Lightroom Guy

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The Lightroom Library Mystery Part 3

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Or, Lightroom Guy’s Completely Over Explained and Over Simplified Method of Importing Photos and Maintaining the Lightroom Library – Part 3

Even though the Image Preview Area seems pretty straight forward, there’s a lot going on and you can save time and dodge the frustrations of unintentionally importing duplicates into your library. This third part of the series shows more of my Lightroom importing methods that keep my students (professionals and amateurs alike) organized and frustration free. These two videos illustrate a few more ways to do that.

NOTE: Keep in mind that I am using the latest version of Lightroom, 5.5, recently renamed by Adobe to Lightroom CC. The features and behaviors of earlier versions of Lightroom may differ.

The first video is important enough that I’ve separated it from the Image Preview tutorial as a stand alone video. If you frequently add photos to your library from a memory card and then put that memory card back in your camera and shoot more photos, you may have experienced the problem of adding duplicate photos to your library. The “Don’t Import Suspected Duplicates” checkbox prevents this from happening. All too often, somehow, we don’t know who or what sneaks over, turns on our computer, opens Lightroom and unchecks this on us, but it happens. And when it does, we start importing the same images over and over again wondering, what’s going on?

Setting the “Don’t Import Suspected Duplicates” checkbox

There are many ways to skin a cat or, in this case, view an image in while in Lightroom’s Import dialog.

Using the Image Preview Area of the Lightroom Import Dialog

Here are a few things to remember when working in the Import Dialog:

1. It’s easy to forget you’re in the Import Dialog and not in the Lightroom Library where you can develop or mark photos with flags, colors or stars. You can’t!

2. If you just bought the latest and the greatest new digital camera, the manufacturer will likely have changed their camera raw formula to the latest and greatest proprietary camera raw which Adobe probably has not yet updated Lightroom to recognize. In this case you will see a “Preview Unavailable for this Image” in each frame where a preview should be.

Lightroom Raw Unavailable

Adobe will usually update their Adobe Camera Raw (also known as ACR) to recognize it in the next version of Lightroom. In the meantime, consider checking your camera manufacturer’s website for their software until Adobe catches up. It’s a real pain, but this is the way it works. The workaround is usually going to the Adobe site and downloading the latest Camera Raw Converter, a stand-alone program which they usually update first. You can find the latest Camera Raw Converter Here.

In the next episode of the Lightroom Library Mystery I will tackle the Big Kahuna, the Import Destination Panel and creating an organized library.

The Lightroom Library Mystery Part 2

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Or, Lightroom Guy’s Completely Over Explained and Over Simplified Method of Importing Photos and Maintaining the Lightroom Library – Part 2

Some of you may be wondering why am I calling this series of posts The Lightroom Library Mystery. Here’s why. Frequently, Lightroom users create multiple catalogs, import to multiple locations on their computer and external hard drives and rename images on import with sequential numbers (untitled-001, untitled-002, etc.) and, eventually, loose track of what is where and what was named what. And they don’t know why. That’s why I’m demonstrating this method: A single catalog, organized by year, with folders by month and day and followed by short names, with image names unchanged and keyworded. Professionals may balk at my system, but after two years of restoring Lightroom libraries from beginners to pros, I have developed a method that works. Add a proper backup to this approach and you have a stable, searchable Lightroom Library.

Over the course of the next few weeks I will show you how setting up the Import dialog can contribute to an orderly library hierarchy (hierarchy, love that word!). I’ll be using video for most of my future tutorials, as it’s a far better medium than text for explaining Lightroom processes. Writing tutorials with text gets bogged down with words. So, less words, more videos.

This week there are two videos. One to set Lightroom’s Preferences to automatically open the Import dialog when a memory card is detected in your card reader, the other explains the Source panel of the Import dialog.

Setting Preferences to Open the Import Dialog When a Memory Card is Detected

The Source Panel Explained

This one is just the basics, please. Lightroom Guy skips straight through to the stuff that matters when you plug in your camera’s memory card.

Next time, I’ll cover the the Image Preview window and selecting your import options.

