The Adobe Lightroom EBook For Digital Photography (Scott Kelby 2

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The Adobe® Lightroom™ eBook for Digital Photographers By Scott Kelby ............................................... Publisher: New Riders Pub Date: March 21, 2006 Print ISBN-10: 0-321-43736-5 Print ISBN-13: 978-0-321-43736-5 Pages: 177

Table of Contents | Index

You've just downloaded the brand-new, free Beta version of Lightroom, the revolutionary new workflow application from Adobe. Now what? Pick up this ebook, written by best-selling author Scott Kelby, to give you all the dirt you need on Lightroom to allow you to work faster, smarter, and more creatively. You'll learn the essential shortcuts you need to know to save hours every week, the best ways to import and organize your images, which tools and features to really hone in on to get the most out of this application, how to manage your photos like a pro, plus all the inside secrets on processing raw images. You'll also learn how to use Lightroom together with Photoshop to get the best, most efficient workflow, along with the best images. Finally, the book is loaded with tips, tricks, and insights that will absolutely transform the way you work with digital images!

The Adobe® Lightroom™ eBook for Digital Photographers By Scott Kelby ............................................... Publisher: New Riders Pub Date: March 21, 2006 Print ISBN-10: 0-321-43736-5 Print ISBN-13: 978-0-321-43736-5 Pages: 177

Table of Contents | Index

Copyright Acknowledgments Other Books By Scott Kelby About the Author An Unexpected Q & A Section Chapter 1. Importing Getting Your Photos into Lightroom Getting Your Photos Into Lightroom Where Your Photos Wind Up Chapter 2. Navigation Finding Your Way Around Working with Lightroom's Modules Putting the Focus on Your Photos Adding Your Studio's Identity to Lightroom's Interface Chapter 3. Library Organizing Your Photos Separating the Keepers from the Losers Sorting Your Photos in the Grid View One-Click Sorting by Using Collections Staying Organized by Assigning Keywords Chapter 4. Quick Develop Making Minor Adjustments Using Quick Develop for Quick Fixes Editing Multiple Images the Easy Way Chapter 5. Develop Making Serious Adjustments The Basic Adjustments Aren't Basic Using the Tone Curve Converting to Black and White, and Split Toning Adjusting Individual Colors Using HSL Color Tuning Sharpening and Reducing Noise Fixing Problems Caused by the Camera Cropping and Straightening Overcoming Color Problems Inherent in Some Cameras Creating Your Own Presets Jumping from Lightroom to Photoshop and Back Chapter 6. Slideshow Sharing Your Photos Onscreen Getting Photos Into Your Slide Show Customizing the Look of Your Slides Customizing the Background Adding and Editing Drop Shadows

Adding Text to Your Slides Saving Your Custom Layout as a Template Playing Your Slide Show Exporting Your Slide Show to the Web Chapter 7. Print Printing Your Photos Printing Essentials Printing Contact Sheets (or More Than One Photo on One Page) Inside Back Cover Index

Copyright THE ADOBE® LIGHTROOM ™ EBOOK FOR DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHERS Published by New Riders Copyright ©2006 by Scott Kelby First edition: March 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. Composed in Cronos and Helvetica by NAPP Publishing

Trademarks All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. New Riders cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. Use of a term in the book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark. Lightroom is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems, Inc. Photoshop is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems, Inc. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Warning and Disclaimer This book is designed to provide information about Adobe Lightroom for digital photographers. Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and as accurate as possible, but no warranty of fitness is implied. The information is provided on an as-is basis. The author and New Riders shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damages arising from the information contained in this book or from the use of the discs or programs that may accompany it. The Adobe Lightroom eBook for Digital Photographers Team CREATIVE DIRECTOR Felix Nelson TECHNICAL EDITORS Cindy Snyder

Kim Doty PRODUCTION EDITOR Kim Gabriel PRODUCTION MANAGER Dave Damstra COVER DESIGNED BY Jessica Maldonado COVER PHOTOS COURTESY OF iStockphoto.com and Scott Kelby 987654321 www.newriders.com www.scottkelbybooks.com

Dedication For the cutest little baby in the whole wide world, Kira Nicole Kelby.

Acknowledgments First, I want to thank my amazing wife Kalebra. We've been married 16 years, and just looking at her still makes my heart skip a beat, and again reminds me how much I adore her, how genuinely beautiful she is, and how I couldn't live without her. She's the type of woman love songs are written for, and I am, without a doubt, the luckiest man alive to have her as my wife. Secondly, I want to thank my 9-year-old son Jordan, who spent many afternoons pulling me away from writing this book so we could play Shadow the Hedgehog or head to the putt-putt course. God has blessed our family with so many wonderful gifts, and I can see them all reflected in his eyes. I'm so proud of him, so thrilled to be his dad, and I dearly love watching him grow to be such a wonderful little guy, with such a tender and loving heart. (You're the greatest, little buddy.) I also want to thank my newborn daughter Kira Nicole Kelby for being such a little sweet-ie. My wife and I knew we were having a baby girl, we just didn't realize that she would in fact be "the cutest little baby in the whole wide world." I also want to thank my brother Jeffrey for being such a positive influence in my life, for always taking the high road, for always knowing the right thing to say, and just the right time to say it, and for having so much of our dad in you. I'm honored to have you as my brother and my friend. My heartfelt thanks go to the entire team at KW Media Group, who every day redefine what teamwork and dedication are all about. They are truly a special group of people, who come together to do some really amazing things (on really scary deadlines), and they do it with class, poise, and a can-do attitude that is truly inspiring. I'm so proud to be working with you all. Thanks to my layout and production crew. In particular, I want to thank my friend and Creative Director Felix Nelson for his limitless talent, creativity, input, and just for his flat-out great ideas. Thanks to my in-house editors Kim Doty and Cindy Snyder who put the techniques through rigorous testing and made sure that I didn't slip any of my famous typos past the goalie. Also, thanks to Dave Damstra and his amazing crew for giving the book such a tight, clean layout. Thanks to my compadre Dave Moser, whose tireless dedication to creating a quality product makes every project we do better than the last. Thanks to Jean A. Kendra for her support, and for keeping a lot of plates in the air while I'm writing these books. A special thanks to my Executive Assistant Kathy Siler for all her hard work and dedication, and for showing great restraint when her Redskins beat my Buccaneers in the playoffs. Thanks to my Publisher Nancy Ruenzel, and the incredibly dedicated team at Peachpit/New Riders. You are very special people doing very special things, and it's a real honor to get to work with people who really just want to make great books. Also many thanks to the awesome Rachel Tiley, Ted Waitt, and to marketing maverick Scott Cowlin. I owe a special debt of gratitude to George Jardine, photographic evangelist at Adobe, for all his help. Getting detailed information on a Beta version of anything is a challenge, but George went out of his way numerous times, and the book is better because of it. Also thanks to Kevin Connor and John Nack at Adobe for their help, and for letting me unload on them because Beta 1 didn't support music with slide shows. Also thanks to my "Photoshop Guys" Dave Cross and Matt Kloskowski, for being such excellent

