Lens Correction Coming in Lightroom 3

Here’s some cool news in the Lightroom world. Adobe Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty revealed on his blog yesterday, that Lightroom 3 will have Lens Correction in it. From looking at comments every time a new beta has been released, I’ve noticed this is one of those things that a lot of LR users have requested so it’s good to see it make the cut into LR3. Still no official date on the full version of LR3 (so please don’t ask) Since LR 3 and Camera stay on par with each other, this technology will also be in Camera Raw 6 (which you’ll get if you purchase CS5). Tom also has a video on his blog if you want to see more.

Blogging Again at Scott’s Today

Hey everyone. I’m blogging over at Scott’s again today while he’s taking a break. I wrote about 5 lessons for landscape photography that I’ve picked up over time. It’s complete with photos and examples so it should make a good read. Included in them are some photos from my Moab, Utah trip the other week so I’d love if you went by to check them out and let me know which ones you like best. Thanks.

Presets – The Vintage Look

This week on Photoshop TV I did a Lightroom/Camera Raw preset tutorial. Part of the tutorial was creating a vintage-style look for your photos. It came out great and definitely adds a nice 70’s look to a photo. So I decided to create two Lightroom presets for it. One of them is simply the vintage look and will work fine in Lightroom 2 and Lightroom 3 Beta. The second one incorporates the same look but also the Grain setting which is only in the Lightroom 3 beta. As a general guideline I found these presets work best on photos with lots of blue in them (sky, water, etc…).

As always, your comments are welcome. Download ‘em and let me know what you think.

(Note: The Photoshop TV show that I’m referring to above may not be out until later on Monday)

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

Lightroom News and Scott Kelby’s Blog

Hi all. I’m posting over at Scott’s blog today so make sure you stop by and give it a read. As for Lightroom, the only big thing that happened this week is LR 2.7 was released. Mostly camera updates so if you fall into the category of owning one of the newly supported cameras you’ll want to grab the update. There’s also some fine tuning in the way that LR reads the raw file (called demosaicing). If you’re using LR 3 Beta most at this point (like I am), then it’s not very earth shattering as LR 3 is a lot better in this area. Camera Raw also has an update and it’ll work better with LR3 Beta now as well. You can find out the full details over at Tom Hogarty’s (Lightroom product manager) website.

Video – Before/After with an Edgy/Dramatic Look

It’s time for another before/after video and I took this one in a slightly different direction. The photo I started out with has a very edgy and contrasty look to it to begin with. With a lot of work with the Adjustment Brush inside of Lightroom we can take it in a very different direction. Of course the usual sliders make their appearance (white balance, Exposure), but I think it’s interesting to see what can be done with some of the other tools as well. Hope you enjoy!

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

HDR – Lightroom, Photoshop CS5 & Photomatix?

Since Photoshop CS5 was announced on Monday, I’ve been getting lots of questions about whether or not I like the HDR features in Photoshop better than Photomatix. Since there’s Lightroom integration built into both of these products and HDR is gaining in popularity I figured I’d take a quick moment to give you some thoughts.

The Lightroom Connection:
Well, they both have hooks into Lightroom. Photoshop’s HDR tools are available under the Photo > Edit In menu. Photomatix is available under the File menu. So we’re on pretty even ground at this point when it comes to Lightroom. They both save right back into the Lightroom catalog so all is good.

Background:
HDR was around in Photoshop since CS2. It just hasn’t been any good. So most photographers that have gravitated toward HDR, chose a program called Photomatix by HDRSoft.com. It was and still is a great program and produces some great results whether you’re going for the natural style or the surreal grungy style of HDR.

Catch up to today: Photoshop CS5 was announced on Monday. One of the big new features in CS5 is the new HDR Pro dialog. Adobe recognized that HDR was growing and they’ve included some far superior technology (compared to what they used to have) in CS5.

My Thoughts: OK truth be told, after my first attempts with CS5’s new HDR Pro feature, I was a little disappointed. Not because I wasn’t getting good results, but more because I was comfortable using Photomatix. HDR Pro in CS5 is different enough that it requires you to learn what new sliders do. You basically can’t transfer your Photomatix knowledge into Photoshop.

But I stuck with it because I had seen some great results from HDR Pro and it had some killer features (like Deghosting and noise-less images) that I wanted to use. After a few more attempts I figured it out. There’s a Detail slider and once you realize that Detail controls all in that dialog and all the other settings rely on that, it clicked.

Who will switch: The way I see it is this. Regardless of what the product is, when you use a product (and you’re happy with it) you become passionate about it. Amazon Kindle users will probably defend their Kindle against other new eBook readers (except the iPad ). Xbox gaming console owners would probably defend their XBox against any newcomers to the market. It’s just human nature. So I fully expect that Photomatix users will defend their use of Photomatix. They’ve invested time and money into it. I wouldn’t blame ‘em one bit. And honestly, I think that HDR Pro wasn’t necessarily created with them in mind. Adobe recognized that HDR is growing in popularity. There’s hundreds of thousands of Photoshop users that haven’t invested (time or money) in Photomatix that may still want to give HDR a try. HDR Pro (I think) is meant more for them.

