A smart album is simply a set of customized search criteria that you employ to automatically (and continuously) gather photos and videos that meet those criteria. The first method of creation is to click the + sign at the top of the Albums section and choose Create Smart album from the contextual menu.

This opens the dialog for giving your smart album a descriptive name, placing it within a folder to stay organized, and adding the rules to be followed for gathering the files you want to see. Note, you’ll want to create the parent folder first, as there is not a way to create a new folder from within the Create Smart album dialog at this time.

Then, click the +Add New Rule button at the bottom of the dialog to access the list of available criteria. Currently, you can create a smart album based on any combination of the following:

• Album
• Camera
• Capture Date
• Commented
• Contributors
• Depth Map
• Edited
• Extension
• F-Stop
• Favorited
• Flag
• Flash
• Focal Length
• ISO
• Keyword
• Lens
• Location
• Orientation
• People
• Rating
• Search
• Shutter Speed
• Type

For example, I wanted to monitor all of the videos I have imported into Lightroom as those will always be stored full resolution in the cloud and counting against storage quota (unlike smart previews synced from Lightroom Classic). So, I chose Type as the criteria, and then chose Video from the list of possible Types.

Once you’ve added all of the desired criteria, entered a name, and (optionally) put it in a folder (you can always drag and drop it into a folder later), click Create to exit the dialog and put that smart album to work. It will appear in the left panel within the chosen folder.

Over time, it continually updates to add any new files that match the criteria and remove any files that no longer meet the criteria.

Another way to create a smart album is to use the filter next to the search field at the top. Clicking that filter icon reveals all of the criteria you can filter your library against, and for the most part it is the same as the list of criteria you can find within the Create Smart album dialog box except for Sync Status (which is not something you can use in a smart album). Note, if you want to have your smart album search your entire library, click All Photographs first, then use the filter. If you want to filter within a specific album or folder, click that album/folder first, then open the filter to add the criteria for the smart album. For example, to create a filter on the photos with a rating equal to or greater than 1 within the folder containing all of my family albums, I’ll click on the Family folder first to view the content of all the albums within it, then engage the filter at the top.

With the filter open, I’ll click the 1 star and choose the greater than or equal icon, and a blue Create Smart Album button appears. Click that blue button to complete the creation of the smart album, where you can give it a name, choose to put it in a folder, verify the criteria you’ve chosen, and even edit the criteria further if desired. Once named, click the Create button to complete the process.

This is still early in the development of this feature, so I’m sure there will be refinements in the future. For now, you’ll need to keep in mind that these smart albums on exist in the Windows/Mac version of Lightroom. They do not sync across to other Lightroom apps on mobile or web, and they do not sync to Lightroom Classic. So while limited, it is a welcome addition to the Lightroom feature set.

The post Creating Smart Albums in Lightroom appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

I’m also super excited to announce that the update to my Lightroom Classic for Dummies book is finally out! To celebrate I’ve got two copies of the book to give away (the book giveaway is now concluded and the books have been delivered, thanks to all!), and all you need to do is leave a comment on this post to be entered to win (make sure you use a working email address so I can follow up with you for shipping).

Editing Workflow

While the engine under the hood (so to speak) is the same in the cloud-based Lightroom as in Lightroom Classic (or Camera Raw), the interface and overall experience is slightly different. Adobe has made great gains in getting closer to feature parity with Lightroom Classic’s Develop module, though it still lacks some tools (like Range Mask in local adjustments), and I suspect it is just a matter of time before it is a full equal. Let’s walk through an edit of a landscape photo to see how similar, yet different the experience can be.

STEP ONE: Starting in Grid view (G) or Detail view (D), press the E key or click the Edit icon in the top-right panel to gain access to the editing tools. Note, a Filmstrip will appear along the bottom, which is helpful for moving between photos, but can be closed by clicking the Filmstrip icon (bottom of interface) or pressing the forward slash key (/).

STEP TWO: Click the three-dot menu (under the Edit icon on the right-edge) to see the options it contains. I recommend making the Histogram visible and turning on Single-Panel Mode (like Solo Mode) so that only one panel is expanded at a time. Note that you’ll also find the commands for copy and pasting settings, showing the original image, resetting edits, editing in Photoshop, and all of the associated keyboard shortcuts.

