Hi folks. Here’s another quick round of Q&A’s.

Q. Is there a way to add music to a web gallery created in Lightroom’s Web module?
A. Nope, you can’t add music to a web gallery. Thankfully. But the more important question is why do you want to? I’m sorry to be the one to break this to ya’, but nobody likes a web page that automatically plays music. It’s horribly intrusive and I’ve never met anyone that auto-music in a web page doesn’t incite anger and rage in them. I’m just sayin’ 🙂

Q. Can I resize my image in Lightroom without exporting?
A. No. You can crop to a specific dimension but you can’t resize. Actually, you don’t really want to resize your original in LR. Remember, the images you look at in LR are your negatives. They’re your original source files. You’d never do permanent damage to your negatives back in the film days and the same goes here. If you need to resize then go to File > Export and do it there.

Q. Can I apply a frame inside of LR?
A. There’s are some fake ways to do it with identity plates. Sean McCormack has a video on it over at his blog. Honestly, none of the “workarounds” with identity plates are really that great though. I mean, they word but in the end, they’re just workarounds and you’re probably not going to fall in love with the results. However, onOneSoftware’s PhotoFrame plugs directly into Lightroom so you can go from LR into PhotoFrame to add the frame and then back seamlessly. It’s really your best alternative unless you want to go into Photoshop.

Q. Should I break up my libraries into multiple catalogs?
A. Personally, I create a catalog for my “work” related stuff and one catalog for my “personal” photos. Honestly though, I don’t even always follow it because it’s just easier to store everything in one catalog. I also know a lot of wedding photographers that create a new catalog for each wedding and store that catalog with the wedding photos. That’s about it though. I don’t know of many other reasons to add the complexity of multiple catalogs. One thing to keep in mind with multiple catalogs is that you can’t search across them. Plus it’s just more hassle to manage. So if you’ve got a reason to create multiple catalogs then go for it. For me, it just complicates things and I’m a member of the keep it simple club.

Q. How about an easy tutorial on how to pick a White point and a Black point in Lightroom? Please.
A. Well, since you said “please” 🙂 Here goes. There is no way to set the white and black point like you’re used to in Photoshop’s Levels adjustment (or Capture NX’s double threshold feature). There are no white/black point eyedroppers. You can, however, hold down the Alt/Option key when adjusting Exposure and Blacks. This shows you which areas begin to clip so you can adjust the white (Exposure) and black (Blacks) sliders accordingly. However, those two adjustments have nothing to do with color so you’re not color correcting anything when you move them. That’s what the white balance settings and eyedropper are for.

Thanks for reading! Keep the questions coming.

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