LR_HowTo, LR_Reference, Why, LR2, LR3

"Cloud" or Bust

By now, you must have heard that Adobe will release Photoshop CS6 in the first week of May. One of the big new feature is the cloud! I see and read a lot of "misunderstanding / misinformation" about the cloud. People use the word "cloud" just like people used the "information super highway" expression in the years 1996-1997.

  1. What's the cloud? When they talk about the cloud, they either mean that the data and/or some programs are on computers/servers that are accessed via the Internet. In the "good old days," the data and/or the programs were stored on the local network. You could walk to the server room and see the computers, the lights, the cables and some techie that was looking after the whole "shebang." The advantage and/or the problem with the cloud is that you do not know what's inside, how it's configured…

Lightroom: Searching For 'And' or 'Or'

Lightroom uses SQLite for keeping tracks of "things" in the catalog. In the Lightroom world, it's called a catalog, in the computer world it's called a database. Databases are like rolodex on steroids. You can ask all kind of questions, aka queries in the computer world, aka filters in the Lightroom world, like: show me all the photos that have dogs and are a family pet... or show me all the photos that I have NOT sold to customers...

The library module is "just" a front-end to ask questions about the information in the catalog.

  1. Lightroom supports AND and OR conditions in "regular" and smart filters.
  2. Lightroom supports some NOT conditions with the smart filters.

This post is about the "regular" filters

AND

  • Show me all the photos that have ALL the keywords: Granville Island AND motorcycle

The SQL query would be:

  SELECT photos
  FROM catalog
  WHERE keywords = 'Granville Island' AND keywords = 'motorcycle';

Lightroom: Why Use Virtual Copies?

Lightroom 4, box cover

Now that Adobe has changed how Lightroom 4 treats the flags, labels and ratings, virtual copies have become much more important.

To create a virtual copy, select a photo, then: Menu > Photo > Create Virtual Copy or Ctrl-L / Option-L

What's a virtual copy?

It's an "almost" copy of a photo. It's not a copy of that photo, it's a different version of that photo. You can have many virtual copies/versions of the same photograph. Personally, I prefer the term "version" to "virtual copy."

Lightroom 4: The "Proper" Camera Defaults

I really don't like the defaults with the Process: 2012 for my Canon 7D. The Tint is too warm for my taste, the Exposure is always -0.56 and the Contrast is +24 while the Tone Curve is linear. The White is either -35 or +35 or +54.

Lightroom 4 Defaults for Canon 7D

Lightroom 4 Defaults for Canon 7D

I don't like them, so I created my own defaults for the Canon 7D in Lightroom 4.

Lightroom 4: Adobe Broke the Collections

In the good old day of Feb-2012, aka Lightroom 1, Lightroom 2 or Lightroom 3, you could flag or rate a photo without worrying. With LR4, a photo can only belong to one collection! In LR1, LR2 or LR3, a photo can belong to many “regular” collections, with just drag and drop. Then you could decide on ratings or flags. For example, one photo can go in a customer collection and be rated as a 5 star, the best for that customer. I like that photo and want to add it also to my portfolio collection. In my portfolio collection, it should be only a 3 stars. I have much better photos than that, but that photo should be in the portfolio collection and if I find a better idea of what to do with it, it could even go up to 4 or 5 stars. Can't do that now anymore in Lightroom 4.

In Lightroom 1, Lightroom 2 or Lightroom 3, all the flags, pick…, and the ratings were local to the collection. Now in Lightroom 4, all the flags and the ratings are global to the whole catalog.

Lightroom: Make Your Skies Pop

Skies are often under-rated. The vast majority of the times, the skies are only “good” during the sunrise or the sunset. The problem is that the vast majority of the photos are not taken at sunrise or sunset. That's why in the 1980s, the color polarizing filters were popular, just like HDR is today.

In Lightroom, the common recommendation is to use the graduated filter to darken the skies. The problem with the graduated filter is that making the skies darker, doesn't make them any more interesting. It only makes the photo more balanced.

Lightroom: Make Your Skies Pop Skies are often under-rated. The vast majority of the times, the skies are only “good” during the sunrise or the sunset. The problem is that the vast majority of the photos are not taken at sunrise or sunset. That's why in the 1980s the color polarizing filters where popular, just like today's use of HDR.In Lightroom, the common recommendation is to use the graduated filter to darken the skies. The problem with the graduated filter is that making the skies darker, doesn't make them interesting.Instead of using the graduated filter in the `Develop` module, go to the **`HSL / Color / B & W`** section of the right panel. Go to the `HSL` > `Luminance`, click on the sampler tool (red circle) then move to your skies and lower the `luminance`. Lightroom will read the actual colors and reduce it's luminance for you.This photo is from Amsterdam. No processing at all, I just imported it in Lightroom and reduced the sky's luminance. Lightroom analyzed the portion of the sky that I picked and decided that it contained enough yellow. On a bright sunny day, it would be mostly blue. This photo went from a straight snapshot to “Now it merits a second look.” It's worth trying to do a post-processing on this photo.lightroom-skies-02.jpg — ©2012 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

Lightroom: Make your skies pop with the luminance

Lightroom: Rearrange Keywords

Some people are very good at making decisions and at sticking to them. These people immediately decide on some keywords and that's it, no more changes. I can't. I often have to go back to add more keywords, to change some keywords or even to delete some keywords. Lightroom does not have an automatic way of changing, rearranging and reorganizing keywords, but it is only a 2 step process.

Lightroom: reorganizing the keywords

Lightroom: reorganizing the keywords

If you need to do change more than one keyword, you should do it one keyword at a time. All the operations should be done in the Grid view.

Lightroom: Improve Your Photos in Less than 1 minute

Whenever somebody complains that their photos do not look “right”, the “Mr Know-It-All” will always give the same answer:

Hey, idiot! Why are you asking that dumb question? Obviously, you didn't calibrate your …

Just add the word monitor, printer…

Does calibration help? Yes, but not as much as you think, the problem is that it's almost impossible to match colors over different mediums. You can say and do whatever you want, you will never be able to exactly match the LCD screen that is illuminated from behind to a print that reflects light.

So what can you do? You have to make some choices and decisions.

You can calibrate everything and use Pantone colors (standard colors) in your photos, while matching the Pantone colors at every step of the way and hope/pray that the other people viewing your photos/prints are also fully calibrated from their lighting to their Adobe RGB capable LCD monitors.

You can decide that most of your photos are used for screen display by other people or to be viewed in various web browser, on iPhones/smartphones, photo frames…

Lightroom: Getting Good Prints from Costco

Everybody is bashing Costco because their prints are cheap. I use Costco, not by choice but by necessity. I have a custom lab, but anything as next day service is very expensive and same day service, we are not talking 1 hour service here, cost an arm and a leg ($39 for one 5” by 7”.) I could print my own but I can never get it right on the first or the second print. There's always a tweak here and a tweak there, I want/need to change the print one more time…

I use Costco for most of my proofs, to show the customer before the final prints, even for myself to see if the concept will work.

The Secrets of Huge and Sharp Prints

I just printed this photo 20" by 30" or 50 centimeters by 76 centimeters.

Pouch, the cat Wile E under his favorite tripod/platformpouch-20080810-0104.jpg syv ritch ©2008 foto-biz.com: http://http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

You can't see it as a print, you can only view from the web. But... It looks great on the wall. Viewed even close, there's no pixilation, no visible noise with a naked eye even at 5 inch from the print. All the hairs and whiskers are sharp.

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