STEP THREE: (Optional) Click Auto to start your edit from the recently tweaked Auto settings and choose your desired profile. I clicked Auto and chose Adobe Landscape for my photo.

STEP FOUR: Expand the Light panel to access the tonal value controls (no Basic panel here) and adjust as needed. Click the Tone Curve icon in the upper-right of the Light panel to open the Tone Curve panel for additional control over brightness and contrast.

STEP FIVE: Expand the Color panel and adjust White Balance, Vibrance, and Saturation as needed. Click the Color Mixer icon in the upper-right of the Color panel to open the Color Mixer panel (think HSL panel in Lightroom Classic) to fine tune color adjustments. Note the Target Adjustment tool (cross hair icon) allows you to adjust Hue, Saturation, and Luminance by clicking and dragging within in the photo.

STEP SIX: Expand the Effects panel to adjust Texture, Clarity, Dehaze, Vignette, and Grain. Click on the photo to zoom into to 1:1 view or click the 1:1 icon (bottom of interface) when adjusting Texture or Clarity. Note that the Split Toning icon also lives in the top-right of this panel.

STEP SEVEN: Expand the Detail panel to access controls for Sharpening and Noise Reduction. You’ll want to remain zoomed into 1:1 for this, and then click the disclosure triangle next to Sharpening to find the familiar controls for Radius, Detail, and Masking. Just like in Lightroom Classic, you can hold the Option key (PC: Alt) while moving any of the sharpening sliders to see an alternative (and helpful) view of how that adjustment affects the photo.

STEP EIGHT: Expand the Optics panel to automatically remove Chromatic Aberration and Enable Lens Correction. If the checkbox alone did not remove the green or purple fringe, you can click the Defringe icon (upper-right) to access additional controls for removing color fringing.

STEP TEN: Expand the Geometry panel to access the perspective distortion correction tools in the form of the Upright options or Manual Transforms adjustments.

STEP ELEVEN: Locate the Crop Tool, Healing Brush, Brush (Adjustment Brush), Linear Gradient (Graduated Filter), and Radial Gradient (Radial Filter) controls under the Edit icon along the right-edge. These function the same as their counter-parts in Lightroom Classic with a few minor exceptions to be aware of at this time. I noted the current lack of Range Mask in the Brush, Linear Gradient, and Radial Gradient, but you should also know that the Crop Tool currently lacks an option to enter a custom aspect ratio (though you can click the Constrain Aspect Ratio icon and manually adjust the crop rectangle as desired).

I think you’ll find that overall the editing experience is powerful and familiar to Lightroom Classic, but give yourself time to get acquainted with the subtle differences in names, panel groupings, and shortcuts to avoid the frustration of things not working the way we assume.

As the cloud-based Lightroom ecosystem continues to evolve and improve, I am sure we will see our favorite features and functions appear to complete our personal workflows. That said, I am impressed with how much I can do from either of my computers without having to worry about which computer the source photos are stored on, and then pick up where I left off in my iPhone or iPad.

Lightroom Classic for Dummies Giveaway!

The first book I had ever written was Lightroom 2 for Dummies, which came out in 2008. It is safe to say a lot has changed since then, and I finally got the chance to update it to the current version (as of early 2019). I wrote that book and this current update with the goal of helping Lightroom Classic users get started on the right foot and avoid the pitfalls and problems that I so often encountered in the Help Desk questions that I saw every day.

This book was a huge effort, and I tried to pack in everything I thought a person using Lightroom Classic would need to know to work smarter, faster, and more confidently than they would have without it. As evidenced by the start of this blog post we also have this new cloud-based version of Lightroom too, so I dedicated 3 chapters exclusively to helping a Lightroom Classic user get started with using the cloud-based Lightroom on the mobile platform (which is an excellent addition to the Lightroom Classic workflow). I also did my best to help clear up the confusion around these different versions of Lightroom (no small thing). I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to update the book, and I hope readers find it useful. If you’d like to be entered to win a copy for yourself, just leave a comment here. Thanks!

