Lightroom Gallery

The Lightroom gallery has loads of new galleries added. Go on over: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/gallery/

Photoshopuser Lightroom Videos.

In case you missed this useful series of tutorial video from the NAPP they're at : http://www.photoshopuser.com/pages/lightroom/videos.php

Matching Shoots and Folders

People are very concerned about the use of a database vs a browser for finding and accessing their files. Being a database, Lightroom is not optimally setup to act as a browser. There has been much discussion on this is various forums from Adobe to Pixmantec and a lot of people want a file browser. While this is not currently possible you can make your folder structure match your shoot hierarchy, with a little work on import.
Assuming you've been using 'Copy to Library' from the beginning, your files reside in the 'Photos' Folder of your Lightroom directory. If you're referencing files you may already have a structure and are most likely using another way of importing your files off of your cards. You can still makes the shoots match by using the naming convention I'm about to describe.
For those using 'Copy to Library', here's the skinny. Insert your card/card reader (Camera import is not fully supported yet) and the Import dialog will open (assuming you've this set up in your preferences). To get our shoots to go into both a selected subfolder and a matching shoot we use the '/' delimiter to define our containing shoot. Each '/' makes a new containing shoot. Let's say I'm importing a new studio session and I'm using a year/month/genre/shoot structure. Without selecting a containing shoot in the 'Segment by' box, I name my shoot 2006/08 Aug/Studio/EmmaD. When I check my shoots after import, I can see that I have a new shoot in 2006>08 Aug>Studio called EmmaD. Clicking on an image in this shoot using CMD-R for Mac to Open In Finder or Ctrl-R for PC to Open In Explorer shows me that the folder structure matches my shoot hierarchy.
If you are referencing files you can use the naming convention with the '/' to type in a shoot name that matches your previously allocated shoot location.

Luminous Landscape DVD no. 2

While I'm in the preparation process for the Print Module post, I thought I'd fill in with some news.
Luminous Landscape are shipping their new Adobe Lightroom DVD. This is the 2nd one they've done and I expect it to be at least as good as the first one. The DVD contains a 2 hour tutorial and a 1/2 hour interview with Mark Hamberg and George Jardine. A detailed contents list is included at the link above. The cost is a very reasonable $14.99. I've preordered mine and look forward to getting it on return from Majorca.

