More Calendar Presets

Who knew that Ed Weaver would have started such craziness when it came to his Calendar print presets for Lightroom. Seriously though, thank God he did because it gave me a break from creating new presets for a couple of weeks (Thanks Ed!). Anyway, A few weeks ago I posted about Ed’s templates. Then there was a follow up from Thomas Ljungberg (for the rest of the world) that took it up a notch. Well Thomas has posted even more templates in other languages. If you haven’t seen the original post or the follow-ups make sure you check them out. Truly some of the coolest print presets I’ve seen.

Lightroom Q&A – Presets

It’s time for another round of Lightroom Q&A’s. Don’t forget that today is the last day to grab your free issue of Photoshop User magazine compliments of Dell. Oh and I’m teaching the Photoshop CS5 for Photographers tour in Covington, KY today so make sure you come up and say hi if you’re attending.

Now on to the Q&A’s:

Q. I use your presets a lot and I was wondering if there was a quick way to see exactly what options the preset is using?

A. Unfortunately no. There’s no way to really see what a preset does other than to look at the sliders. If you’re kinda techie you can open the actual preset file (the .LRTemplate file) in a text editor and see a really computer code-like version of the preset and look to see what it includes but that’s about it.

Q. Do I have to leave the Develop preset file on my desktop after I import it? Or is it saved in another location?

A. I always tell people to download the presets to their desktop and then importing them from there. So do they live on the desktop then? It does, after all, make a little sense that they would need to stay there, but they don’t. When you import them into Lightroom they actually get copied to Lightroom’s preset folder. So its safe to delete them from your desktop.

Q. Is there an easier way to install presets than going into Lightroom and importing them?

A. Absolutely! I recently did a tip on it here.

Q. I have been hesitating upgrading to Lightroom 3 because I don’t know how transfer my presets. Do you have any suggestions?

A. Most of the time, when you upgrade a computer from LR2 to LR3 it’ll automatically transfer the presets. But if you ever need to move or transfer them anywhere try this. Open Lightroom and go to the Lightroom > Preferences menu (Windows: Edit > Prefs). Under the Presets tab click on the “Show Lightroom Presets Folder” button. Make a copy of this folder. Go to the other computer with Lightroom on it and use the Preferences window to find the Presets folder again. Now just replace the folder with the one you just copied. Then Restart Lightroom for the new presets to take effect.

That’s it for this time. Have a great day.

Lightroom Video – Changing the Capture Time If You Travel

A while back I traveled to Dubai and realized I never changed the time/date on my camera. As a result, all of the capture times of my photos were off by 9 hours. Well there’s a cool little feature in Lightroom that (if you’re like me and always forget to change it) let’s you change the capture date and time after the fact. Thanks for stopping by!

Friday News and a Tip

Hey there. Hope your Friday is going well. Here’s a few things to check out while you’re surfing around.

• Nik Software has announced Silver Efex Pro 2 – an update to it’s award-winning kick butt Black and White plug-in.

• I just finished watching Jeremy Cowart’s new LifeFinder DVD. What a perfect combination of inspiration and instruction. You get to see everything from his thoughts on photography, how he goes about business and the creative side of his work, as well as full shoots so you can see it all in action.

• I’ll be taking the Lightroom 2 Live Tour to Houston on March 9th. Make sure you snag a seat now. Also, I’m teaching the Photoshop CS5 for Photographers Tour in Covington, KY next Friday (Jan 28th) and in Austin, TX the following Friday (Feb 4). There’s still room so sign up over at Kelby Training Live.

• Scott and I just recorded our latest episode of DTown TV. It’ll be up next week (sorry it’s late but there were a few projects that had to get done first). Also, Photoshop User TV has been back for a few weeks now so make sure you stop and watch that one too.

• And now for the tip: If you’re in the Develop module and you want to see a quick Before/After view of your photo, just press the Y key. This shows you the before and after side-by-side. Then press Y again to get back to your regular Loupe view. Now, if you want to see a full screen Before/After try pressing the \ (backslash) key. The view will change to your Before image (no side by side comparison). Then press \ to get back to the After view.

Have a great weekend!

Calendar Preset Follow-Up

A couple of week’s ago, I posted about some awesome calendar print presets created by blog reader Ed Weaver. Well, another blog reader (Thomas Ljungberg) was kind enough to follow up and create some more calendar print templates for those of you (mostly outside the US) who’s calendar week starts on Monday (kinda makes more sense to me anyway)
If you haven’t seen the post yet then make sure you go back and check it out. The original idea, and follow up from Thomas is absolutely clever, outstanding, and very well put together.

Here’s the link to Thomas’s non-US templates. Thanks Thomas!

Lightroom Tip and News

Here’s a few Lightroom related links and news, and a Lightroom tip at the bottom. Have a great weekend!

• Here’s a very clever Lightroom plug-in from Ariana Falerni that allows you to preview what your photos will look like on the wall of a home (make sure you watch the video). Way cool!

• The folks over at Dell are picking up the tab for a free Zinio issue of the 100 Hot Tips issue of Photoshop User Magazine. Click here to get it.