The post Editing with Lightroom Desktop appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Evolving Names

2015 is the year Adobe released Lightroom 6, available through a perpetual license, and Lightroom CC 2015, the same product available through a Creative Cloud subscription. Over the next couple of years Lightroom CC 2015 did gain a couple of new features, but on the whole it was the same program as Lightroom 6. During that period of time we also had a product called Lightroom Mobile for iOS and Android which could sync with Lightroom CC 2015. While there were a few different products in the Lightroom family, they each did have a unique name, so it wasn’t too hard to have a discussion about which one you were using. Those were also the good old days when they also displayed the version number on the splash screen (how quaint).

Then October of 2017 came along and what we knew as “Lightroom CC 2015” became “Lightroom Classic CC”, and we learned that Lightroom 6 was the last version available through a perpetual license. Oh, and what we knew as “Lightroom Mobile” was now going to be called “Lightroom CC” and we gained Mac and Windows versions to go along with the existing iOS and Android versions, and an “ecosystem” was born. Referring to your Lightroom software as “Lightroom CC” got a bit more complicated.

Now, a month after Adobe dropped the “CC” bit from the names of both Lightroom products because there is no longer a perpetual license version to differentiate from, we are left with “Lightroom Classic” and “Lightroom”. However, due to all of this history and product name evolution, just saying “Lightroom” alone begs the further clarifying question of, “which version of Lightroom are you using?”

Finding the Version Number

The main point of this mini-rant is to help anyone seeking assistance with a Lightroom family product question to get that help as easily as possible. I spend a fair amount of time on various forums, blogs, Facebook groups, and even talking to people face to face, and see the same confusing conversations happen over and over again. So, unless you are one of the few people still using Lightroom CC 2015 because it is the latest version supported by your operating system (or you just like the good old days), the rest of us can simply stop referring to any version of Lightroom as “Lightroom CC” at all.

Instead, do yourself and everyone seeking to help you a huge favor and use the complete name and version number of the software you need help with. To find this important nugget of information, go to Help > System Info (same on both Mac and Windows) and you will see the product name and version number right at the top of the System Info window that appears.

You can even select that bit of text and copy/paste it right into whatever email, forum, blog comment, Facebook group, etc. that you are asking your question in and you will cut right to the chase and eliminate all confusion over product version. Throw in your operating system version while you are at it and you’ll avoid that question too.

Note, if your question is about Lightroom on one of the mobile platforms you can find the version number by going to the Settings screen within the Lightroom app, then tap About Lightroom. You’ll definitely want to include your OS too when asking your question.

This way even if the naming saga continues to evolve further (perhaps an unpronounceable symbol is next?) you now know the secret to finding out exactly what version of Lightroom you are using.

ps – I had a great time at Photoshop World Orlando, and want to thank everyone who came to my classes or dropped by the Lightroom Help Desk. Already looking forward to doing it all again at Photoshop World Vegas!

The post What Version of Lightroom Are You Using? appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Here’s how to find your catalog:

1. Launch Lightroom.
2. Go to Lightroom (PC: Edit)>Catalog Settings and click on the General tab.

Once the Catalog Settings dialog opens, you’ll see the location of the open catalog displayed at the top, as well as its file name, date created, date of last backup, date of last optimization, and its file size on disk. If that location is where you expected, then great. Gold star for you! If not, you might want to consider putting it in a location you prefer.

You can keep your catalog on any locally connected drive (you can’t open a catalog over a network), so whether it’s an internal drive or an external drive is entirely up to you. There are pros and cons to both options. Storing a catalog locally means you can always open the catalog without having to connect an external drive. Storing a catalog on an external drive gives you the flexibility to open that catalog from any computer (running Lightroom) on which that drive is mounted. I’ve used both options at different times over the years, and all things being equal, performance is usually at least a little better when stored on an internal drive.

Should you need to relocate your catalog to a different drive, or just a different folder on the same drive, here’s how:

1. Close Lightroom.
2. Open your operating system’s file browser (Finder or Windows Explorer), and navigate to the folder containing the catalog (.lrcat) and its associated preview caches (.lrdata). You can click the Show button in the Catalog Settings dialog (before closing Lightroom) to open your file browser to that folder.
3. Copy the folder containing the catalog to your desired location.
4. When the copy operation is complete, double-click the catalog file (.lrcat) to open it into Lightroom.
5. Take a look around and make sure all is well (and it should be).
6. Set that catalog in its new location as the Default Catalog.