sounding boards for the development of this book. You guys are the best! Thanks to my friends at Adobe Systems: Terry White, Addy Roff, Cari Gushiken, Russell Brady, Jill Nakashima, Julieanne Kost, and Russell Preston Brown. Gone but not forgotten: Barbara Rice, Rye Livingston, Bryan Lamkin, and Karen Gauthier. Thanks to my mentors whose wisdom and whip-cracking have helped me immeasurably, including John Graden, Jack Lee, Dave Gales, Judy Farmer, and Douglas Poole. Also, my personal thanks to Patrick Lor at iStockphoto.com for enabling me to use some of their wonderful photography in this book. Most importantly, I want to thank God, and His son Jesus Christ, for leading me to the woman of my dreams, for blessing us with two amazing children, for allowing me to make a living doing something I truly love, for always being there when I need Him, for blessing me with a wonderful, fulfilling, and happy life, and such a warm, loving family to share it with.

Other Books By Scott Kelby The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers The Photoshop Channels Book Photoshop Down & Dirty Tricks Photoshop CS2 Killer Tips Photoshop Classic Effects The iPod Book InDesign CS/CS2 Killer Tips Mac OS X Tiger Killer Tips Getting Started with Your Mac and Mac OS X Tiger

About the Author Scott Kelby

Scott is Editor and Publisher of Photoshop User magazine, Editor-in-Chief of Nikon Software User magazine, and Editor and Publisher of Layers magazine (the how-to magazine for everything Adobe). Scott is President and co-founder of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) and is President of the software training, education, and publishing firm KW Media Group. Scott is a photographer, designer, and award-winning author of more than 30 books, including Photoshop Down & Dirty Tricks, The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers, Photoshop Classic Effects, and is Series Editor for the Killer Tips book series from New Riders. For the past two years, Scott has been awarded with the distinction of being the world's #1 bestselling author of all computer and technology books, across all categories. Scott is Training Director for the Adobe Photoshop Seminar Tour and Conference Technical Chair for the Photoshop World Conference and Expo. He's featured in a series of Adobe Photoshop training DVDs and has been training Adobe Photoshop users since 1993. For more information on Scott, visit scottkelby.com.

An Unexpected Q & A Section Q.

I didn't expect to see the book start with a Q&A section. Don't Q&A sections normally come after a chapter, rather than before the first chapter?

A.

Normally they do. That's why this one is so unexpected. But there is a reason it's here. It's here to take up pages. You see, authors are paid on how many pages they write, regardless if the pages are actually necessary or if they even relate to the topic of the book. So, I thought I'd just pick up a few extra bucks right up front and add a Q&A.

Q.

Really?

A.

Of course not. That's not the way book publishing really works. It's unfortunate, because us authors could really cash in, but sadly, you don't get paid on how many pages you write. You get paid on how many books you sell, and how many books you sell is dependent on three factors: (1) how many times you can work naughty double-entendre phrases into your text, (2) how many times you can work French words into your text, like "double-entendre," but mostly it's (3) how useful people actually find your book.

Q.

So how useful is this book going to be?

A.

That depends on whether the person who bought the book (that's you by the way) takes the time to read the introduction. You see, the introduction of the book is where the author bares the soul of the bookwhere he (or she) shows how to get the most out of the book, so readers really maximize their experience. The author addresses common concerns, gives tips and ideas on how readers should best use their time, and generally tries to help readers connect with the book.

Q.

But this book doesn't have an introduction. Why not?

A.

It's because no one reads the introduction of books anymore. No, they'd rather turn right to the first chapter and fumble around on their own, stumbling from project to project, rather than spending just two minutes to find out how the book was written, why it was written that way, what to look out for, and what to avoid.

Q.

Are people really that shallow?

A.

Yes. But not you. You're not like that. You know why? Because you're reading the introduction right now. Oh sure, it's called "An Unexpected Q&A Section" but come on, have you ever heard of an unexpected Q&A section? Especially one that comes before the first chapter? You knew this was a ruse to get you to read the introduction but you kept on going. I like you, kid. You've got moxie.

Q.

What exactly is moxie?

A.

Moxie is an industrial-strength abrasive cleaner that removes lime, rust, and scale from a variety of surfaces.

Q.

I have that? I have moxie?

A.

I'm not 100% sure.

Q.

Is the rest of the book like this?

A.

