Q&A – Lightroom 3
There were a bunch of questions the other day when Lightroom 3 was announced. So I figured I’d dedicate a Q&A day to ’em:
Q. If I upgrade to Lightroom 3, do I also need to upgrade Photoshop to CS5 to be able to use Lightroom and Photoshop together? (I have Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4 Extended now)
A. Nope. Lightroom 3 will work just fine with CS4 (or CS3 or CS2 or Elements for that matter).
Q. Where can I get some awesome Lightroom 3 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 will be taking the Lightroom 3 Live tour to a bunch of places in July. You can find out where at KelbyTrainingLive.com. I’ve also got a 3 part course called Lightroom 3 In Depth that goes over everything about Lightroom (Part 1: Import, Part 2: Develop and Edit, Part 3: Showing Off Your Photos). You can find that over at Kelby Training’s website. There’s also the Lightroom 3 Power Session there in case you just want to see the new features in version 3 and how to use them.
Q. Do NAPP members get a discount on LR3?
A. Yes and no. NAPP members get a discount on Adobe software so yes you get a discount but it’s not specifically on Lightroom – it’s everything. Just go to photoshopuser.com/members
Q. Matt, will you just cover LR 3 now (on the blog, seminars, Photoshop World) or will you still cover LR 2?
A. For most purposes it shouldn’t make a difference. While LR3 is a good upgrade, it’s not a game changer. Noise reduction is great but if you’ve followed my training before you’ll know I don’t spend a lot of time training on removing noise. Tethered, slideshows, printing may all have new features but they’re not new to our workflow. So I’ll be assuming you have LR 3 but it shouldn’t impact the overall training that much. Note: I do have some cool presets that I’ll be working on, specifically with the print module in version 3 and a few other things.
Q. Can Lightroom 3 be used to softproof? Naturally, a program made for serious photographers would, but there seems to be a bug in mine in which it doesn’t. How do I softproof?
A. Don’t you just love it when people ask questions they already know the answer to? Anyway, Lightroom 3 doesn’t have a softproofing feature. Photoshop does but I never use it so I guess I’m not a “serious” photographer. My prints look great though! “Naturally” of course 😉
Q. Do I need to keep Lightroom 2 on my computer after I install Lightroom 3?
A. Nope. You can safely remove LR 2 when you’ve installed 3.
Q. Do my plug-ins work with Lightroom 3 (for example, Nik’s Silver Efex Pro or Viveza)?
A. Sure. Your plug-ins should work just fine.
Q. Will my presets from Lightroom 2 work with Lightroom 3?
A. Sure thing. In fact, they should all show up in LR 3 just where they were in 2.
Q. Any advice on how best to upgrade my Lightroom 2 catalog and my Lightroom 3 beta into one?
A. Yes. First get your Lightroom 2 catalog to Lightroom 3. It should upgrade automatically when you install and launch LR 3. Then open Lightroom 3 beta. Go to File > Export as catalog and export the catalog. Then go to LR 3 and go to File > Import from Catalog and import the old beta catalog into your newly upgraded catalog in LR 3.
Q. Thanks for the videos at NAPP – nice quick summaries…. if they’d quit releasing new software all the time I could afford to be a member of NAPP.
A. 🙂 I know, it’s not really a question but I thought it would be interesting to point out that Lightroom 2 came out in July 2008 – that’s about two years ago. That’s ancient in the software world.
Q. Is there a way to export custom print templates in the Print module as a JPEG?
A. Yup. Go to the Print module and scroll all the way down on the right side to the Print Job panel. Change the Print To setting to “JPEG File”.
Q. I liked that the Import/Back Up feature automatically created a folder with the date of import. But LR 3 doesnÂ’t do that any more. Do you know, if you can turn this feature on again?
A. Quick answer… no 🙂
Thanks for all the questions. I hope this helped a little. Have a great weekend!
I don’t know if anyone here has any experience with this, but i’m actually struggling with combining two separate lightroom 3 catalogs. This is for when i’m traveling and working on my laptop, and then when I get back I want to import my changes onto my desktop’s catalog (or vice versa). Matt did a LR2 tutorial on this that was perfect, but it seems the “import from catalog” dialog box has changed in LR3. In LR2, if you had a catalog you wanted to import into another computer, but you only wanted to import SOME of them, you could easily specify exactly what you wanted to import, and what to ignore. I’m trying to do the same thing now with LR3, but it seems now it only allows you the option to import the entire catalog. That’s pretty useless to me. Why would they have changed that. Anyone know of a fix?
I am probably the only one who misses it but what happened to the “split toning” in Lightroom 3? I can not find a satisfactory way to duplicate the effects as I could do in Lightroom 2 or am I missing something? I keep going back to version 2 to get my work finnished.
