Lightroom Video – Converting Camera Raw Presets to Lightroom

Presets rock right? Well, if you’ve been a camera raw user before Lightroom then you may have presets in ACR as well. In this week’s video, I’ll show you a trick for getting them over into Lightroom. While there’s no official preset converter to get ACR presets to Lightroom, it’s a pretty simple process move your favorite photo recipes over from Camera Raw to Lightroom. Thanks for stopping by!

Free Lightroom Video – Exposure vs. Fill Light

Last summer I wrote a post about a really popular question I get about the difference between Exposure vs. Brightness. Well, recently I got another question that seemed like a good candidate for a video – the difference between Exposure and Fill Light. They both have a brightening effect but they handle it in a different way (even more so than the differences between Exposure and Brightness). Thanks for stopping by!

Lightroom Video – onOne Software’s Perfect Layers Preview

Hey there. A while back, onOne Software announced a public preview of their new plug-in called Perfect Layers. Well, the public preview is over and version 1 is now officially out. Brian Matiash (from onOne) was in our studio last week, so I pulled him aside to spend some time showing a couple of the ways that you’d use Perfect Layers with Lightroom, especially if you’re not necessarily a Photoshop user.

You can find out all the details over at their site. Also, NAPP members can take advantage of a $35.00 discount by checking out the Software Discounts page on the NAPP Member Site.

Free Lightroom Presets – Nostalgic Summer Collection from Pretty Presets

Happy Monday everyone. I hope all the dads out there had a great fathers day weekend. I know I did.

This week, Laura (from Pretty Presets) was kind enough to donate some free presets for me to give away. The images here show the before/after samples of the 3 presets in the download below (from various collections). If you like them, she’s got plenty more available over at at Lightroompresets.com so make sure you stop by and pay her a visit.

Heres the link to download the sample presets. Enjoy ‘em, and don’t forget to stop by Laura’s site and check out some of her other collections. Have a great day!

Lightroom Q&A

Here’s the latest round of Q&A’s. Feel free to leave a comment and keep ‘em coming.

Q. After viewing the 100 reasons Lightroom is better that Bridge I made the switch and purchased Lightroom . I am trying to figure our how to move my ACR presets to Lightroom. I can’t seem to figure this out. What am I missing?
A. There’s no “official” way to convert them, but here’s a link on the Lightroom forums that has a workaround.

Q. How can I save my print templates to a JPEG like you did in your multi-photo print preset?
A. In the Print module, scroll down on the right hand side panels to the last one (the Print Job panel). The first setting is called “Print To”. Just turn it to the JPEG option and you’ll save your layout as a JPEG instead of sending it to the printer.

Q. Love all the presets I get from you, Matt. I recently bought a new computer (dell) and bought CS5 and Lightroom 3. Is there an easy way to move all my presets and brushes (teeth whitening) to my new computer/ Lightroom 3?
A. Sure thing. I posted a video a couple of weeks ago about moving presets. Here’s the link.

Q. How can we move an Identity plate from one catalog to the other?
A. While you can move most presets, Identity Plates are the one exception. So they don’t fall into the preset video I just mentioned above. If you’ve used an image you created as an identity plate then you’ll have to re-import that image image for the new one.

Q. Hey Matt, was just looking at some of your Paris photos that you wrote about a while back. You noted the photos were taken with a Nikon D3. Which “traveling” tripod did you take with you? I would like to travel relatively “light”.
A. I’m with ya! I love to travel light. I use the Gitzo traveler. It’s REALLY light and so small it fits into by laptop case. The one I have is discontinued but I there’s an updated version if you search for “Gitzo Traveler”.

Have a great day!

Lightroom Worth-a-click

Happy Friday folks! Here’s a few links and sites to check out if you get a chance.

• My Lightroom 3 Crash Course iPad app is out. This app is a short, get-started-quick video course for Lightroom. It doesn’t go over everything (like my Kelby Training Lightroom In Depth series does). It just covers the basics you need to get up and running without spending 6 hours watching training. Here’s the link if you want to check it out.

• It seems everyone loves presets. “The Hangover” preset I created earlier in the week was a big hit. If you’re into presets, check out the ones over at LightroomPresets.com. There’s definitely some great looking presets there.

• Adobe has a new article on Optimizing Performance in Lightroom.

• Nik Software just released their own iPad photo app, Snapseed. In all honesty, I just downloaded it. But I’m lovin’ it so far. And from the looks of the reviews on the iTunes store, so is everyone else.

• The Turning Gate has released TTG Cart CE, its new shopping cart system for Adobe Lightroom.

• Alien Skin Software announced Snap Art 3, the new version of their artistic natural media plug-in for Photoshop and Lightroom (notice the use of “for” not “in” )

That’s it for this week. Have a great weekend!

Free Lightroom Preset – The Hangover Movie Look

WARNING: This preset contains photos and text that imply alcoholic consumption. If you’re under the age of 21 or otherwise offended by such photos and implications, then please leave this page… there’s nothing to see here.

Well, the movie season is gearing up and I snuck away last week to catch a sequel to what’s become one of the funniest movies I can remember, The Hangover. Needless to say the movie was great. But of course, being a Photoshop/Lightroom guy, we have to walk through the movie theater looking at the movie posters and thinking up ways to create the same effects. I thought The Hangover 2 made a great candidate. Now, even though the movie poster this is named after is the Hangover, you’ll find it’s just a fun preset that works great on photos taken outside during the day. It’s got a very warm summer-ish feel to it. There’s even a little green and some red added as well. One more thing: I found that after you apply it, try increasing the Exposure and Fill Light based on how dark your original photo was. The resulting photo is supposed to be fairly bright so you may need to make a couple of tweaks to get it there. Enjoy!

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

(note: images courtesy of iStock.com)

• Click here to download the preset.

To install:
1) Unzip the preset zip file on to your desktop. Then double click the .LRTEMPLATE file to install
OR
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 Video – Moving Your Develop Presets

Hey folks. Here’s a quick video for you on moving presets. Say you get a new computer and you install Lightroom. Well, your old computer has all of your presets on it right? Once you know where they are, moving your presets from one computer to another is really just a drag-and-drop process. In fact, you can move more than just your Develop presets – you can move all of the presets you’d create in Lightroom (Print, Slideshow, Watermarks, Metadata templates, etc…) because they’re all stored in the same folder. I hope you enjoy!