Your Burning Lightroom 4 Questions Answered From Adobe

I just saw a post over on Adobe’s Photoshop.com blog where product manager Sharad Mangalick, answered a bunch of Lightroom 4 questions. Everything from catalogs, to video, new features, you name it. Below is one question I pulled directly from the page because I’ve been asked quite a bit too, but there’s lots more in the full article.

@luxx11 and @jennawoodward Ask: @Lightroom why can’t I use my LR3 catalogs in LR4? Is there a way to easily transfer my Lr3 catalogue into Lr4?

Sharad: Since Lightroom 4 is still in beta form, we restricted the ability to bring in catalogs created in earlier versions of Lightroom as a safeguard. This will be lifted when we release the final version of Lightroom 4, and you will be able to import prior version Lightroom catalogs, as well as Lightroom 4 Beta catalogs into Lightroom 4.

It’s definitely worth a read. Here’s the link if you get a chance to stop by today.

Lightroom 4 Beta and Photoshop-like Cloning and Healing?

Last week, Tom Hogarty (Adobe’s Lightroom product manager) was in town for the Lightroom 4 Beta launch. He co-hosted 4 live webcasts with me throughout the day. As we looked through the list of questions on a break, I saw one that read “Why didn’t you include real cloning and healing tools in LR4 like Photoshop? Aren’t you just trying to keep it so we have to buy both?”. Tom saw the question and immediately said “Let’s take that one”. So we did and he had a great response to it. One I thought was worth a quick post because I think plenty of folks out there wonder the same thing (I know I always kinda secretly did).

To paraphrase, Tom said that when they add features to Lightroom they want to make sure that they’re features that are well planned and thought out, easy to use, and can work within the overall structure of Lightroom (mainly the fact that it has to be non-destructive). Tom explained that there’s not just one retouching workflow in Photoshop. There’s 20 right? Everyone uses the tools just a little different. Some people use Healing, some use Spot Healing with Content Aware turned on, some use the Patch tool, some use the Clone Stamp tool set to the Lighten blend mode at 20% Opacity. When you think about it, there really are a lot of different retouching strategies in Photoshop. For Lightroom to just include a Cloning and Healing Brush doesn’t cut it. Does the brush have Opacity, blend modes, layering, etc…? There’s much more to it then just taking the code from Photoshop and moving it over to Lightroom. They have to do it right or else Lightroom just becomes a clone of Photoshop. Although that seems tempting at first, I’m pretty sure we all don’t want Lightroom to become Photoshop.

In the end, Tom mentioned that this is a feature he’d really like to see in Lightroom as well. Reading between the lines I think we can tell this is at least ON the development table. I guess whether or not we really see it is unsure, but I thought it was really cool that Tom dove right in to that question. And, to me at least, he gave some really good reasons why that technology isn’t there yet, but also answered a question (the whole Adobe making it so we have to buy both thing) that I believe plenty of people have.

If you haven’t see any of the Lightroom 4 Launch Day webcasts with Tom, them make sure you stop by Kelby Training’s website. They’re free to watch and there’s some fantastic info in there that, well, is the stuff you’d only really get from Lightroom’s product manager. Thanks!

Lightroom 4 Beta Q&A – The Day After

First off, I wanted to say a HUGE thanks to Tom Hogarty for spending the day with us at Kelby Training yesterday to answer all of your questions (and to Adobe for letting Tom get away for the day). The live broadcasts will be running all day so feel free to stop by Kelby Training’s website and watch them. Also, Tom and I answered a bunch of questions over the course of the day. I figured I’d dedicate a Q&A day to some of the most popular ones:

Q. If I upgrade to Lightroom 4 Beta, will it hurt or corrupt my copy of Lightroom 3?
A. Not at all. Lightroom 4 Beta is a totally separate install and doesn’t affect your copy of Lightroom 3 at all.