Slideshow

The Slideshow module is the third module in Beta 3. As the name implies it is a viewing tool for presentation of our images. When combined with a projector or a large screen we can certainly impress friends and clients with our images from within the Slideshow module. There has been ongoing discussion in the Forums as to the use and value of a Slideshow module in the first place. As I can only answer from a personal point of view and I have to say I like it and can only hope it will grow into fully fledged slideshow generator in time.
Not all images are destined for print, nor do all live for Web presentation either. Slideshow gives us an alternative way of outputting our images for presentation. Looking at our screen capture of the Module we can see the now standard view of our top Navigation bar/Identity Plate and the Filmstrip at the bottom. The central view here is the Grid Mode of Slideshow (shortcut key Shift-S). In this mode we can see our slideshow images inside their slideshow 'coats' as it were. All the parameters we select in the right hand panel affect how these look. Double clicking on one of these thumbnails or pressing Shift-E will open the image in Slide Editor view. Here we can get a better view of how the parameters affect the look of the image in our slideshow.
For a change we'll cover the right panel first as we're already discussing parameters. The first pane we encounter is the Image Settings pane. The Zoom and Crop tickbox enlarges our image to fit the maximum cell size possible, while ignoring our image size ratio (normally a 3:2 ratio on a DSLR), based on our 'Slide Layout Tools' settings. Once ticked we can then move our image inside the box by clicking and dragging the image. Next up is the Stroke tool that allows us to add a coloured stroke around our image. While we can select a colour, it would be nice if we could also select a size for our stroke. This would allow us to give our image a large border is we so desired. The next tool in the pane is Slideshows version of 'Drop Shadow'. Here we can set a shadow behind our images in the same way that drop shadow works in Photoshop. Opacity sets the level of visibility of our shadow. Offset is how far our image appears away from the shadow, while Radius sets how soft or hard the shadow edge is. Finally Angle controls the apparent angle of the light casting the shadow. One thing that might be nice in this pane would be a sloppy borders setting to give us some paintbrush style edges for example.
The 2nd pane we encounter is the Slide Layout Tools menu. We've already mentioned this in the Zoom and Crop section a little. These controls let us set the maximum cell size our image takes up on screen, but is dependent on the crop of our image. Our long side will scale to fit the margin, while the other side will be constrained to fit this scaling. The Guides tickbox lets us see where these margins are on the screen.
Our 3rd pane is the Overlay Options pane. Here we set up our Identity Plate. We can use the same Plate as our Navigation bar or create a new one from the drop down menu to the right. After this we can set the opacity and scale up or down the ID Plate. The 'Place behind images' does as it says and puts the ID behind the image. Currently the Identity Plate is only on the Mac Beta. Next we can show our ratings in the image we are displaying and select a colour for our stars. I find a grey colour helps the ratings appear in most shots when viewing many varied images. Scale allows us to change the sizes of the rating stars. Show Custom Objects is tied to the Add Text button under the image. It affects whether or not the text appears on the image. Also Place behind images affects this text too. Add text simply allows us to add text or certain tokens to the image. These token include a range of Date, EXIF and IPTC information including Caption and Filename. Clicking on one of these text boxes lets us select edit to change what's in the box. The Rotate Left/Right buttons change the orientation of the text. Also under the image are 2 small icons for Grid View and Slide Editor view and a playback control panel for the slideshow. The playback panel is pretty straightforward and covers Return to Start, Back, Play/Pause and Forward.
The 4th Pane is Backdrop Settings and controls the rear of our image. Our initial control is 'Set Backdrop Color' which sets a fixed tone background to our image. This fixed tone can be modified by the next control 'Apply Color Wash'. Here we select a 2nd colour and together with the Opacity and Angle controls we can apply a graduated fill to cover our background, similar to a Gradient fill in Photoshop. Next we have 'Apply Image to Background'. This allows us to take an image from the Filmstrip and place it under our image. This image remains the background image for the whole slideshow. It may only be me, but I find that although this image looks fine in preview, when you run the Slideshow it is extremely pixelated. This may be a bug.
The final pane is the Playback Settings which give us our slide running times and our transition times between slides. Both slides are visible during this time. One control not featured that is a staple of the twin slideshow AV brigade is the third image setting. When 2 transparencies are projected at the same strength at the same time they can combine to give an image that never existed. For example we could have a moon shot followed by landscape. When both slides are mid transition they give us a shot of the moon over the landscape. It could be achieved by having a hold time slider for the central portion of the transition. Next is the 'Randomize Slides' tickbox to give us a surprising slideshow. Finally we have (in the Mac version at least) the 'Play Music' tickbox. This allows us access to out iTunes playlists to add music to our Slideshow. Beside this is a dropdown menu listing all our playlists and a refresh playlist menu item. This is handy as we can go to iTunes and create a new playlist and then refresh Lightroom to allow us access to the new playlist, without the need to restart the program.
The last things in the right hand panel are the Preview, Play and Export buttons. Preview allows us to see the slideshow in a miniature version of itself in the central window. Play gives us a fullscreen view of our slideshow. When we have another monitor attached we also get an option to show the slideshow in the 2nd monitor. Export lets us export a PDF version of our slideshow, which can also be uploaded via FTP using FTP presets (editable in the dialog box). I'd like to see Quicktime movie export and, perhaps, DVD output.
The left hand pane is quite basic and contains only a thumbnail view of our 'most selected' image and a list of templates in the Templates Browser. The '+' beside the title gives us a clue that we can add our own templates to this menu. Any changes made in the right panel can be saved to a template in this part of the left panel. If you run your mouse over the list, the thumbnail updates to give a preview of the template. So do I think anything could be added here? Well yes I do. I'd like a tab that lets us save slideshows. I'd like to save everything that would be in the template panel, along with the list of images that are in the slideshow and in their correct order.
Well hopefully my efforts are not in vain here and you found some useful information here, or even a few typos to correct in the comments as is the norm here. My next post will cover the Print Module and I'll follow that with Web. From there posts will probably be shorter and more concise.