By setting that catalog as the Default Catalog, the next time you launch Lightroom it will open that catalog. Once you’re satisfied all is well, and you have a good backup in place, you can remove the original catalog from its previous (unwanted) location.

If you want to take things to the next level to ensure you always open the correct catalog, you can create an Alias (PC: Shortcut) directly to the catalog file and leave that on your desktop. On Mac, Right-click the catalog file and choose Make Alias, then drag the Alias to your desktop (or wherever you wish). On Windows, Right-click the catalog file and choose Send to>Desktop (create shortcut), and it will create a shortcut on your desktop. From then on, when you want to open Lightroom, just double-click that Alias/Shortcut and you’ll know that you’re always opening that specific catalog at that specific location.

The post Do You Know Where Your Catalog Is? appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

You all totally rocked it!
I read every single idea you submitted, and I gotta tell, there’s some absolute GOLD in there (and man would I be thrilled if Adobe implemented your ideas!!).

Here are my favorites from the ideas you all posted here as comments:

What I’d like to see in Lightroom is content aware fill to go along with photo merge for panoramas.
–Keith Z

Two small easy (?) tweaks – I would like to be able to highlight folders or collections with a colored label – just to make one stand out to get to it quicker. But the big one is a ‘Cancel’ button when I inadvertently ask Lightroom to close! There’s no way out when you get to the window that lets you backup or skip the backup and quit. I’ve been using LR since version 1 but I still accidentally close it constantly and it drives me crazy that I can’t just back out and go back to work.
–Carol Parker

A book template to suit panos.
–John

I’d like to see an adjustment brush that could be different shapes. Round is okay but for a building, I’d love to have a square shaped brush to get tight in corners.
–Snappy

What about Letting Smart collections go to LR Mobile that would be so useful. I don’t want to send a whole collection, or create special collections every time I want to send something to my tablet.
–David

Printing: the ability to put text anywhere on any picture or boundary area in any of the 3 available print layout variations, single package and custom packages.
–Tooshy

Keymapper with the ability to record and use macros of repetitive steps. They have the commands under all those key sequences and menu picks, thereâ€s no reason they can’t do that. If you never use a shortcut, you should be able to remap it to something useful.
–Tooshy

I’d love a right click contextual menu to add a photo to a list of my existing collections. It’s a real pain (and very slow) to have to drag it all the way down to a particular collection. Target collection feature is nice but it assumes I work on populating one collection at a a time.
–Katherine

Iâ€d like to see Lightroom Mobile synchronize multiple catalogs.
–Gary Lum

Smart guides in the print module.Actually, I’d like them to completely start over with print module. With everything they know from InDesign, the print module really shouldn’t be as clunky as it is. But, in the absence of a complete overhaul, just bringing in smart guides (which seems to be in, and well implemented, in virtually every other app they make) would make a world of difference for me.
–Zim

Easy duplicate removal in the library module
–gregorylent

In the import step. A way to import JPEGs and raw files separately. Another feature PhotoMechanic offers that LR does not.
–Jack

What I do not like is having to keep clicking between the Library and Develop modules. Aperture was setup in a very similar way, but those two modules were combined. You Aperture users know what I mean.
–John

Lr should also include the ability to only import images that have been flagged/protected in camera âla Aperture 3 has been able to do this since at least 2010.
–ButcM

Iâ€d like to see a localized tone curve. Why can’t we have the tone curve on the brush, instead of having to go to Ps.
–Jay B

[NOTE: the next 5 are all from the same person]
1. Holding Alt while brushing should use the current brush in erase mode (same size, feather, etc). Right now it switches to the separate “Erase” brush which is always the wrong size/feathering. I find that I have to change several of the Erase brushâ€s settings almost every time before erasing and find this to be one of the biggest annoyances.

2. Remember panel positions for each view – make it a preference. I find that I always hide side panels when in C (compare) mode, hide all panels and a toolbar in N (survey) mode, and show all panels in G (grid) mode. Right now this constant panel showing/hiding takes a lot of time.

3. Change Tab and Shift+Tab behavior to hide currently visible panels show previously visible panels – as opposed to showing ALL panels. For example, I never use the top panel, so I have to hide it separately over and over again.

