Adobe Lightroom Classic Archives

Case Study: Using Photo Mechanic to Speedup Lightroom Workflow

November 15, 2018 by David Mark Erickson Leave a Comment

If you work on tight deadlines, using Photo Mechanic to speedup Lightroom workflow might be right for you …

Anyone who works on tight deadlines or is simply frustrated with Lightroom’s importing speed might want to consider using Photo Mechanic. As a professional, you know that getting your photos processed as efficiently as possible is essential to your business. As a photo enthusiast, you’d much rather spend time developing your photos and not spend time waiting for them to import.

In this Case Study, we look at using a 2-stage workflow, using Photo Mechanic with Lightroom Classic CC. Photo Mechanic is used to review photos, make selections and add metadata. Lightroom Classic is used for developing photos and long term, archival storage.

A Note About Photo Mechanic

Photo Mechanic has been around since the dawn of digital photography but, don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of it before. While not a niche product, it is largely used by photojournalists, sports and stock photographers. Photo Mechanic 5 is made by Camera Bits and it can be purchased for $150 from their web site–and they do offer a 30-day free trial!

Where Lightroom is a massive, fully featured cataloging platform, Photo Mechanic is a lightweight photo browser and metadata editing program. What’s more, Photo Mechanic is super fast for reviewing and tagging. There is no “import” process like Lightroom, so you can get right to reviewing your photos and adding metadata. While Photo Mechanic does have some additional features, like a built in FTP client and an ICC color matching engine, in this case study we are going to look at a basic workflow without using any of the extended features that Photo Mechanic offers.

Photo Mechanic + Lightroom Workflow

There are a number of other valid ways to setup Photo Mechanic and Lightroom. However, this particular workflow is based on a real world client scenario. This setup was designed for a working photojournalist who operates under tight deadlines. As a Case Study, this is a great starting point to demonstrate how the two programs can work together.

Key assumptions: client is shooting 100-300 RAW only images on each assignment; making a selection of 3-8 photos for uploading to the picture editors; adding key info for specific metadata fields; only light cropping and limited tonal adjustments to balance/enhance the scene. Further, client is working on a Macbook Air with limited hard drive space and a small screen.

1. Image Copy process

In this case, the simplest process is to copy the image files from the camera card directly to the Pictures folder on the laptop.
Maintain an orderly library by using a folder naming protocol

Using a “YYYY-MM-DD [shoot name]”structure for the folder name helps keep things in order for later archival purposes.

2. Photo Mechanic process

Review: Photo Mechanic is built as a file browser so it can be pointed at a target folder and images will preview immediately. Reviewing images is fast, even with large RAW files. Client makes initial selections by giving photos a 1-star rating. In this case, this works as simple, binary pick option for filtering in subsequent processes.
Metadata: 1-star photos are filtered and then, using the IPTC Editor, captions, copyright and other key metadata are quickly added to the photos. Metadata is easily copied from one photo to the next and/or saved templates can be applied.

3. Lightroom process

Add to Lightroom: At this stage, since photos are already on the hard drive and stored in a properly named folder, all of the photos from the shoot can be quickly imported into Lightroom using the “ADD” button in the Import dialog. This method reads the files from their current location instead of making copies. Then Lightroom makes the necessary database entries (copyright, captions, etc.) and generates previews.
Developing: the 1-star images are filtered and then, in the Develop module, light cropping and basic tonal adjustments are made.
Exporting: the developed 1-star photos are exported as JPGs to a specific folder. All of the “edited” photos for the year are kept, for easy reference and archival purposes. File renaming is done at this point, using a Custom Name text and Sequence tokens, which are part of a saved Export Preset we created specifically to meet client requirements.

4. Upload process

The exported JPG files are then FTP’ed to the upstream editors using FileZilla, an open source, free FTP client.

5. Archive process

At a later time, image folders are moved off of the laptop to an external hard drive for archive and backup. This is done in Lightroom so that the main catalog always has previews of past assignments available (in this case Smart Previews were not required). The external drive is then periodically cloned to another drive, using Carbon Copy Cloner.

As noted previously, this custom workflow is designed around job requirements and constraints for a specific client. The advantages of using Photo Mechanic are to increase review speed and minimize dependencies on “black box” feature. Image review is fast and only the selected files are post processed, making for an efficient workflow.