Thank You
John
I’m having a tough time printing border less photos with my new Epson 3880 printer through Lightroom 3. I set my printer driver for borderless (4×6 borerless retain size), then in the Print Module I make sure that my cell size is as big as my paper (4×6) and have all margins set to “0”. Yet what I see on my screen is not what I get on the print. Usually it will have a white border, and sometimes it will have a white border and my photo will be cropped either form the left or the right. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Matt
I could not find a link to send a new question directly, that’s why it’s here.
Since I have upgraded to LR3, I have noticed that all my pictures have some amount of vignetting. I am using “Camera Standard v2” profile for Nikon D700 as default profile with “2010” as current process.
When I import the same pictures in “Aperture”, there is no vignetting.
Can you please help me in finding out what is wrong? Am I using some wrong settings?
with best regards,
Hemant
Hey Matt, all,
first off, I don’t know the excat terms since I’m not working with an English LR version.
Here’s my question: the catalog setting where lr automatically saves changes to the dng and meta data is still activated on my from lr2 imported catalog. Though it doesn’t seem to do anything. Has the procedure changed somehow?
Before I could test myself I already manually updated my files.
Thanks
Hi Matt,
I’m coming in late to this thread because I just got back from a week of hiking in Yellowstone (awesome).
I’m in the midst of doing a full backup of all my photos before installing LR3 and see a lot of files under the “Silvertone” folder. I’m wondering, do I need to keep it? (I’ll be deleting LR2 when done). Also, lots of lrcat files.. same question.
I suppose I should just generally ask what I can delete given that I’m pretty much converting to LR3.
Thanks,
Steve
Is there a way to have LR3 ignore video files upon import? One can uncheck each file during import but I would rather not have LR3 import the video files.
i upgraded my catalogs but then it has a -2 behind it, such as summer_2010-2. Is there a way to get rid of that hyphen?
Just remove it from the files and folder of your catalog on your disk.
“Photoshop does but I never use it so I guess IÂ’m not a “serious” photographer. My prints look great though! “Naturally” of course ;-)”
Cool. How do you get your prints to match what you have done on screen w/o softproofing? Test prints? Could you let us know for so many people were upset at the lack of softproofing that a work-around would be very useful to us. Is there like a preset?;-)
Matt: I don’t know where else to ask this. How can you import into Lightroom from a scanner? I’ve tried to select a new source but the scanner doesn’t appear as an option. Help! And thanks.
Hmmm. Don’t know that I know of a trick but if you scanned your images in normally you could just import those into Lightroom when you’re done. It’s an extra step but it should take significantly longer.
Hope that helps.
Are the camera specific profiles (Nikon Standard) etc the same for LR3 or does the new process version change the way these work?
Thanks!
Thanks Matt. I am looking forward to upgrading soon.
Is there a place to get more profiles for lenses? I know that a couple of my lenses aren’t in the initial set. While having a profile creator is helpful, most of us probably don’t have the proper environment (space, light, etc) in which to make them ourselves.
I had LR2.2 and I recently installed LR3. Strangely I am getting this error, “Lightroom could not import this catalog because of an unknown error”. Can anyone please help me regarding this?
Thanks.
I’m getting the same error message when I try to import my LR3 Beta catalog. I’m not sure what’s going on
I had the same problem after updating from LR2 to LR3. What worked for me, was deleting all the duplicate images in one of the two catalogs, and merging afterwards.
After installing LR3 this happens when I try to print: in the drop down menu, printsetting is lined out. the error message below reads: The bundle “Printsetting” could not be loaded because it does not contain a version for the current architecture.
Im using an Epson Pro 3800. I downloaded the most current driver today, but that did not solve the problem. any ideas?
Same kind of problem with an HP 2610
Try running lightroom in 32-bit mode
e.g., go to Get Info in the Finder on the LR app and check the “Open in 32 Bit Mode” option.
I am having trouble getting the LR3 beta catalog over. Whenever I try to import from catalog, the process get’s hung up on the “searching for duplicates” part and then I get an error “the catalog could not be imported, unknown error occurred”. Anyone know how to fix this? I assume it’s related to the duplicate pictures in the two catalogs.
Hopefully adobe will come out with a fix for this soon. I’ve read the adobe forum post on this issue, still no good workaround.
The publish services rock! It took me a while to figure out that you could copy the first Flickr service and have a different set of publishing rules, image sizes on each and everyone (I know, I’m a bit dumb). Personally I think that alone is worth the upgrade cost. I haven’t seen anything about it in the learning center though… But I’ve been to busy playing with LR 3… and publishing (http://www.flickr.com/photos/neostardotse/) All sets published sice a downloaded LR 3!
