Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

Here’s a quick workflow tip for you. If you’re wondering when the right time to crop is then consider this. When you work through processing and developing your photos, chances are you’re going to be looking at the histogram often, right. Well, why leave an area in your photo that may affect the histogram significantly, when you’re just going to crop it out later? That’s why I crop first. Actually, second - I white balance first then I crop. You’ll see that when you crop in Lightroom the histogram changes as you change the crop area. This means that the histogram you see is the real histogram and you can make better decisions when toning your photos. Happy cropping!

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This week’s gallery spotlight is Neil and Susan Silverman (the Silvermans). They teach workshops for the Great American Photography Workshops and they’ve both got some really amazing work. I was privileged to be able to participate a couple years ago on a workshop with them in Bar Harbor, Maine. Let me tell ya’ - these two are passionate about photography. Neil is an absolute maniac and he will make sure your camera gets a work out when you’re with him. The best part about this is that now I’m sitting in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport and I’m on my way to teach along side them during a workshop in Banff National Park (yep Dave Cross’s homeland). I can’t wait. I’ve seen the photos of Banff and they’re amazing. I’m sure the Silvermans have scoped out some very cool places while we’re there. After we shoot I’ll be taking the group back to the classroom to process our photos from start to finish in Lightroom and Photoshop and back to Lightroom again. I’ll try to post some photos along the way. See ya!

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This week’s video is on renaming photos once they’re already in Lightroom. Now, you may already know you can rename when you import into Lightroom. But what if you don’t? I’ve heard many requests for a Batch Rename feature similar to what we had in Bridge. Well Lightroom has a feature that’s does just that. It’s useful for renaming a bunch of photos or just one if that’s all you need.

Click here to watch the video. (18 Mb)

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Ever want to quickly tell if your photo has been edited in Lightroom. Come on, you know when you’re sitting there alone at night the urge comes over you and you just can’t help it. You HAVE to know if a photo has been edited. Seriously though, I’ve found many times where I just wanted to see if I’ve done anything to a photo or not. If you get the urge too, there’s a quick way to tell. When you’re looking at your photos in the Grid or Filmstrip views you may see a little +/- icon on them. If you see that icon then the photo has been edited. If you don’t then it hasn’t. Also, you can tell if the photo has been cropped because there’s a little crop icon on it too. Finally, there’s a little tag icon that let’s you know if this photo has keywords applied to it. So from left to right they go like this: keywords, Crop, edits. That comes in handy if you just want to see if you’ve done anything to the photo yet. Have a great weekend!

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Ever go on a photo shoot only to get back and realize there was some type of dust or spot on your lens. So not only is the spot there for one photo but it’s there on all of your photos. In Photoshop it would be a royal pain in the butt to get red of each one of them but in Lightroom it’s a breeze. By using the Remove Spots tool along with the Synchronize feature you can get rid of those spots in just a few seconds. While you’re at it, don’t forget to submit your entry to win a signed copy of Scott Kelby’s best-selling Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers. It’s already climbed up the charts on Amazon and is the absolute best Lightroom resource out there. Watch the video to see how.

Click here to watch the video. (34 Mb)

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