PSE 6 for Mac

While obviously not Lightroom news, I just wanted to mention that Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac is finally available. It's a great complementary program for Lightroom, especially for the budget conscious user. Featuring a cut down version of Bridge (rather than the Organiser), the Mac version has similar features to the Windows version.

The arduous process of Consolidation

As you may remember, I opted to go with a date based Import structure, to ease the import process. I'd been slowly but surely moving files into dated folders, but eventually I got to the point where it was too time consuming. I made the decision to save out XMP, remove from Library and then reimport via a dated structure. All the image ultimately will end up on one drive, meaning a straight backup of the drive duplicates all the Library photos. As the drive is a 750Mb Drive, it allows me reasonable room for expansion without thinking too hard about future storage. I have been getting better at deleting, so Hopefully the balance of images in the Library will settle out as I remove older, unwanted, images.

Some notes:
Lightroom does not store Virtual Copy information in XMP, nor does it store collections. I will have to rebuild collections. In truth I can live with that.

Virtual Copies on the other hand can be saved with a work around. For VC's that you absolutely have to keep, copy the settings to the master file and save them as a Snapshot. Snapshots are retained in Metadata. The other option is, of course, to make a hard copy of the file.

With the hindsight from doing this, I do have a few recommendations for those upgrading drives and considering how to control the images within the Catalog.

Connect the new drive. In Lighroom create new folder on this drive. Copy your entire folder structure to the drive, you may want to do this in sections, just to be safe. Lightroom shouldn't have an issue, but doing it in sections frees up the CPU and drive from time to time (for email etc!). Tada.
Now use this drive for your future imports.

If you want to get rid of that folder you created on the drive as a top level folder, select it and click '-' beside the word 'Folders' in the Folders Pane. Don't worry, you're not deleting it. Select 'Promote Subfolders' from the options. Now your original hierarchy will be the same as on the original drive.

Free Presets from Karen Knowland

Lightroom Flickr group member Karen Knowland has posted a link for a set of Free Presets. The presets cover a number of looks from toned B&W to muted colour to higher saturation. Well worth a look.

Listing your filenames.

On the U2U forums a user was looking for a way of listing files in a collection. Someone suggested using LRTransporter, but in the meantime I created a Web Gallery that does just that. You could actually edit the Image Info and list anything you wanted about a file. Anyhow the gallery is here and Install instructions are here.

Official Adobe Statment on version 1.4

Tom Hogarty, the Lightroom Product Manager has weighed in on the recent issues with the 1.4 upgrade:

"The Lightroom 1.4 update for Mac and Windows has been temporarily removed from the Adobe.com web site.  Those Lightroom users who have installed Lightroom 1.4 should uninstall the update and install Lightroom 1.3.1.(Mac, Win) until a further update can be provided. For those not in immediate need of the updated camera support available in Camera Raw 4.4 or the DNG 4.4 Converter, it's recommended that you also continue working with the 4.3.1 versions. (Mac, Win)"

Read More .

How do I downgrade to an earlier version of Lightroom?

Ian Lyons has posted details on downgrading from Lightroom 1.4 over at the Adobe Forums. Users affected by issues with DNG, timing and Jpeg previews should consider this option. If you're not, 1.4 seems fine bar the issues.

On Windows, DNG previews are not created correctly. When you try to view at 1:1, an error message is displayed. One user has noted that this only happens on landscape images and not on portrait image. While I have confirmed the error, I've not confirmed the orientation report.

Other issues include the time being set to midnight on the export date in the EXIF with image Export. It's not immediately obvious to a lot of users, because both Photoshop and Lightroom will show the correct time. This is because they are reading the internal XMP information rather than the EXIF. Use an EXIF reading tool to see the correct EXIF time.

Lightroom also appears to be writing times into RAW files when saving XMP. Normally the only thing that can change this is deliberate use of the Edit Capture time command. The RAW file shouldn't be changed at any other time. Ian has confirmed this as a bug, rather than intended behaviour.