Q. Can I use Lightroom 4 Beta for my production work?
A. I wouldn’t really recommend it. Adobe definitely doesn’t recommend it. Having your paycheck tied to a beta version of the software probably isn’t such a good idea. That said, I can’t guarantee I’ll follow my own advice

Q. Can I upgrade my catalogs from Lightroom 3 to Lightroom 4 Beta?
A. Didn’t you read the previous question? You’re not really supposed to move your production/important work to LR4 Beta. In an effort to keep you from doing just that you can only create a new catalog for LR4. You can’t open an existing one from a previous version of Lightroom.

Q. Okay, but will the final release version of Lightroom 4 upgrade my Lightroom 3 catalogs though?
A. Absolutely!

Q. How about all the work I do in the beta version of Lightroom 4. Will that get upgraded too?
A. Yup. Adobe doesn’t make any promises that they’ll upgrade your beta stuff but in the past they’ve always been able to.

Q. Will Lightroom 4 Beta only work with Photoshop CS5?
A. Nope. Lightroom 4 will work just fine with CS4 (or CS3 or CS2 or Elements for that matter).

Q. Where can I get some awesome Lightroom 4 training?
A. Great question! No one really asked this but it’s a good way for me to plug a few things. First, Scott Kelby and I created NAPP’s Lightroom 4 Beta Launch Site. And don’t forget all of the live webcasts that Tom and I did on launch day over at Kelby Training.

Q. When will the final version of Lightroom 4 be released?
A. Adobe hasn’t officially announced this yet. In the past it’s been anywhere from 2 months to 14 months.

Q. Really? So you’re gonna leave us hangin’?
A. Sorry… I’ll lose my cushy Lightroom gig if I reveal any more I can say this… The expiration date listed for Lightroom 4 Beta is March 31, 2012. Typically, it’s not good practice for a company to let the beta expire without releasing the final version before the expiration date. It tends to leave people hanging and forget all about your brand new version of the product. That’s all I’m sayin’

Q. Will my plug-ins work with Lightroom 4 Beta (for example, onOne’s software, Nik’s Silver Efex Pro or Viveza)?
A. Here’s the deal. The official answer is that you should probably ask the plug-in company. Adobe does provide them with pre-release versions of the software so they can start planning and making their plug-ins available. That said, I installed Lightroom 4 Beta and most of my plug-ins were carried over in the Photo > Edit In menu. So give it a try. But officially, most plug-in companies probably won’t make any major updates until the final version of Lightroom 4 comes out.

Thanks for stopping by. If you have any other questions, post them in a comment and I’ll do round 2 of Q&A.

How This Blog (and your comments) Changed My Lightroom Backup Strategy

In this blog post a few weeks back, I wrote about a question that I got quite a bit during my Lightroom 3 Live seminars. The question (so you don’t have to go back and read) was how many Lightroom backups do I save. You know, when you quit Lightroom you can set LR’s preferences to backup your catalog. By default it will do it every week or so, but you can tell it to backup every time you quit Lightroom if you want. Well, each time it backs up it saves a folder of your backup. If you’ve got a decent sized catalog, those folders can grow to take up quite a bit of space and I heard from a lot of people wondering how many of them they should save.

My answer to them was none. I simply backup my computer every night using Super Duper for Mac. So I not only have a backup of my computer, but also a backup of Lightroom’s catalog in the process.

After reading your comments, I’ve since changed my strategy though. See, when Lightroom backs up your catalog, it does an integrity check. Several people pointed out that they’ve had corruption problems with their catalog before. So theoretically, my backup plan could cause a problem. What if my catalog became corrupt? Then, that night I backed up to Super Duper. But instead, my backup now became the corrupt version? Now, it’s never actually happened to me. And I don’t personally know anyone who’s had a corrupt catalog either. But there were enough comments from people who’ve had a corrupt catalog that I thought it was worth giving some thought to.

My new strategy has changed slightly. I set Lightroom’s backup preference to once a week. Then I make sure I delete all prior backups (you don’t need ‘em). I continue on with my usual backup plan of backing up to Super Duper every night. So now Lightroom’s working catalog is backed up, Lightroom’s backup catalog is backed up (with full integrity check so I know it’s not corrupt), and my entire Mac is backed up too.