In an upcoming post, we will include a step-by-step video demonstrating how using Photo Mechanic with Lightroom can speed up your workflow. If you have questions, comments or suggestions please post them below!

Lightroom Classic CC Version 8 is Here …

October 15, 2018 by Lightroom Guy Leave a Comment

… and we’re not sure why.

Lightroom Classic CC Version 8

Lightroom Classic CC Version 8 Splash Screen

Adobe is branding this as a full version update of Lightroom Classic. However most of the updates and changes are under-the-hood improvements with a few important, feature specific improvements. Since this release coincides with the start of the 2018 Adobe MAX conference, we assume the marketing department wanted to have a bigger sounding headline. Nevertheless, these updates are welcome and demonstrate Adobe’s ongoing commitment that Lightroom Classic CC isn’t going away.

Given the total number of updated features and bug fixes we thought it best to give you a review what we feel are the four most notable improvements. The laundry list, with short notes, of everything else is at the bottom of this post for those interested in more details about this “major” release.

And, unlike previous major releases, version 8 will not upgrade your current catalog by creating a new “-2” catalog. Your catalog and its name will remain unchanged.

Luminance Range Mask

If you have been using the new Range Masking features, you’ll appreciate this useful update. The Luminance Range Masking panel now includes an eyedropper tool for faster sampling of a single point or a range of luminance. Along with this added feature, there is now a “Show Luminance Mask” checkbox. This shows a preview your luminance mask selection against a monochrome version of your photo.

Luminance Range Masking Now Includes an Eyedropper and Mask Preview

Depth Range Mask

Lightroom has added Depth Range Masking support for HEIC format images. HEIC is a new format which we expect will slowly replace the JPG format. The HEIC format has a lot of advantages, least of which is the ability to record how far away objects are from the camera.

This version of Lightroom will be able to read that information which will allow users to be able to select the different depths and selectively apply local adjustments. Depth Range Masking will work the same way Luminance Range masking works, with an eyedropper to sample points and similar set of sliders.

Currently, the only cameras that use depth range information are Apple iPhones shooting in the Portrait mode (7+, 8+ and X’s). Read more about this feature here.

Negative Dehaze Improvements

Ever since its introduction, the Dehaze slider has been hugely popular! It was initially designed to help compensate for the perceived effect of humidity/moisture in the air. However, the actual effect is so dramatic that many users love to use the slider to quickly punch up their images.

In this release, significant improvements have been made to Dehaze when making negative adjustments (moving the slider to the left). These changes are reflected in something called Process Version and Adobe has updated this release to Process Version 5 (PV5). In PV4, negative Dehaze adjustments would make an image appear to have an overall milky haze. In PV5 we see a notable change with contrast, color and details far better preserved. Positive Dehaze slider results remain the same.

Negative Dehaze is Improved in Lightroom Classic Version 8

Using Negative Dehaze Slider Settings No Longer Add a Milky Haze

Improved Tether Support for Canon

Professional photographers will appreciate that the Lightroom development team have been working on a complete overhaul of the tethering features, to be released in future updates. That said, Adobe has decided to throw some direct support to only Canon users for the moment. With this version, Canon users have improved tethering, faster performance and shorter time between capture and loupe view of images with improved reliability with less hanging or crashes. Nikon’s tether performance enhancements (as well as support for other cameras) will be in upcoming releases. We expect to see additional improvements and features for tethering in the near future.

Adobe has released more details on tethering support here.

Now, for the Version 8 Laundry List …

New camera support

The new Nikon Z7 and Canon EOS-R mirrorless cameras are supported in this release. For a full list of camera raw supported cameras click here.
Updated Lightroom/ACR Lens correction support

Process Version Update

There is now process version 5. With significant improvements made for high ISO RAW files and the Dehaze slider. Negative Dehaze slider adjustment results are improved, making for better perceptual changes. High ISO files show less color aberration and improved shadow detail.

Single Step HDR Panorama Merge

This is a great addition for photographers who shoot Panoramas and use multiple exposure HDR techniques for expanded range of tone. As a result, this feature simplifies the merging and stitching process into a single menu item. Read more about this feature here.

Video and Slideshow Library
These are under-the-hood performance updates that should improve usability.

Playing AVI files on macOS
Older AVI format video files will now open and play in a pop-up window.