Thankfully, no. The rest of the book is pretty much step-by-step, without straying too much from the path. That's why, in this unexpected Q&A, I stray quite a bit from the path. You see, when you write step-by-step books, there's no room for your own writing style to come through. It's pretty much "Go under this menu for this" and "click on that button for that." It's just so "to the point." So, in a step-by-step book like this, I only get two real writing outlets which keep me from climbing into a tower with a high-powered rifle and picking off pedestrians. They are: (1) this unexpected Q&Atroduction, and (2) the chapter intros for each chapter, which by the way, have little to do with what's actually in said chapter.

Q.

But the rest of the book is regular?

A.

Absolutely. Thanks to my strict regimen of high fiber. Sorry, that was lame.

Q.

Okay, I've been pretty patient now, where are those "helpful tips" you were talking about earlier?

A.

Oh those. Well, here's one: Where should you start? That might seem like kind of a "duh" question, with the answer being "Start at Chapter 1, followed by Chapter 2, and so on." However, if you've read any of my other books, you know I generally write books that are "jump in anywhere" types of books. That's because those books are written on applications that have been around a while (like Photoshop), so many people who buy a Photoshop book have a specific topic they're hoping to learn, for example, sharpening. So, they buy the book and jump straight to the Sharpening chapter, and that's okay in those Photoshop books.

Q.

But this isn't a Photoshop book, right?

A.

Right. Adobe Lightroom is a workflow tool. It's designed to take you through the process of importing your photos, sorting them, processing them (in your digital darkroom), viewing them in their final version, and then printing them. Lightroom has been designed that way, as a workflow tool, from the very beginning. So, I recommend that you learn it that wayin order, starting with Chapter 1 and working through the book in order.

Q.

But what if I bought the book specifically just to learn the Slideshow features?

A.

Too bad, you have to read Chapters 1 through 5 first.

Q.

Are you serious?

A.

Of course not. These are just guidelines, not steadfast rules carved into stone. So, if you're kind of loose with money, and getting a good value by learning in the manner the author suggests isn't of interest to you, then just jump in anywhere. Again, I'm kidding (kind of). However, I do recommend learning Lightroom's workflow in order. It's the way the program was designed, and if you learn it that way, you'll have a better understanding, but heyit's your bookif you decide to hollow out the insides to

safely store your valuables, I'll never know. You'll feel guilty as hell, but again, I'll never know. Q.

I hate that word "workflow."

A.

Everybody does, but that's not a question. Can you restate it in the form of a question?

Q.

Yeah, whatever. Here goes: Don't you hate that term workflow?

A.

Not at all.

Q.

I thought you said everybody hates it?

A.

You can't believe everything you read. Okay, I do hate that term, because it makes things sound like work. There's definitely a flow to working in Lightroom, but I wouldn't call it "work." Workflow just means "The order in which you do things." Since there are no officially sanctioned guidelines for what a proper workflow is, workflow then is a personal preference. It's the order in which a particular photographer has chosen to manage and process his or her photos. Most every photographer has his or her own workflow method.

Q.

So whose workflow is right?

A.

Mine.

Q.

Really? You've got the right workflow?

A.

Well, it is for me, but it might not be for you. By the way, if it's not right for you, that's okayit just makes you wrong (kidding). Actually, it's trueeveryone's workflow is different, but with Lightroom, Adobe went a long way toward helping photographers by leading us through what they, and many photographers around the world, feel is a sensible and quick way to work with digital images. That's what Lightroom is all about, and I'm here to help you through that process as best I can. So, from here on out, I'm Mr. Serious, but I do appreciate you taking the time to read this unexpected Q&A and hope you'll join me for some unexpected chapter intros between all the Step One, Step Two stuff. See you there!

Q.

So we're pretty much done here?

A.

Yup. Now turn the page, before I start tearing up.

Chapter 1. Importing Getting Your Photos into Lightroom

Now, do we really need an entire chapter just on importing photos? Nope. We could just skip it,

but then the book would start with Chapter 2, and you'd be sending emails to the book's publisher complaining that your book is missing Chapter 1. See, that's the key word theremissing. You wouldn't think I intentionally skipped ityou'd think that there must have been some mix-up at the printing plant, and your copy accidentally wound up without a Chapter 1. So, you'd take it back to the bookstore and you'd ask for a replacement copy. You'd get home and find out that, once again, Chapter 1 was missing. Then you'd start to think that this is no coincidence. It must be some sort of a printing conspiracy (orchestrated by a covert government agency), and that right now, somewhere in the Midwest, there's an unmarked warehouse chock full of Chapter 1s. You'd then start to call me names. Unspeakable names. Names that would make you feel ashamed and dirty, but you'd do it anyway because you'd feel so certain that this was all part of a carefully crafted strategy designed to keep you from knowing the contents of Chapter 1. Obviously, there's something in Chapter 1 that "they" don't want you to know. Suddenly that missing Chapter 1 is worth fighting for. You deserve a Chapter 1, and to know exactly what's in it. So, because I care about you, my reader, the way I do, I stood up to "the man" on your behalf and demanded that this book have a Chapter 1, and that it would be on importing photos, because there's more to it than it first seems. See, it all makes perfect sense once you look at it calmly and logically.

Getting Your Photos Into Lightroom This is where it all startsbringing your photos into Adobe Lightroom so you can begin organizing, editing, and printing them. Lightroom is set up to let you import from two different sources: (1) it lets you manage photos that are already on your computer, and it gives you a number of options of just how it does that; and (2) it lets you import photos directly from your digital camera or a memory card reader. If you're smart about importing now, it will save you a lot more time and trouble, and make managing your images that much easier.

Step One First, we'll start with importing photos that are already on your computer (my guess is, you probably already have at least some, if not more, already on there). To begin importing, first click on the Library link (found along the top-right side of the Lightroom window), and then click the Import button on the lower-right side of the window (shown here circled in red).

