Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 F

This blog post concludes my series about using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 which is based on the video tutorial I have been doing. Normally you won’t composite your pictures with in Lightroom although there are tools that will do it with in the program. Usually you will use either Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Doing this helps ensure the photo is optimized correctly. Another thing you will perhaps use Photoshop in conjunction for is HDR photography where several pictures taken at different settings are combined to make one photo that is perhaps lighter in parts and darker in parts than the collection of photos but makes one really good photo. Different people have different theories about the exact settings for any combination of photos used in this process so it’s a good idea to see what works for you. You will also find you need to convert photos to either TIFF or JPEG files for internet use and will want to print stuff out. The print properties dialogue box will depend on the printer you have connected to your computer. Usually you will a lot of the default. Some of the things you may change are having more than one photo on an A4 sheet of paper which can be done by adjusting the number of columns and rows. Rows go across a page and columns go lengthways. Also you have to watch if you adjust these settings it may reduce the size of the photo to fit although it’s simple enough changing it back. Normally the setting for the print density measured in dots per inch is set on the default. Also you need to specify if you are using matte or glossy which require different print processes. I have really enjoyed doing this series and will be starting on another tutorial and writing about what I learn soon.

 

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 E

This is a continuation in my series of blog posts on using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 E and we are nearing the end of the series. When you connect a digital camera to your computer and upload photos Lightroom has a way of handling those pictures. The default standard for handling photos and the most recent one when this software came out is Adobe Standard but there are other preset ways to handle the pictures which vary according to the type of camera connected. Generally Adobe standard is the best and as you select a different there is a preview pane where you can see the results prior to accepting them. If you are adjusting the various levels in a picture you can shift click and rather than adjust a slider you can move a mouse up the height of the picture and adjust it that way. You can also tilt this dragging the mouse for interesting effects. There is an adjustment brush which is the equivalent of the brush, dodge and burn tool. With dodge and burn you can alter how much you want something lightened or darkened in a photo and apply it like a paintbrush and you can also adjust the virtual brush size. There is also a red eye removal tool which turns red when the mouse hovers over it. You click on it then select the eye you wish to remove the red eye from. You can enlarge or shrink the pupil and also can choose what shade you want it to be. There is also a clone tool where you specify where you want pixels copied from and to and is ideal if there is dust contaminating a picture. Right next to it is a duplicate tool which copies the pixels automatically with you just selecting where you want them copied to. It uses complex algorithms to judge a suitable part to copy from. I’ve only got 1 more post to do in this series so I will complete that today.

 

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 D

This is yet another post in my series on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3. First of all on the left side of the screen in either the library or develop tabs is the presets. There are many of these preset s can settings for photos and often you can search for more on the internet which can be easily imported. You can also create your own and once you are finished with the settings title it and click create. On the right side of the screen are the light levels. You can select HSL which stands for Hue, Saturation & Luminosity  and these are some of the settings under this. Saturation is the intensity of colour and luminosity is the brightness and counteracts the colour intensity when at a high setting. There is a line graph to help with adjusting the light levels and a simple left click on the graph adds a control point to help adjust it. A right click brings up a menu to remove the control point but click on the control point. A right click on the area surrounding the graph brings up a menu to reset the graph. There is also the histogram a series of bar charts showing light levels. You can also adjust things like white balance along with the various colours  There is an eyedropper tool which you can click on a colour or one of the preset colours to reset neutral. You can also go from one picture to another and click on previous to apply settings applied to a previous picture to another picture. Bear in mind once these settings are updated again they change. You can also use synch to synchronize the settings on one picture with another. You can also use auto synch where you select several pictures which are continually updated as one picture is changed. As well as a HSL tab there is a color & black and white tabs on the right portion of the screen. To see what one slider does you can slide to to the end and it will show you a preview on screen. Many of the sliders do a very similar job to each other. You can reset the slider by either double clicking or control + clicking it. That’s all for now.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 C