So maybe this is a tip for a tip 🙂
Cheers
Matt
How do I enter a itunes playlist into my slideshow? I am using a Mac. Am I now limited to single songs?
Nice and handy little Q&A post there Matt especially the one about importing the catalog from LR 3 Beta across to LR 3.
Cheers,
Glyn
ps> Has it really been nearly 2 years since the release of Lightroom 2??? … Geez, where has the time gone??? 🙂
Hi Matt!
I am noticing something strange when I enable profile corrections and then edit the file in Photoshop CS4. When it comes back to lightroom it shows as if there is no profile correction anymore. I notice the 2 pictures ( origianl and new psd ) are slightly distorted, but when I turn the profile correction on thd pes they look the same. (or I turn the profile correction off on the original, i get the same result).
Any ideas?
Greetings from Aruba
Victor
keywording in LR3 : the second clic when you “spray” words in LR2 normally erase the word, in LR3 does´nt work?
I am having the same problem. Keywording using LR3’s spray paint tools seems to be buggy. First click should paint keyword and then the cursor should immediately change to an eraser cursor.
I found by accident that if I held down the ALT key the cursor would change to the eraser but would not change back to paint.
Is this a bug or the new “not so good” way of keywording in LR3?
Hello all,
This topic has to have more people angry than us. Keywording was perfect in LR2, why would Adobe remove the automatic keyword eraser? What advantage is there is not being automatically updated with keyword changes. The new keyword paint tool is terrible. Anyone else find a solution? Is my installation flawed?
Help!
I found my first big problem with LR3
In LR2’s crop mode, you could use the arrow keys to slightly adjust the position of the crop with precision.
In LR3, this precision has been removed and each tap of the arrow key moves the crop must further then before (factor of more then 3). Meaning you can no longer precisely adjust the position of your crop with the arrow keys.
Do someone know why the starrating in LR3 disappears after the pic has been opened in PS4? It seems like it works as it should with PS3.
/Benny
Matt, this has nothing to do with Lightroom, but you’re a dead ringer for Landon Donovan… Separated at birth?
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00842/Landon_Donovan_280x_842848a.jpg
Hi Matt,
Thanks for great post!
Any chance seeing you or Scott in the UK?
That would be great!
In my secondary display – there are no flags in the survey mode – this was there in LR2
A workaround for me now is to have my 2ndary display set to loupe and my primary to Survey – it is only available in the Library Module then, so I can’t do any sync’s etc without having to go to develop module.
Matt,
I just upgraded to 3, and have two things that are really bugging me. How can I change the default post-crop vignette to highlight priority? As you know, paint is terrible and I will never use it.
2nd: can I make it so lens correction is always on?
Thanks!
Jeff, were you able to find a solution to making highlight priority the default? It’s making me crazy too…
While the new custom print is a huge step in the right direction I’m disappointed that Adobe didn’t include some basic controls.
* No align or distribute option
* No smart guides
* Resize the image and cell independently
* Rotate the image or cell independently
Am I the only one who notices these features missing? Seem they would be so easy to include.
As a final thought I wish Adobe would include a book feature!
Thanks again for all of the information. Great stuff!
Chris
Hey Matt,
Great job first off! Hey, remember when LR2 would remember your keywords from your last previous import? I noticed that in LR3 the keyword field is blank after each import. Often times, I’ll have several cards with same keywording. I know I can create a preset, but I don’t necessarily need a preset – just enough to download a couple cards.
Any thoughts? Is this now an option somewhere?
Cheers,
Scott
Matt,
Is the Noise removal engine in LR3 the same as within the CS5 ACR?
Is it better to open first in LR3 process, adjust, noise removal, ect. then CS5 as smart object to fine tune, or use it with the capabilities of opening it in ACR for the noise removal then to LR..? I head you say that the noise removal is very good in LR3 and CS5 so the use of 3rd party noise removal plug-ins may not be necessary…
Hope that makes sense…
Why do I need to export the LR3 beta catalog just to reimport it? I just imported the original LR3 beta catalog to merge with the upgraded LR2 catalog with no obvious problems. Can anyone explain? I don’t wanna run into any problems later.
I am upgrading from Lightroom 2 to Lightroom 3, from a Windows XP 32 bit computer to a new Windows 7 64 bit laptop. What pitfalls do I need to watch out for?
Lightroom 3 works perfectly on 64-bit! 😉
I hope someone can help me: I want to perform a manual lens correction but for some reason the grid overlay doesn’t show up anymore when I hover over the distortion slider? Does anyone know how I can reactivate it?