As a side note, that’s why I love this blog. It often takes on a life of it’s own. The comments, questions, answers, etc… all have a huge part in feeding it and giving me plenty of things to think and talk about when it comes to Lightroom. And that all happens because of you. So… thank you

Lightroom Q&A

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

Q. If I make changes to a preset I’ve created (or even one of the wonderful presets that you’ve created for us), how can I update the preset without creating a brand new one?
A. First off, thanks! Glad you like the presets. Flattery will always get your question answered If you have a preset that already exists and you make some changes to it, first make sure the changes are the current changes you’re making to a photo that’s selected in Lightroom. Then, just right click on top of the preset name in the Presets panel and choose “Update with Current Settings”. You’ll get the same dialog that you normally get when you create a preset and you can click on the settings that you want to update/add.

Q. But how do I right-click. I don’t have a two button mouse?
A. Get up to speed with 1990′s technology and get a two-button mouse (sorry, had to say it)
If you’re on a Mac laptop you can either a) Control-click or, b) Put two fingers on your trackpad and click.

Q. Is there any way that I can preview what my photo is going to look like when I export it in the sRGB color space?
A. Nope, Lightroom doesn’t have a soft-proof feature. Here’s the thing about exporting your photo into sRGB though. Even though Lightroom is technically a ProphotoRGB color space application, chance are that what you’re seeing on your screen is an sRGB photo. AdobeRGB and ProPhotoRGB really only come into play when we’re printing. Your screens though, typically only display an sRGB photo. So whether it’s sRGB, AdobeRGB or ProPhoto, it’s not going to look different on your screen.

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 you can do it there.

Q. I watched your “Importing Raw + JPEGs” video a while back. I understand that Lightroom won’t import the JPEGs with the Raw files unless I tell it to, but what about moving and backing up. Will it move and/or backup the JPEGs to the same folder I tell it to for the raw files?
A. Yep, Lightroom will move the JPEGs to the same folder you tell it to move the raw files to. And if you have LR backing up your photos on import then it’ll backup the JPEGs as well.

Q. Is there a way to evenly space or display a ruler when creating templates for the print module? I want to evenly distribute 3 images across a page.
A. Yep. If you go to the Rulers, Grid & Guides panel in the Print module (on the right hand side 3rd panel down), you’ll see a “Show Guides” checkbox. Turn it on and Rulers are one of the options there. There’s even a “Grid Snap” option that should help you align things more easily to the rulers and grid.

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!

The Paris Trip / HDR Q&A

Lot’s of great questions came from my post last week. First I just wanted to say thank you for all of the kind words about the photos. Next, I figured I’d compile your questions so that everyone can benefit from some answers. Thanks again!

Q. Great shots Matt. Do you tend to use Photoshop CS5 for HDR processing, HDR Efex Pro from Nik, or Photomatix?
A. After many trials, switching and testing I’ve settled on Photomatix for my HDR photos. It’s hard to explain exactly why. Personally, I’m just able to get the look that I want with it. It’s fast and, well, it just works for me.

Q. Pretty awesome HDR shots.. One question though, I have been to Paris but I could never get any of these shots without people in it. How did you manage to do it? Photoshop? Or another trick?

A. First off, thanks For most of the photos I was just patient and waited. For some of the Louvre photos (which were HDR photos), the people were there, but they were ghosted because of the long exposures. Once I had the photo in Photoshop, I used the Clone Stamp tool or Content Aware Healing in CS5 to get rid of them. For the ones taken at sunrise, well, there’s your answer. It was cold and Serge and I were the only ones silly enough to be up that early

Q. Which traveling tripod did you take with you?
A. I use the Gitzo traveler 1550T along with a BH-40 Really Right Stuff ballhead. On this trip I borrowed my buddy’s BH-40 because it’s so much lighter than the BH-55 I own. In fact, if anyone wants to buy a used BH-55 (but very well taken care of) let me know. I just don’t use the lenses big enough to warrant that size bullhead and will probably wind up selling it to buy a BH-40.