Step Two Lightroom needs to know where the photos are on your hard disk, so when you click the Import button an Open dialog appears from the top of the Lightroom window (as shown here). Navigate your way to the folder of images you want to import and click the Import button (of course, you can import individual photos, not just folders, but for our example we're importing a folder of images with six photos inside). [View full size image]

Step Three Once you click the Import button in the Open dialog, the Import Photos dialog appears (shown here). This is a very important dialog for two reasons: (1) you need to make some simple decisions on how you want your imported photos treated, and (2) you can save yourself a lot of work down the road if you spend a few extra moments here now. We'll start in the top-left corner with File Handling (your first important decision). [View full size image]

Step Four

Here's a close-up of the File Handling pop-up menu. You have four options here. The first, Reference Files in Existing Location (shown here), lets you leave the photos right where they are on your computer, but now you can manage and edit them using Lightroom. If you choose Copy Files to Lightroom Library (also shown here), it makes a copy of your photos and moves them into one central folder called the Lightroom Library. So this way, you'll have your original files and then an additional copy. Personally, I don't like this option because it just eats up space on your computer's hard disk. Another option here is Move Files to Lightroom Library, which doesn't copy them, it just picks up the images and moves them into the central library.

Step Five The last option, Copy Photos as Digital Negative (DNG) makes a copy of your photos and puts them into the central library but it changes their file format to Adobe's DNG (digital negative format, which is an open source archival format for RAW images. For the full scoop on the Adobe DNG file format, visit www.adobe.com/products/dng/main.html).

Step Six So which is the right choice here? There really isn't a right choice. It's up to you how you want to manage your images: Do you want all your photos in one location, like in the Lightroom Library

(shown here, which is in Hard Drive:Users:Home: Pictures:Lightroom:Photos on your Mac)? Here's another question: How do you feel about having multiple copies of the same photo on your hard disk? Personally, I'm always fighting the battle of too little free hard disk space, so I don't copy my images into the Lightroom Library. Of course, I could use the Move Files to Lightroom Library option (so there would only be one copy on my hard disk), but I guess I'm just used to them being where they already are. See what I mean? You have to make the choice that you're most comfortable with.

Step Seven Once you get past the only hard part of this dialog (deciding where, or where not, to move your files), you can start to put this dialog to work. One of the most important things you do for organizing your photos is to give them usable names, and luckily there's an option that lets you automatically give your files custom names as they're imported. To enter the custom name you want, turn on the Rename Files checkbox and then click directly on the downward facing arrows on the right (as shown here) to reveal the Rename Files options.

Step Eight Once you reveal the Rename Files options, you'll see a Name field, and a collection of tokens (think of these tokens as naming templates). You start the renaming process by typing in a

name. When you look in the Name field, you see a light blue pill-shaped token called Filename. That represents the image's current name. To get rid of the current name, just click directly on Filename and hit Delete. Now the Name field is blank, so just type in the name you want for all your imported photos. Then, from the Tokens field, you can add a sequential number by clickingand-dragging the Seq# (001) token up to the Name field, after your name. You choose the starting number by typing a number in the First Sequence Number field.

Step Nine By dragging Seq# (001) after the name, Lightroom will automatically number your photos, starting with the number you entered in the First Sequence Number field (so your files would be named "BrochureShots61," "BrochureShots62," etc.). By the way, you can choose how many numbers you want for your sequence by clicking directly on the right side of the Seq# (001) token and choosing your desired numbering schedule from the pop-up menu.

Step Ten Just to see how it works, drag the Date token up to the Name field, then click-and-hold on the right side of the Date token (on the down-facing arrow) and a pop-up menu will appear with different date formats. Choose Date (YY), which adds just the last two digits of the year to the end of your filename (so now your files would be named "BrochureShots6106," for the 61st shot from 2006). Now, here's where the tokens are really handy. Since you don't want the numbers to run together, just click on the Date token and drag it to the first position in the Name field (so the date comes first, before the name), then from the Date token pop-up menu, choose the full year format (as shown here). So now, your files will be named "2006 BrochureShots 61." By the way, to put a space between formats, just press the Spacebar between each token.

Step Eleven The next section down in the Import Photos dialog gives you the option of segmenting the images either by folder or date. We'll look at what the folder segmenting means first. Let's say you're importing a folder of photos, and inside that folder there are three other folders of photos, and inside one of those three there's yet another folder with photos. When you turn on Segment By, it keeps all those photos grouped together when they're importedit doesn't just pretend that there are no folders and lop them all into one big folder in Lightroom (actually, Lightroom calls these imported folders "shoots"). So in short, when Segment By is turned on and Folder is chosen from the pop-up menu, we import everything in folders, just as they are on your computer.

Step Twelve If you choose Date in the Segment By pop-up menu, it separates your imported photos into groups by date. So if you import a folder, and some of the photos were taken on the 14th of January, and some were taken on the 24th, they'll be imported as two subgroups within the same shoot. The Organization pop-up menu simply lets you choose the format for how the date for these will be displayed within Lightroom. By the way, Segment By is turned on by default. If you don't want segmenting at all (so everything from this import will all be together in the same shoot), you can just simply turn off the Segment By checkbox.

Step Thirteen The next field down lets you embed your copyright information (or other metadata) directly into the document itself. From the Metadata pop-up menu, choose New. In the resulting New Metadata Preset dialog, just type in your copyright info in the Copyright field, give it a New Preset Name, click Create, and that info will automatically be embedded into every imported photo for this shoot. Simple enough. By the way, you can see this embedded copyright info later, in the image's metadata fields, once the photos are imported into Lightroom. And if you want to use the same info for future imports, it is now in your Metadata pop-up menu under the preset name you assigned.

