Video – Batch Cropping and More
Hey there! Today’s the first day of my Arches National Park photo workshop in Moab, Utah. Over the next few days I’ll be up at the crack of dawn (starting at 4am today) with my class shooting some of the prettiest landscapes in the country. Then we’ll hit the classroom to process the photos and go through the whole workflow. I’ll try to post some photos as we go along.
OK, video time… I recorded a video on cropping before I left so I’d have it ready to go today. It’s another one of those videos that came from one of the comments I received here on the site. It has to do with batch cropping or applying some sort of crop to a bunch of photos. There’s actually a little more to it then I thought which is why this one turned into a video. Enjoy!
oh my gosh THANK YOU! i took over 7,000 burst photos on vacation and I’m making a stop motion video. to crop each of these individually would have been my worst nightmare. Thanks for your help!
Great tip Matt, but I can’t seem to change the paper size on my Dell laser printer to a typical print size (5×7) for this to work. Any ideas?
Hi Matt,
Good video, but….
Select; in develop; one photo and use crop to f.i. 4×5, shift-cmd-c, aspect ratio, then select all other photographs and sync. When selecting a new photo just use R for cropping and you have the 4×5 crop or what you choosed, then use R again to see the result. That way you can use a standard crop for every photograph.
Greetings Roeland
Hey Matt,
Great video. I like creating Print Templates of differnt sizes. My question: When we use the “Zoom to fill” choice in the PRINT MODULE options, the image fills my 5×7 frame. For vertical prints that’s nice, but if I have a landscape print, it will zoom to fill, but only allow me the option to slide the pic right & left. Is there a way to resize the image so that I can reduce the print within the 5×7 frame, and show more of the tops and bottom?
Jerry
Hi Matt, Quick question:
Which is better to Export your images, the Library or Print module?
I ask because my proof book maker wants images sized to 4×6 so your recent “Batch Crop” video was very useful. Thanks.
Kevin
I was just wondering why I do not get the hand when I set my settings as Matt does? Also, I am wondering if there is a way to preview ICC profiles in Lightroom
Hi Matt,
Your video is great for cropping to a fixed aspect ratio. Is there a way of cropping like in Photoshop to any ratio. When publishing to WEB I like to crop to get the best composition. I have to edit in Photoshop for every picture which is time consuming when working in Lightroom.
Regards
Karl Olav, Norway
If you want to select the next or previous picture using the arrow keys while staying in crop mode, use the shortcut keys ctrl+right or ctrl+left.
Hi Matt,
Thanks very much for the great tip. My only question is how do I change to a custom paper size on a windows machine? I have many preset paper sizes to choose from, but can not select a customer size like 5×7.
thanks again,
Hi Matt!
I have a question.
I am using Lightroom on a Mac and it seems that Lightroom has problems with spaces. I issued Lightroom space #2, but for example when I switch from Firefox (space #1) to LR (space #2) it never works.
Other apps work well with spaces.
Did you also experience the same?
Kind reagrds,
Alex
couple of goodies Matt,
have you seen Martin Evenings Invert (negative) curve?
http://lightroom-news.com/2009/04/13/creating-a-lightroom-invert-tone-curve/
and moving the Enzo picture package on a bit, how about presets for comp cards/ Zed cards.
google image search “zed card” to see what i mean
Hi,
Nice video.
I have another system I use.
I select the first photo and crop it to the dimensions I need, then instead of hitting ‘ enter’ I selcet the next photo. I adjust it until it is where I need it (I can also change the crop borders with the handles) and move to the next image.
I hit enter at the last photo that I need cropped.
Thanks,
Motti
Matt, I never thought of using the print mod like that. Good tutorial.
I sell my prints in different sizes from 5×7 to 11×14. When I finish editing my shoot in develop mod I ctrl-A to select all pics then make a virtual copy of all the selected prints. All the new virtual copies are now selected, I then crop one print to an (for example) 8×10. I then sync the aspect ratio. This gives me two copies. One print 2:3 (4×6) and 4:5 (8×10). You can continue with different sizes as long as you keep the pics selected. I prefer to then quickly view which prints are better in which ratio. Remember that virtual copies take up nil amount of hard drive. V copies rule!
All monitors are now 96dpi, yet as you did, most people specify 72dpi for web use.
What does the display adapter do with the 72dpi file to get it to display at 96dpi?
Thanks Matt for the tip and video, also thank you to Roger W for the S shortcut.
If I use vignettes, then I prefer to crop instead of using the print module, becuase if not, I’ll loose the vignette effect (at least partillay) when cropping in the print module.
Yes, Shortcut S does the trick.
Unless I’m missing something here, all you need to do is to use the shortcut S instead of the normal shortcut for the crop (R). This opens the cropping tool with the last settings used!
Could have save Matt some recording time?
Very interesting take on cropping. I have a couple comments on the methods and a related issue / question.
Issue first. In the develop module, I select 4:5 aspect ration and sync an entire set of photos from a day of shooting. Some of those photos look better in portrait, other in landscape. When grabbing the corner of the crop box and dragging it to switch from one mode to the other, it will switch the aspect ratio back to “Original.” So far, the only way I’ve found to get around this is to “double sync” as the switch seems to go back to the ratio selected prior to the most recent sync.
Now the comments:
1. If you stay in crop mode, you can see the whole photo in the develop module, but this eliminates the ability to use the arrow keys to scroll through images. In crop mode, the arrow keys move the box.
2. If you “check all” in the sync dialog, LR will adjust the position (and size if you happen to have zoomed in a bit too) of the crop to match the “source” photo. With a series of similar compositions, that can save the extra crop adjustment step.
3. Can you zoom in on a portion of the image if you use the print module like you can by shrinking the crop box in the develop module?
4. Love the vids, keep it up!
Best,
Jim
Hi
Ok thats interesting but
can someone explains me why there is no crop option in presets !!!
I’ve framed my DSLR to always see 6×7 (i hate 24×36)
so why cannot import with a framed 6×7 preset !!!
J
Great way of doing something so simple but time consuming in develop module.
Great video – keep them comming 🙂
I guess if cropping is the very first thing to do then you can also resuse the last setting on the next pictures in the develop-mode – just another way of doing it. Matt – your proposal is ofcourse better 🙂
// Karsten