The Lightroom Library Mystery Part 1

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The Introduction

Dated lightroom Folders with titles

This is an example of my Lightroom Library folder structure

If you are an experienced Lightroom user and comfortable managing your images and importing into Lightroom, you probably don’t need to read any further. You can go watch Julieanne Kost’s excellent importing video tutorial on the Adobe site. However, if you’re still struggling to organize your Lightroom Library this is the place to start: the Import.

Most of my initial house calls for private sessions start with finding, repairing, restoring and reorganizing a student’s Lightroom library. Through these experiences I’ve developed an approach to importing that works for both low-tech and high-tech users. Once it’s set up, it’s really pretty simple and close to automatic, as Lightroom always remembers your last Import settings. And then, once you’ve imported, it’s just a matter of folder naming and keywording, but never, ever make changes from outside of the Lightroom program. That’s where the trouble frequently begins.

I’m going to point out all the quirks and issues and make my recommendations but won’t review all the Import features, only what has been working best for my students. In the end, you should be better able to maintain an orderly catalog of files and folders.

As always, I will try to keep the tech talk down or at least define it. I hope you know the names of, at least, some the panels and tools in Lightroom. Adobe sometimes uses multiple names for the same thing, when they do, I’ll try to make sure the different names are noted. And don’t forget to RTFM – Read The Freakin’ Manual, or at least glance at it once and a while when you’re having trouble sleeping.

Because Lightroom Importing is so crucial to maintaining a functional Library I will be writing three separate posts: Source, Preview Area and Destination.

Coming up: Source

Q: What’s Wrong with the Lightroom 5 Radial Filter?

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A: It’s backwards!

In my opinion, the Lightroom 5 Radial Filter is the most useful of all the Local Adjustment tools. As you can see in the example slide show at the end of my post, it can work like a little spotlight, highlighting areas here and there – faces, objects, whatever. Or you can create an off-centered vignette, which you cannot do using Lightroom’s Effects Panel. I could go on about the different ways you can use it, but I’d rather tell you how to use the tool and leave the creativity up to you.

Unlike the Main Adjustment Panels (Basic, Tone Curve, HSL, Luminance, etc.) where the adjustments you make are applied to your entire image, Local Adjustments apply adjustments to the areas of the image where you paint or draw. These tools – the Adjustment Brush, Graduated Filter, Red Eye Correction and Spot Removal – all have one attribute in common: the adjustments are always applied to the inside of where you have drawn. Now, if you’ve tried to use the Lightroom 5 Radial Filter (not included in any earlier versions of LR!) and can’t figure out how it works, here’s the reason why: It’s backwards. Especially if you’ve used the other Local Adjustment Tools, you have grown to expect certain results. But it doesn’t work that way with the Radial Filter.

No, it’s not that the software guys at Adobe got it wrong; it’s just that they designed the Radial Filter tool as a Mask and were thoughtful enough to include a way to invert the Mask.

Mask? We all know that a mask hides something. Like if you wanted to hide your face like the Lone Ranger, you’d wear a black mask to cover part of your face (but we know he wasn’t really fooling anybody).

Lightroom 5 Radial Filter

Lightroom 5 Radial Filter Panel

Here’s how the Radial Filter works:

When you select the Radial Filter icon from the Local Adjustment Toolbar and click and drag to draw an ellipse, the changes you make with the adjustment sliders appear outside the ellipse you’ve drawn and the changes inside the ellipse are hidden (masked). That is, unless you check the Invert Mask checkbox first! Only then will the adjustments be visible inside the ellipse. Nearly all of my students have had this experience. And that’s because masking can be a hard to understand, abstract concept unless you are experienced in Photoshop masking or have an expert background in special types of photographic printing.

Lightroom 5 Radial Filter

This illustrated animation shows a blank image with no Radial Filter applied, then I drew an ellipse with Invert Mask checked (so adjustments are only visible inside the ellipse) and adjusted the feathering effect to 0, 50 and 100. Notice that at 100, the effects of the adjustments are very subtle. Subtle is good.

And, while I’m at it, just above Invert Mask there is a Slider named Feather that adjusts from 100% to 0%. It applies varying degrees of graduated masking in the center your ellipse, or if you don’t check the Invert Mask checkbox, outside the center.