HEVC Support for macOS 10.13 or higher
Support has been added for new HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) video format being used by Apple on newer iPhones. Read more about this feature here.

System Requirements Update – Not supported in Lightroom Classic version 8:

MacOS 10.11.x
Windows 8.1
Windows 10 v1511 and v1607

New Licensing Library

You must be logged in to the Creative Cloud to use the program in this and all future versions.

Compiler Upgrade on macOS and Windows

This relates to performance optimization – hopefully we will see some more speed improvements with this version!

Jeffrey Freidl (or other) Lightroom Plugins

If you have any of Jeffrey’s excellent Lightroom plugins (or other third party plugins), you may have to update them to work with this version.

Click here for Adobe’s “What’s New” page with full notes

Click here for Adobe’s official blog post on the Lightroom Classic CC version 8 release

How to Export Photos for Instagram from Lightroom Classic CC (2018)

October 2, 2018 by David Mark Erickson 2 Comments

As we work with our clients, one issue that continues to come up, with ever increasing frequency is: How to Export Photos for Instagram from Lightroom Classic CC. So, I figured it would be a good idea for us to put up a post that covers the basic settings. To make this easy for you, I’ve created a set of workflow instructions and essential export presets that you can download and install on your computer (Mac and PC).

In Lightroom Classic CC, there are two steps to exporting an image to use on Instagram: cropping and exporting. And yes, there is a plugin which will allow you to upload your images directly from Lightroom to Instagram (called LR/Instagram). However, some folks like to do things manually! So, immediately below are all the current, baseline settings you need to know to export photos for Instagram with detailed explanations and instructions.

Crop Settings

Square
Aspect ratio (1:1)
Pixel dimensions [1080 x 1080]
Portrait
Aspect ratio (4:5)
Pixel dimensions: [1080 x 1350]
Landscape
Aspect ratio (1.91:1)
Pixel dimensions [1080 x 566]

Export Settings

File type: JPG
Color Space: sRGB
Quality slider: 76
Resolution: 96ppi (minimum)
Output sharpening: Screen/Standard
[Note: there is a lot of debate about sharpening so, user discretion is advised]

Export Presets

Download our Lightroom Guy Export Presets which include the basic export settings for square, portrait, and Landscape. Installation instructions are provided at the end of this post.

A quick note and general disclaimer: there are thousands posts about this topic on the internet with lots and lots of discussion about what the current best settings are. As well, Instagram continues to silently change their standards. So, what is true today may not be true tomorrow! This article only discusses posting photos to Instagram, not videos or Instagram Stories.

Workflow

A basic Instagram workflow would roughly look like the following:

Shoot
Import to Lightroom
Select then Develop
Export to your Hard Drive
Transfer to Mobile
Upload to Instagram

Once you have a photo imported into Lightroom Classic CC you should proceed to developing the photo to your satisfaction. Remember to consider the “why” of your photo in order to help you develop it in such a way that it best shares your vision or communicates your point of view.

Your next step will be to crop the image in the Develop module.

Crop & Straighten Tool

Open the Crop & Straighten tool in the toolbar above the basic panel.
Crop Aspect Ratio Pulldown Menu

Open the Aspect Ratio menu by clicking on the word “Original” and then choose:
- 1×1 for a Square image
- 4×5 / 8×10 for a Portrait
- [Pro Tip: press the ‘X’ key to rotate the crop orientation]
- 1.91 for a Landscape image*
Adjustthe crop to suit your needs and then click on the “Done” button in the lower right corner of the Preview screen or click the Crop tool again to close the tool.

Now, for the Landscape image, [1.91:1] is NOT a standard ratio so we need to add it manually, if you haven’t done so already. Follow the video below to see how to enter a custom ratio.

Once you are ready to export, you can either use our Export Presets or you can make the selections manually.

Export Settings

Here are all the recommended baseline settings, along with a brief explanation for each.

Lightroom Classic CC Export Settings for Instagram

File type: JPG – At the time of this post, Instagram supports either the JPG or PNG file format. The default choice is JPG.

Color Space: sRGB – this is a big topic suffice to say that sRGB is the only choice you want to use for Instagram posts. In brief, Color Space refers to how many colors there are in a particular gamut. The easiest way to think about this as a box of crayons. A basic box of crayons may have only one shade of red, while another may have 5 or 6 different reds. sRGB is the widest and simplest box of crayons to use across the internet. Choosing a different Color Space could shift your colors in unexpected ways.

