Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

It's inevitable. Every time I teach a seminar or workshop I have some one approach me with a catalog problem. It's usually gotten so bad for them that they've sworn off Lightroom by this point because of it. Unfortunately, my advice isn't something they want to hear but it's really the best advice I can give them - Start from scratch in Lightroom. Sometimes it's just more work to try to go back and fix things. That being said, here's 4 signs that it may be time for you to start from scratch in Lightroom. Before you get mad at me though, I've also included links to videos that I've done over the past couple of years that talk more about organization and catalog management in Lightroom. They also talk about how to move photos into other catalogs so starting from scratch isn't really starting from scratch - you'll still get to save your settings. So I'm not just telling you to start from scratch but hopefully leaving you with a little bit of information on how to make your Lightroom life easier.

4 signs it's time to start from scratch:
1. You started using Lightroom and just started importing your photos from all over your computer and external hard drives (basically where ever you could find them at the time). You were excited right? I don't blame ya. But there was no real organization to the process and now its a mess - you feel like you're constantly seeing little question marks telling you the file can't be found and you have no idea where your photos really are.

2. You eventually got the hang of this "catalog" thing but only after you'd imported thousands of photos in haphazard ways. So now your catalog is half organized and half chaos. Almost like #1 above but not quite as bad - but still bad.

3. You started using Lightroom 2 and created a new catalog to import your photos into because you were afraid to commit and upgrade your catalog at the time. But eventually you upgraded your Lightroom 1 catalog to Lightroom 2. Now you have 2 catalogs and don't really know why or which one you like more. All you know is that there's 2 and you wish there were one.

4. You have 2, 3 or more catalogs in Lightroom because some one told you to create multiple catalogs. Now you hate it and find yourself really only using 1 catalog most of the time but don't know what to do about the others you created. Or worse yet, you've imported photos from those other catalogs into the main one you like so now they're in two places.
(note: I'm not saying multiple catalogs is a bad thing. I'm only suggesting that having multiple catalogs and not using them them is)

As promised, here are a few videos that talk more about catalogs, and folders, and organization and all that fun stuff:

• Lightroom Folders and Hard Drives

• Moving Between Laptop and Desktop

• Merging Multiple Lightroom Catalogs

• Organizing Photos By Date (and why not to)

• Moving Existing Folders

• Where to store your photos in Lightroom

Finally, do me a favor and leave a comment with your thoughts on the topic. What kind of catalog issues/problems do you have (if any)?

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Here's a neat little tip I use a lot so I hope you will too. If you want to export some photos and use the same export settings you used the last time, you can bypass the Export dialog and just go to File > Export with Previous. Better yet, memorize the keyboard shortcut Cmd-Option-Shift-E (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E), and it will automatically export the photos using your last settings. Like I said, its a little tip but it's one I use all the time. Thanks for stopping by this week and enjoy your weekend!

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Its time for another round of Lightroom Q&A's. Keep the questions coming.

Q. When I export images sometimes I export to 640 x 480 for web viewing. The problem is that the images that were shot using a vertical orientation are exported as 360 x 480 instead of 480 x 640. Is there a way to export a 'mixed' group of photos to a custom size yet retain the original aspect ratio?

A. That's because by setting 640 x 480, you've essentially set a max size for the height of the image at 480 right? So it couldn't do 480x640 because that would be going against what you've set as a max height. So if you want 640 to be the max width and 640 to be the max height, then set both width and height to 640. Lightroom won't give you square images (640x640) but rather use 640 as a max setting for each side.

Q. Do I have to leave the Develop preset file on my desktop after I import it? Or is it saved in another location?

A. I gotta admit, I'm surprised this questions hasn't been asked before. I always tell people to download the presets to their desktop and then importing them from there. So do they live on the desktop then? It does, after all, make a little sense that they would but they don't. When you import them into Lightroom they actually get copied to Lightroom's preset folder. So its safe to delete them from your desktop.

Q. Are you going to do a bootcamp for the Lightroom ACE Exams at KelbyTraining.com?

A. Probably not. There haven't been many of requests for it. But hey, things can change.

Q. I have now started experimenting with DNGs in Lightroom. One problem though the files end up twice the size of my raw file. Is there a setting in Lightroom I am missing?

A. Yup. I wrote a DNG post a few weeks back and talked about the whole DNG thing. Basically, there's a setting in Lightroom's Preferences dialog (Lightroom > Preferences on Mac / Edit > Prefs on PC). If you go under the Import tab, there's a setting to Embed Original Raw file. If you choose that then your files will double in size rather than get smaller. Just uncheck that option as its redundant and you should be good to go.

Q. This one came from a post about the Lightroom 2 Exam Aid, the other week. "If I've gone through the Lightroom classes on Kelby Training and have read Kelby's Lightroom 2 book... would the Exam Aid still be a benefit or would it be fairly redundant"?

A. Here's the thing about Adobe ACE Exams (I've taken many so I can fairly say this). They tend to test you on what they WANT you to know about a product, rather than what you know about a product. Now I'm not saying that's bad. They have to be complete if you're going to get to call yourself an ACE after it. You need to know your stuff, but as authors (of books and DVDs) we don't have to be complete. We feel our job is to try to distill Lightroom down into what we think you need to know. Otherwise, we'd create a reference book which we don't. So going through some one's book or DVD means you've learned their workflow and what they use - but not everything. That's where you've got to download the free exam bulletin from Adobe and at least look through it. If at that point you feel you need more help, then I'd turn to the exam aid.

That's it for this time. Have a great day.

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Holy cow! It's February, and more importantly my birthday month :) It's also preset day and I've got one that's been asked for quite a bit since I started making presets. It has to do with a "grain" effect and it deals with the new Grain setting in Lightroom 3 Beta. BUT WAIT!!! If you're not a LR3 Beta user don't worry. The preset itself still looks cool and still works in Lightroom 2 (it just doesn't apply the grain). Depending on the photo, the settings still bring out a little graininess in the image so its not a total loss. Anyway, take a look at the before and after by clicking below. It definitely is a nice effect with or without grain and I think it looks good on portraits as well as all the other wedding stuff (shoes, dress, table settings, rings, etc...). Let me know what you think.

To install:
1) Unzip the preset zip file on to your desktop
2) Go to the Develop module. NOTE: YOU MUST BE THE DEVELOP MODULE
3) Go to the Presets panel on the left. Right click anywhere in it and choose Import.
4) Select the .lrtemplate files you unzipped in Step 1 and click Import NOTE: DO NOT IMPORT THE ZIP FILE

• Click here to download the preset.
• Click here to see a sample of the preset.

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Hi all. A while back I created a video on the non-Lightroom (but still very important) topic of calibration using a hardware calibration device. From what I can gather out there, a lot of photographers have heard the message loud and clear - use a hardware calibration device. I don't really care which one, just use one. However, from being out on the road I have seen a bit of confusion surrounding what type of calibration you need. There's monitor calibration to create a color profile for your screen, and there's printer calibration to create a profile for your printer. Which do you need? Watch the quick video I created to see.

Click here to download the video to your computer. [Right-click and choose the "Save As" option]

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