Lightroom: Develop Overview

The Develop module is the heart of the image processing in Lightroom. Here is where we can work on individual images and take them to their finished state. All edits in Develop are non-destructive and are simply metadata information stored in the library file. You can also choose to store your edits in sidecar XMP files by ticking box in Preferences. Using XMP files makes edits more transportable in that if you import a folder of images with their XMP files into another Lightroom Library (on your laptop or desktop for example), then your edits and ratings will show there too.
Looking at our screen capture we can see that the layout is similar to the Library module. The Nav bar at the top is the same (with Develop highlighted now) and the Filmstrip at the bottom is also the same. The central part is now dedicated to our chosen image. Develop refreshes the central image each time we edit, unlike Library and the Filmstrip which use cached copies of the image. Below the image we have a toolbar with icons running across.

From the left we have Loupe View which is the image in its current After view. Next is the Before view which shows us the unedited state. After that we have 2 different Before and After views, one for vertical and one for horizontal. The final icon on this side is the Crop Overlay, which puts the crop box around our current image. Towards the centre we have the RGB data view, which gives a % view of the colour at that point. The two final icons on the right are the hand tool to allow us to drag the view about in any of the zoom views. Finally we have the white balance eyedropper which neutralises colour casts in our image.
On the Left of the Module we have a thumbnail view on the top left and below this we have 2 tabs, Preset and History. on the top left of the thumbnail we have a little menu that allows a number of zoom modes: Fit, Fill, 1:1 and 4:1. They're pretty intuitive as to their sizes and the Cmd/Ctrl +/- keyboard shortcut will zoom through the modes. Onto Preset and History.

Preset is a great feature, whereby when we do a series of edits that we like, we can store these edits for use on other images as a Preset. When we hit the "+" key we get a dialog box that allows us to select which of our edits get used in the Preset. Presets are just text files and can be copied and emailed or even passed around on the Lightroom Forums.

Next up is History. In History we can see the all the steps we've taken so far in our edits. We can jump back to any point in our editing or hit the + key to save a snapshot of the image at any point.