Step Fourteen On the right side of the Import Photos dialog is a preview of the images you're about to import. To see the individual images, just drag the slider to the right. Directly under that slider is a field for naming the shoot you're about to import (again, Lightroom calls each group of images you import a shoot), and if you chose segmenting it automatically puts the folder name (or date) in the Shoot Name field, but you can always just click in the field and type in a new name for the shoot if you want. This won't change the name of the individual imagesjust the shoot name. Below the Shoot Name field are fields where you can embed keywords for this shoot (to make searching for images easiermore on this later) and any custom name you want embedded into the images. Now, before we look at where your imported photos appear within Lightroom, we need to briefly look at another scenariowhen you're importing photos directly from your digital camera's memory card (rather than importing photos already on your computer).

Step Fifteen If you already have Lightroom open when you plug in your camera or card reader, by default the Import Photos dialog will appear automatically. There's only one real difference when importing photos from your memory cardthe File Handling options are limited. That's because the photos aren't on your computer, so you can't just point to them using the Reference Files in Existing Location option or Move Files to Lightroom Library because they're not on your computer to move yet. So, there are just two choices: (1) Copy Files to Lightroom Library, or (2) Copy Photos as Digital Negative (DNG) (if they're in RAW format). However, another great feature lurks here, and that's the ability to make a backup copy of your imported photosjust turn on the Backup to Secondary Location checkbox (as shown here). You can back up to a different location, external hard disks, or servers by clicking the Choose button and choosing a new backup destination.

Tip Once you click the Import button in the Import Photos dialog, your photos start importing (whether from your memory card or from a folder on your computer). But what if you change your mind and want to cancel the import before all the photos are done importing? Just press Command-Option-A to bring up the Activity Viewer. You'll see a status bar showing the import in progress. To stop importing photos, just click the red X button (as shown here).

Where Your Photos Wind Up Once you click the Import button in the Import Photos dialog, your photos are imported into Lightroom, right? Right. But exactly where are they? They're in two different places, and understanding the difference between these two areas is important.

Step One Remember how I mentioned that your images come in as shoots? Well you can quickly find just the photos you imported in two ways. The first is to find your shoot and click on it. You do this on the left side of the Library module, in the Browse by Shoot panel. Just scroll down until you see your named shoot, then click on it (as shown here), and the photos from that shoot appear in your Library window.

©SCOTT KELBY

[View full size image]

Step Two Want an even quicker way to see the photos you just imported? In other words, do you want to see them now, without having to dig through the Browse by Shoot panel, which can be quite long once you've imported a number of shoots? The top panel on the left side of the Library module is called Photo Library and if you look in that panel you'll see a one-click button to get you to your last imported photos. It's called Show Previous Import. Click on it, as shown here, and they'll appear.

[View full size image]

Step Three When you import your photos, their home within Lightroom is the Library. This Library holds all your imported photos (not only the ones you just imported). In fact, if you browse through a shoot, click on a photo, and hit Delete, it only deletes the photo from that shootit doesn't delete it from Lightroom because that photo is still in the Library. If you really want a photo to be completely deleted from Lightroom, in the Photo Library panel, first click on Show Entire Library (which is your master collection of photos), then click on the photo you want to delete, and press the Delete key on your keyboard. Now it's really gone. For good.

©ISTOCKPHOTO/DOUGLAS FREER & FEDOR PATRAKOV

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Step Four So now you knowyou can delete a shoot (click on the shoot then hit the minus button at the top right of the panel), but that doesn't delete the photos from Lightroomit just deletes the shoot. To actually delete the photos themselves, click on Show Entire Library, click on the photo, or Command-click on multiple photos, and hit the Delete key. If you want to see where a photo in your Library resides on your hard disk, press-and-hold the Control key, click on the photo's thumbnail, and a contextual menu will appear. Choose Show in Finder (as shown here) and a Mac OS Finder window will open with your image file. Now you can copy that file to disk, delete it, etc., like you would any other file in the Finder. [View full size image]

Chapter 2. Navigation Finding Your Way Around

Although Adobe Lightroom seems like just one application, it's actually more like four miniapplications in one. Well, they're not mini, because that makes them sound like they're small or don't have as many features, but that's certainly not the case, because some of Lightroom's modules are large and complex. Now, I don't mean large and complex like it's a bad thing. That's the good large and complex. It's more like a compliment. For example, if you were having dinner at a friend's house, and he or she brought out a delicious-looking appetizer, you might smile and say something like, "Hey, that seared yellowfish tuna with Asian cucumber salad looks very large and complex." See, it's a compliment. By the same token, Lightroom may sometimes seem large and complex (in a good way) because it has four different modules. Adobe uses the term "modules" because it sounds so mysterious. For example, "I wonder what's in that module? Could it be a radioactive isotope?" It could be, especially if this was an episode of Fox's 24, where

virtually every object has a reasonable possibility of being radioactive. Another reason Adobe chose to use the technical-sounding word modules, rather than calling them regular everyday words that we all understand like "sections" or "areas," is because the term modules sounds more large and complex, and as we learned earlier, that's a compliment.

Working with Lightroom's Modules Lightroom has four separate areas (Adobe calls them modules because an in-house committee decided that would be the stuffiest, most engineering-like name possible). You're going to be moving between these four modules quite frequently so we might as well learn the best ways to get where we want to go, and know why we want to go to each area in the first place.

Step One The name of each module is listed in the top-right corner of the Lightroom window, but those aren't just names they're links, so click right on them to move from module to module (go ahead and click on them now, just so you'll see what I mean). Now, clicking on them is the slow way, so instead try using the keyboard shortcuts: Command-1 takes you to the Library module (which is where you do two things: [1] sort and organize your images, and [2] do basic color corrections and adjustments). Press Command-2 to switch to the Develop module, and press Command-3 to switch to the Slideshow module. If I have to tell you what Command-4 does, I'm not sure you're ready for software of any kind. To jump back to the last module you were at, press Command-/ (forward slash). If you switch modules by accident, just press Command-Z to put you right back where you were. So, from here on out, let's use the keyboard shortcuts to jump from module to module, simply because it's quicker (and time is money, and all that jazz, right?).