Quality slider: 76 – a lot of research has gone into this and 76 turns out to be the sweet spot in terms of image quality and file size. If you are interested in more info, the best research on this can be found on Jeffrey Friedl’s Blog.

Resolution: 96ppi (minimum) – At a minimum, you should be choosing 96ppi and many folks are currently recommending 144ppi to accommodate for the newer Retina screens. Either is fine.

Output sharpening: Screen/Standard – this is another point that engenders a lot of conversation. Once an image has been cropped and resized, the image can begin to look a little “mushy” or soft. A little bit of sharpening on the output stage can bring some life back to your image. Some people advocate for a “high” level while others say “standard” is best. Again, we recommend “standard” amount at a minimum.

Lastly, you should specify the actual pixel size of the image. The pixel width and height need to match the crop aspect ratio that you choose during the Develop process. We’ve done the math for you so here is the info again:

Square (1:1)
Pixel dimensions [1080 x 1080]

Portrait (4:5)
Pixel dimensions: [1080 x 1350]

Landscape (1.91:1)
Pixel dimensions [1080 x 566]

To enter the width and height manually, check the “Resize to Fit” option and choose “Width & Height” in the pulldown menu. You can then enter in the exact PIXEL dimensions that you want.

After you export your image you can then transfer it to your mobile phone to upload the image. There are several ways to do this, depending on what kind of phone you have. At a minimum, you can email the photo to yourself, or send it wirelessly or use a file sharing app like dropbox.

With all of these settings, you should be able to get your images looking good with a minimum of fuss. Again, things change and there is a lot of competing information available on the internet so in no way are these settings authoritative. As we can report today, these are the best minimum settings at this time for posting only photos from Lightroom Classic CC to Instagram.

Export Preset Installation Instructions

Download our Lightroom Guy Lightroom Classic CC Instagram Export Presets

Included in this .zip file are 3 Lightroom Classic CC presets for the Export process.

Locate the Export Presets folder, the easiest way to do this is to go to the Lightroom Preferences and choosing the “Show All Other Lightroom Presets” button from the Presets tab
Locate the Lightroom / Export Presets / User Presets folder
Unzip the download and place the three Instagram lrtemplate files into the User Presets folder
Restart Lightroom and you should see the presets ready to use in the Presets menu of the Export window

Now you know how to export photos for Instagram from Lightroom Classic CC!

Lightroom CC 1.5 and Lightroom Classic CC 7.5 Updates

August 22, 2018 by David Mark Erickson 3 Comments

It’s only August and Adobe is already pushing out Lightroom CC 1.5 and Lightroom Classic CC 7.5 updates. Again, this is one of the upsides to having a software subscription model: continuous updates! As well, Adobe is demonstrating its continued support for Classic even as CC continues to grow and improve. When CC was released back in October of 2017, many people in the community expressed their concern that CC would mark the slow death of Classic. However, Adobe is showing that their belief in Classic is as strong as ever.

Along with the usual bug fixes and updated camera and lens support, the following are included in the these Lightroom CC 1.5 and Lightroom Classic CC 7.5 Updates…

Lightroom Classic CC 7.5

Upload Presets and Profiles in bulk
HEIC image files support on Windows
Book module enhancements

Lightroom CC 1.5

Keep an album’s photos locally for offline editing
Show album membership in the Info Panel
Album and Photo Sharing
File Type Badge

Lightroom Classic CC 7.5

In this update to Classic, we are seeing two minor (but useful!) tweaks as well some much needed attention given to the Book module. It has been a long time since we have seen Book module updates so these changes are very welcome. Lightroom is integrated with the Blurb publishing platform and Blurb has recently made some updates to their offerings. So, at a guess, those changes on Blurb’s side have prompted updates on Adobe’s side. More on those in a moment. The first two updates to Classic to mention are bulk uploading of Presets and Profiles and HEIC support for Widows.

Upload Presets and Profiles in bulk

In the 7.4 update, Adobe introduced us to the new Profiles feature – which we like to think of as digital film stock. With the 7.5 update you can now upload a bulk set of Presets or Profiles by pointing Lightroom to a ZIP compressed file. Simply point the import dialog at the .zip and, voila, all of the Presets and Profiles in that file will be added in a single click.

