Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

I’ve got another quick video tip for you today (I mean really quick - like 60 seconds quick). It’s on a little known feature that helps out when using the Remove Spots tool and spotting your photos in general.

Click here to watch the video. (6Mb)

Now for some news and links…• Legendary wedding photographer (and just one all around really nice guy), David Ziser, has a workshop coming in July. David truly has a gift when it comes to photographing a wedding and working with people. Anyone who has been in one of his workshops comes out knowing it was worth 10 times what they paid. If you’d like find out more check out this link.

• You’ve heard me mention it before but Dave Cross, Moose Peterson, Laurie Excel and myself are teaching on a one week cruise through Hawaii. It’s got a great itinerary and a perfect mixture of classroom time, shooting time with the pros, portfolio review time with any of us, and free time to enjoy the cruise and the Hawaiian Islands. I’ve been to Hawaii once and it’s so darn cool because you’ve got landscapes, people, wildlife, flowers, fabulous sunrises, sunsets all in one place. Find out more and see the itinerary at Cruising Through Life’s website. Oh yeah, mention that you’re a NAPP member and you get a discount.

• I’ve been visiting the Weekly Photo Tips blog lately and Scott has some really nice finds on there. I’m especially liking his blog since he did a review of my Layers book Seriously though, review aside you’ll find some neat stuff on the website and Scott brings some unique posts to blogosphere.

• Terry White, author of the critically acclaimed Terry White’s Tech Blog (and one heck-of-a great photographer) wrote a cool post about controlling the whole studio from his laptop. It’s definitely worth a read and I’m sure you’ll find some other good stuff on his site.

And finally, an inspirational update…
• There was a lot of interest in the architecture and real estate post I did a few weeks ago. Well I got an email from one of the guys I mentioned (Thomas Grubba) and he pointed me to a Flickr group for Real Estate photographers. Not only is it inspirational but it’s educational too, as a lot of the photographers share their setups and experiences. The real estate market being what it is today, you can get a great competitive advantage if you work in this area by visiting this group. Heck, even if you’re selling your own home you might as well be the one taking your photos if your realtor pulls out their $110 point-n-shoot. Thomas also let me know that he and Scott Hargis (another really popular photographer in the business) are working on a DVD. Sign me up for it when it comes out!

Well campers that’s it for today. And yes, whenever I end a post with the word “campers” you know what that means. Yep, another cub scout camping trip this weekend. Say a prayer that the bird-sized mosquitos don’t get the best of me. See ya!
(photo credit: Thomas Grubba)

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I thought I’d share some of my Lightroom confessions in the hopes that I would either a) get a quick laugh from you as you realize you’re not the only one that does something odd in Lightroom or, b) undermine my professionalism and credibility by showing you some of the silly things I do. Make sure you leave a comment here if you have your own confession or just want to second your favorite of mine. Here goes:

1. Whenever I go into Photoshop I set the bit depth for 90% of my photos to 8 bit instead of 16 bit. Yes, I know I could easier call some of your first born ugly as opposed to choosing 8 bit but that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

2. I don’t keyword my photos nearly as much as I should. I mean, I know the benefits of keywording. I keyword about 80% of the photos I import into Lightroom. But that’s not enough because you can bet whenever I search for photos, the ones I want to find end up being part of the 20% that I didn’t keyword. It probably has something to do with that 80/20 rule thing.

3. I’ve accidentally synchronized the develop settings on ALL 480 photos in a folder (on more then one occasion). While the settings I used may have worked on a few photos, the majority look really bad with the same develop settings. The worst thing is, that sometimes I didn’t know I did it and I’d later look through my photos cursing myself, wondering how the heck I could be such a bad photographer.

4. I hate metadata. I’m sorry, I had to say it. I can’t stand it when I look at feature lists for Lightroom (or any other product for that matter) and I see anything with the word “metadata” listed as a feature. It’s important stuff, I know, but it’s also very boring. I just assume it should be there but don’t try to sell it to me as a feature.

5. I love the benefits of metadata. The Metadata panel rocks and the benefits of good metadata support is very important. That’s what makes me feel bad about the #4 confession above. It’s an inner struggle I deal with daily

6. I add an edge darkening vignette to everything. I think it’s safe to say I’m addicted to the Lens Vignetting setting.

7. I avoid the slideshow module at all costs. If I’ve got a quick slideshow to show a friend or client near my computer then sure I’ll use it. If I’m presenting in front of a group I use Fotomagico on the mac. (iPhoto on the Mac or Slideshow Pro on the PC are really good too).