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Step Two Now, click on any photo thumbnail in the Library and then press Command-2 to switch to the Develop module. You can see that everything looks different in this module, except for one thingthe filmstrip running along the bottom of the window. That filmstrip stays there no matter which module you're currently using. Press Command-3 and then Command-4, and you'll see the filmstrip is still there. This is one of my favorite features of Lightroom, because you always have access to all the photos in the current shoot you're working with. So, if you want to fix the color of a different image, or use a different image in your slide show, or print a different image, the other photos are right there, one click awaywithout having to go back to the Library module. [View full size image]

Step Three While we're on the filmstrip, you can change the size of the thumbnails by clicking on the letters in the bottom-right corner of Lightroom's window. Clicking on XS gives you extra small thumbnails (as shown here) and clicking on XL gives you huge thumbnails (you can imagine what S, M, and L do). [View full size image]

Step Four If you've got more photos than can be displayed at one time in the filmstrip, there are two ways to move through them: (1) click-and-drag the shuttle control (shown here) in the direction you want to go, or (2) click-and-drag the gray scroll bar at the bottom center of the window. In the Library and Develop modules, you can move individually from photo to photo in the filmstrip by using the Right and Left Arrow keys on your keyboard.

Step Five Now we're going to look at how Lightroom organizes its controls. Photoshop (and most other Adobe programs) uses floating palettes, but Lightroom uses these handy expandable panels instead of palettes, and I have to sayI love 'em. I always know where they are, they're not floating in front of my photos, and they tuck out of the way when I don't need them. They couldn't be simpler to useyou just click on the panel header, and its contents expand into view. Here on the left, you see the Library's panels all neatly tucked away. Click once on the Browse by Shoot panel header and the contents expand (as shown on the right).

Step Six So, now you know how to expand one panelwant to know how to expand them all? Just pressand-hold the Command key, then click on any panel header, and they all expand (pop downwhatever). If this causes your panels to extend down so far that you can't see them all, a gray scroll bar appears on the left side of the panel area (as shown hereit extends along the left side down to the word "Violins." To scroll down farther, you'd click-and-drag the bar downward). To tuck them all back up, do the same thingpress-and-hold the Command key and click on any panel header.

Step Seven To view just one panel and have all the rest close automatically (which is great for clearing all the clutter), press-and-hold the Option key and then click on the panel header (as shown here).

Step Eight The little - (minus) and + (plus) signs on the right side of some of the panels are there to let you create or delete new things within that panel. For example, if you want to remove a particular shoot, you'd click on that shoot (you can see the Glassware shoot is selected here) and then click on the minus sign (as shown) to delete it. Of course, it brings up a warning dialog asking if that's what you really want to do (as shown here) just in case you clicked the minus sign accidentally. If you click the plus sign, it just brings up a dialog for you to name your shoot (more on managing your shoots in the next chapterfor now we're just learning how to get around). [View full size image]

Step Nine If you want a larger preview of your image, you can make a few moves that will enable your preview to jump to a larger size. For example, here I have switched over to the Develop module for a single-image preview in the center of the module. To hide just the filmstrip, click on the downward-facing arrow at the bottom center of the Lightroom window, and the filmstrip tucks out of the way (as shown here). It'll stay like that until you click the arrow (which is now upwardfacing) again. [View full size image]

Step Ten You can also resize the panels on the left and right sides of the window. For example, to make the panels on the right larger or smaller, click-and-drag within that black divider line between the photo preview and the panels (as shown here). Just click-and-drag in the direction you want to go (in the example shown here, I clicked-and-dragged to the left, in toward the photo, which made the panels wider). [View full size image]

Step Eleven Now try the left panel. Click-and-drag the divider between the left panel and the photo preview to the right a bit, to make that panel larger, and as you do you'll see that the preview adjusts its position, and gets larger or smaller to compensate for your new layout. If you're working with images that have a landscape orientation, making the panels as thin as possible will have a big difference in the size of your preview. [View full size image]

Step Twelve If you want to work with one of the side panels hidden, just click on the arrow on the far edge of each panel, and they'll stay tucked away until you click on them again (in the example shown here, I hid the adjustment panels on the right). [View full size image]

Step Thirteen By default, Lightroom is like many other Macintosh applicationsit floats in its own separate window

(as shown here). However, there are two different modes that let Lightroom take over as much of your screen real estate as possible. It's great for an application to do this because it makes your photos the real star of the show. [View full size image]

Step Fourteen To see the first mode, press the F key on your keyboard and the window expands to fill the entire screen. This is different than clicking the green zoom button in the title bar on the top-left corner of the floating window (you can see that green Mac OS X window zoom button in the screen capture in Step Thirteen), because although that expands your window as far as possible, it's still a window. You can still see the Mac OS X window title bar across the top of your screen and you can click-and-drag the window as you normally would. Instead, when you press the F key, it tucks that title bar away. It's no longer a floating window and gives you the maximum amount of working space. Well, almost. [View full size image]

Step Fifteen If you press the F key once again, you have even more focus on your working area. Now even the menu bar at the top of the screen is goneit's a wall-to-wall application. [View full size image]

Step Sixteen Now I know what you're thinking, "But what if I need something that's in Lightroom's menu bar?" (See, I knew you were thinking that.) Just move your cursor up to the top of your screen and the

menu bar will temporarily pop down (as shown here). What's nice is, it doesn't shrink or move the work area downit literally pops down over the work area (you can see it's cutting off the top of the letters in the words "Adobe Lightroom" in the top-left corner of the screen). If you like this full-screen uncluttered look, then you're really going to love what's coming next. [View full size image]

Putting the Focus on Your Photos Picking the right photo is an art and Lightroom gives you some of the best options for viewing your photos, and making them the star of the show, while the software's interface and panels can kind of "step off stage," if you like. You've got a lot of choices, including some I've never seen in any application before, and I think you'll be surprised at how clever some of them are.

