Weekly Q&A
Hey everyone. It’s time for another quick round of Q&A’s. As always, keep the questions coming and I’ll do my best to keep answering them. Let’s get started:
Q. I noticed that Lightroom 2.3 has recently popped up on the Adobe Labs site. Any thoughts on this?
A. Yeah, good question actually. There is indeed a beta of 2.3 on the Adobe Labs site. Honestly, I haven’t installed it yet for two reasons: 1) I’ve been knee-deep in a few projects lately and haven’t really had the time to “test” software and, 2) I’ve been pretty happy with performance in LR 2.2 and I haven’t seen anything in the release notes that prompted me to go try it. Quoting the actual release notes, “The goal of this release (2.3) is to address several bugs and provide additional camera raw support.”. Well, I looked at the bugs and I wasn’t experiencing any of them and I don’t own either of the two cameras that support was added for. So I figured I’d patiently wait until the “real” release of 2.3.
Q. I have to sign all prints digitally in the right bottom corner and know that I can use an identity plate image to do that. But is there any way to free rotate my signature? I only find 90/-90/180? Or do I have to do that in PS and then import a already rotated signature image?
A. Unfortunately this would be a Photoshop thing. As the question points out, LR only gives you 0/90/180/-90 as a rotation option.
Q. How do I properly move my photos from my local drive to my back up drive, and keep the edit and history in tact. When I’ve done this in the past, I end up physically moving the files via the the finder, then re-importing from the back up drive.
A. If you want to move your photos from one drive to another you can just drag-and-drop them via the Finder on the Mac (or Windows Explorer on the PC). When you do this, you’ll break the link Lightroom has with these photos and you’ll see little question marks on the photo thumbnails when you look at them. To fix this, you don’t have to re-import though. Just right click on the Folder in the Folders panel and choose “Find Missing Folder”.
Also, here’s a video on a semi-related topic of moving existing folders that may help.
Q. Why was everyone hatin’ on Adobe after your Post-Crop vs. Lens Vignetting video the other day?
A. OK, “hatin” is a strong word. I think there was a pretty healthy discussion but there did seem to be some people really frustrated by this difference in functionality. I really just thought it would open up a discussion on which sliders people prefer (which it did for the most part). I’m not sure Adobe did something wrong here so I wouldn’t expect a fix – there’s nothing really broken. They responded with a new feature that people were asking for. Edge Darkening vignettes (not the actual lens correction fix) work that like everywhere in every software you find. They add black or white around the edges. It’s a special effect. All I was trying to point out is that I never really knew that old Lens Vignetting sliders did it a different way.
Oh yeah, for those of you that asked that I get this in front of Adobe, they already know. Here’s a link to a discussion on the Adobe forums that’s worth looking at.
Hi Matt,
I’m designing my first book in Lightroom. I have a a picture which fills about 2/3 of the page. I have colored the background, but I would like to now put a very thin line border of a different color around the photo to make it stand out from the background. I know how to do that in photoshop, but is there a ay to do this in the book module of Lightroom?
Hey Mark – Nope. You’ll have to do it in Photoshop first.
@ Jay B
Thanks for the tip. I had been using Copy Name, but I think caption may be better suited for my needs now.
FWIW, I’ve installed both Lightroom 2.3 and Camera Raw 5.3 (required for LR2.3), and had no problems with either of them….
Adobe could add a simple checkbox in the post-crop vignette sliders in order to convert the masked layer used for vignetting in a “multiply” (photoshop like) one. They could even let choose the type of correction layer to use…
Matt wrote: How do I properly move my photos from my local drive to my back up drive, and keep the edit and history in tact.
And Alex commented above “I use this feature quite often, but is there a way to find multiple missing folder at once?”
Alex hit the nail on the head. I often move several folders from my laptop to a hard drive, and it is so slow to do for many folders. Surely this scenario happens quite frequently, so I would love to hear if there is an easy way to move GROUPS of folders easily. Like multiple select several folders, and then right click one to re-link.
Matt:
I realize now that Adobe is aware of the differences in vignette algorithms and that they had in fact designed the features to work that way. The only problem I have with this explanation is that my understanding (and apparently yours as well) was that the post-crop functionality was added because everyone was using the lens correction technique but getting unacceptable results if they had cropped the photo.
Apparently that is not at all the case. Instead, Adobe decided one day that people wanted a brand new ability to add either black or white to the edges of a photo. It’s hard to imagine that many people actually wanted this. I think our previous understanding of the user community’s desire is much more plausible.
I guess that our only hope now is that Adobe will add a checkbox next to the lens correction slider that says “Apply post-crop” or, alternatively, they will add a checkbox to the post-crop section that indicates “Use lens correction algorithm.” Either one would work for me.
I have two questions.
1. When I try to play videos on this page I get a box that looks like it has machine language in it…NO video. What am I doing wrong?
2. How can I use LR 2.2 to add studio name as signature on images?
Matt,
I am having a problem exporting a photo. What I did was to make it BW and use the adjustment brush to color in the sky and some other areas in the photo. However I cant get lightroom to now export it. I can export any other photo just not this one. Have you had an issue or know of this? I even tried to open an edited copy in PS and it wont do that either.
Any suggestions on how to export this photo?
@Steve
The link seems to be an error, type this link into your browser:
http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2008/video-tip-moving-existing-folders/
Chris Ryan said “Is there a way to make notes about each edit within Lightroom 2 to help keep track of what Im doing?”
Chris – What you can do is put notes in the metadata. I’d suggest the Caption field until you get a final copy. Go the the Library and then on the right had side you will find the Metadata Panel. If you select Quick Describe you will see the Caption field with out having to look at all the Metadata fields. You will be able to put unique notes in each of the Virtual copies. Good Luck.
I am experiencing a WordPress permission error when I click on the link about moving existing folders. Am I trying to access the link incorrectly or is there another way.
Steve Zaiontz
I am experiencing a WordPress permission error when I click onthe link about moving existing folders. Am I trying to access the link incorrectly or is there another way.
Steve Zaiontz
“Just right click on the Folder in the Folders panel and choose Find Missing Folder. ”
I use this feature quite often, but is there a way to “find” multiple missing folder at once? Just like in InDesign when you have broken links to a couple of files. As soon as you show InDesign where to find one of those files it automatically finds the rest, if they are in the same location. Right now I have to use “Find missing folders” for hundreds of folders manually. Not good.
First off, thanks for your excellent posts, some of which I’ve found very useful. I wondered whether you have any advice for me as I went and did a stupid thing and can’t find a good answer online…
In trying to save room on my hard drive I impulsively (gulp) thought I’d delete half my Lightroom weekly backups (total folder size in the region of 11gb). Of course I chose the older half, but as it slowly deleted the files in the Finder I panicked and tried to start up Lightroom which promptly informed me that it couldn’t find the catalogue. I stopped the deleting and restored from the whole Lightroom backup folder a backup from a few days before.
In the Lightroom preferences I chose the most recent catalogue option, but I seem to have lost a lot of files from the catalogue and quite a few of the Collections are gone. I do have the original files, but am wondering what I should do. Is my only option to re-import the missing files or is there something else I can do? Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer to resolve my one moment of madness!
Matt,
I’m working on school project that has me making a lot of virtual copies of the same photo to experiment with different settings/edits. Is there a way to make notes about each edit within Lightroom 2 to help keep track of what I’m doing?