4. When I re-edit a photo I first check what adjustments have been done previously. Basic edits are easy to see, but if there were local adjustments made I have to click on each tool in turn (Graduated Filter, Radial Filter, Adjustment Brush), then hover over an image to see if there any pins that might contribute to the current edits. It would be so much easier if the tools were highlighted in some way when there’s at least one adjustment of the kind for the current image.

5. Show total file size when several photos are selected. Right now it says (see “Exif and IPTC” view in Metadata panel), which is not useful.
–Olga Z

Personal customizable sub-panels
–Pieter Dhaeze
The biggest thing for me as a switching aperture user is that it doesn’t show you the size of the image as you’re cropping. It’s be super easy just to show the megapixel amount so I have some kind of idea.
–mwwalk
It would be nice when opening the copy dialog box, that you could see right away where changes have been made so you could decide what you wanted to copy. They could be in a different color, or bold etc.
–Jeff L
And while they are at it: Come on, Adobe, how hard would it be to allow us to layout out custom pages in Lightroom Book Module? It’s right there in the print module. We’â€re on Lightroom 6 ‘SIX, for gosh sakes.’ AND you had it in (the long defunct) Adobe Album! Why do I still have to use a workaround, or (worse), a different app to layout custom pages in a book?
–Jim
This would be a nice addition, but what I would find much much more helpful is to be able to right-click on an image and be able to add to any collection, not just the quick collection. Perhaps an ‘Add to Collection’ sub-menu that lists the last 10 accessed collections plus an ‘Add to Last Used Collection’ entry.
–Dwig
I’d still like to see Adobe allow us to create a Collection Set template that can be copied and re-used when importing events, like say a wedding, with the Wedding Collection Set and then collections of various event photos during the day;,or Vacation Collection Set and various Days or Sites during the vacation. They only allowed a master Collection Set to be copied and not sub-collection sets and/or collections within it.
–Florian

Thanks to everybody who shared their ideas — now let’s keep our finger’s crossed that Adobe agrees with you, too! 🙂

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Best,

-Scott

The post My Favorites From Your Ideas For New Stuff To Add/Fix Next in Lightroom appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Personally, I’m a fan of adding a very subtle vignette. One that you wouldn’t really even notice was there (a kind of “less is more” thing). I use my “magic number” for any time that I’m adding a vignette. It’s enough to make a difference but not enough to draw attention. That magic number is -11, but I only apply this using the Effect panel and by just moving the Highlight Priority Amount slider. That’s it. -11. I have it on a preset that does just that one thing, and nearly every portrait, wedding shot, or other image (besides sports photos) of mine has that added. Here’s what that subtle bit of vignette looks like (see below).

If you’re looking at the image above and you’re thinking to yourself, “I can barely see it,” then my work here is done.

I hope you find it helpful.

The post My “Magic Number” for Nice Subtle Edge Vignetting appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Check out the quick video from Adobe’s own Terry “T-Bone” White (below) on the new client feedback feature (it’s actually pretty cool).

The post Lightroom 5.7 Update: More Camera Support & New LR Mobile Features appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Oh, and before we get started, I wanted to let you know that I’ll put a new menu item at the top menu called “Lightroom Only Month” so you can quickly get back to any of the tutorials from last month. Ok, here we go…

A Look Back On My Predictions
Back in the original post, I had predicted I’d miss cloning/healing and most retouching tools in Photoshop. I also predicted I’d miss the use of Layers. And finally, I said that I’d become a big fan of onOne’s Perfect Effects 8 for contrast and details, and that I’d miss that too. Now, anyone that’s used Lightroom and Photoshop for a while knows that it didn’t take a rocket scientist to predict those, and in the end, I think they were all pretty right on. I will say this. I didn’t end up with the need to use layers as much as I thought. Maybe it was just my choice in photos for the month, but not having layers didn’t bother me too many times. That said, it’s those times where you do need layers, that you REALLY NEED them. Sometimes it’s not a “nice to have” feature – instead it’s a “gotta have” feature.

Next, Lightroom’s cloning/healing did the job as good as I’d want it to about 50% of the time. And I always wished I had the Dynamic Contrast filter in Perfect Effects to finish things off. There’s just something in it that Clarity in Lightroom doesn’t give me.

