Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

Here's a few links worth checking out while you're web surfing today:

• Scott Eccleston over at Weekly Photo Tips featured me in a Q&A.

• Tim Armes has a new plug-in that exports your photos and preserves the folder hierarchy during the export for the new images.

• Cool product of the day alert. I haven't tried the Eye-Fi memory cardsout yet but I think I'm going to have to. Wireless transmitting of photos to your computer has got to be cool! :)

• Sean McCormack over at the Lightroom Blog has released a couple of plug-ins that export photos to your Twitter.com account. One is called LR2TweetPhoto and the other is LR2Tweetpic.

• Sherri Meyer did a top 10 Lightroom tweets of the week. Even if you hate twitter, there's some good links there to check out.

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Happy Friday everyone. Here's a quick tip. If you're developing your photos and you want to quickly switch to another folder or collection, I've seen a lot of people go back to the Library module to select it. They then click the folder or collection, then find the photo, then go back into the Develop module. That's a huge pain, right? Well, below the toolbar but above the Filmstrip (at the bottom) is a small filter area. In this area is a path that shows you what folder and photos you're looking at. Next to it, on the right, is a small down-facing arrow. If you click on it you'll see a list of recent folders and collections that you've viewed. Click here to see a graphic of what I'm talking about. Then just choose the folder or collection you want to jump to and Lightroom will take you there without leaving the Develop module. Pretty nifty huh?

Well, I hope you have a great weekend. My wife is at an out-of-town wedding this weekend so I'm Mr. Mom for 3 days. I hope my kids are ready for delivery pizza, microwaved chicken nuggets, and ice cream all weekend cause that's about the best I can do :) See ya!

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Here's some interesting links I've found in the last week:

• Photoshop CS4 Now has a trial version available so you can try before you buy.

• An interesting article called 4 Quick Ways to Boost Lightroom Performance

• I've been big into Facebook lately and just re-found this LR Facebook Export plug-in that's very cool.

• Sean McCormack has updated his set of Lightroom Graduated filters to version 2.

• And finally some inspiration for the day. Actually I've got two sites.

1) First, check out Paris (no, not Hilton - the city!) through HDR eyes.

2) Also, check out Photography By Jolene. I don't know why but I always have a soft spot for candid children and family photos and she captures some great moments. Enjoy!

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Hi everyone! I wanted to start the week by tying up a few loose ends from last week. So here goes:

1) First off, the contest. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who watched the video. Apparently you guys like these casual videos so hopefully we'll be able to get more of them up. Now... the moment you've all been waiting for... the winner of the book IS...... Chris Kocher from www.ccphotostories.com. Thanks to everyone for participating.

2) Our HDR crusade from earlier this week was indeed heard. I heard from the folks over at HDRsoft this morning and they did read all of your comments. It seemed very well received but it was difficult for them to give me a definite answer. From what I can gather, they're very far along the development process of the 3.1 version of the product. I can totally relate to that. Having been in the software business some years ago, we always had to put a "enough is enough" final date on adding new things to the software. I hadn't realized they were so far into the development cycle for version 3.1, but they are. They also let me know that it is definitely something that is well on their radar and thanked all of the contributors here for making them aware of this feature's importance.

So, here's my take is this. When version 3.1 ships you'll either, a) See a blog post from me celebrating the automatic re-import of the HDR processed file or most likely, b) See a video from me having to explain the process of re-importing the processed HDR file once you're done with Photomatix and getting it into the same folder, etc. Hey... I can't complain - it's job security right? :)

3) Start your week off with some inspiration. First, check out Red Leaf Studios photography. Mostly wedding and portrait stuff but I'm really digging the use of natural light.
Also, I'm heading off to Bar Harbor, Maine on Wednesday this week to teach my GAPW workshop. As I always do, I did some research on places to shoot and came across this photography portfolio by Greg Hartford. There's some very nice stuff and if you look closely enough, I'm pretty sure there's a decent amount of HDR processing going on (subtle though, not the surreal sci-fi effect).

That's it for Monday. I'll talk you again later this week.

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Welcome to your quick dose of tidbits, news, and info for the week:

• First up, here's a neat interview with Phil Clevenger, the Lightroom interface designer. It's about 12 minutes long and definitely worth watching to get an idea of what went on behind the interface design of Lightroom and where it may be heading.

• Next, I'll be teaching Lightroom at Photoshop World in Las Vegas September 2-4. If you can make it, I think you'll find there's something for just about everyone there and you'll be learning from the best-of-the-best in the industry. Also, I've got a related contest coming tomorrow so stay tuned for that. But most importantly, if you've been thinking about going now is the time to pull the trigger. There's two weeks left in the early bird registration (ends on August 1st) which means you'll save $100. Trust me, there's no strings attached this one. It's simple - August 1 Cost: $499, August 2 Cost: $599.

• I've mentioned that I'm really into architectural photography and interior lighting. Well I'm extremely psyched that one of the photographers I've mentioned here on the blog (Thomas Grubba) is hosting a workshop with Scott Hargis in August. These two guys are some of the best in the industry. Here's the link for more info and I'm pretty sure I'll be making the trip. What hooked me was the 2 staged/furnished 3400 sq. ft. photo shoots that we'll actually be shooting. I know these guys would put on one heck of a classroom workshop but getting to shoot with them definitely takes this workshop to the "I must go" level. There's only room for 20 so that everyone gets individual attention. I'll be going with a friend of mine, which means there's only 18 spots left - so you'd better sign up soon.

• Andy Taylor over at Tech Talk Radio interviewed me last week about photography, Photoshop, and Photoshop World. The show actually airs on Sundays but you can listen to the recorded show here. Thanks Andy!

• Finally, some inspiration for the day. Check out K&K Photography. They're wedding and portrait photographers but even if you don't shoot weddings I think you can learn a lot about photographing people from looking at great wedding photographer's portfolios. They've also got a blog which a lot of photographers have been doing lately. Great stuff!

Whew! That's it for today. I'll be back tomorrow with a tip as well as some info on the Photoshop World contest I've got lined up. See ya.

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