No I can’t see if the horizon is straight or not.
In lightroom 2 when i try to email images using the export feature it only attaches the first image even though several where selected. Has this been an issue for others and has it been corrected in Lightroom 3?
I think emailing from lightroom using the export feature would make a great topic for a blog post. I think a lot of users don’t even know they can do this and it was not simple to set up and create the mailing preset.
Any info would be greatly appreciated.
It doesn’t create that stupid “Imported on ” file on backup??? Enough reason to upgrade right there.
See you at the LA seminar!
Matt… One thing that frustrates me. I have both LR3 and CS5. I was able to open my LR2 photos in CS4 with a simple Ctl- E command on my PC, but I can’t do that from LR3 to CS5. Is there any simple solution to this nagging situation?
Is the first question true if you open it as a smart object? Process the file in LR3 and open it in CS4 as a smart object. What happens if you try to then open it in an older ACR?
Do you know if Adobe intends to add AVCHD video file support in the future? Many people I know would like to get their camcorder video files into the catalog to organize and tag, not necessarily do any editing.
Thanks,
Thanks Matt. The first answer says Lightroom 3 will work just fine with CS4. I read somewhere else that some of the new features in LR3 won’t transfer to CS4 due to the new way files are handled in LR3. Correct?
Regards,
Tom
I am attempting to use LR3 with CS4 and there are some serious compatability issues, some of my images, particularly in shadow areas fimish up severly pixilated when they have been worked on in LR3 and then imported into CS4 via LR. If you open a raw file in CS4 with an LR3 sidecar file attached you then get the same problems. Open up a raw file is CS4 with no LR3 sidecar or with a LR2 sidecar then everything works as it should. In short it seems that if you upgrade to LR3 then you have to also upgrade to CS5 so that the camera raw plug ins are compatable.
Thanks Matt, highly useful, have a great weekend yourself!
Loving LR3 so far.
I got Lightroom 2 (Education). I am still a student and like to upgrade. What is the best way to do so without spending to much money? I have not seen an Education Upgrade …
C
Christoph, there is an Edu upgrade, this is the link for UK if that helps as a starter:
http://store2.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?event=displayProduct&categoryOID=4574638&store=OLS-EDU-UK
Matt,
This pertains to:
Q. Any advice on how best to upgrade my Lightroom 2 catalog and my Lightroom 3 beta into one?
I’m a little confused. I had upgraded from LR2 to LR3. In the process, it seems that the beta was uninstalled. When I go to my control panel (for Windows Vista), it only shows LR2.7 (which I haven’t uninstalled just yet) and LR3. No indication of the beta.
Now, I treated it as a beta, so I didn’t lose too much. But I did want to retrieve the catalog. So just trying to make some sense of this. Any thoughts? Anyone else with a similar experience?
Appreciate your blog and this Q&A post, very helpful.
Regards, Bob
Bob,
I am in the same boat as you. Although the beta 3 software was deleted by the upgrade your beta 3 catalog should still be intact. Try opening it with the new LR3 then export it as a catalog. Then open your upgraded V2 catalog. Then import from catalog the one you exported above. Worked for me.
I have the same problem; upgraded to LR3 and LR3 beta is gone??? how do I access the catalog for importing into the new LR3 catalog?? in LR3 I can go to import from catalog but what is the location of the LR3 beta catalog??? your input will be appreciated.
I have many pics on the LR3 beta catalog that I don’t want to loose…..
Q. Will my presets from Lightroom 2 work with Lightroom 3?
A. Sure thing.
…..what about sharpening presets? Do the LR3 changes to the sharpening tools mean we should rethink our sharpening presets?
Martin,
I would use a known photo that has the sharpen preset applied from LR 2 and then tweek it to you liking and then update that preset with any revised setting. would be quicker than making them all over again from scratch. In fact you could do that with any preset, if you found you needed to.
Just a quick note that not ALL LR2 plugins necessarily work with LR3. I’ve had a couple that have stopped working due to the use of deprecated API calls in the code. As always, it’s best to check these things before removing LR2 or converting/deleting your LR2 catalog files, especially if your work depends on said plugins.
I’ve always wanted to know what the difference is between Perceptual and Relative in the Rendering Intent option at the bottom of the Print Job Panel.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
Doh! Answered my own question, just revisited the smart collection criteria and can now see folder in there!
Matt
I’ve only used smart collections in PS where they can be applied to specific folders on the HDD.
As fas as I can establish smart collections in LR3 will apply to the whole catalogue?
Chris
Hi Chris,
I’ve never heard of Smart Collections in Photoshop…. Where did you find them?