So which is better?
One of the things I liked about Photomatix is that I can get 90% of the results I’m looking for in Photomatix from two sliders (Smoothing and Strength). In Photoshop CS5 it takes me fiddling with 3-4 sliders to get similar results. But I can indeed get similar results. Where Photoshop wins for me is two things: 1) The Remove Ghosts feature rocks. If things aren’t perfectly still in your series of photos, Photoshop’s Remove Ghosts checkbox is really good at aligning them. 2) The noise-less-ness of the Photoshop image. Wow! I promise you, every time I teach Photomatix to a live audience, the first question everyone asks is “What about all that noise?”. It was something we had to live with and remove later. Photoshop really racks one into the win column there.

In the end, time will tell. I think a large majority of people out there (Photomatix user or not) will end up making the upgrade to CS5. The entire product is just such a compelling upgrade this time around. Newcomers into HDR will definitely start using HDR Pro in CS5. It’s whether or not HDR Pro will convert existing Photomatix users into HDR Pro users that remains to be seen. Personally, I think it’ll be mixed. I think there will be lots of folks that make the move to HDR Pro, and lots that stand by Photomatix, the product that they know (and rightfully so in many ways).

What are your thoughts from what you’ve seen demo’d so far in CS5? Are you a Photomatix user? Will you switch? Are you brand new to HDR and curious to check it out in CS5? Oh yeah, if you hate HDR then just don’t comment

Photoshop CS5 Training Galore!

It’s CS5 day here at the NAPP Headquarters in sunny Tampa, FL. This is about as big of a day for our company as it gets as the product that we specialize in training for gets a new set of features. I’ve had my head buried in training for the last month so I figured I’d take today to give you a quick recap of what you can find. We’ll return to regularly scheduled Lightroom stuff after I get some sleep

Online Training:
I’ve got 3 new online training courses going live today over at Kelby Training
1) Mastering HDR in Photoshop CS5
2) The Photoshop CS5 Power Session (all about the new features only)
3) The Photoshop CS5 Crash Course (for beginners)

I’m really excited about all 3 of them but the HDR one was a blast to do. Lots of HDR and lots of post processing in it. And I honestly feel like I’ve rewritten beginners courses with my new Crash Course. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out just the things you need to know in Photoshop when you’re starting out. Each video is on a topic (like Selections) and I show you only the tools you need to know to get moving ahead fast. Anyway, you can find them all over at Kelby Training.

Photoshop CS5 Learning Center
1) There’s about 16 videos on all the new features done by Dave Cross, Corey Barker, Scott Kelby, RC Concepcion and me.
2) I also did 2 interviews with Adobe Photoshop (and Camera Raw) product managers. We even talk Lightroom a little.
3) There’s a huge feature list that shows all of the features (there’s over 100 of them)
4) A bunch of FAQ’s about pricing, upgrades, and all the other good stuff
5) Videos for NAPP members only

Whew! I hope that keeps you busy for a little bit until I come up for air and get some new Lightroom stuff going for ya. Stay tuned

Tip – 3 Tips For Smart Collections

A while back, I created a video about Smart Collections. The other day, they really helped me out when I needed to find some photos quick, so I figured I’d resurrect that video as well as show you another use.

For starters, Smart Collections are collections (or you could call them albums which is what they really are) that automatically add your photos to them based on some sort of preset criteria. In the video mentioned above, whenever I use the HDR software, Photomatix, it appends the word “tonemapped” to the file name. So I created a Smart Collection called HDR and it automatically adds any image with the word tonemapped in it. That gives me a one-click way to find all of my HDR photos without me having to do any work to organize them.

Another use would be to add any PSD file. That way, any photos you work on in Photoshop automatically get added to the smart collection and it gives you an easy way to find them.

One more tip. If you look in your Collections panel you’ll see a Smart Collections folder. In there is one called “Recently Modified”. It automatically adds photos to it that were modified in the last two days. It also automatically removes them when they fall out of that “2 day” category. Pretty cool huh? And if you double click on the smart collection you can change 2 days to however many days you want. OK, that’s it for the smart collection love-fest. Have a great weekend. See you on Monday for the Photoshop CS5 love-fest

News – Photoshop CS5 On Monday

Hey guys. If you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to lately this video from Scott Kelby’s blog should shed some light on it. Photoshop CS5 is coming on Monday and we’ve prepared a massive amount of content for it. In fact, if you watch to the end you’ll see there’s 14 brand new online training courses going up on Monday with 3 of them by yours truly. Should be a big launch and lots of cool stuff so make sure you check back to the learning center and Kelby Training on Monday.

Worth-a-click

A few items worth checking out today:

• This one snuck by a lot of folks the other week, but Adobe made some new D3 and D700 camera profiles available. You can find out more here.

• In other Adobe news, for all of you eager to support for newer cameras, a beta of Lightroom 2.7 (and Camera Raw 5.7) has been released.

• Just got word of Safari Books online’s new web service called Creative Edge.

• Don’t forget to keep an eye out on April 12th for the full launch of CS5. Among other things, you can expect we’ll (as in NAPP) have some great coverage on all the new stuff.