Q. Paris + Bad weather = Black and White. Why no black and white photos?
A. I’m just not a fan of B&W. I’ll convert 1 out of every 100 photos to black and white. Don’t know why really. I just personally like color.

Q. I usually don’t like HDR, but I like these photos (This comment came up a number of times)
A. OK, this was more of a comment instead of a question. But I thought it was a good topic because it came up a lot. I really don’t do any naturalistic or realistic HDR photos any more. I’d rather just overlay two bracketed photos in Photoshop and use masking to get the best results from the two. So, when I create an HDR photo I’m purely going for more of a surrealistic over-the-top look. To me, that’s where HDR fits in best. I think we tend to say we don’t like HDR when we see it used poorly on poor subjects. But when you go for the surreal style of HDR on subjects that tend to have a surreal look/feel to them I think it works. That’s my take anyway.

Q. I don’t know if you’re aware, but you were very lucky with your Eiffel Tower shot – if (like most people) you’d waited to see the ‘flashes’ (on the hour for several minutes) on the Tower, you’d have been in copyright violation.
A. Good point. For those that don’t know, the Eiffel Tower has flashing/blinking lights on it that go off for about 5 minutes on the top of every hour. When those lights were installed, it’s said to have significantly changed the appearance of the Eiffel Tower enough so that any photos with the blinking lights on are copyrighted by the company that owns them and any use is forbidden. I did take a photo with all the lights blinking but I just thought it looked bad in a photo (very cool to see in person). It took away from the beauty of the tower for me. That said, I did some research and from what I could find, I’d still be OK if I posted the photo. Its only if I tried to use the photo commercially that I’d have a problem. Think about it. There were probably 1000 other people taking photos with me. You know those photos end up all over Facebook, twitter, blogs, wherever. I don’t think they’d be successful in forbidding people to post the photos. From what I read, you just can’t use them for commercial purposes. That said, I’m sure there’s some one out there that’ll tell me I’m wrong and I’m a law breaker due to my lack of respect for churches and monuments world wide and how I do the photography community a disservice bla bla bla… But I’m pretty sure those comments won’t make it through

Q. Great pictures from Paris, but did you also shoot some pictures in Amsterdam? It may be a smaller city, but it’s at least as beautiful.
A. I agree totally. Beautiful city! Honestly, I was working most of the time in the Netherlands. I had my evenings free and after the long days I had (and some jetlag), I just felt like hanging out and enjoying at a nice dinner and drinks (and admittedly some people watching) with my wife.

Q. Love your story of shooting the model in the Netherlands and forgetting to put your card in the camera. Why don’t you enable the feature that won’t let you shoot without a card in the camera?
A. I always enable that feature on my own cameras. I was using some one elses camera for the shoot though, and it wasn’t turned on (and I never checked).

Q. How did you get the starburst effect on the shot with the two street lamps in front?
A. I shoot my night HDRs at f/16. With the Nano coating on the newer Nikon lenses you can get a nice starburst without going all the way to f/22. Sometimes I even get them at f/11.

Q. Hey Matt! I do really like HDR. Could you share approximately how many images you took and the range of bracketing?
A. I set my Nikon D3 to shoot 5 frames most of the time. They’re each 1 stop apart and I discard the +1 and -1 photo so I’m just left with -2, metered, +2. For most photos that does the trick. Once in a while, I’ll have to change the settings to get a longer/shorter exposure depending if there’s a bright window or really dark shadowy area in the frame.

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 Q&A

Figured today was a good day to catch up on some Q&A’s from recent posts. Enjoy!

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. I really like the look of that multi-photo grid preset you released the other week. But how do I get my photos in to it?
A. Just drag photos from the filmstrip into a grid square. Once they’re there, you can reposition how the photo looks in that square by holding down the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and clicking on the photo to drag it around.

Q. A while ago you talked about Adobe’s Lightroom certification? Is there an exam for Lightroom 3?
A. Nope. No updated exam for LR3 yet. I haven’t heard of if or when this will happen but typically it seems to come out within 6 months of the release of a new version.

