Using Develop Presets in Adobe Lightroom

Explore creative effects and save time with develop presets in Adobe Lightroom - check out my new article:

Using Develop Presets in Adobe Lightroom

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Photoshop Piglets and Droplets, Oh My!

Yes, this post sounds like I've taken on children's storytelling with Pooh bear, but not so (though no diss on Pooh bear, as I love Pooh! Though Piglet is indeed my very favorite. He is a Very Small Animal, you know).

I've learned something and figured out something and just all around came to a revelation of sheer post-production joy.

1. Lightroom's sharpening kind of sucks. (*gasp!*) I know, I know. I had heard that Photoshop's Unsharp Mask was the way to go, but I just hadn't gotten around to really playing with it. Now that I have, I want to cry, because Photoshop does SUCH a better job at sharpening, and Lightroom's is SO lukewarm at best in comparison. The torment I've been putting my photos through! The tragedy! Thou shalt never be lazy about learning a new trick ever again.

2. You can automate the running of Photoshop actions on export in Lightroom via Photoshop CS3's "Droplets." I learned this from Scott Kelby's awesome book, The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers. I just got around to finishing it last night. This can be used, for example, to run a sharpening action in Photoshop before exporting photos from Lightroom.

3. Using the "Run Any Command" piglet from Jeffrey Friedl's Lightroom plugin collection, in conjunction with his Lightroom - to - Flickr upload plugin, you can execute a Photoshop Droplet upon Lightroom export, then automatically upload the resulting photos to Flickr. (Note: Jeffrey's also got upload plugins for Zenfolio, SmugMug, and Picasa Web, and I'm betting this process would work the same on any of them).

So, all of that is just too cool for words.

Here's how I got #3 working under Mac OS X Leopard:

In Photoshop CS3, record your Sharpening action (or any other action - noise reduction, etc). My sharpening action is based on Scott Kelby's advice, which is to create a Luminosity Sharpening action. There's actually an excerpt from his book on how to create his Luminosity Sharpening action. Don't forget to include the File - Save and File - Close commands in your recorded action.

Then, create a Droplet in CS3 (File - Automate - Create Droplet). Save the Droplet in your Applications folder. I called mine UnsharpMask.

Then, choose a photo in Lightroom to export. Do a File - Export and choose the Flickr export (or destination of your choice using Jeffrey's plugins). Enable the Run Any Command piglet in the Lightroom Export dialog (you may have to restart Lightroom). Type into the Run Any Command box:
open -a UnsharpMask

where UnsharpMask is the name of the Droplet  you created in Photoshop. 

The -a tells OS X to look in your Applications folder for the application to open.

Voila!

I am the happiest camper alive a) to see how wickedly good Photoshop's unsharp mask works, and b) to be able to not only automate the sharpening action, but to automate it in a way that fits right into my existing Lightroom workflow, including the use of Jeffrey's uploading plugins. This is seriously just way, way cool.

For the Windows users out there, a previous poster on Jeffrey's blog left instructions on how to do the same in Windows. That's what inspired me to figure out how to do it on my Mac. I haven't tested this, but here are the Windows instructions (credit to Mark Alston):

Make a .bat file that contained the following:

@ECHO OFF
C:\path\to\droplet_name.exe %1
exit /b 0

And then to use this batch file as the command to run in runanycommand.

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Project 365: April 24, 2008

These bloomed at my front door a few days ago. I was wondering what they were, as an early frost killed them before they bloomed last spring, and I didn't live here the spring before that!

Here are a couple variations. I was messing around with Lightroom.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Beta 2.0

Test drive the latest version of Lightroom for free (and risk-free - it runs alongside your current Lightroom installation and does not touch your existing Lightroom catalog):
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Beta 2.0

I absolutely love Lightroom, and am looking forward to checking out the new features:

• Localized corrections — Enhance specific areas of an image for unsurpassed nondestructive flexibility and control reminiscent of the traditional darkroom dodge and burn experience.
• Improved organizational tools — Find the images you need quickly and easily.
• Multiple monitor support — Add an additional monitor to efficiently manage photographic workflow and presentation.
• Flexible print package functionality — Create custom layouts containing multiple sizes of a photograph on a single page.
• 64-bit support — Lightroom 2.0 now takes advantage of the latest hardware architectures with improved memory handling and performance.