The real meat of the Develop Module is on the Right Hand side. Here we have the image processing tools in Lightroom. Looking at the screen capture we can see that we have: Basic, Tone Curve, Crop and Straighten, Greyscale Mixer, Split Toning, HSL, Detail, Lens Corrections and Camera Calibrations. These are similar to the tabs and tools in Adobe Camera RAW but with a few twists. At this stage I'd highly recommend viewing George Jardines Video Tutorials as I can't get in as much detail in text as you can in a video. Basics lets us set the White Balance/Tint and Saturation first. From there we can set our white point with Exposure, our black point with Blacks and our midpoint using Brightness. Finally we have Contrast which effectively pushes a 'S' shape into the Tone Curve. Next is the Tone Curve. Brightness and Contrast are mirrored from Basic and they match any move from Basic. First up we need to look at the bottom of the Tone Curve display. At the bottom there are 2 triangles, the 1/4 tone and 3/4 tone points. These set where the sliders operate from and can be moved to change what the sliders affect. Back to the sliders and the Highlights sliders first. The Compression slider lets us boost or cut the tones above the highlight tone point. Luminance on the other hand lets us boost or cut our curve centered on our highlight tone point (our 1/4 tone). For the Shadows Compression works in the area below our 3/4 tones and Luminance offers control centred on the 3/4 tone. Like I've mentioned we can changed how much are gets affected by moving the tone points. Next up is the Crop and Straighten. This is very straight forward. From here we can specify a free crop or even a preset crop. One thing to note about crop is that we move the image into the crop, not the crop around the image. Although it feels odd initially it's actually much easier when you get used to it. We can straighten by dragging the image around the box or by holding our Cmd/Ctrl key and drawn a line along a part of the image we know to be straight and Lightroom will automatically straighten our image for us. Greyscale Mixer: This does what it says on the tin. There is a great auto mode and moving the sliders gives great control over our Black and White tonal balance. It is very easy to use and really makes B&W a doddle. Next up is Split Toning which allows us to set different tonalities for our highlights and shadows. Used with Greyscale Mixer it can give fantastic toning emulation (eg Selenium, Sepia) or on Colour images can even emulate Cross Processing.
I'm going to just mention the next lot briefly as this post is becoming really much longer than I anticipated! HSL is the Hue Saturation Luminance sliders pane which allows us full control over the colour in our images. It really is fantastic and by careful examination of our film prints we can emulate the colour of these using HSL and contrast. Detail gives us control over Sharpening, Smoothing and De-Noise. Sharpening is a little underwhelming in its control and hopefully will be beefed up. Smoothing could be very useful if given local editing, but suffices to help with general noise and softening while De-noise removes colour noise effectively, but does lose detail.
Lens Corrections includes Chromatic Aberration tools and a Vignetting control which removes vignetting. In theory it can be used creatively to add a Vignette but wont work properly like this on cropped images. Finally we have Camera Calibration which allows us to create a rough colour profile of our camera. I hope you made it this far, due to the length of the post. I'll cover Sildeshow Print and Web shortly, potentially in one post unless it gets very long like this one! In the future I'll also be expanding on things we can do inside develop. Update: I'll probably do seperate posts..

So what is Lightroom? Introduction and Library.

Lightroom is a new program in development by Adobe as a workflow solution geared towards Professional Photographers. Built in a modular layout it currently brings the user from import to final output, be it Slideshow, Print or for the Web. Currently in Beta 3 there are 5 modules on the Mac(4 on Windows). These are Library, Develop, Slidehow, Print and Web (being the one missing from Windows). They follow what is a fairly normal workflow route for most photographers. Briefly these are used as follows:

Library

In Library we can Import, keyword and organise our photos in shoots and collections. Each image imported resides in one Shoot only, but can be in many collections. From here we can view our images in thumbnail grid, individually in Loupe mode or multiple images in compare mode. This is the central point for accessing our images. Looking around the screen we can see 5 parts to the screen. The central working area contains our images, either in grid or individual form. To the left we have the main file access panel where we can see and select our shoots and collections. Also there is access to our full library, last import and the current quick collection. Next we have a library filter which lets us search in filenames and by ratings. On the subject of ratings it is possible to rate an image in Library, Develop and Slideshow by pressing the numeric keys 1-5. On the top we have the main panel allowing us to change modules. Also featured is the Idenity Plate which lets us add our own name to the program. On the bottom is the Filmstrip which lets us have quick access to all the photos in the currently selected shoot or collection. Finally on the right we have our large thumbnail with histogram. Below this is the Quick Develop pane which lets us do quick adjustments to exposure, white balance, cropping etc. We can also apply Develop Presets here too and copy and paste settings from and to other images. Next up is our info panel which contains our Keywords. Finally we have Metadata, which lets us view and edit Metadata like EXIF, IPTC. We can use Metadata Presets here to apply any IPTC data to a file without the need for retyping. Next post will be a quick overview of develop

Lightroom Blog

I've gone off the rails a bit here. I'm not posting much to my normal blog but yet I'm starting a new one. I feel given my usage of Lightroom it might be time to start a blog and add any helpful info I find on Lightroom to it. There will be links to posts on the forums and to other sites as well and tips and tricks and workarounds. Hopefully someone will actually read things here and find them helpful.
In the meantime heres a little collection of link to posts by the big movers and shakers in the Lightroom world that frequent the forums with their advice and wisdom.

Ian Lyons
Jeff Schewe
George Jardine
Martin Evening