Anyway, here’s a quick recap of things I didn’t miss and things I did:

Things I Didn’t Miss As Much As I Thought

1) Cloning/Healing/Overall Retouching
While I did miss Photoshop’s retouching tools, I think Lightroom took care of most retouching needs for the photos I threw at it. I know it doesn’t include the “pro” level of retouching like Photoshop does. But I think the general population of people reading this probably doesn’t need that exact a level of retouching. Most people reading here aren’t fashion/beauty retouchers. From polls and overall “feel” of the audience on this blog, most of you are retouching people from weddings, events, and family portraits – not people that’ll end up on magazine covers. And for those images I think Lightroom is perfect.

By the way… I only scratched the surface of retouching with Lightroom. If you want to learn more about it, Scott Kelby has an absolute killer course on retouching in Lightroom 5 over on KelbyOne.com.

2) HDR & Panos
I don’t really combine exposures very much any more so I don’t use Photoshop’s HDR feature much. For the one HDR-like image I did last month, it didn’t bother me just using Lightroom. While I shoot most of my outdoor stuff bracketed, I only do it to be safe. I rarely merge HDRs anymore, so not having HDR was fine with me. I do stitch together panoramas every now and then. It didn’t come up last month because there’s really no substitute for it in Lightroom other than cropping the photo to “look” like a pano so I never bothered writing a post about comparing the two – it woulda been a short one

Things I Missed (sometimes)

1) Cloning/Healing
I know I said I didn’t miss cloning and healing above. But there were a few times I did miss cloning and healing in Photoshop. Mostly the Patch Tool. I love the patch tool for smoothing out areas that I fix, after I fix them. I can get close with cloning/healing but the Patch tool is a great way to retouch and remove distractions.

2) Layers
I definitely missed layers in Photoshop. For example, I use the focus stacking concept I talked about in Day 11 a lot, to help keep everything in focus. That’s one area that Lightroom can’t help so I’d need layers in Photoshop (or Elements or onOne’s Perfect Layers). In fact, I use layers on my long exposure photos sometimes to blend in still objects from a single exposure, with the rest of a long exposure photo (where something may be blurry because it was moving). Wasn’t much of an issue on Day 7’s Long Exposure edit, but it does come up in my long exposures fairly often.

3) Selections
I would have loved to use the selection tool to darken the background on Day 10’s wedding portrait (photo courtesy of Pete Collins). Instead I used the Radial Filter to put a spotlight on the couple, but I think making a selection of the background would have helped here instead. The same thing would have helped on Day 5 portrait edit too.

4) The Perfect Effects Plug-in from onOne
I love my Dynamic Contrast preset in onOne Perfect Effects 8. I would have loved it on Day 15’s HDR photo. Day 13’s Cloudy day photo. Day 7 & 8 longer exposure photos and especially Day 6’s contrasty black and white.

5) Dodging and Burning
This one was interesting. Before last month, I used to do my dodging and burning in Photoshop out of habit. I know Lightroom’s Adjustment Brush does something similar, but I always just felt more comfortable with Photoshop’s brushes and layers. During the month, I did find I could do a lot of my dodge/burn work in Lightroom. However, after reverting back to Photoshop for it, I still do feel more comfortable there. It’s definitely a “feel” thing. Being able to dodge/burn on separate layers, while making random quick selections of certain areas if I needed, and being able to control the opacity of those changes in a more refine way helps out. Would anyone really be able to tell in the final photo? Probably not. It’s definitely more of a personal “feel” kinda thing but I’m okay with that. If I’m trying to be quick, I’ll probably do my quick dodge and burn in Lightroom. If it’s a photo I’m going to print and put in my portfolio, then I’ll probably still jump over to Photoshop for it.

Final Thoughts
Final thoughts are that Lightroom is one kick-ass program. I know I’m preaching to the choir here because the fact that you’re on this website probably means you’re a LR fan. Are there tasks that Photoshop does better? In some cases, yes. But I think overall, Lightroom does about 80-90% of what most photographers want to do. And it seems that percentage just gets higher and higher in each version.

Thanks for stopping by today (and last month). I’m going to put the list of tutorials from last month up in a menu at the top called “Lightroom Only Month” so you can go back and read any of them without searching all over. See ya!