8. I NEVER EVER EVER EVER use Lightroom’s noise reduction feature. While we’re on the topic of things I never use, I don’t use the Camera Calibration and the Snapshots panels either. Oh and I rarely use anything other then the 3 contrast presets in the Tone Curve panel. Hey… this is confessions right. I’m just bein’ honest here.

9. I have 3 backups of all of my photos. However, I just realized that I only have 1 backup of my catalog. So if I’m so paranoid about losing my photos you’d think I would be just as paranoid about losing all of the work I’ve done to them right? Well I just realized as I wrote this that my Time Capsule (my backup drive for my mac) is the only backup I have of my Lightroom catalog. If something happened to it and my laptop (which are both in my house) then I’d be in trouble. That’s going to change today though, as I’ve started another Time Machine (the backup program on a Mac) backup at work.

10. I get upset every time I find myself constantly hitting D to go into the Develop module with a photo, then pressing G to quickly get back to the Library grid to pick another photo. Then pressing D again, and then G again, and so on. Truth be told, I guess I’m paranoid because I feel like I’m missing something because I never hear anyone else complain about this. So I quietly keep doing it.

11. I have WAY too many Develop presets. 156 to be exact. But I love ‘em so I don’t see it changing anytime soon.

12. Since I’ve gotten Lightroom, I’ve found I get just a little ticked when I have to take a photo into Photoshop for further editing.

13. Unless a feature is so good I just can’t stand it, I typically wait about 1 week before installing Lightroom updates.

14. It bugs me a little when people don’t believe that I didn’t “Photoshop” a photo. I may have Lightroom’d it, but I didn’t Photoshop it. And so what if I did!

I hope you enjoyed my confessions and leave one of your own as a comment here. Whether you agree or have a totally different one, go ahead and let us know.

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It’s funny how things happen sometimes. Just when I was trying to decide which preset I would share this week I got a email from some one asking how I accomplished that gritty/HDR-looking/surreal/dramatic effect. If you recall from a while ago I had made a video on this technique and it became wildly popular. Well, I went to point them to this website to download the preset and realized I never did a preset for this technique (insert light bulb above head sound and graphic here). So that’s what you’ve got this week.

Here’s the low-down on the specifics of the presets in this bundle. There’s 4 of them in total ranging from light to really dark. Because of the nature of this preset I had to adjust the Exposure and Blacks settings but feel free to adjust them after you apply if needed (try watching the video link above for some ideas). You’ll find most of your changes will revolve in those two settings to either lighten the photo or enhance the blacks more. Personally, I find myself going for the dark or really dark versions but every once in a while the light one works great too.

As usual, please let everyone know in the comments what you think and if you have any other suggestions for this one, or if you find another setting that works well. Thanks everybody!

Click here to see a sample of the preset.
Click here to download Matt’s Surreal Edgy Effect presets
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

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Yep, the Lightroom 1.4 update is back again. If you recall from some posts a few weeks ago, Adobe released the 1.4 update and then recalled it. Personally, it worked fine for me and I ran into lots of people that left it as is and never uninstalled the 1.4 update and things continued to work fine. But I know lots of folks that it didn’t work with as well. That said, whether you did or didn’t install it back then, it is back up again. It probably wouldn’t hurt to wait a few days before downloading it though
However, if you’re the kind that can’t wait, please post a comment with your findings here on whether things are still running ok. Thanks!

- Here’s the link for Mac users
- Here’s the link for PC users

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Happy Friday folks! I’ve actually got the day off since my kids are on spring break this week but I’ve got a quick video tip for you anyway.

At first glance there doesn’t look like a way to save your slideshows into a format that you can send to some one. If you look a little further you’ll see you can indeed export them though. It exports the whole slideshow into a PDF Presentation (much like Photoshop’s PDF presentation automation). However, it won’t include any music tracks you’ve added in Lightroom. Well there’s a workaround if you’ve got Acrobat Professional. You can go in after the fact and embed the music to the presentation and get close to the same effect. Make sure you watch the video and leave a comment if you’ve got any ideas on how to take what I showed even further. I’m always amazed at what you guys come up with.

Anyway, I hope you have a great weekend. I’m tackling crown moulding in my living room this morning, which is sure to be loads of fun . Then we’re hitting Busch Gardens this afternoon. Finally, I’m teaching a whole day hands-on class on Saturday in Sarasota, FL at the Digital Technology Centre so make sure you come by and say hi if you’re around. See ya!

Click here to watch the video. (16Mb)

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