Lightroom SIG

Event Date: Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Event Time: 2:00 pm
Event End Date: Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Event End Time: 3:30 pm

Adobe's Lightroom is a software tool used by many digital photographers who need a way to catalog, organize, develop, and print/output your images. 

The Lightroom SIG meets Wednesday, January 13, 2016 from 2 p.m. to about 3:30 p.m. in the Photo Club Studio in the Crafts Center.

Notes from the December meeting are included below.

NOTE: If you have copyright info as part of your import workflow --- make sure to change the date to 2016.

Here is some possible topics we could cover:

01. Use Auto-mask for using adjustment brush near edges.
J. Kost has a video about using the adjustment brush and concludes with using auto-mask.
http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/tag/the-adjustment-brush

02. When you import, have previews set at minimum because you are probably going to only develop a few of the images.  You can change to auto, medium, or 100% previews after you have removed all the images you never plan to use.

03. If Lightroom is acting odd: Quit and Restart Lightroom – that did not help --- try deleting preferences -    … still not working .. re-install Lightroom
(To delete preferences in Lightroom CC: Start Lightroom while holding down shift option command and remove preferences. Restart Lightroom and it will rebuild Preferences.  Be sure and change Preferences to the way you want Lightroom to operate.)

04. Lightroom running slowly go to Preferences ->file handling and. increase memory and make use graphics processor. 

05. In Preferences, turn of write to xmp for every file: WARNING- I would only do this if I was sure I could remember to tell Lightroom to update the xmp files at least before I quit Lightroom.  I leave “write to xmp for every file” on because I think it protects my editing in case my Lightroom Catalog becomes damaged.  Regular backups of the catalog of course allow you to recover everything to the last backup.

06. An easy way to increase performance is to Optimize Catalog (find under the file tab).

07. Lightroom and Photoshop will run better with lots of free space on the drive(s) and lots of RAM.

08. Work only with one catalog

09. Learn at least a few shortcut keys: G for grid, D for Develop, Control/Command Z to undo.
For more information see https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/workspace-basics.html

10. Use the solo mode to open the area you are working on and close the other panels.  “Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) a panel header and choose Solo mode, or Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) a panel header.”

11. Use presets and you can find tons of information about presents on the web.
Here is a J. Kost video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7s4MU-V3ls

12. Apply keywords on import:
If you have keywords that apply to all images being imported (Cataloged) by Lightroom, just list those in the import area.  Note for any of the images in your catalog, you can select images you wish to keyword with the same keyword(s) and just make one keyword change and it will apply to all the selected images.

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Topics from Thursday Dec. 10. 2015 Lightroom SIG.

  1. Lightroom CC Sharping and Noise.
    We viewed Ben Willmore’s video.  Our dear friend Anthony Morganti has a video on the Detail Tab on Sharping and Noise.  I would have shown this if I had found it in time. It is about 35 minutes long.
    Learn Lightroom 6-Episode 5: Sharpening and Noise
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkrYXOszvfI
  2. Changes to the interfac3.
    1. Solo Mode open one of the panels and closes all the others.  Make other changes to Lightroom’s interface to improve your workflow:
      Find Your Missing Lightroom Panels, Tools, and More
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5ROlNF3MWk
    2. Hide Keyboard Shortcuts
      http://www.lightroomqueen.com/keyboard-shortcuts/lrcc6/
  3. Special Programs
    1. A focus stacking program to increase the depth of field.
      Helicon focus
      http://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconsoft-products/helicon-focus/

      You can do focus stacking using Lightroom and Photoshop
      Photography Tips and Tricks: Focus Stacking - Episode 50
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAXDV-NMoMc
      Note: Mr. White’s demo is for macro photography, but you could take a 3 landscapes images focusing on foreground, middle ground, and background and use this technique to gain depth of field.  Additional images with other focus points may give even greater depth of field.
    2. A new HDR program from Trey Ratcliff is called Aurora HDR.  This works only on a Mac.  At the moment the price is discounted to 99 dollars.
      http://aurorahdr.com/
      More info at:
      http://www.stuckincustoms.com/aurora-hdr-software-for-mac/  
      NOTE: Lightroom does HDR but it has less controls that some special HDR programs.
  4. Lightroom Mobile
    Check out this link for formation on this product:
    https://helpx.adobe.com/mobile-apps/help/lightroom-mobile-faq.html
  5. Lightroom Queen’s book FAQ for LR 5 will be in the Photo Library by Thursday
  6. We talked about using Collections to manage your workflow not folders.  Scott Kelby had a series of articles giving tips every Lightroom User should know.  Using Collections was his first tip.  Here is a list of Tip 10 and at the bottom are links to all of the tips.
    http://lightroomkillertips.com/10-things-tell-new-lightroom-user-10/
  7. We discussed the differences of Lightroom 6 and Lightroom CC..  Here is a good (but dated) discussion of this topic;
    http://laurashoe.com/2015/04/21/which-should-i-buy-lightroom-cc-2015-or-lightroom-6/
  8. We had a question some time ago about the color of an image changing as you moved from Lightroom to Photoshop.  Go to preferences in both programs and make sure the color settings are the same.
    Also make sure the color spaces and bit depth are the same for all of your external editors such as NIK, Topaz, OnOne.
  9. Blogs that could be of interest for Lightroom users.
    1. Lightroom Journal
      http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/
    2. Alltop Lightroom
      http://lightroom.alltop.com/
  10. LIGHTROOM FOR THE WEB  J. Kost
    http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/tag/lightroom-web
    From my research on this, it seems that you must use Lightroom Mobile to synchronize collections.  You can even get a unique link to share with others so they can see the collection in a web browser.
    More info at:
    1. http://digital-photography-school.com/brief-guide-lightroom-mobile-lightroom-web/
    2. Lightroom CC - Using the Web Module to Create Galleries – J. Kost
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6VCG8E714k