The post My Recapped Thoughts on “Lightroom Only” Month appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Whooops! Well, I goofed. I posted this early this morning. I even got up early to write it. But sadly, in my tired state, (yeah, I’ll blame it on fatigue) I forgot to categorize it so it showed up on the home page. Sorry

Welcome to the final day in my self-project-ish, month-long postings of images I’m only using Lightroom to edit. If you’re just coming in to reading this and haven’t read the original post where I wrote why I’m doing this, then make sure you check that out too. Okay, here goes:

The Photo: Natural Light Portrait
This is a portrait I took of a friend of mine and his daughter a few years back. It was a quick candid portrait. I usually try to position my outdoor natural light subjects in front of backgrounds without so many bright spots as this one. But in the end, with some creative processing, it actually worked out pretty well.

(click to see the image larger)

Photo Details:
Camera: Nikon D3
Lens: Nikon 70-200mm
Aperture: f/2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO: 200

Basic Processing
The Auto button doesn’t do so well when you have bright spots like we have here so I adjusted this one manually. I increased the Exposure, pulled back on the Highlights, left the Shadows alone and adjusted the Whites/Blacks with the usual Alt/Option key. I also added some Vibrance to boost the colors a little. No Clarity though, because it tends to add a gritty look to portraits that won’t really work well on this photo.

Cropping
Not too much here. Just a quick Crop to get rid of some of that head room at the top.

White Balance and Color
White balance was a huge part of this one. It had a very cool feel to it before. But I pushed the Temp slider quite a bit to give it a warm feeling. It’s actually not the “correct” white balance. But I like the exaggerated hazy warm feel it has.

The Detail Panel (Sharpening)
Like most portraits, I can increase the Amount slider a lot here. You have to be careful with Detail though so I held back on it. Then I increased the Masking to hide the sharpening from their skin.

Retouching
There’s not a ton of retouching to do here. And it’s not something I normally did in Lightroom. But after this month, I think we’ve seen that Lightroom can take care of tasks like removing some of the dark circles under people’s eyes really well. So I used the Spot Removal tool (on Heal mode) and brushed under their eyes. The main thing here is to reduce the Opacity setting so that it blends in with their original skin texture and doesn’t look fake.

I couldn’t get the Spot Removal brush to work on her eye on the inside near her dad. No matter what I did it looked fake so I just used the Adjustment Brush (with increased exposure) to paint on the dark area to help it match the rest.

I also added a new brush adjustment setting for his teeth. The increased warmth almost gives his teeth a yellow color so I reduced the Saturation and increased Exposure (just a little) to paint on his teeth.

The Adjustment Brush
Here’s one of the biggest changes. There’s obviously a lot of light coming in from behind them. You can see it on their hair with the edge light that surrounds them. I wanted to enhance this and give it that feeling of even more sun-flare behind them. So I grabbed a large brush with a high feather setting. I increased the Exposure to add brightness and the Temp slider to add warmth and painted a few brush strokes behind them. I haven’t used that technique this month, but it’s actually something I do with my outdoor natural light portraits a lot.

Finishing Touches
I normally add a vignette and I added one here. But not much. Just a very light vignette because I don’t want to counter-act the adjustments I just did with the brush in the previous step.

What Else?
I really don’t have anything I missed in Photoshop here. I do have a couple of presets I like that either Nik or onOne have. Their “glow” presets. Nik’s Color Efex calls it Glamour Glow and onOne Perfect Effects has a Sunshine category that has several nice glow presets in it. It’s hard to say, but they just add a softness to the photo that I can’t recreate in Lightroom. So my personal workflow includes using a preset like that, but honestly, it’s not a huge difference and I think the photo still looks great here.

Here’s a quick Before/After:

[tabs slidertype=”images” auto=”yes” autospeed=”4000″]
[imagetab width=”836″ height=”558″] http://lightroomktips.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/day16_before.jpg [/imagetab]
[imagetab width=”836″ height=”558″] http://lightroomktips.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/day16_after.jpg [/imagetab]
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Okay, well that wraps it up for the month. I’m off to teach my Lightroom seminar today, but I’ll be back next week with a recap from this month. I’ve had a few requests to process a photo, start to finish, the way I normally would. Plug-ins, Photoshop, and anything else. And then compare it to the Lightroom only version. So I’ll see what I can whip up and share it here.
Have a great weekend

The post The Final Day of “Lightroom Only” Month appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

The Photo: St. Patricks Cathedral
A few years ago I was in St. Patricks Cathedral and took the photo below. I wrote about it at the time because it has an interesting back story – here’s the link if you want to read. I’ll warn you now though, some of the comments get pretty crazy. Anyway, the photo is actually part of an HDR series I did, but I decided to see what I could do here with just one exposure.