HEIC Support for Windows

Not long ago, Apple decided that it would be a good idea to update the image format used by the iPhone. That’s great since the new High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is really nifty; it’s just that they kind of forgot to let the rest of us know about the change! It has taken a while but, finally, Windows users are getting Lightroom support for the new format.

Book Module Enhancements

As I mentioned, it has been a while since we have seen any attention given to the Book module so these are welcome updates! In brief, Adobe has added support for …

Choosing the new Blurb book styles and paper types
Choosing where a page number is visible when printed
Manual positioning of photos, they are no longer locked into the template
Customized page templates can be saved
Pausing and resuming the uploading of a book to Blurb

We won’t go into the technical weeds for this post. However, if you want more details on the exact nature of these changes, you can check the Adobe site for help on creating books or drop us a note and we would be happy to chat with you about our book making services (yes, we make books for our clients!).

Lightroom CC 1.5

Besides the usual round of bug fixes, this batch of updates seems to be centered all around Album management. Adobe has been doing a lot of work behind the scenes and we are expecting more updates before the year is out.

Store Album Locally

Because Lightroom CC depends on an Internet connection, working offline or with a slow connection can be very frustrating. Remember, Lightroom CC works by keeping a full resolution of the photo in the cloud and then the Adobe servers update your desktop/laptop or mobile device by keeping low resolution proxies files on the various devices. Not until you start working with a file will Lightroom download the full version of the proxy.

While there is an option to mark individual photos for full download, this new feature is very useful! With a single click (right click on a mouse or ALT/OPT keyboard) you can designate a whole Album for downloading. This will save you both time and space as you can download only the photos that you want.

Album Membership

To further make Album management a bit easier CC now indicates what Album a photo is a member of. At the bottom of the Information panel will be a badge indicating what Albums the photo is a member of. These badges double as links and you can click on them to jump directly to that Album.

Shared Albums

Lightroom CC Shared Albums

Sharing Lightroom CC Albums is a breeze – you can simply right click (or ALT/OPT click) on an Album and choose to share it. In the last batch of updates Adobe added simple options to allow downloads, show/hide metadata and to show/hide location information.

With this release, Adobe has simplified organization and management by creating a new left panel view for just shared Albums and individually shared photos. Yes, you read that right, you can now share individual photos just as you would Albums!

In the grid view, right click (ALT/OPT click) on an image and choose to “Share to Web …” You have the same show/hide options as with the Albums as well as being able to give the image a unique title.

File Type Badge

Lastly, a very helpful addition to Lightroom CC is the indication of file type. You can now quickly tell what kind of file you are looking at the new badge in the lower left corner of the thumbnail in the Square Grid view (you can cycle the view by repeatedly hitting the G key).

The lower left corner of thumbnails in lightroom CC now indicates file type

So this wraps up this Lightroom CC 1.5 and Lightroom Classic CC 7.5 updates. Feel free to ask questions in the comments window below.

How to Search for Photos in Lightroom Classic CC

August 11, 2018 by Lightroom Guy 1 Comment

I tend to leave all my folders open

So, you’ve just imported a bunch of photos into Lightroom, but can’t find them. Where’d they go? Here are four ways on how to Search for Photos in Lightroom Classic CC.

It’s not unusual for me to have to search for photos in Lightroom Classic CC. I have a large library and there are way too many master year folders open, revealing a long list of subfolders that are time consuming to sift through. When I import a new batch of images, instead of scrolling through that long list of folders to find out where my new, imported photos went, I locate the folder with a simple right click on one of the “Previous Import” photos. And there are other very useful ways to search for photos in Lightroom Classic CC. The Lr:Shorts video below shows the four search methods I use most: use the contextual menu to take me to a photo’s folder in Library, filter by Edit Status, search by folder name or, search by date, camera model, lens, etc., using a Metadata search that I demonstrated for determining which focal lengths you use most in my previous blog post

These Lightroom features are all very easy to learn, and learning them will make the time you spend working in Lightroom Classic CC faster and simpler. And, who doesn’t like having Lightroom work a little faster? However, please, take note that some of these search features are only available in Lightroom Classic CC version 7.3 or later. Earlier versions of Lightroom Classic CC won’t have most of the features demonstrated in the video.

