Some Quick Lightroom Links and a Friday Tip
Here’s a few links and a quick tip to close out the week. Have a great weekend everyone!
I found an older video that’s still very cool to watch. It’s from Tyler Stableford, one of the worlds top adventure photographers (and super nice guy), and how he uses Lightroom.
Found another review of my Layers book.
An interesting post on LightroomForums.net about a workflow for people that like to use multiple folders (with multiple copies of the same image) for a specific event. Just something to think about.
And the tip for today. If you click on a slider in the Develop module you’ll see it becomes highlighted more so than the others. At this point, you can use the +/- (plus and minus) arrow keys to change the settings. Sometimes it’s kinda cool to just sit back and move the sliders while you’re looking at the photo and not concentrating on moving the mouse ever so slightly. By default the keys increase or decrease the slider setting but some “medium” number (not really sure what it is – sometimes it’s 10 sometimes 5 depending on the setting). But if you hold the Shift key down, it’ll move them by a larger amount. And if you hold the Alt/Option key down it’ll move them by a very small amount (good for fine tuning).
I would agree with one exception. WB needs to be done prior to exposure. The WB does affect the exposure.
hey matt
this video link you posted is not working …????
Just wanted to add to the scroll wheel brush size adjustment. Hold down the shift key while spinning the scroll wheel to adjust the size of the “feather” area. This will leave the brush size the same.
Hi all,
I too got a 403 Forbidden error when clicking on Matt’s link but I believe this might be the video he was referring to, going by the clues that it was an older video (April 2010) and the screenshot he used in the post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl66PqkYTfA
Am I right, Matt? If so, you’ll have to make your clues more cryptic next time, ha!
Kind regards,
MCV
Great site, fellas. I am just learning Lightroom and look forward to learning and growing with the software. Thanks for this.
I know this doesn’t have anything to do with Lightroom Killer Tips, but was wondering if you had any insight into the fate of Photoshop Killer Tips? There hasn’t been an update to that page since last July. Will this feature eventually fade away?
Thanks in advance.
Stan
Hey Stan,
Yep, I’ve discontinued it. Basically, there’s lots of other projects that I need to work on and I had to let one of the free things go to keep up.
Sorry 🙂
Unless WB or exposure are way off (unusual, thankfully), the first thing I do in LR is to crop the image. Then I work from the top, with sharpening last–or next to last if I add a vignette. If I move the image to PS, then I add any vignetting after I return the image to LR. And that workflow works very well for me.
When I work with a mouse, rather than with my Wacom tablet, I almost never use the sliders, preferring to use the arrow keys to adjust things. It’s faster and I can concentrate on the effect rather than moving the slider. After comparing the two approaches, I feel using the arrows yields better results. I’ll have to try the scroll-wheel trick Andrei G mentioned.
I cannot get to the Photogrind website to view the video by Tyler Stableford that you posted. I get a Forbidden error.
Thanks…
Hey Matt,
I have been doing this for years. Although you only need to move the mouse over the slider for the arrows keys to work.
On the exposure slider, shift + arrow moves 1/3 stop. I love it!
This was the main reason I chose lightroom over aperture.
The other thing I love is using the mouse scroll wheel to change the size of the brush.
Love your work,
Scott
Add to the news the release of Matt’s sharpening video at Kelby Training. Matt, I consider myself quite well-versed in sharpening concepts and techniques. But I have to give you Tip of the Year honours (although it’s only February) on your suggestion for high radius/low detail sharpening settings when dealing with images that also require noise reduction in Lightroom/ACR. It works exceptionally well at reducing those edge artifacts. Thanks much.
Thanks Jay!
🙂
That is actually very useful. I’ve been using it lately. On Mac, it works with the +/- keys, but on Windows, once the slider is highlighted, you can move it with the left/right arrow keys.
What’s even more useful, is to use a scroll wheel mouse to do the same once the slider is highlighted. Scrolling up and down will increase and decrease the values. Try it.
Hi Andrei,
I have been switching to mac lately. And I found that the mouse scrolling is not working anymore on the slider. (when I move the scroller, it move the whole panel in stead) Anything I could do to return that feature to my LR3.4 on my Mac?
Thanks for your help.
Some great links, Matt. Thanks! Really glad you showed the keyboard tip when using a slider. I find myself using keyboard shortcuts more and more. It really does make life easier!
Hey, any idea when D-Town will be coming back? 😀 😀 j/k I bet you won’t miss those comments from now on!
–John
Great tip Matt. Layer by layer (no pun intended) the onion gets peeled revealing more ways to work efficiently.
Hi Mat
Great tip. I’ve been using the “highlight the number in the box on the right of the sliders” and the up and down arrow. There’s much more control with this. One clarification though: certainly on my Mac version of LR 3, you have to click on the slider name not the slider itself to invoke this.
Cheers
David
Perfect thank you for the info.. Tyler Stableford has some amazing photos..
Good tip Matt, to add to it, you can also use your mouse scroll wheel to make it step up and down by each increment. I find that much quicker and I can adjust while looking at the image not looking for keys or stuffing about trying to slide that little slider small amounts.