Certain Olympus users with a recent firmware seem to be having random JPEG preview issues. A smaller version of the file appears embedded in the main image. Thomas Knoll has asked people to post links to such pictures.

It's unfortunate that such bugs have slipped into a bugfix release. I know the team will be straight onto fixing these. The only thing I might have found in my workflow is the time issue, but as I was viewing results in Lightroom, I would've missed it anyhow.

Jeffrey Friedl Plugin updates for Lightroom 1.4

Along with his own verision 1.4 announcement, Jeffrey Friedl has announced updates to his plugins. Bascially he says that internally the plugins were marked for 1.3, but not for later versions. The new version correct that. Enjoy!

Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4

Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4: "
The Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 updates have been posted to the following locations: Lightroom(Mac, Win), Camera Raw(Mac, Win).  The updates include support for the following new camera models:

Canon EOS 450D (Digital Rebel XSi/EOS Kiss X2)

Fujifilm S100FS

Nikon D60

Olympus SP-570 UZ

Pentax K20D

Pentax K200D

Sony A200

Sony A300

Sony A350

Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 include corrections for the following issues:

• Previous camera profiles identified in the Calibrate panel of the Develop module may have displayed poor results at extreme ends of the temperature and tint ranges. A new camera profile identified as Camera Raw 4.4 is now available and will be applied by default to all images without existing Camera Raw or Lightroom settings. The creation of new default profiles will also include the updated Camera Raw 4.4 profile. Images edited in Camera Raw or Lightroom with earlier profiles will retain the earlier profile value and visual appearance.


• In previous grayscale conversions the Color Noise setting was disabled and this could result in an image with excessive noise when grayscale channel mixing is applied.  Both the tool and effect have been enabled in Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 providing the ability to reduce noise in grayscale conversions.  In order to return to the prior visual appearance, Color Noise reduction can be set to zero.

Lightroom 1.4 includes corrections for the following issue:

• Compatibility with legacy printer drivers on OS X 10.5 (Leopard) has been updated. I'd like to thank everyone who commented on my earlier post regarding this topic. Some valuable feedback was provided and by working directly with Apple and Epson we are able to provide a resolution through this Lightroom update.

As always, don't forget rule #5!


"

(Via Lightroom Journal.)

Installing Web Galleries

To install the gallery, you need to go to

User/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom on OS X,
C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom on XP-Note that Application Data is a hidden folder,
C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\ on Vista,

where User is the name you log in with. Look for a folder called Web Galleries within. If it's not there, create it yourself. Unzip the file into this folder and restart Lightroom.
The new Gallery will apppear in the Right Hand Panel, in the Galleries Panel in LR1 and the Engines Panel in LR2.
In LR2, you can also open the Preferances and click 'Show Lightroom Presets folder' in the Presets section.

I recommend that you create an alias/shortcut to this Lightroom folder for future use.

Update
If you wish to comment on a gallery, can you please do so on the the gallery post, or the associated Lightroom Forum post? Thank you.

FrogJS Web Gallery

I've about oh... 5 or 6 different galleries on the go in development. Just fitting different ideas in and trying to learn more advanced CSS and more javascript. Here's a basic translation of the FrogJS Gallery created by Eric Puidokas for you to play with.

The internal scripts mess around with the Lightroom live_update.js, so stuff doesn't live update. For that reason, I've removed a lot of control from it.

If you do want to mess about with it, feel free. To force a refresh, untick and then retick Title or Caption in Image Info. Sorry it has to be that way, but while I've studied basic Javascript, this is beyond me!

Download | Sample Gallery | Install Instructions

This is not intended to be anything special, just an exercise for myself, but if you are interested in hacking together your own gallery, there's enough information inside the gallery and the FrogJS page to see how it all fits together..

For once, this is as is and is unsupported. Enjoy.

Andy Rouse interview

I've just posted an interview with Wildlife photographer Andy Rouse over at Lightroom News. I met and spoke with Andy at Focus On Imaging after his talk about the D3 at the Nikon stand. He's very funny, and really is a great photographer.
Now go check out the interview!