A Lightroom New Year

Happy New Year everyone (well almost anyway). I figured a good way to start things off, was to turn it over to the request lines. Over the next few days, it’d be great if you could take a moment and let me know what things you’d like to see from this blog/podcast in the new year. This does two things:

1) It gives you, the reader, a voice in what I cover here
2) It gives me ideas

Seriously, I get such great ideas/feedback when I turn things over to you so I thought that would be a great way to start off. So please, (before you start tipping back the champagne glasses ) take a few moments and let me know what you’d like to see. I’ll take anything from suggestions as vague as “more videos” or “more presets” to specifics on exactly what you’d like to see a video on. Honestly, the more specific the better though. But really… anything goes. Q&A’s, presets, videos, articles, guest appearances, news, whatever. The worst that can happen is I can’t do it right?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts. Have a happy and safe New Year’s weekend and I’ll see you back here in 2011.

A Christmas Thank You

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! I wanted to take a quick moment to say thanks to everyone that stops by my blog from time to time. You’ve given me, what I believe, one of the most valuable things you have – your time. Many of you thank me, but I’ve got to tell ya’ – I always feel like it should be reversed. I’m the one that should be thanking you. The inspiration, enthusiasm, and motivation that I get from you and this blog is something I’m truly grateful for.
And it’s because I always know you’re giving me something so valuable it makes the posts, articles, presets, and videos I prepare that much better. I always feel like I’ve got to deliver to you, in a way, so I can return the favor. So I wanted to give a great big thank you to everyone out there who stops in from time to time to read or listen to what I have to say. You unknowingly give me a gift each time you do it.

I hope you get all of the photography gear, software, toys, etc… that you’ve hoped for, but most of all I hope you enjoy this time with your loved ones as I will in the next week. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

- Matt Kloskowski
(The guy that will be playing with way to many remote control cars, helicopters, and xBox 360 games tomorrow and for the next week)

Lightroom Presets – Ice Cold!

Today’s presets come to you from, well, the weather. Not that we have it bad here in Tampa, Florida. It’s actually refreshingly cool out so I always enjoy this time of year. But we’ve had our share of cold (relatively that is) here, and from watching some football yesterday, so has the rest of the country. Anyway, I was working with some ideas on making a photo look “cold” and this preset is what I ended up with. As always, this is a starting point. There’s 3 different versions from light to strong. You’ll probably want to tweak the settings after. For example, if you start out with a really warm photo then you may need to adjust the white balance to something even cooler. I’ve even included a fairly warm landscape photo to show you (in the sample below), that it even gives sunny warm photos a cold feeling. Hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think.

Here’s a few samples. (click to see it larger).

• Click here to download the preset.

To install:
1) Unzip the preset zip file on to your desktop
2) Go to the Develop module. NOTE: YOU MUST BE IN 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

Lightroom Tip – Search Presets

Scott turned me on to this tip in the Library module. If you turn on your Search Filter Bar (View > Show Filter Bar), you’ll see the bar appear at the top of the grid. In that bar you can, of course, choose your metadata, flag, and other filter-related searches. But if you look on the far right side of the bar you’ll see there’s a preset list next to the small lock icon. Well you can also create your own presets. So if you find yourself searching your photos for the same thing a lot then it’s easy to create a preset so you don’t always have to change the search filters. For example, when I teach, I always have to find a high ISO photo (to demo noise reduction) so I’ve created a search preset for that. I’ve also created one with a combination of flagged photos and an empty copyright field. If you’ve got other ideas, I’d love to hear them but I think there’s lots of potential options, so give it a try. Have a great weekend!

Video – Lightroom Custom Print Template

Hey everyone. A friend of mine, Dawn Camp over at MyHomeSweetHomeOnline.net sent me a graphic the other week and asked if we could create something similar in Lightroom. After working with it for a while, I realized that (with some Photoshop help of course) we definitely could. There’s some cool little tricks for the Print module along the way as well. Hope you enjoy!

Worth-a-click

Here’s a few news items and links for the day:

• Lightroom 3.3 and Camera Raw 6.3 are now available. It’s mostly a camera update, lens profile update and a few bug fixes. I actually haven’t updated yet but I haven’t heard any issues since it was released.

• Don’t forget that I post a lot of Lightroom (and non-Lightroom) stuff over on my Facebook page. Just click “Like” to follow.

• Timothy Armes has released Impact WSPP gallery for Lightroom (a easy solution this for creating web site from Lightroom).

• Tim’s been busy lately. He’s also released Filmstrip WSPP. This one is designed for those looking for a horizontal scrolling gallery.

• We did our first ever NAPP-a-Thon last night. Three whole hours of training mixed with some funny videos from NAPP HQ. We’re rebroadcasting all day and the NAPP deal is (and you can still win some prizes), so check it out over here.

• Here’s a funny photo from my friend RC. By the way, I just finished signing every single one of my Layers books. So if you’ve ordered one from us (NAPP or Kelby Media Group), it’s on its way (if it’s not there already). By all means, I’m always interested in your feedback so if you have a copy, let me know.