The softness of the Feather setting will determine, in part, how natural your final image looks. Play with this slider and you’ll see what I mean. Local adjustments require a gentle approach, and as with all of Lightroom’s Adjustment settings, practice will lead you to achieving “honest” results that appear natural and not noticeably manipulated. And this is absolutely a lot easier to accomplish in Lightroom than in Photoshop.

And here are a few fun final tips on adjusting the shape of the Radial Filter to make your work more accurate:

  • To make a perfect circle – hold down the Shift key while drawing your ellipse
  • To change two sides of the shape and size of your ellipse – Drag any anchor point (those little squares around the perimeter of your ellipse)
  • To proportionately change the size of the entire ellipse – Hold down the Shift key and drag any anchor point
  • To adjust the size from three sides – Hold down the Shift Key with the Option key (ALT on PC) and drag any anchor point
  • To adjust only one side of the ellipse – hold down the Option key (ALT on PC) while dragging any anchor point
  • And, don’t forget you can also rotate your ellipse! But I think you can figure that one out.

Be the Drink or Be the Bartender

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Imagine you’re in a bar and order a strong mixed drink. Let’s say a Moscow Mule.

It’s the Bartender’s recipe. She cuts a slice of lime, squeezes the juice into a lovely Collins glass, grabs two or three ice cubes from the ice bucket, pulls down a bottle of Vodka from the top shelf, dribbles a few ounces into the glass, adds exotic ginger beer, mixes it with a bright red stirring stick and tosses a slice of lime on top.

Mmmmm. Now that’s a good Mule.

Too much in one glassNow (don’t forget we’re still imagining here), if you hold your glass and don’t put it down, only the ice cubes have diluted the drink, just a little, but not much. However, if you put your glass down to save your drink for later, the bartender will come over and add water, filling your glass back up to the top and diluting it way more. Keep putting your drink down, the bartender will keep filling it up with water. Eventually there’s very little left of your original drink; it’s mostly water.

That’s kind of how a JPEG works – A JPEG image straight out of your camera will look good, but every time you save it, it will loose quality. Save it too much, and it will fall apart.

It’s a strong mixed drink with melting ice that can further loose its qualities under certain circumstances. You may call it a Moscow Mule, however it’s going to taste pretty damn watered down.

Here’s what’s happening.

The color engineers at (put your camera manufacturer’s name here) decided how to mix all the colors for you – plus the contrast and saturation and anything else they think looks good in every JPEG you shoot.

This isn’t to say all JPEGs are bad. They’re not bad.

It’s just that someone else, (put your camera manufacturer’s name here), is doing all your creative thinking, not you. On certain camera settings, even the photos straight out of your camera may start out watered down and they can get more diluted as you work on them and save them. JPEGs aren’t called a Lossy file format for nothing. They loose things like quality.

But maybe you’d like to take control and start adjusting your own colors, contrast and saturation. And perhaps you’d like being a little more creative by making the sky darker and grass lighter and your Uncle Herman’s eyes a little brighter. And, yes, you could do that with a JPEG in Adobe Lightroom but that would be like taking that Moscow Mule and pouring a different mixed drink into the same glass before drinking it. Chances are, two drinks will be too much to fit into one glass and the results will be unpredictable, not to mention messy.

Emtpy GlassNow let’s say you have all the ingredients you need to make any kind of recipe you can imagine, not just drinks but appetizers, entrees and desserts from around the world. That’s kind of like Camera Raw. When you set your camera to shoot in Raw you get photographs that are the highest quality your camera can make, and each photo is empty vessel, so to speak. The camera adds a color recipe you can start with and Lightroom provides you with all the other ingredients you need to cook up your own creative recipes. In addition to concocting your own, Lightroom has built-in recipes you can choose from and plenty of free download recipes (recipes in the tech world are called pre-sets).* And, if you don’t like what you’ve done, Lightroom let’s you start over with a clean slate. Camera Raw files are known as a lossless format. No explanation needed.

It is true that you can’t use Camera Raw with those nifty Automatic settings like Portrait, Landscape, and Fireworks because the camera will automatically give you a JPEG.  That’s just the way it is. But, now that you know all of this Raw and JPEG stuff, you can smartly use the Automatic settings when you need to, knowing you’ll get nice snapshots with someone else’s color adjustments.

