Lightroom Tip – Customizing the Background Color

Happy Friday everyone! I’m in Denver, CO right now with Scott Kelby and we’re getting ready for a couple days of shooting snowboarders and skiers with adventure and editorial photographer, Tom Bol. Anyway, I wanted to leave you with a quick Lightroom tip for the weekend though. This one is about the color of the background in Lightroom. By default, it’s a medium gray. But some people prefer to view their photos on black, white or some other shade of gray in between. Depending on your viewing conditions and where the photo will ultimately be displayed (and simply your personal preferences) it may help to use a different color than the default. To change it, just right click in an area around your photo and you’ll see the pop up menu that lists all of the options. Choose your color and you’re ready to go. Of course, you can always do this in the Preferences dialog too, but I find the right-click method much faster. Just remember that the medium-gray setting is the default in case you ever want to get back to it. Here’s a larger view of what the pop-up menu looks like (click for a larger view):

As always, thanks for stopping by this week. Have a great weekend.

Video – HDR Photo Organization Tip

If you’re into HDR photography and you’re like me, you’ve got a lot of HDR photos sitting around that you’ll never do anything with. Especially the in-between photos that are left from your bracketed series that you may not need to create your final HDR with. In this video tip, I’ll show you a quick way to help organize that chaos and make things easier to work with.

Why Lightroom Workflow Doesn’t Matter

I was looking through my notes for my upcoming Lightroom seminar in Houston next month and I got an idea for today’s topic. One of the things I’ve added into the discussion at some point during the day, is the fact that Lightroom workflow (in the Develop module that is) doesn’t matter. Yep, it doesn’t matter one bit. Why? Because your settings in the Develop module aren’t “applied” by the order in which you add them. For example, we’re always taught to sharpen last in Photoshop. In Lightroom, it doesn’t matter if you do it first, second or last. Same with white balance, exposure, you name it. You can apply them at any point you’d like because they don’t build on top of each other. They’re all separate and whether you set the Exposure slider to +1.5 first or last won’t change the way it affects your photo.

That said, there’s kind of an unsaid order in which we do things. In fact, the Develop module is laid out in a pretty good order to start with. It almost leads you down the right path from top to bottom. For me, the only time I mess with the order is right in the beginning. I go to the Camera Calibration panel and adjust the Camera Profile settings (if I’m shooting Raw because they don’t work for JPEGs). Then I hop back up to the top and start working my way down. Usually it involves White Balance, then Exposure and everything in the Basic panel. Maybe a quick Tone Curve adjustment for some extra contrast, noise reduction and lens correction (if needed), and that’s usually it. If I’m going to Photoshop, I save all retouching, vignetting, and sharpening for there. If I’m not going to Photoshop then I’ll do the vignetting and sharpening in Lightroom last. But not because it matters that I do them last. It’s just because they’re closer to the bottom.

So what about you? Do you have a preferred order? Top down? Or something else? Let me know.

Some Quick Lightroom Links and a Friday Tip

Here’s a few links and a quick tip to close out the week. Have a great weekend everyone!

• I found an older video that’s still very cool to watch. It’s from Tyler Stableford, one of the worlds top adventure photographers (and super nice guy), and how he uses Lightroom.

• Found another review of my Layers book.

• An interesting post on LightroomForums.net about a workflow for people that like to use multiple folders (with multiple copies of the same image) for a specific event. Just something to think about.

• And the tip for today. If you click on a slider in the Develop module you’ll see it becomes highlighted more so than the others. At this point, you can use the +/- (plus and minus) arrow keys to change the settings. Sometimes it’s kinda cool to just sit back and move the sliders while you’re looking at the photo and not concentrating on moving the mouse ever so slightly. By default the keys increase or decrease the slider setting but some “medium” number (not really sure what it is – sometimes it’s 10 sometimes 5 depending on the setting). But if you hold the Shift key down, it’ll move them by a larger amount. And if you hold the Alt/Option key down it’ll move them by a very small amount (good for fine tuning).

Houston. We have Lightroom!

Calling all Houston Lightroom fanatics. I’ll be taking the Lightroom 3 Live Tour to Houston next month on March 9th and I invite you to come spend the day to help take your Lightroom skills to the next level. This is the place to come if you’ve been wanting to finally tackle the Lightroom workflow from start to finish. Basically, that’s how the day is organized.

First we start off in the morning by importing photos. I’ll go over my strategy for storing, organizing and backing up photos. This is always one of the topics that we get a lot of questions on so even if you don’t see your specific question address during class, I always leave some time after this class for questions from you.

Next we jump into the Develop module where 80-90% of the work done to my photos is done. And you’ll see exactly how to make your photos go from good to great with just a few sliders. We cover everything from getting the color right all the way to sharpening and noise reduction and when to use them.

After lunch we’ll look at adding Photoshop to the mix. While 80-90% of the work is done in Lightroom, I use Photoshop for just about every photo and I’ll show you how to seamlessly make the jump back and forth in this class. We’ll cover retouching, double processing techniques, HDR, panoramas and lots of little tricks to help take your photos up a notch.

Toward the end of the day we have a class dedicated to showing off your work on screen whether it’s a slideshow, video or the web.

Finally, we finish off the day with an hour-long class on printing. You’ll see everything from getting the right settings so you print comes out the way you expect, to creating some killer print templates with just a few sliders. We’ll also cover the custom print template features in Lightroom so you can create anything you want complete with logos and graphics.

The best part about this day is that it’s fun too. As you can probably tell from this blog, I’m not the kind of guy that sits up there reading from a workbook all day. I always save time for questions from the audience because I realize that’s one of the reasons why you come out to live training. I’ve taught this tour many times before and the crowd always has a great time and learns a ton throughout the day. I hope you’ll come join me on March 9th if you’re anywhere near Houston. Thanks!

