Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

In a post last week, I ran a contest for a free pre-conference session at Photoshop World. Well I’m happy to announce the winner is Becky Davis. Although the schmoozing about my classes was greatly appreciated and flattering, I put all the names in a hat and picked one. So congrats to Becky. I also wanted to thank everyone who added a comment. It’s great to see what types of classes you guys are interested in. Make sure all of you stop by and say hi at the conference!

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Did you know that you can hide specific panels in Lightroom? You probably know that you can collapse them by clicking the tiny arrow next to the name of the panel but you can also hide them so they simply don’t show up. For example, personally I never use the Camera Calibration panel so why even have it show up there anymore? To hide it (or any other panel) right click under the Histogram in the dark gray empty area in the Develop module. The panels that are visible will be checked. To hide one or more just click on it. that shows where I clicked and the list that you’ll see. It not only works in the Develop module but all of the modules. Neat huh? Well folks, enjoy your weekend and make sure you scroll down to the next post to see the Photoshop World contest and how to enter.

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Happy Friday. This week I’ve got a video for you that answers the never ending question of how to move between a laptop and desktop with Lightroom. I’ve been asked this just about every time I teach Lightroom and it occurred to me that I haven’t really done a video to cover it. Fortunately it’s a lot simpler then it may seem and Adobe has given us an easy way to save out specific images or folders to move from one catalog to another (which by the way is really what is happening when you move from one computer to another). If you’ve had any experiences that are similar to what I show then let us know in the comments and if you’ve found any hiccups along the way, by all means let us know as well. So, watch the video. Enjoy it. Feel the thrill of moving freely between computers with no chains to hold you back Oh yeah, and enjoy your weekend.

Click here to watch the video. (22MB)

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Happy Friday again. Everyone seems to be enjoying the HDR video so I thought I’d include a whole post about HDR stuff. First off, let’s start with some software:

Software
There’s a few programs you can use for HDR.
1) Photoshop - I’m not a huge fan of Photoshop’s Merge to HDR
2) Photomatix - definitely my favorite. Oh yeah, NAPP members get a 20% discount. Here’s the link to the NAPP member website to get the code.
3) FDR Tools - Cool enough. I’ve tried it but I like Photomatix more. It just seems more intuitive to me personally.
4) Dynamic Photo HDR - This program looks like the best of all of them to me. The interface looks awesome. However, it’s PC only so I haven’t been able to try it out yet.

Learning
• I did a 2 part NAPP tutorial on the NAPP members website. One on Merge to HDR in Photoshop and another one on using Photomatix.
• I think HDR really shines for real estate and landscapes. Here’s a neat article on using HDR for real estate photography.
• Stuck in Customs has a cool tutorial
• Ben Willmore is teaching a class on it at the upcoming Photoshop World in Las Vegas
• Another HDR tutorial I found on Flickr

Inspiration
Finally, here’s some inspirational links to some great HDR photography.
• The mother lode of all HDR inspiration over at Flickr’s HDR group.
• Photomatix’s website has some really great examples of HDR. Check out Maciek Duczynski’s portfolio there for some amazing stuff.

As always, if you’ve got some related news, links, websites or tutorials let us know in the comments area. Have a great weekend!

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Time for another Friday tip. As you’ve probably seen if you’ve followed this site for any amount of time, I love presets. If you love them too you’ll need to make sure you’re backing them up in case your computer ever crashes. Or, maybe you want to move your presets from a laptop to a desktop or vice-versa. Here’s a quick way to back up everything related to presets.

(edit by Matt K: many thanks to Mike for posting a comment on an even easier way to do this - thanks Mike!)

1) Go to your Lightroom preferences. Lightroom menu on Mac and Edit menu on PC.
2) Click on the Presets tab.
3) At the bottom of the dialog you’ll see a button that reads “Show Lightroom Presets Folder”. Click on that.
4) Backup the “Lightroom” folder to your backup device or disk.
5) Sit back and revel in the fact that your presets are now safe

That’s all there is to it. All of your presets live in that folder so as long as it’s backed up you’re good to go. Well, that wraps up another week. Have a great weekend - hit ‘em long and hit ‘em straight and if you don’t play golf then you should probably keep from hitting things all together. See ya!

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