Q. I want to create a web gallery from which my client can select and order, but I need the files to be numbered from 1 to whatever. At the moment I’m exporting the collection as DNG file, renumbering in the process. I then import these into my catalog and create the web gallery. Is there any way to avoid the export/import aspect of this workflow?
A. You can rename your photos without exporting. Just go to the Library module. Then under the Library menu choose Rename Photos.

Q. If I store my photos on an external drive, does the speed of my external drive affect Lightroom’s performance?
A. Most definitely! There’s still lots of information being read back and forth between those photos and the speed will affect how fast Lightroom feels. According to some folks at Adobe that I’ve talked to about this, a 5400 RPM drive would fairly slow. A 7200 is better. USB is going to be mostly bad and Firewire will of course be better.

Q. So Matt, knowing what you just said about storing your photos on an external drive, what do you do?
A. If you hadn’t guess, I asked myself this question figuring some one would ask it soon enough Anyway, I store all of my photos on an external 5400 RPM Firewire drive. It does feel sluggish sometimes and I’m looking at moving up to something faster.

Q. I use the Painter tool (the spray can looking thing) to paint on keywords in the Library module. It seems Adobe removed the “erase” option for this tool. I used to click to paint and then click again to erase. Is there a fix?
A. Sure is. They didn’t remove the Erase option, I think they just found that people were accidentally erasing a lot because it was too similar to adding keywords. So the change in Lightroom 3 is that you hold down the Option key (PC: Alt key) and click the photo to erase any keywords.

Thanks for all the questions. I hope this helped a little. Have a great weekend!

Lightroom Pro Q&A with Nat Coalson

Hi everyone. Here’s another in a series of mini-interviews with some of the Lightroom pros out there where they’ve answered a short series of questions about how they use and feel about Lightroom:

Today’s Guest: Nat Coalson.

Bio/Intro: Nathaniel Coalson is a travel and fine art photographer, teacher and writer based in Denver, Colorado. Nat has worked professionally in photography, imaging and printing since 1987. His work has been exhibited extensively, received numerous awards and is held in private and corporate collections. Nat is is an Adobe Certified Expert in Lightroom and Photoshop, and is a top-rated instructor who has taught digital photography and imaging to photographers at all levels. He is the author of two Lightroom books including Lightroom 3: Streamlining your Digital Photography Process, published by Wiley in 2010. He has written articles on Lightroom for magazines including Photoshop User and Great Output and is a contributing writer at TheLightroomLab.com. For more information and to see Nat’s work visit www.NatCoalson.com.

Q. How many presets do you have in the Develop module?

A. have hundreds of Develop presets installed (downloaded from various sources on the web) but I rarely use any of them, except when doing demos. (For people just starting to use Lightroom, applying Develop presets is a great way to learn what the different adjustments do.)

The six presets I use on a regular basis are specific to the cameras I used for most of the photos in my catalog. My presets include custom settings for:

- Basic adjustments such as Blacks, Brightness, Contrast, Clarity and Vibrance;
- Either a flat Tone Curve, or a parametric curve with +5 Lights and -5 Darks;
- Custom sharpening settings; for example, on photos from my Canon 5D Mark II, my default sharpening settings are Amount 45, Radius 1.0, Detail 45, Masking 15.

Photos from my other cameras use different sharpening (and noise reduction) settings; in each of my default Develop presets, all the settings are fine tuned for that particular camera.

In my standard workflow, I apply these Develop presets during Import, and beyond that I don’t use Develop presets very often. Each photo (or sequence of similar photos) gets processed individually, as needed. I start by envisioning how I want the photo to look, and use the various Develop adjustments to make it that way. If I want to apply the same look to other photos, I use Sync to apply the settings from the active photo to the others.

Q. What’s your favorite panel besides the Basic panel ( Sorry the basic panel is too much of a gimmee)?

A. My favorite panel (besides the Basic panel) is the Toolstrip. I know, I know… it’s not really a panel But I use graduated filters and adjustment brushes on almost every image.