Adobe Recalls Lightroom 1.4 Update

From the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom update site: Mac - Windows

The Lightroom 1.4 update has been temporarily removed from the Adobe.com web site in order to allow time for additional investigation into several bugs that were discovered after the update was released. At this time, we recommend uninstalling Lightroom 1.4 and installing Lightroom 1.3.1.

The following download links have been redirected to link to the Lightroom 1.3.1 download regardless of the version number indicated. Additional details regarding the Lightroom 1.4 update will be posted to http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/.

If you've already installed the update, uninstall it, then download version 1.3.1 (available under the 1.4 link on the update site) and install 1.3.1.

My question is, how do such major bugs make it through QA?

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.3 Update

Adobe has released an update for Photoshop Lightroom. The update brings Lightroom to version 1.3.

Included in the Lightroom 1.3 Update: Update OS X 10.5 (Leopard) support and additional camera support for the 1Ds Mark III, Nikon D3, Nikon D300, Olympus E-3 and more.

Lightroom 1.3 includes corrections for the following issues:

• Writing XMP metadata automatically has been corrected for performance issues

• Printing with the native resolution option enabled no longer sets the wrong dimension for portrait oriented images

• Prior to Camera Raw 4.3 there was the possibility that artifacts in edge transitions could be introduced through the Bayer demosaic and luminance noise reductions algorithms. This has been corrected.

• The Canon sRAW format and the Fuji compressed RAF formats are now supported.

Lightroom 1.3 includes the following enhancements:

• The import dialog now offers the option to render 1:1 previews as part of the import process

• The export dialog layout has been enhanced

• A Lightroom Preview Export SDK is available for developers to create and distribute Export Plug-ins. Further details are located on Adobe Labs
  

Lightroom automatically triggered the update when I opened the application today, but if you'd like to grab it manually, visit Adobe's update page - Windows - Mac

Lightning

After a few attempts this summer, I finally caught a shot of some lightning. We had some wicked storms roll through Chicago this past Thursday, and after I got home from work I couldn't resist grabbing the camera and trying to capture some of the amazing light show.

I didn't have time to brush up on my "how to shoot lightning" research, so I was guessing at camera settings. I used manual mode, set the focus to infinity, and used f/8 aperture with a shutter speed of 2.5 seconds. I had my long lens on, the 70-300mm with image stabilization. I think in future attempts I might want to go with a wide angle lens (though I don't have one yet! LOL - the kit lens 18-55mm that came with the Rebel is the widest angle I've got).

I vaguely recalled reading of a guy who would just set the camera on bulb mode and leave the shutter open for a couple minutes, then close and repeat. I tried longer shutter speeds like that, but there was a lot of flash lightning mixed in with the bolts, so it wasn't really working.

I was doing all of this from the safety of my bedroom, shooting from my window. This particular shot that I got was actually hand-held. I was pretty much pressing the camera between my body and the window, with the lens resting on the window sill. Eventually, I ran down to get my tripod, but by then most of the good lightning had passed.

I used Adobe Lightroom to fix the exposure a bit (it was overexposed), blacken the blacks, and add the purple tint. My free trial finally ran out on Lightroom, but I've enjoyed using it so much that I purchased it, along with the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby.

Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	2.5 sec (5/2)
Aperture:	f/8
Focal Length:	70 mm
ISO Speed:	100
Exposure Bias:	0/3 EV
Flash:	Flash did not fire

Crude attempt to fix the moon

Well, I've made a crude attempt to fix the moon. It's definitely not a keeper, but the practice is good for me. I need to pick up a book on post-production with Photoshop and Lightroom. I working with the trial of Lightroom right now, but I think I will end up buying it. I already have Photoshop, but it seems like overkill a lot of the time.

I converted the moon picture to grayscale, hoping that would get rid of the noise. It didn't, nor did noise reduction. So I filled the background with black. I lost a lot of detail in the moon in the process, and the outline looks a bit crude and unnatural. I'm sure there are better ways to fix this photo - I just haven't learned them yet!

I plan to take another shot at the moon ASAP, using a faster shutter speed.