“Oh, yes, wait a minute Mister Postman…”

It’s been some time since those lyrics came out of speakers everywhere. Yet, mail, in its many forms, is still an important means of communication. Today, of course, we use email. In previous versions of Lightroom there was an email export preset that helped to gather images that we could attach to our emails. We soon discovered that some email clients would accept the output of the export preset and we added them as the Post-processing action and that smoothed the workflow a bit.

Lightroom 4 Beta has added an email feature which promises to develop into a nice workflow solution. At first glance it is still very much in the beginning phase. That is it is marginally useful. However, the fact that the Lightroom team has added the feature is encouraging. So let’s take a look at how it works.

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Some time ago I offered a solution to working with a catalog on multiple computers utilizing Dropbox to store the catalog. Take a look at A Catalog In The Cloud in case you missed it.

I mentioned that this wasn’t a solution for the multi-photographer studio but it could be useful if your images are housed on an external drive and you like to work from multiple computers. The cloud based catalog has the advantage that all of the changes you make reside there and are accessible to your various computers. If you are using a free Dropbox account (you get 2GB free when you sign up!) you will run out of room quickly as your previews file grows. The .lrdata file gets big if you use 1:1 previews and like to keep them.

Since I wrote that article, Dropbox has added a feature called Selective Sync. A Lightroom Secrets reader, David Balder, sent me an email pointing out that this new feature removes the preview bloat issue and can give you more room to store your catalog. Thanks, David! That’s a brilliant suggestion!

David suggests that you use Selective Sync to exclude the .lrdata file from the Dropbox sync. The downside here is that you will lose your previews. However, Lightroom will happily build them as needed when you start to work in your catalog. So there’s the tradeoff: a little more time to build a preview in exchange for more room in your free account to store a catalog.

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One of the exciting new features in Lightroom 4 Beta is its enhanced video capabilities! If you’ve had a chance to play with this feature you have already discovered that a few of the adjustments for video are only contained in the Develop module. This presents a problem since video itself is not supported directly in the Develop module. The current solution to this mentioned on the many sites covering Lightroom is to take a still from the video, bring that into the Develop module, and apply the additional adjustments to that still image. Once you are satisfied with the result you can create a preset. Back in the Library module you can now apply that preset to your video. Then, those settings only available in Develop will be applied to your video.

This is a great workaround. However, Sean McCormack has come up with an even better solution. It is quicker and more elegant. In fact, it’s rather ingenious! Well, I won’t spoil the surprise. Head on over to Sean’s article at pixiq.com and watch the video. I think you’ll be impressed too!

Thanks Sean!

On another note – Sean has been hard at work updating his excellent plugins for Lightroom 4 Beta. Check them out at http://lrbplugins.com/.

 

Lightroom 4 Beta

Happy Birthday Lightroom! How nice of you to give us a gift on your special day!

That’s right, Lightroom 4 Beta is ready for you to play with. You can download your copy at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom4/. As you discover new things and want to get involved in the conversation then head over to http://forums.adobe.com/community/labs/lightroom4/. The Lightroom team is eager to hear what you have to say, good or bad, so don’t be shy!

As a reminder THIS IS BETA SOFTWARE!!!!! So please do not use this against any of your original images. Make separate copies of some images you want to experiment with so that your originals are protected. I can’t stress this enough. Whenever a new Beta is released I hear from a handful of readers who didn’t heed this warning. It’s not always a happy ending. So, one more time, THIS IS BETA SOFTWARE!!!!! OK. Now that that’s out of the way let’s do the quick tour of what’s new in Lightroom 4 Beta!

The broad categories are:

  • Better Video Support
  • Geolocation capabilities
  • Simplified Basic Adjustments
  • New Shadow & Highlight controls
  • New local adjustments
  • Soft Proofing!!!
  • Photo Book creation
  • Email capabilities

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Lightroom appeared on the photographic landscape just 6 short years ago. Birthdays are often an occasion to look back and reminisce so here’s a quick walk down memory lane!

Lightroom 1 “Shadowland”


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Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2012! Are you ready for a new year? Did you get everything accomplished in 2011 that you set out to do? If you are like most humans on the planet you probably have some things on your 2011 list that still need doing. One of the nice things about a new year is the fresh outlook we can apply to the upcoming twelve months. If we didn’t get to everything on our list we can reassess and determine if they were really worth doing or if they should be brought forward to this year’s list.

