way do we need to recalibrate quality LCD screens every week. That was the expected norm for CRTs for color critical work, but for LCDs, no. You can go for much longer intervals on LCDs. I go months at times with no shifts and I send images to magazines and designers all the time, as well as print in-house. I use ColorEyes on an Apple 23″ alum frame LCD.
Second, many laptop screens do not show consistent density from top to bottom. So a grayscale file as your identity plate at the top of the screen will not best represent your image at mid screen and certainly not all at the bottom of the screen. Nature of the beast with laptop screens.
Thanks for the update to V2 of the image. I knew my uncalibrated monitor at work was a bit dark, but couldn’t tell how many shades of dark grey I was missing with the V1 image.
BTW, I use the Huey calibration tool at home, which does a nice (if basic) job at calibration) and it automatically adjusts based on ambient light while I’m working. The $70 I spent definitely improved my photos to make it a worthwhile expense (even if I never sell any images).
I like the color bar (gray scale)… is it just my Lightroom or does this happen to you…?
When I open/start a “NEW CATALOG” I lose the gray scale and it reverts back to the lightroom logo.
This is really useful. I read an artible about this several months ago and set it up immediately on my laptop and have been using it since then.
A great tip…..one i must add, that I have been using for the last few years, however!…..one has to remember that the viewing angle changes from the top of the screen to the centre. By this i mean that if you import the grey scale image into the library so it shows in the middle of the screen, if you compare this to the identity plate they will be slightly different. To get the right angle of the screen for the library image will mean the identity plate will look slightly wrong.
Having said this, the identity plate is better than nothing (but not as good as a centralised image on the screen!!!!)
Thanks the author for article. The main thing do not forget about users, and continue in the same spirit.