• Timothy Armes has recently released a pretty major update to his Web Site Publisher Pro plugins.

• And a quick tip with the Crop tool: When you’re in the Develop module, you’ll always see that there’s the Histogram panel at the top right side of the Lightroom window. Well, the histogram always changes as you make adjustments to your photos. But, did you know that if you crop your photo with the Crop Tool (press R as a shortcut to get to it) that the histogram will update as you make adjustments to the crop area? Give it a try. As you move your crop area you’ll see the histogram continually update to reflect only the photo inside the crop.

Video – Lightroom Tip for Using Presets

Today’s tip is from one of the comments on Monday’s “Wedding Day” preset post. Blog reader Nick Noble, left me a comment about installing presets and a different way to do it. Sure enough, there is a WAY better way to install presets in Lightroom. Check out the video to see how. Thanks Nick!

Lightroom Presets – Wedding Day

I’m always dissecting “looks” that I see in photos, and I’ve seen this one for a while now. I named it Wedding Day because that’s mostly what I see the effect used on – wedding photos shot outdoors in the afternoon. It’s got a very subtle warm-reddish look to it with a slight vignette. After playing with a bunch of sliders, I settled upon some white balance changes as well as some changes in the Split Toning panel. It’s also got some changes to Vibrance and Saturation for a slightly desaturated look. It sounds like a lot, but I think the effect is pretty subtle overall (at least compared to some of my other presets). Also, while it’s named Wedding Day, you’ll see in the sample below that it works just fine on non-couple photos too

Once you apply it, you can tweak the look by changing your Tint and Temperature sliders (move Tint to the right for more red). And of course the overall Exposure will change the look too. I find it works well with a slightly darker overall exposure and if your photo isn’t too warm to start with (if it’s already a warm photo, the preset tends to make the skin too red – in which case, just move Temp/Tint sliders to the left).

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

(note: some photo examples are from iStock.com and Fotolia.com)

• 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

A Lightroom Tip and Some News

Here’s a few news items and a Lightroom tip at the bottom. Have a great weekend!

• Grab a limited spiral bound edition of the Lightroom 3 Book for Digital Photographers, from the Call of Duty: Black Ops sniper himself, Scott Kelby

• I’m just about to close up the signing of my new Layers book if you buy it from Kelby Training. This weekend is it, so if you want a signed copy then grab one here before Monday.

• Friend of the blog and Lightroom guru Rob Sylvan recently wrote a book on becoming a stock photographer. Part of the book involves using Lightroom in his workflow. If you’re thinking about stock, it’s a must read! Here’s the link.

• Unified Color (makers of HDR Expose software) have announced their contest winner. Very cool photo here.

• The folks over at Pixel Genius have announced Photo Kit Sharpener 2

• And the Lightroom Tip is… if you’re in the Develop module and you press the Copy button (on the bottom left side panels), it lets you copy your current photo’s settings. But it always brings up a dialog asking exactly what settings you want to copy. Instead, if you’ve already done this and know the currently checked settings are the ones you want, just hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key and it’ll bypass that dialog and simply copy the settings you chose last time.

Lightroom Presets – Calendar Print Templates

I gotta tell ya, today’s presets are an awesome way to kick off the first post of the new year. Honestly, I think they’re going to be hard ones to top. That’s probably because I didn’t create them

Blog reader and photographer, Ed Weaver, sent me a message on my Facebook account, (just click LIKE to follow me there) the other day with some presets he had developed. Once I saw his sample image I immediately said to myself, “I wish I had thought of that!”. I didn’t, but luckily Ed was kind enough to let me share the presets here on the blog.

Before we go any further, here’s an example (click to see it larger):

Installing the presets is a little bit different than normal. Here’s a link to a quick video I did this morning.
1) First, download the zip file here.
2) Unzip the file. You’ll see two folders, “Calendar Presets” and “Calendar PSDs”
3) Go to your Lightroom Preferences (Mac: Lightroom > Preferences | PC: Edit > Preferences) and go to the Presets tab.
4) Click on the button that reads “Show Lightroom Presets Folder”
5) Navigate folders to Lightroom > Print Templates and copy the “Calendar Presets” folder there.
6) Restart Lightroom. You won’t see the presets if you don’t.
7) Now drag the “Calendar PSDs” folder over your Lightroom icon to import, or simply import them through File > Import. These PSD files contain all of the calendars for the months of the year.
8. Once they’re there, go to your Presets panel in the Print module (NOT THE DEVELOP MODULE) and click on one of the calendar presets.
9) At this point, things work just like any other Custom Print Package in Lightroom 3. You drag your photo from the filmstrip into the placeholder. Then you drag all of the months of the year into their placeholders as well (you’ve got to do it 1 by 1). I find it helps to create a “Calendar” collection with all of the months in it and add the photo to the same collection as well. That way you’ll have them in the same place once you’re in the Print module”.

I realize this one is a bit tricky. Again, here’s a link to a quick video I did this morning.
And let’s give a big round of applause to Ed Weaver for sharing these. Thanks Ed, you ROCK! I appreciate it and I know everyone here does as well. Let us know what you think. Enjoy!