Worth-a-click

Here’s a few news tidbits and links for you:

• Some of you may remember my post when I asked for your thoughts on sharpening in Photoshop and Lightroom. Well, as much as I wanted to get that class done right away, several other things (books, etc…) got in the way. I’m happy to say that I recorded the last part of the class this week and it should be up early next week on KelbyTraining.com. There’s a few stories to this one which I’ll post about next week. I did incorporate A LOT of your feedback too (again more on it next week). I’m still not sure of the title. I’m thinking something catchy like “Tack Sharp! in Photoshop and Lightroom” or “Mastering Sharpening in Photoshop” or some combination of the two. If you have a vote (or any other ideas) please post a comment Here’s a quick screen capture of the lesson outline in case you’d like a sneak peak.

• Speaking of books getting in the way , my Photoshop CS5 Layers book has been out for a few months now. I’ve started to come across a couple of reviews in case you’ve been holding off on buying it. Here’s one.

• Here’s another from Blogcritics.

• An interesting article on using some text snippet utilities in combination with Lightroom to speed up metadata, copyright and keywording.

• Lens Pro To Go is running a special discount through the end of February. You’ll get 15% off any lens rental. The code is: FEB15

Have a great weekend!

My Layers Book Video Promo

I mentioned a few reviews of my Layers book on the post above. Thought I’d share this promo video that I created for the book in case you’d like to find out more about it. Here you go:

Did You Know Lightroom Can Soft-Proof?

You may not have heard but there’s a soft proofing plug-in available for Lightroom 3. You can find it over at Lightroom-Plugins.com. When Lightroom 3 came out, I know a bunch of you were upset that soft proofing wasn’t included, so this at least offers an alternative (and very reasonably priced at £ 10.00). Now, I know this will probably start a religious battle, but personally the soft proofing feature does nothing “for me” (key words here: “for me”). I guess I’m curious about how much of an impact it’ll make for you. I’m a pretty firm believer in a “hard proof” (AKA: doing a test print). I don’t use the soft proofing feature in Photoshop when I print and I probably won’t use a soft proofing feature in Lightroom either. I get to talk to a lot of people at seminars throughout the year, and I really try to listen to their problems when it comes to printing. The main issues that I hear when it comes to printing revolve around a) the prints being too dark and, b) not being able to proof your output sharpening. Well, soft proofing doesn’t really solve either of these. But you know what does? A test print

So what’s your thoughts? I fully expect the majority of feedback to differ from mine and I’m totally cool with that. In fact, because some people feel so strongly about soft proofing, I’m glad that there is a plug-in for it and I even hope that Lightroom includes it in the future for you. Personally, though, it’s just not for me. How about you?

Lightroom Presets – Focal Point for Portraits and Landscapes

Hey there! I just wanted to say a quick thanks to everyone who came out to my Austin “Photoshop for Photographers” seminar on Friday. The city pretty much shut down because of dangerously icy roads but we still had a great group that braved it anyway and it turned out to be an awesome day. Thanks for coming by. Stop by KelbyTrainingLive.com to see where I’ll be next (Houston on March 9th for Lightroom 3 I believe).

Anyway, today I’ve got a follow up to some presets I released a while ago. Here’s the back story so you know where they’re coming from. See, I had an idea a while back about using the adjustment brush to create a focal point in certain parts of the photo (by darkening the rest of the photo). The vignetting controls are great for doing this but if your subject isn’t in the middle of the photo then it doesn’t work as well. So I figured I could use the adjustment brush to darken parts of the photo and save it as a preset. Nope! I quickly found out you couldn’t save adjustment brush controls as a preset so I went back to the drawing board and came up with this idea instead. I’ve created 8 different presets that each use the Graduated Filter to do something similar. 4 of them are for Portraits (or portrait oriented images) and 4 of them are for landscape oriented photos (top left, top right, bottom left, and bottom right). Enjoy ‘em and let me know what you think!

Portrait (Top Left)

Click to See Larger

Portrait (Top Right)

Click to See Larger

Landscape (Bottom Right)

Click to See Larger

Click here to download Matt’s Focal Point Presets
Click here for a video on how to install presets

News – Training on the Road

Hey folks. I figured I’d give you a quick update on where I’ll be teaching over the next couple of months in case you can make it out for some live training.

• First, I’ll be at teaching the Photoshop CS5 for Photographers seminar in Austin, TX this Friday (Feb. 4). This is such a fun day to teach and it’s awesome to look out into the crowd and see so many “Ah ha!” moments. I hope you can join me. You can find the day’s outline and more info here.

• Next up I’m teaching the Lightroom 3 Live Tour in Houston, TX on March 8th. If you’re looking to learn Lightroom this is the day to learn it. More details here.

• In March I’m actually going to try to attend a workshop for once. I’ve always followed Joel Grimes work and I think I’m finally going to get the chance to take one of his workshops. Compositing and merging Photoshop with Photography is one of my favorite areas, and I think Joel does a great job at it. I’m definitely anxious to see him work. His next workshop is on March 26-27 in LA so maybe I’ll even see you there.

• Of course Photoshop World is rapidly approaching. We’re holding it in Orlando, FL on March 30 – April 1. I have to say that this is one of my favorite times of the year. For 3 days, I get in front of the people I spend the year working and teaching for. Instructors love it… attendees love it… if you can make it out for this I can’t encourage it enough. Plus you can still save $100 if you sign up in the next few weeks. Here’s the link.

That’s all I know about for now, but things will definitely change as new seminars come up. I’ll be sure to keep you posted here as things get added. Thanks for giving me a minute. Have a great day.