Hi everyone. Been getting lots of good questions lately so here’s another Q&A day for you.

Q. Hi Matt. In your Sharpening Workflow video, why didn’t you open in Photoshop as a smart object. You could still apply your filter as a smart filter right?
A. Actually that’s a great question and I don’t really have a good answer for it other then smart objects just aren’t ingrained in my workflow yet. Once smart object layers become regular layers and that’s the default layer then I’ll probably get it right. But for now, I’ve got 15+ years of Photoshop experience working against me and smart object layers just don’t come natural (as evidenced by the video because it never even crossed my mind).

Q. Speaking of that video Matt, why didn’t you just use the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom (with some sharpening) instead of going to Photoshop to do it?
A. Man, what’s with the ‘tude? 🙂 I’ve got a blog post where I’ll talk more about that. But for the most part, I just don’t like sharpening in Lightroom. Mainly because I have to zoom in to 100% to even see it. It just bugs me. Also when it comes to the brush, I only get one setting so I feel like I have more control in Photoshop. More on this later though because I have seen some decent results with the Adjustment Brush sharpening (it was actually better then I thought).

Q. I export and rename my Lightroom files as JPEGs for upload to my website. Is there a way to link back to the photo in Lightroom? As it is now I “hope” I am looking at the same photo I uploaded when I go to print for sale.
A. The short answer is no. There is an option in the Export dialog that re-imports the JPEGs (I did a video on it a while back) but that doesn’t create any sort of link to the original. So if you rename them when you export you’re kinda on your own.

Q. Could someone please tell me how I can print an 8.5 x 11 (borderless) from the LR print module? There isn’t a template for even an 8×10!
A. Click on your Page Setup button (lower left side of the screen). Then choose the Custom option to create a custom page size if the printer you’ve chosen doesn’t already have an 8.5×11 preset.

Q. HELP!! I accidentally deleted a picture from Lightroom. I was able to recover it from the trash, but I lost the hours worth of editingÂ…can I recover that also?
A. If you actually deleted from Lightroom (selected the photo and pressed Delete) then you’re pretty much outta luck. Lightroom doesn’t manage the photo anymore so even if you re-import the photo after you found it in the trash its not going to bring back your work. Now for the more pertinent question. How did you spend “hours” of work on 1 photo in LR? Does LR really have that much functionality that 1 photo could take hours? I’m just sayin’ 🙂

That’s it for today. Have a good one!

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