Step One Press Command-1 to switch to the Library module, then double-click on one of your photo thumbnails. Press the F key twice, so Lightroom takes up the full screen. Now, press the Tab key on your keyboard and you'll notice that the panels on both sides of your photo are tucked away out of sight, putting your photo on center stage. I love this view because the filmstrip is still visible and you can view other photos in this unobstructed view by just clicking on them in the filmstrip (or using the filmstrip shortcuts we learned earlier). [View full size image]

Step Two If you just want to see your photo, all by itself, without any distractions whatsoever, then press Shift-Tab, which not only hides the panels, but hides the filmstrip at the bottom as well (as shown here).

Step Three What's nice about this mode is that although your image is center stage, to get to either of the hidden panels on the sides, just move your cursor over to where the panels used to be and they pop right out. In the example shown here, I moved my cursor over to the right side of the screen and the panels pop out from the right side. Move your cursor away (back near the center of the screen) and the panels tuck back out of sight. [View full size image]

Step Four Now, what if you want the panels to stay open and not pop back out of sight when you move your cursor over to them? Just click directly on the little left-facing arrow that appears on the far rightcenter of the Panels area (circled in red here) and the arrow flips to the right (as shown) letting you know that the panels on that side are now locked into place. To have them tuck back in again, click the same arrow. You can lock down either the left or right set of panels by clicking on their respective side center arrows.

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Step Five Okay, press the F key and then Shift-Tab to get back to the regular floating window mode. Click on a different photo in the filmstrip (just so we don't get bored looking at the same photo over and over again). Now we'll use one of the out-and-out coolest view features in Lightroom (or in any program for that matter). There are actually really two view modesthe first is called Dim mode. Just press the L key and everything but your photo is dimmed, leaving your photo at full brightness. [View full size image]

Step Six So, we've dimmed the screenbig deal, right? Well, the big deal part comes in when you find out that although the panels, filmstrip, and controls are all dimmed, they're also still active. Try it while we're in this dimmed modego ahead and click on a different photo in the filmstrip and it appears. Click on a control in one of the panelsopen a panel, close a panel, move a sliderit all works even though it's dimmed. How slick is that? And if that weren't enough, there's yet another mode. [View full size image]

Step Seven The other mode is called Lights Out, where everything is blacked out (not just dimmed, but blacked out) except for your photo. You get into this mode by pressing the L key again (so normally, to get here you'd press the L key twice). Although you can't see the panels and filmstrip in this mode, you can switch to the next photo in the filmstrip by pressing the Left and Right Arrow keys on your keyboard.

Step Eight While you can't see any options in Lights Out mode, you still have access to them. Just move your cursor to the top of the screen, and the menu bar pops down and stays there until you move your cursor away. To temporarily access all the panels and filmstrip, move your cursor to the bottom of the screen, and you temporarily enter the regular view mode, so you can see the filmstrip and make selections from it. When you move your cursor back upward, you re-enter Lights Out mode. (Note: This temporary view will only work if your filmstrip is minimized before entering Lights Out mode.) To leave Lights Out mode completely and return to the regular view mode, press the L key again. [View full size image]

Adding Your Studio's Identity to Lightroom's Interface There may be another application that has this feature, but I sure haven't seen it. It's called the Identity Plate, and what it does (among other things that you'll learn later on in this book) is replace the Adobe Lightroom nameplate (which appears in the upper-left corner of the window) with either your name, your studio's name, or even a graphic of your logo. It really does a great job of giving the appearance that you're using a program created especially for your studio.

Step One Here's the standard Adobe identity nameplate that appears in the top-left corner of the Lightroom interface. To customize this nameplate, go under the Lightroom menu and choose Identity Plate Setup.

Step Two This brings up the Identity Plate Editor (shown here). The first thing you need to do is turn on the Enable Identity Plate checkbox in the upper-left corner of the dialog. Now, whatever you enter in the name field (the large black text field on the left) will appear where "Adobe Lightroom" used to appear in the Lightroom window. By default, whatever you enter in the name field appears in the font Zapfino, but you can change that (as you'll soon see). By the way, if you change the font, you can also change the fonts the module names are displayed in (in the text field on the right), so that they either match or at least complement each other. [View full size image]

Step Three If you want to change the typeface, just highlight the type (you can choose different fonts for different words, as shown here where I'm using the same fonts Adobe does: Minion and Myriad) and then click the Font Panel button, which appears under the type field on the left side of the dialog. This brings up a Font panel where you can choose your type-face, size, and color. [View full size image]

Step Four Here's how the new nameplate will look within Lightroom once you click OK, if you just edit the type and change the font. [View full size image]

Step Five If you prefer to use a graphic, rather than just text, then turn on the Use a Graphical Identity Plate radio button above the name field. Then click-and-drag your graphic (most popular file formats are supported) right into the name field (or click the Locate File button). Just make sure the graphic is not more than 60 pixels high. [View full size image]

Chapter 3. Library Organizing Your Photos

The first module you wind up using in Adobe Lightroom is usually the Library moduleit's where you go to sort and organize your photos. Now, here's the thing. While what you're supposed to do here is organize your photos, very few people have the intestinal fortitude to actually do itto actually go through all their images, and tag each and every one with keywords and custom metadata. My hat's off to these meticulous people (freaks), but I'm not one of them. That's because as soon as I import my photos, I take a quick look at 'em, separate the good from the bad, and then start messing with the good ones in the Develop, Slideshow, and Print modules. Those are the party modules. That's where the fun is, so I hang out there (it's kind of like the Rain® Nightclub in Vegas, only without all the celebrities, flashing lights, music, and liquor. Okay, there's some liquor, but not all that much). You know who uses the Library module to its fullest extent? People who have a metabolic predisposition to become serial killersthem and molecular biologists. I don't know why. Anyway, maybe I'm just speaking for myself here, because honestly, I couldn't keep track of all my photos if they had my name and phone number embedded in them with a microchip tracking device. I guess it's because I don't care about my bad photos. I only care about my good photos (you know, the ones that are "large and complex"), so I don't want to waste my time tagging photos I'm probably never going to use for anything other than my work in molecular biology.