This is another blog post in my series about Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 based on a video training program I try and do each day. First of all there is a series of menus at the top of the screen but generally you won’t use them as you will either use the keyboard shortcuts or the tools on the main screen which are more efficient. There are some options which say fit, fill etc, fit makes the whole photo fit the screen and fill makes a portion of the photo fill the screen. There are also options 1:1 which enlarges the photo to the number of pixels and an enlarge option where you choose how much you want it enlarged. When you have a photo enlarged you can categorize it either with 5 colours or on a rating of 1-5. In practice you will rate photos 4 or 5 or probably not categorize them. You can also flag, unflag or reject pictures. There is a keyboard shortcut of selecting a picture and choosing 1-5 to categorize by number and 6-9 to categorize by colour. Note purple doesn’t have a shortcut. You can also use shift + click to select photos in a series or control + click to select photos not adjacent to each other. You can also make collections where the photos don’t have to each other on the hard drive and simply, select your pics, go to the + buttons by collections and name it. Similarly you can create collection sets and smart collections. Collections sets are where you select sets of collections to make a set and smart collections require you to select criteria you work from left to right in column choosing criteria then choosing equal to, greater than etc then entering a figure. You can also do it based on colour codes or flags etc. You can also stack photos which helps with organizing them and you select the photos the choose stack which is in the + menu by collections. There is also categories and metadata in the right part of the screen with the various elements being in a list. There is a select button next to metadata where you can choose simply by clicking and/or filling in fields. Of course clicking decides whether it is displayed or not. You can select more than one and have it applied in multiples. You can create different levels of keywords by using the right arrow key prior to entering a keyword to put it up one level.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 B

This is another installment in my blog series about Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3. First of all there is your settings under edit/ preferences which set the program to work the way you want it to. Generally these can be left alone one exception being if you are importing pictures into an even earlier version of photoshop or similar for editing. Some of the graphics options like whether you export it as a 8 bit or 16 bit image might have to be adjusted as the software might not support that type of image. Generally when you are on the main page of photoshop lightroom 3 there are 3 columns and the one on left handles importing and the one on the right handles exporting. You might it necessary to convert files as this program can import lots of different types but can’t always edit them. Adobe’s own DNG format is a good one to convert to. Across the top of the program are the commands Copy To DNG, Copy, Move & Add. Add doesn’t physically import the file and merely links to it. Move imports to a different location and then deletes the original. Copy leaves the original alone and imports a copy. When you import something often a second file is created called a sidecar which contains information about the file. This tends to be necessary when file sizes are being kept small. There is also an option where you can tag a photo with information like keywords, copyright info & artist name. There is also an automatic uploader for sites such as facebook and flickr. The photo is optimized and uploaded almost automatically.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 A

I am doing a video tutorial on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 by Peachpit and am doing this series of blog posts on what I learn. Photoshop Lightroom is aimed at photographers who can upload their photos in a batch and has a five part toolbar which is Library, Develop, Slideshow, Publish & Web. The first one handles importing your photos, the second doing on your photos and the last 3 refer to how you output your photos. You can import photos directly into the develop part of the program which is a new feature. In slideshow you can add music to your presentations and can even import music from itunes and it can automatically edit the music to the length of your slideshow. You can export a photo as a pdf with in the library. When you import photos it shows you thumbnails of each one and you can find a photo by selecting things like the camera speed used and model of camera with in the library search feature. If you have a photo that is slightly blurred this program does an excellent job of sharpening it, just look under the develop at the relevant option. You can also blur a photo using the same dialogue box. This program is primarily for people who touch up their photos and alter the light levels. It doesn’t have the more heavy duty features of Photoshop or even Photoshop Elements. For most photographers this is all they need. You can output a photo onto a web page and upload a batch of photos in one go and do a photo gallery. Just tick the appropriate box. You can also with in the publish page print photos on paper and colour the surrounding area. You may find that a bit ink intensive and expensive. Photoshop Lightroom 3 isn’t the latest version of this program but runs quite happily under Windows Vista and you will if you install it you need to download a large update file from the internet.