Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

Time for the Friday tip again. Scroll down to the next paragraph to read it. Keep reading here if you live anywhere near the Philadelphia area and can get some time off next Tuesday morning (June 3). If so, I'll be teaching a free class on Photoshop CS3 sponsored by Adobe and CDW. There's actually some other Creative Suite stuff being taught during the day but my part is in the morning. Anyway, it is indeed free and all you have to do is sign up here.

Now for the tip. I named this post, Cropping the Cool Way because there's a really neat tip for cropping. Try this. Next time you're going to crop a photo, you'll obviously go into Crop mode (just press the R key). Then you drag around the handles to get your crop just right. One of the problems is that you still see the non-cropped areas of your photo (albeit in a darkened state) and some people find that distracting. If you're among the distracted type try pressing the L key twice (one for Lights Dim mode and once for Lights Out mode). This blacks everything but the photo and the crop handles. This way you can crop in a totally black area and you're always seeing exactly what your photo will look like after the crop. Take care and if you do stop by the event in Philly on Tuesday make sure you come up and say hi tell me how much you like the Lightroom blog/podcast ;)

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Happy video day. This one comes directly from a question I got earlier this week and a question that I get every single time I teach Lightroom. It has to do with what you do with the photos you export from Lightroom (using File > Export). Lightroom 2 beta actually has a new feature that deals with this but let's face it - it's not ready for prime-time production work and I strictly use it for "Play" purposes as I know most of you do too. So what about Lightroom 1? How do you manage the photos that you've exported for a client if, say, you need to keep track of them? Well I've got a solution in this video.

Click here to watch the video. (16Mb)

Oh yeah, make sure you listen to the end where I pose a question about if/how/why you do this and post a comment here on the blog. Thanks!

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Last month, I made my Auto Adjustment preset available for download. This was a preset meant to be applied when importing your photos into Lightroom (you can read more about it here). At the time, I had just started using it and was really happy with the results so I wanted to share. However, since then I've come to realize my auto fix preset had a few flaws. First off, it added Clarity to everything. Great for landscapes and still life... bad for portraits. I also realized the edge darkening (Vignette setting) was too strong (again, good sometimes but bad other times). So I've gone in and made a few changes to this one and I'm making my new version available. This time, though, you get two of them 1) Auto Preset for Portraits 2) Auto Preset for Everything Else. Post a comment and let me know how they work for you. See ya.

Click here to see a sample of the preset.
Click here to download Matt's Auto Adjustment Presets
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

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Woo Hoo! It's Friday and it's a long weekend (Memorial Day on Monday) - you can't beat that. Today my tip is simple - the Alt/Option key... just press it every now and then. Seriously, I know it's weird but that old Alt/Option key changes certain sliders when you press it. For example, if you hold down the Alt key (Option on Mac) and start dragging the Exposure slider (or the Shadow slider for the darks), you’ll see everything turn black. As you drag toward the right, you’ll eventually start seeing some colors appear. That’s Lightroom’s way of telling you those areas will be clipped (all white or all black) if you don’t pull back on the slider. It’s a good visual way to set your exposure and shadow settings without leaving your clipping warnings (those obnoxious blue and red splotches that appear on your photos) on all the time.

But it doesn't stop there. Try it in the Split Toning panel when adjusting the Hue slider. It gives you a 100% saturated preview of the color you're hovering over. Also give it a try in the Detail panel when sharpening. It works for a few of the sliders there.

Finally, if you know of anymore feel free to add them as a comment here. I'm sure I missed a few. But don't be alarmed if I delete your comment, and just update my post and take full credit for your blatant reminder that I missed a use of the Alt/Option key :) (just kidding). Enjoy your weekend folks and if it's a 3-day weekend for you, enjoy it even longer.

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I've seen a few questions lately on using the Chromatic Aberration settings in Lightroom. Honestly, I don't use 'em much. I'd end up spending more time finding a photo to demo with then I would recording a tutorial on how to use the settings. So instead of doing that I figure I'd point you to two places to learn more about it. I think both are brief and to the point which is one of the main things I look for when learning.

1) The Adobe Wiki
2) Michael Clark's article on Chromatic Aberration tricks (make sure you check out the two links he mentions in it as well)

Happy Chromatic Aberrationing! And remember, if you're seeing aberrations in your photos and they're not chromatic then you may have bigger problems :)

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