Here are some Lightroom suggestions to add to your 2012 list:

  • Update your watermarks and metadata presets. It’s a new year. If you use the year in your copyright notices (i.e. Copyright © 2011) then remember to change the year to 2012 in all your presets and watermarks.
  • Make 2012 your keyword year. Make a commitment to keywording in 2012. Go through your current keywords. Make sure there aren’t duplicates because of number or case. Look for things like cat, cats, Cats, etc. Keywords can really make your catalog function like a well-oiled machine! If you aren’t familiar with the power of keywording start with Peter Krogh’s excellent article on keywords at dpBestflow.
  • Review 2011. Take some time and review your images from 2011. Gather the best together into a collection. Consider sharing these on your social networking sites. Whether it’s flickr, Facebook, Google+, 500px or… let the world see your work. Be proud of your accomplishments.
  • Get to know the Lightroom Community. Thanks for reading Lightroom Secrets! If you haven’t yet had a chance take a look at some of the sites listed on the sidebar under Interesting Sites. Seán McCormack put together a great twitter list at http://www.pixiq.com/article/lightroom-twitter.
  • Learn, learn, learn. You can never learn enough about photography and Lightroom. Take a look at the Lightroom videos at Adobe TV. Check out the great free tips from the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) at http://www.photoshopuser.com/lightroom (while you’re at it why not consider joining NAPP?) Take some courses at Lynda.com. Play with Lightroom and learn all you can!
  • Try something new. Try a new processing technique in Lightroom. Try shooting a different way. If you never take night shots try that! If you never use the adjustment brushes then give them a try. There’s bound to be something you can try in 2012. Have fun doing it and don’t worry about the outcome. 100 terrible shots may lead to that masterpiece! You won’t know unless you try.
  • Have fun! Always remember Rule 5. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Experiment. Go on a photo walk or two. Join a local camera club or user group.

The new year is filled with bright and shining possibilities! But, we can only look back on the year positively if we take the initiative now. Time passes us by rather quickly. Don’t wait for tomorrow or next month. Get out there now and capture those priceless images. Be positive. Be courageous. You won’t regret it!

 

It’s been a while since I paid you all a visit here at Lightroom Secrets; it’s good to be back! Today I will show you how to expand Lightroom’s editing capabilities by integrating third party plugins into the mix. Typically, this is handled via the Plug-in Manager in the File menu, but we’ll follow a slightly different process here. Specifically, we’ll look at Lens Effects from Topaz Labs (which incidentally, you can get for $50 off between now and December 24, by entering the code “simplefocus” into the Topaz shopping cart).

Lens Effects is a plugin that contains a variety of creative blurring effects, as well a number of traditional lens filter effects. Examples include things like a Tilt-Shift lens preset, motion blurring, a Graduated Neutral Density preset, and something called Creative Blur, which is the preset we will focus on in this tutorial. The objective is to take a silhouette image of a cliff diver at sunset, and use a combination of creative focus and some selective processing in Lightroom to create a scene that draws the viewers eye to the divers without taking away too much detail or color.

Quick Setup Tips

To access Topaz Labs plugins from Lightroom, you need to do two things. First, install the Lens Effects plugin as you normally would, then, install an add-on program (should be available from the same installer) called “Fusion Express 2″. Once you’ve done that, go to Lightroom’s Preferences and under “External Editing”, select the Fusion Express 2 app and apply the settings shown below.

Before you start, tell Lightroom where to find Topaz Fusion 2...

From this point, you can right-click on any image thumbnail in the Library module, in the Filmstrip, or on any open image in the Develop module, and choose Edit In > Edit in Topaz Fusion Express 2. When you do this, you will be greeted with a dialog that lets you choose the specific Topaz plugin you want to use  (shown later).
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Lightroom 3.6 and Adobe Camera Raw 6.6 are now available! You can update via the program or by visiting Adobe.com and downloading the updates. Support for new cameras and lenses as well as some bug fixes. For more information visit the Lightroom Journal.

 

It was a cold and rainy day today. A perfect time to catch up on some video podcast viewing!

One of my favorites is Terry White’s Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast. I really recommend that you subscribe to this FREE podcast in iTunes. Just click here to learn more and subscribe.

In the last two episodes, Terry talked about a very clever use of Smart Collections with Publish Services. He shows us how to create smart collections that tie into a regular collection and duplicate the content across several Publish Services. In his example, he has a regular collection in which he keeps 24 of his most recent portfolio level shots. He wants this same set published out to Flickr, Facebook, SmugMug, Google+, etc. without having to manually recreate those collections in each Publish service. Terry walks through the steps to set this up.

If you want to see these videos without subscribing (although I don’t know why you wouldn’t subscribe) you can check them out on his site. The first video is How to Use Lightroom 3′s Smart Collections in Publish Services. The second talks about doing this for Google+: How to Publish your Photos From Lightroom Directly to Google+.

If you’ve been keeping current with you podcast viewing this may be old news. But, I thought is was rather clever and wanted to share it with you in case you missed it. Enjoy!

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