Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

Here’s a Quick Imaging USA Report:

- First off, let me say thanks to all of the great people that stopped by the Kelby Training booth at Imaging USA. I can’t tell you how cool it is to have so many people introduce themselves and say that they visit this website all the time. I gotta tell you, it never gets old. Anyway, I also taught a few sessions at the booth as well as a filming a live Photoshop TV show yesterday. Click here to see a photo taken during one of my sessions (photo by Scott Kelby). Of special interest was the tutorial I did on Photoshop TV. All I’ll say is that you’re in for a treat next week for the next “Preset Monday”. Here’s a sneak peak.

- Lightroom is still the buzz. It was interesting because this time last year there were still a lot of folks asking about Aperture vs. Lightroom. This year, I never even heard the “A” word. Seriously, not even once.

- Wedding Albums were huge! Everywhere you went there were wedding album vendors, software packages, and anything else dealing with albums.

- Another trend I noticed was an abundance of questions dealing with the web. So much so that I’ve also written a post today called “Web Wednesday” that deals with your options for the web when it comes to Lightroom.

- As usual at these shows, I felt totally honored to be in the company of some of my heroes in the industry. In fact, I think one of my most memorable moments came during the dinner that Kelby Training hosted at Maggianos Little Italy on Monday night. I sat with Joe Glyda, Eddie Tapp, and Ken Sklute. Our dessert arrived and I pulled out my Canon G9 as a joke and asked Joe (who is Kraft Foods official photographer) to light the chocolate cake. Next thing I knew, there were 2 cell phones, a candle as a backlight, and a white napkin held up as a backdrop. Joe McNally came over to direct and David Ziser was just itching to add a bride and groom to the scene to make it complete. Here’s a photo of the calamity in action (Joe Glyda on left, then Eddit Tapp, and Ken Sklute).

That’s it for the Imaging USA report. Once again, thanks to everyone who came by to say hi.

Bookmark It

I’ve been seeing a lot of questions lately about what you can do to get your photos on the web. If you’re reading this then chances are you already have Lightroom and, if that’s the case, then you’ve got some killer options.

First, I’ve got to give you what has quickly become my favorite option - Slideshow Pro. It’s actually a plug-in for Lightroom and plugs right into the web module so you don’t have to use any other 3rd party programs. Full disclosure here. Todd Dominey (co-creator of Slideshow Pro) allowed me to try out a copy of it for free. However, it is hands down the best thing out there for great looking web galleries in Lightroom. Knowing what I know now, I’d have gladly forked over $25 for it. In fact, I’ll probably be doing a full review on it in the coming weeks. It’s that good and it’s got a ton of features so I feel I’ve only scratched the surface.

Sean McCormack has a killer little web gallery. It’s a horizontal scroll gallery and I’m beginning to like this style more and more on the web. You can see it in action here and read Sean’s blog post about it here.

Lightroom Galleries is a website dedicated to just that - Lightroom web galleries. There’s some great looking galleries there and they’re all free.

If you use Flickr, SmugMug, or Zenfolio then you should pay a visit to Jeffrey Friedl’s blog where he’s got some plug-ins for Lightroom that allow you to directly export for those sites.
Update: Jeffrey Friedl posted in a comment: FYI, I have an “Export to PicasaWeb” plugin in addition to my plugins for Flickr, Zenfolio, and SmugMug: http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/lightroom-picasaweb/ - Thanks Jeffrey!

Finally, don’t forget the Airtight Interactive galleries that were added directly into Lightroom’s web module last year. These galleries look totally different from other Lightroom galleries and I know a lot of folks missed them. You’ve actually got to go into the Web module and look in the top right of the screen under the Gallery tab. You’ll see ‘em right there.

Well everyone, I hope this little look into the options available in Lightroom when it comes to the web helped out. Have a great day!

Bookmark It

I’ve got some quick news to kick the week off. Also, don’t forget to scroll to the next post for the Monday Preset. First off, I’m really excited to report that my Adobe Certified Expert Exam Boot Camp class just went live on Kelby Training’s website. It’s based off of the live workshop I used to teach at Photoshop World. There is absolutely nothing like this out there when it comes to the Photoshop exam prep and I’ve already gotten some great feedback from it. You can take the class, try the first 3 lessons, or view the outline here.

Next up, Jack Reznicki and Katrin Eismann are teaching a two-day Lightroom workshop in New York City on January 12-13. Jack is an amazing commercial photographer and President-Elect of Professional Photographers of America. Katrin is a Photoshop Hall-of-Famer, best-selling author, and Chair of the MPS in Digital Photography degree program at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. If that ain’t enough, they’re both just all around good people and I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with each of them so I know you’ll learn a ton and have a good time doing it. Take a look at the Digital Guru Workshop home page to find out more.

Lastly, I’ve got just 6 days until the Disney Marathon (26.2 LONG miles). I’m actually very calm and relaxed at this point and the week should be a breeze because I barely have to run at all. Basically, the idea is to rest up big time the week before the race so that’s just what I’m going to do. I’ll run a couple of miles on Wednesday and that’s it. I appreciate all of the kind wishes you left last week. I’ll report later on in the week with my bib number so you can track me online during the race if you want.

That’s it for now. Scroll to the next post for the Monday Lightroom Preset.

Bookmark It

This week, I’ve got some really sweet print preset. First, I was looking at a frame that a friend of mine (RC) picked up for me at IKEA. It was one of those 5-across layouts. I thought “Hey, I can do that in Lightroom”. Then it actually got even cooler after I started thinking about the other week’s video on stacking panos in Lightroom. I was getting the presets ready for this week and accidentally clicked on several of the photos in my panorama stack. I looked at it and thought “Hey, now that’s pretty cool!”. It’s kind of like a fake pano spread across the layout. Now I know the photos aren’t actually stitched together but I still think it looks pretty darn cool. That said, it wasn’t created for that purpose so you can just use it for any photos. But the pano does look pretty sweet too. Enjoy.

Click here to see a sample of the preset.
Click here to download Matt’s Pano Print Preset
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

Bookmark It

I’m really excited because this weekend kicks off Imaging USA. See, most of the time we have to travel to conferences and events around the country but this time it’s right in our backyard. So, if you’re going to be in Tampa this weekend (and early next week) for Imaging USA make sure you come say hi at the Kelby Training booth. I’ll be teaching Lightroom at the booth as well as some other stuff. I’m on at 12:00pm and 2:00pm on Sunday and Monday. Then on Tuesday at 11:30am, Scott Kelby, Dave Cross, and myself are filming a live Photoshop TV episode. They’re always fun (and never good ) so make sure you stop by to see it. Speaking of Scott, he’s got a post on his blog about the Kelby Training schedule for those two days so you can see it here. I hope to get to meet some of you there. Oh yeah, scroll down for the Friday tip. It’s a good one.

Bookmark It