Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

It’s Monday again and you know what that means? Yep, Monday Night Football tonight! No… seriously, it means another preset today. This week I’m sharing my cross processing effect preset. If you’re not sure what cross processing is and want to be thoroughly confused then check out this link from Wikipedia. After you read it you’ll either be a) asleep or b) enlightened to the roots of where this effect came from or, c) wondering why my Photoshop User TV co-host Dave Cross wasn’t credited or mentioned (considering this effect does, of course, have his name in it). One quick note about this preset. It’s intended to be applied after you’ve already done your basic Toning adjustments (Exposure and Blacks). So have at it and give the cross process effect a try.
Download the Cross Process preset here.

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I love demoing this tip in front of crowds because it always incites lots of oooos and ahhs. I call it the “Hover anywhere” tip. One of the things that’s always a pain is when you have to actually apply a setting, only to find that you don’t like it. Then you’ve got to press Ctrl/Cmd - Z to undo. In Lightroom, there’s quite a few places that you can preview what your photo is going to look like by just hovering your cursor over a setting or your photo. For example, in Develop, if you select the White Balance Selector eyedropper thingee and hover around your photo, Lightroom will display a preview of what it would look like if you selected it, in the top left of the screen (the Navigator panel). Same thing goes for presets. Hover over any preset in any module and you’ll see the preview appear in the Navigator panel (or Preview panel, depending on which module you’re in). It even works for history states in Develop. You can see what your photo would look like if you went back in history just by hovering over that history state. So… if you just said oooo or ahhh then you’re one of the people I love to have in the crowd. It just makes me feel good… needed… important… wanted… fulfilled… Have a great weekend everyone!

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Ever create your own printing templates in Lightroom? If you haven’t, then this video is a must-see. There are some really eye-catching things you can do when it comes to laying out your prints. Sure, everyone has seen one photo per page and how much can you really do with that, right? But you’re not restricted to just one photo per page. You can put several photos on a page and control just about every aspect of how they appear. So, if you’ve been wanting to do more with the Print module then make sure you watch this week’s video.

Click here to watch the video. (25 Mb)

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Holy cow!!! The response to the preset feature I added here at Lightroom Killer Tips was astonishing. I had no idea that you guys liked them as much as I do. So it looks like the new feature is a keeper. This week I’ve got some colorizing presets for you. A while back I did a video on saturating only one color in the HSL panel. After I started using that effect more I realized I definitely needed some presets for it. So once again, here are some Develop presets right smack out of my own Lightroom presets panel. If you like ‘em you can download them. If you don’t like them… well download them anyway (it looks good in my web stats). Enjoy!
Click here to download the Colorize presets.
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

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The Great American Photography workshop I hosted in Arizona is over and I’m back in the office. I’m bummed because we had a FANTASTIC group of people. But I can’t lie… I was really happy to actually sleep in and not see the sun rise today Here’s a shot (click for a larger version) of a few people from the group (we had 15 total). It was taken in the lower Antelope Slot Canyon and it was one of the killer highlights of the trip. At the top right is David and myself. At the far left is “sit down” Steve, then “f/5.6″ Wayne, and finally Chuck all the way at the far bottom right. If you’re wondering why there’s no photo credit here it’s because I actually took the photo. Yep, I used my wireless cable release (field tested to nearly 100 ft. - it rocks!) and it worked like a champ through the whole workshop. Good times were had and great friends were made and I can’t wait until the next workshop. I’ve gotten a number of questions asking just when that is. They’re in the process of being planned so I’ll make sure to mention them here as they’re finalized. I just wanted to give a heartfelt thanks to everyone who attended the workshop and to our host photographer LeRoy DeJolie, for taking us off the path to find some incredible photographing opportunities.

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