* The link below will get you to some quality, free Lightroom presets. Enjoy!

http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/lightroom-presets/

Why Lightroom?

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FtestriteDodgingKit Detail w textirst, while Lightroom has not yet received the enormous publicity that Photoshop has (Lightroom, for example, has not yet become a verb. No one says “Lightroom it!” yet) Lightroom is incredibly powerful with amazing capabilities.

Second, consider Lightroom as a digital gateway drug. Photoshop might come later, once you’re hooked. You may actually become quite enamored with Lightroom however, and decide to completely forego Photoshop altogether. Many do. You may even decide make Lightroom a verb.

So? Get to the point.

Here’s my point (or at least one of them): Lightroom is much easier to learn with far fewer tools to master than Photoshop and it has some nifty features that Photoshop doesn’t. Quit Lightroom while working on a photo (you don’t even have to save it!) and when you return, Lightroom remembers every change you made in its History panel. Quit Photoshop and its History panel will be empty when you return to work on the photo! Plus, you may have heard those techie folks tossing around the word “non-destructive” editing*. That is totally true for Lightroom, but not always true for Photoshop.

Screen Shot 2014 05 13 at 5.01.58 PM

Every change you make is recorded in the History Panel making your changes “non-destructive”

*Non-destructive means the original photo is not actually being modified. Instead there is a list of instructions that tells Lightroom what you did. Those instructions can be deleted or reset at any time, which will leave the original photo untouched.

Please, read on. I’m almost done.

Before digital, amateur and professional photographers alike made prints using some basic tools for dodging and burning in the darkroom. They rarely purchased a compliment of special films, exotic tools and devices to make multi-element photo-composites from their photographs. (Yes, I know there were a few photographers who did that, but we’re talking about rest of us.) That’s the elemental difference between Lightroom and Photoshop: Photoshop is like an exotic high maintenance, manual stick shift luxury car with a basic stereo radio and CD player; whereas Lightroom is a completely assembled, ready to use high-end, Dolby 5.1 sound system with six-foot speakers*. Let’s face it. Many of us would take the car but wouldn’t know how to drive it.  However, if you just wanted the music and didn’t need the ride, which would you rather listen to?

Okay now, the choice is yours. If you want to do hard-core, multi-element photo-composites, Photoshop is definitely the place to be. But in my opinion, if your goal is to organize, keyword and develop your snapshots into full-fledged photographs, Lightroom is the program you’re looking for.

* Please note that Lightroom® does not come with a sound system, nor does Photoshop® come with a luxury car. I was just using metaphors.

 

My Approach to Lightroom

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There is a spectacular sunrise in Siena, Italy. I shoot hundreds of frames through my open window in the B&B, each just seconds apart, starting with the first few seconds before the sun breaks the horizon until it was hanging low over the hills. The sun’s position changes with each subsequent frame. Later, as I labor over the editing process for well over an hour, I find it hard to choose just one. Each capture is so similar to the next. First I choose a handful, then a couple, then just one. The best of the best.

I wish I could say the photographs are perfect the way they are, but I can’t. “Pretty good” can always be better. Even in the best of cases.

Developing the image in Lightroom is a process. A little of this, then a little of that, undo this, redo that. It’s not unlike the black and white darkroom printing I did for nearly two decades. I was lucky enough to learn from guys like Frank Finochhio, Richard Avedon’s personal printer, Ken Ohara, another protégé of Avedon and Hiro, and Ben Somoroff, an amazing still life photographer who, regrettably, has been all but forgotten. Those skills that were practiced for over two decades still serve me well in Lightroom.

Without having the experience of taping pieces of black paper onto sections of cut metal hangers to “dodge” and forming a circle with my hands to “burn in,” I would not know what many of the terms used in Lightroom mean or how to make the best use of them. Having that physical connection to the darkroom is why Lightroom feels familiar.

As Lightroom Guy, I will try to make understanding and mastering Lightroom clearer and easier, whether or not you bring darkroom experience with you.

Feel free to comment and request features.

Lightroom Guy