Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

Hey everyone. In this video I cut right to the chase and show you my favorite real world slideshow settings. I figured it this way… why show you everything about the slideshow module? Instead, I wanted to show you the settings that myself and most of the people I know use most. With a few quick changes you can create a killer template that you can reuse over and over again. So here it is. My real world slideshow template in just a few minutes.
Click here to watch the video. (18 Mb)

Click here to see the full size image from a photo shoot I did over the weekend. Yep, it’s a butterfly and yep I really know how to party on the weekends don’t I? I thought I’d share my editing process. First… the shoot. I actually bought a couple Monarch butterflies from a website. I’d tried my hand at going to a butterfly garden but it didn’t turn out well, so I figured a more controlled environment would be better (like my house). Next, I set everything up on my back porch at around 6pm with the sun still overhead but going down. I used a:

- Nikon D-200 with the Nikon 105mm Macro VR lens (which I LOVE!) and everything was shot on a tripod
- My wireless cable release really saved the day.
- Since I was outside my Hoodman Loupe was critical. It made knowing whether or not I got “the shot” so much easier.

This shot was one of my favorites so here’s what I did in Lightroom.
White Balance: The original was a little too warm so I cooled it a bit with the Temperature setting.
Exposure: The Exposure didn’t need much tweaking but I found the flower overpowered the butterfly so I decreased it a bit (more on this in a minute). I left Recovery and Fill Light alone and increased the blacks just a little.
Presence:I bumped the Clarity up to around 50 and increased the Vibrance just a little since the overall color was already pretty vibrant.
Tone Curve:Used the Medium Contrast curve.
HSL/Color:Used the Target Adjustment tool in the HSL/Color panel to increase the orange saturation on the butterfly.
Photoshop:I used a Curves adjustment layer and my painting with light technique to lighten the butterfly since I wanted to draw more attention to it. I used the Burn tool to darken a few areas on the wing and finished off with some sharpening. Finally, I add a slight lens vignette back in LR to darken the edges a little. So there ya have it. The story of how I became the butterfly whisperer
Enjoy!

This week’s inspirational site is actually a site that has lots of cool things for Lightroom’s Web module. First, the website has some great information on the template files that Lightroom uses to create the web galleries. It’s great to read if you’ve ever thought about tweaking the galleries or creating your own. You will need some HTML expertise though. Then, the same website also has some very sweet-looking galleries for download. You can preview them on the website and then download and install them in your copy of Lightroom. Appropriately enough the site is called Lightroom Galleries. You can check it out at www.lightroomgalleries.com.

Hey folks! We all use Photoshop right? So it’s natural to go from Lightroom into Photoshop. However, there’s a few settings that Lightroom needs to know about before you do it. What format should it open your file as in Photoshop? What color space do you want to work in? 8-bit or 16-bit? It sounds like it’s a lot but it’s all really easy once you know what the settings are for and which ones tend to work best. That’s exactly what we’ll cover in this week’s video.

Click here to watch the video. (9 Mb)

Sure we can categorize these things as news. For all purposes, the things I’ll mention here are news but hey, they’re also blatant plugs right? Seriously though, whenever I do mention something it’s usually with the hopes of saving you money, time or whatever type of things you like to save. If you don’t want to read ‘em then skip down to the next item on the page. So first up:
Photoshop WorldPhotoshop World now has a dedicated Lightroom track. Yep, a whole day of nuthin’ but Lightroom. So if you like Lightroom (and I know you do because you’re on a Lightroom website) then it’s something you should consider. The reason why I’m mentioning this is because the early bird registration runs out on August 3rd. If you’re going to go to Photoshop World then sign up before then because on August 4th it’ll cost you $100 extra. See… I care. Plus I’d love to meet you. Visit the website here.

Arizona Slot Canyon WorkshopThis one is filling up quickly. It’s 3 days of killer photography in the Arizona slot canyons and surrounding areas. We had a blast on my last workshop in Banff and I think everyone who attended will tell you that you get more than your money’s worth. Here’s how it works: we shoot in the morning and evenings along side myself and another pro photographer that’ll help you get the best photos in the field. Then we go into the classroom and process those photos right there on the spot. So you get the advantage of turning around and saying “Hey Matt, what should I do for this photo” or “Hey Matt, how do I…?” or “Hey Matt, wanna go grab a drink (just kidding - we can do that at night though)”. So come on out. I’d love to see you there. Find out more here.