(click to see the image larger)

Photo Details:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikon 14-24mm
Aperture: f/16
Shutter Speed: 2 sec
ISO: 400

Basic Processing
The Auto button did a good job here as a start. It really make the overall exposure look good. I did cool the photo just a bit by moving the Temp slider to the left a tiny bit.

The Auto button didn’t touch the Highlights and Shadows though, and that’s what’ll really give this photo the HDR look. So I pulled back on Highlights as far as it’ll go and opened the Shadows as far as they’ll go. I also set the Whites/Blacks by holding down the Option/Alt key.

Finally, I added 100% Clarity to give the details more texture and help achieve the HDR feel. I also added a good amount of Vibrance to give the appearance that the golden areas on the ceiling were glowing. Yeah, I know it looks pretty punchy in color but I like it.

Crop and Straighten
Okay, this is a wide angle photo with lots of vertical lines in it. If I were an architectural photographer, then I’d probably need to fix this. One way to help would be the Lens Correction panel. First I clicked the Enable Profile Corrections checkbox. Then I tried the Auto Upright button and this is what I got.

So I un-did that change and tried the Vertical slider under the Manual tab. Not so good either

Then it hit me. I’m not an architectural photographer. And most other people aren’t either. So the rest of the world, including me, doesn’t care about straight lines. So I’m not even going to bother trying to fix it. However, I did go to the Straighten tool and dragged along the top of the step (along the bottom of the photo) to straighten the tilted aspect of the photo.

The Detail Panel (Sharpening)
If there’s any photo that can handle a TON of sharpening it’s this one. I cranked up the Amount setting. Changed the Radius to 1.3 (pretty much right around where I leave it for every photo) and added some Detail as well. No need for masking since, like I said, we’ve got mega-details in this photo and there’s no reason to hide the sharpening from any areas.

Retouching
There looks to be some little electrial boxes on the floor to the left and right of the red rug. Originally, when I first processed this photo, I used the Clone Stamp tool in Photoshop. This time around I used the Spot Removal tool. I set it to Clone mode (because I want to precisely fix it with the exact area next to it) and painted over the box. I also used a very low Feather setting so that the edges don’t get blurred. I think it worked pretty well overall.

I also used a small brush on the chord between the box and podium. Lightroom did okay, there, but it’s definitely not perfect. It’s one of those things that I notice, but I don’t think some one who never saw this photo before would see it.

The Adjustment Brush
Those pillars near the edges of the photo on the top left/right looked pretty bright to me. So I grabbed the Adjustment Brush, with negative Exposure, and painted over them to lessen their impact.

As you’ve probably seen during the month a few times, we can add Clarity on top of Clarity by brushing Clarity on the photo (even though we’ve already added it above in the Basic panel). Since I’m really going for an HDR style photo, we can push this pretty far, but I only added one extra layer (you could always right-click on the adjustment brush pin and choose Duplicate if you wanted more).

Finishing Touches
Nuttin’ too crazy here. I just used the Vignette setting in the Effects panel. And I didn’t go too dark because I think our Adjustment Brush work above already did a good job at darkening the really bright parts I was worried about.

What Else?
For the most part, Lightroom did everything great here. However, HDR photos have a certain look and feel you get from the HDR processing software. We got close here in Lightroom, but you just can’t get the same results you’d get from processing 3 exposures in HDR software. But it is pretty darn close and I’m not sure I like the HDR version any better.

Here’s a quick Before/After:

[tabs slidertype=”images” auto=”yes” autospeed=”4000″]
[imagetab width=”836″ height=”558″] http://lightroomktips.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Day15_before.jpg [/imagetab]
[imagetab width=”836″ height=”558″] http://lightroomktips.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Day15_after.jpg [/imagetab]
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Have a great day and I’ll see you back here tomorrow for the final day in “Lightroom Only” month!

The post Day 15 of “Lightroom Only” Month (Interior/Architecture HDR Look) appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.