See just how easy it is to get Lightroom to behave and show you exactly where your photos and folders are located in this Lr:Shorts video!

Lightroom Classic 7.4 Update is Released

June 19, 2018 by Lightroom Guy Leave a Comment

Lightroom Classic 7.4 Update is Released

Fast and furious, Adobe’s been debugging and updating Lr Classic’s features, and so, the Lightroom Classic 7.4 Update is already here. It was only April when the last Lightroom update was released. This Lightroom Classic 7.4 release has bug fixes, catalog management improvements, new file format support and added features. It’s hard to keep up!

Here’s the basic rundown on new features:

Hide and Reveal Presets and Profile Groups

Choose to Show or Hide Profiles

Lightroom 7.3 introduced Profiles and additional Presets. In this release of Lightroom Classic 7.4 (available only for Creative Cloud members) you can have control over which Presets and Profile Groups are visible. This will allow you to hide what you rarely use and keep the Presets or Profile Groups you use most visible. This will reduce the time spent sifting through the myriad of Presets you’ve accumulated. Of course, the hidden items can be revealed again at a later date if you need them.

Folder: Labels in Color and Faster Searches

Lightroom 7.3 added a Favorites option that added a “star” to a folder icon. Now, using the same shortcut keystrokes, you can add a color label to your Folder (Not available for Collections. Maybe version 7.5?) by selecting a folder in the Folders Panel, Control Clicking (Mac) or right clicking (PC) and choosing a color from the submenu – “Add Color Label.” Once you’ve chosen a color, a color bar will appear on the far right side of your folder title.

Searches will be faster, too. Click the magnifying glass in the Folder search window to see options for filtering by Color, Favorite or All. There’s more on searching Folders here on the Adobe site.

Auto Stacking HDR and Panorama

Check Create Stack to Stack source images with final merged photo

I usually stack the source images I’ve used to create HDRs and Panos, keeping only the final merged image visible on top of the stack. This keeps things more organized (for me, anyway).

Now when merging to HDR and Panorama, Lightroom can automatically stack the source images used by simply checking the new Create Stack checkbox in the HDR/Panorama Merge Preview dialog.

Final Pano/HDR is merged into a stack

When the merging is complete, the final merged HDR or Pano image will be displayed at the top of the stack containing the source images used to create the HDR or Pano.

HEIC Image Files Support on MacOS High Sierra

Lightroom Classic 7.4 CC now supports Apple’s HEIC image file format on macOS High Sierra v10.13 or later. For more info on this see the Adobe Tech Note.

There have been bug fixes as well in Lightroom Classic 7.4:

Keyboard shortcuts not working for rotate left and right in French, Swedish, Spanish, and Italian – FIXED
Crop overlay is hard to see – FIXED
Tone curve enabled not copied by sync, auto sync, presets, or snapshots – FIXED
Settings are reset when develop preset is applied via script – FIXED
When backing up catalogs on macOS, Lightroom Classic doesn’t zip catalogs that have a file size less than 4 GB – FIXED
Lightroom unresponsive after Eject SD Card/USB Drive – FIXED
Presets no longer record and apply the turn on/off settings in the Develop Module – FIXED
Hitting “Previous” and/or Copy/Paste is triggering an bad error message – FIXED
Not saving new saving new presets if they contain special characters – FIXED
iPhone videos play in wrong orientation (Windows-only) – FIXED

You can read more about the Lightroom Classic 7.4 update and how to use these new features on the Adobe website here.

How to Choose a New DSLR Lens Using Lightroom

May 26, 2018 by Lightroom Guy 1 Comment

How To Choose a DSLR Lens

We’ve discovered a great way to help you make a decision when you’re thinking about buying a new DSLR lens, using Lightroom Classic CC. If you’ve ever wondered whether or not a particular lens is worth investing in, here’s what we do. We start by looking at lenses and focal lengths using the Lightroom Classic Metadata search. Use the Lightroom Metadata panel to choose a DSLR Lens This came about as more and more of our clients have asked us – What would be a good focal length DSLR lens to purchase? Watch the video and see how we do it.