When just beginning to Develop a photo, I visualize how it might be made more appealing by dodging and burning (lightening and darkening) localized areas of the image, and sometimes I do that work first.

I really like the fact that with Lightroom, if I want to apply local adjustments first, any global adjustments made later are blended seamlessly. You can use any of the Lightroom tools, at any time, and the final rendering combines them in the optimal way (which isn’t always the case with Photoshop layers).

Q. What panel/slider/feature do you use the least?

A. I don’t know – I’ve forgotten it even exists!

Hmmm… let me look… I guess I’d have to say I almost never use the Random Order option on the Playback panel in Slideshow. Usually I want the slides to show in a specific order. But the Random Order option could be handy if you don’t want to show any bias in the order, such as with a selection of images made by a group of people.

Otherwise, in my typical workflows, I generally use most of Lightroom’s functions at one point or another.

Q. Do you keyword (All the time/Sometimes/Never)

A. I keyword all my photos, all the time. I have two basic scenarios for my photos: work done for clients, and work done as self-assignments that I offer for licensing and/or as prints. In both cases, adding keywords helps me easily find any photo within the Lightroom catalog. And with photos offered for sale online, having them loaded with keywords dramatically increases their visibility on the web, because search engines index all the keywords embedded in image files.

I always add at least a few keywords (using hierarchies*) during Import. Then I add more keywords and/or hierarchies to batches of photos that make it through my initial rounds of editing. My edited photos typically get a lot of keywords, especially my final selects, for which I individually add detailed keywords (plus captions and titles) specific to each photo.

*About keyword hierarchies: in the Keyword List panel, you can drag and drop to “nest” keywords into parent/child relationships, or “hierarchies”. When you apply a child keyword to one or more photos, you have the option to also automatically apply all the containing keywords to your exported photos. Using hierarchies can be a huge time saver and also helps keep your keyword list tidy and manageable.

Q. Do you use Collections (All the time/Sometimes/Never)

A. I use Collections all the time; they are one of the most important benefits of Lightroom’s catalog (database) architecture. In my standard editing workflow, when I’ve edited down to my final selects I put them into a Collection, after which I rarely return to the Folder source. You can access Collections from within all the modules, so (unlike folders) you can choose different groups of photos to work on without needing to go back to Library.

Historically, I’ve used regular Collections more than Smart Collections, but this is starting to change. I’ve made regular collections for all kinds of purposes: client projects, portfolio selections, gallery or publication submissions, competition entries, web galleries, photos to be printed, etc. These days I’m starting to make more Smart Collections with keywords and/or attributes as criteria.

Q. Favorite Lightroom Plug-in?

A. My favorite Lightroom plug-in changes depending on what I’m doing with my files. Export plug-ins are really useful for batch-uploading photos to the web; these days I’m frequently using the Dossier de Presse (for NextGEN galleries) and Photoshelter plug-ins.

Timothy Armes’ suite of Lightroom plug-ins is also extremely helpful for a wide range of purposes (see Photographers-Toolbox.com.)

Q. If you could add one feature to Lightroom what would it be?

A. That’s a tough one… Lightroom gives me nearly everything I need to process my photos and share them with the world!

One thing I’d really like to see added is soft proofing. This is a key step in my printing workflow, and one for which I still need Photoshop. Soft proofing lets you preview what an image will look like when printed on a selected paper/printer combination; you can then make any necessary adjustments to tone and color, prior to printing.

For example, most canvas media have a relatively narrow color gamut and tend to print dark. With a soft proof preview, I can use adjustment layers to boost saturation, open up the shadows, etc. before I make the print.

Without soft proofing, photos printed on different papers, canvas etc. will come out looking quite different from one another. Soft proofing allows you to make very consistent reproductions of your photos using a wide range of media.

If Lightroom provided soft proofing, prepping files for super-accurate color output would be much easier!

Nat Coalson
www.NatCoalson.com.