Another batch of updates for Lightroom CC and Classic

April 4, 2018 by David Mark Erickson Leave a Comment

Adobe CC Lightroom Updates As of Tuesday morning, Adobe has released another batch of updates for Lightroom CC and Classic, Lightroom CC version 1.3 and Lightroom Classic CC version 7.3, just two short months from the last batch of updates! Additionally, the Lightroom versions for both iOS and Android have been updated with significant enhancements.

The big focus of these updates are with Profiles — more about those below. Beyond Profiles, most of the updates and changes are incremental and/or community specific requests. Below is a quick run down of the changes for each platform …

Lightroom CC Feature Updates

Three new full sets of Profiles have been added, including Adobe Raw, Creative and camera profiles
Support for Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices has been added, allowing CC users to keep local copies of their files on a NAS device

Lightroom Classic Feature Updates

New Adobe Raw and Creative Profiles have been added and are now accessible from the Basic panel in the Develop module
Everyone’s favorite Dehaze slider moved to the Basic panel (a popular community request)
The Tone Curve tool in the Develop module has been enlarged to make it easier to use (another popular community request)

Here is Adobe’s official blog post on these updates:
April Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw Releases: New Profiles and More

Profiles

This is the biggest feature change/update for both CC and Classic. However, you may be asking yourself: what are profiles?? Are those like presets? And the answer is: sort of!

Lightroom Classic has long had this feature but, it was buried deep in the Develop module where few knew about it, let alone used it. The way we at LRG like to think about Profiles is like film stock. Back in the film camera days, different film manufactures and types of film were prized for the different way the individual film stocks would convey color. Some film had more pop while others had smoother or richer gradients of tones. Different film stocks were prized for different shooting and conditions and subject matter. And not just film stock but, most cameras bodies would also produce a wide variety of color results.

Ironically enough, these same fundamental differences continue to play a key role in digital photography. Different camera bodies and different sensors each have a unique look. To manage for this, Lightroom developed “camera profiles” to account for variations in color representations, even allowing for users to manually update these profiles to shift the way colors could be displayed.

The practical upshot of this is: users will now have more creative options to develop a look or style based on different profiles that Adobe has included in Lightroom. Adobe has seeded bother versions of Lightroom with +50 different profiles and 3rd party companyes will be able to write their own Profiles and sell them to consumers, just as we have with the Presets marketplace.

However, it’s easy to confuse the difference between Profiles and Presets. Presets do something very similar visually and they have been in much more regular use by Lightroom users. Without getting into too much into the technical details, here is an easy way to think about Profiles: they’re like film stock.

When you apply a Profile to an image, it will change the visual look of the image. It’s that simple. And, while you will be able to undo the change, you won’t be able to tweak the Profile look very much using any of the sliders. Profiles are design to achieve specific results with a click of a button and from there, you can still use Presets and manual slider adjustments to make changes you want to your photos.

While Classic has always had profiles, they are now more accessible as they have been moved to the top of the Basic panel in the Develop module. Lightroom CC didn’t have Profiles and in this release they are getting a full implementation, thereby keeping CC on par with Classic in terms of developing tools.

You can read more about Profiles and the other key updates on Adobe’s official Lightroom blog post: April Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw Releases: New Profiles and More

Frequently Used Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic

February 6, 2018 by Lightroom Guy Leave a Comment

You should be using the Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic.

Tapping the “D” key brings you right to the Develop module

The more you use Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic, the less time you’ll spend hunting for menus and buttons. And that means less stress, more productivity and definitely more Lightroom happiness.

For example, when you want to develop an image, tap D for Develop. To return to the Library from the Develop module, just press G for the Library grid view. Don’t tap L for the Library, which is a common mistake, as that will put you in “lightbox” view which darkens and hides the Lightroom interface. A little disorienting if you didn’t expect that to happen. If it does, keep tapping L to return to your standard view.

So, D for Develop and G for grid. L for Lightbox. I bet you didn’t even know Lightroom had a Lightbox mode. Easy, right? Here are a few more:

Tapping the J key in the Library cycles through the metadata options

Wanna make a print? Command (Control on the PC) P takes you right to the Print module. You probably know that the Tab key hides the side panels, but did you know that pressing Shift and Tab hides the side panels and the filmstrip at the bottom. More screen space if you’re working on a laptop! Just tapping on the + and – keys (Mac and PC) will increase or decrease the size of your Library Grid thumbnails. And here’s something that will change the way you look at thumbnails – tap the J key while you’re in the Library and show the metadata associated with each photo. You can choose what data you is displayed by going to the top menu and choosing View>View Options to change the settings.

These Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic speed your workflow, but more importantly, you’ll find working in Lightroom more of a pleasure, not having to move your cursor here and there, pulling down menus and reaching for buttons. And although the shortcuts are incredibly useful, some of the keystrokes used in the Library, will produce different results if used in the Develop module.

Sign up for Lightroom Guy’s Newsletter on the right of this article to download our cheat sheet of our PDF of frequently used Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic. To get the full list of Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic, you can see them on the Adobe site here, but you’ll like our cheat sheet better; it has most of the shortcuts you’ll want to use anyway.

Lightroom CC vs Lightroom Classic: Should You Switch?

January 21, 2018 by David Mark Erickson Leave a Comment

Since last October, when we published our first post introducing Lightroom CC, some of the questions asked most by our clients are: What should I do? Should I keep Classic or switch to the new Lightroom CC? The only answer we can offer is: it depends!

Lightroom CC vs Lightroom Classic: Should You Switch?

Besides asking us if they should switch, another oft asked question is: what’s up with the name?? Yes, it is confusing but, so far it hasn’t caused too much trouble in our estimation. The trick is to just be clear when you are talking about CC vs Classic. Classic is the same Lightroom we have grown to love oh these many years (think Coke Classic), and CC is Classic’s new little cousin who’s doing everything differently and, achieving a lot of success in the process.

Lightroom CC is the New Lightroom

Lightroom CC is a brand new program which Adobe has designed from the ground up to address several challenges that digital photographers face today. Adobe Lightroom Classic is the full featured and robust application that is the Lightroom we have been using since it was first released, way back in 2007. However, because Classic is full of features and specialized tools, it can often be too much for users who have simple and straightforward needs.

Lightroom CC’s new design and feature set were created to make viewing and developing your photos a much more streamlined process. To do this, Adobe choose not to include many of the features and options that makes Lightroom Classic such a powerhouse application. As well, Lightroom CC addresses the issue of being able to access your photos from any device, anywhere, anytime. Their new cloud based “ecosystem” let’s you make a change to a photo on your desktop and then see it almost instantly on your phone or tablet. To be sure, this is no small feat and it seems like Adobe has done a very good job tackling some of the complexities of keeping photos synchronized across multiple devices.

So, to answer the Lightroom CC vs Lightroom Classic conundrum, you should ask yourself these 3 simple questions:

1. Do I use any of the other Lightroom Classic modules, other than Library and Develop? Or, do I use any of the extended metadata features, like Maps or keyword sets?

If the answer is Yes, then you should not switch at this time! Keep using Classic the way you are doing now and trust that Adobe will keep rolling out feature updates and performance improvements. Adobe has been clear on their commitment to Classic users that Classic is here to stay. In fact, the next update of Lightroom Classic is coming in April with even more improvements and features!

2. Is Classic too much program for my purposes? Am I struggling to stay organized with imported files and folders or not using any of the Lightroom modules beyond Library and Develop?

If the answer is Yes, then you should consider switching. Lightroom Classic can be a headache and the new program is a dream to use since the program has been designed from the ground up to be fast and easy to use.

3. Do I need the power of Classic but really, really want to take advantage of the easy sharing features as well as mobile access?

If the answer is Yes, then you may be that rare bird who should use BOTH of the applications, simultaneously. Technically, the two programs aren’t yet playing well with each other. However, we have found some simple workarounds that let you harness the power of Classic while taking advantage of the new CC features.

To recap:

If you use any advanced features in Classic, stay with classic.
If Classic is too much for your needs, then switch.
And, if you need the power of Classic but need the features of CC then use both!

And, if you’re looking to see, in-depth, the differences between Lightroom CC vs Lightroom Classic, Adobe has online manuals for both Lightroom applications here.

Shameless plug: We here at Lightroom Guy specialize in teaching users how to get the most out of any version of Lightroom. And, we’re also experts at migrating third party catalogs into Lightroom, including discontinued programs like Aperture and Picasa. Hundreds of photographers have successfully moved their photos into both versions of Lightroom with our help.

Drop us a note if you have a question or want to learn more about our services! And, feel free to comment or ask questions below. We’d love to hear how you are using either application, especially if you are using both!!