Separating the Keepers from the Losers One of the most important parts of the digital photography workflow happens right after you've imported your photos, and that is sorting the "keepers" (your best shots from a shoot) from the "losers" (the shots that hopefully will never be seen by anyone, including your dog). Photo editing (separating the good from the bad) is an art. In fact, many people make their living at magazines as professional photo editors, and luckily this is an area where Lightroom really shines, because it makes what could be a task into an awful lot of fun.

Step One Sorting takes place in the Library module, so if you're not already there, press Command-1. Then in the Browse by Shoot panel on the left side of the module, click on one of your recently imported shoots (as shown here). We'll start by finding the keepers in this shoot. We do this by starting in the Grid view, which displays small thumbnails of all the shoot's images in the Preview area in the center of the screen.

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Step Two

Here's a close-up of just the Preview area in Grid view. The size of the thumbnails in the Grid view is determined by the Grid Size slider (shown circled here in red). To shrink the size of the thumbnails (and fit more thumbnails within the grid), drag the slider to the left. To make the thumbnails larger, drag it to the right.

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Step Three To check the sharpness of your image, you're going to want to zoom in close, and to do that you'll use Lightroom's Loupe view. To view your image in Loupe view, just double-click directly on that photo's thumbnail, or select an image and press either the Loupe view button found beneath the Panels area on the left side of the window or the E key (the Loupe view shortcut). This makes your selected photo fill the Preview area (as shown here). If you want to view other photos while still in Loupe view, just use the Left and Right Arrow keys on your keyboard. [View full size image]

Step Four If you want to zoom in even closer, just click your cursor right on the spot where you want to zoom in to, and your image instantly zooms in to give you a 1:1 view of that area. To quickly zoom back out to the standard Loupe view, just click anywhere on the image. [View full size image]

Tip

To return to Grid view (and see all your thumbnails again), just press the G key on your keyboard (of course, you could also click the Grid view button that appears under the Panels area on the left side of Lightroom's window, but pressing the G key is faster).

Step Five Besides just clicking to zoom in on a photo, there's another way to inspect your photo up close, and that's to pan around your zoomed-in image by clicking-and-dragging the zoom square. The zoom square appears in the smaller preview window at the top right of Lightroom's interface. Just click within the square and drag it around in the preview window. As you drag, the area that appears within the zoom square is displayed at full 1:1 size within the center Preview area. Remember, if you want to return to the standard Loupe view, just click anywhere on the image within the center Preview area. [View full size image]

Step Six Now that you know how to view your image up close (again, that's critical for viewing the sharpness of your photos), it's time to get down to business and find those keepers. We do this in Compare view (C), and if you're already in Loupe view (in other words, there's only one image open in the Preview area), you're just one click away. Just press-and-hold the Command key and in the filmstrip, click on the photo that you want to compare with the photo you currently have onscreen. Once you click that photo, the two images appear side-by-side onscreen (as shown here), so you can easily make comparisons. [View full size image]

Step Seven Want to add a third, fourth, or more photos to compare onscreen? Just press-and-hold the Command key and click on those photos in the filmstrip as well, and they'll join the two photos already being viewed in Compare view. [View full size image]

Step Eight Stuffing all these photos onscreen at the same time can get pretty crowded. That's why I

recommend hiding the panels and the filmstrip (press Shift-Tab) when reviewing more than two photos at one time in Compare view. The photos are then large enough for you to really make smart decisions on which ones make the cut. [View full size image]

Step Nine All right, now that you've got your photos onscreen at a decent size (thanks to having the panels and filmstrip hidden), how do you remove one of the photos under review when it doesn't make the cut? You can do it one of two ways: (1) move your cursor over the photo you want to remove from contention and click on the tiny X that appears just below the photo's lower-right corner, or (2) press-and-hold the Command key and click on the photo you want to remove. Now, I'm down to just three photos (as shown here). [View full size image]

Step Ten So, that's the processto remove a photo from the Preview area in Compare view, Command-click on it. To add another photo to be compared (while you're in this panel-and-filmstrip-hidden view), move your cursor down to the bottom of the screen (so the filmstrip temporarily appears, as shown here) and Command-click on any photo you want to add. Now, there's another way to enter this Compare view, and that's to enter it directly from the Grid view, so first let's get back to the Grid view by pressing the G key, then press Shift-Tab to bring back your panels and filmstrip. [View full size image]

Step Eleven To enter Compare view from here in Grid view, you have two choices: (1) you can Command-click on the thumbnails of the photos you want to compare, then press the letter C, or (2) Commandclick on the photos you want to compare, then press the Compare view button on the lower-left side of Lightroom's window. [View full size image]

Step Twelve One last thing about Compare view while you're in Compare view there are going to be times when you need to take a closer look at one of the photos you're comparing. No sweat, just click on that photo, press the letter Z, and it takes you to a zoomed Loupe view of the photo. Once you've seen what you needed to see, press the letter Z again, and you'll return to Compare view with the same photos selected. Pressing the letter Z is the shortcut for toggling between a zoomed Loupe view and the previous viewin this case you toggled between Compare view and a zoomed Loupe view. [View full size image]

Sorting Your Photos in the Grid View The Grid view in the Library module is where most of your sorting will take place and there are a few key things you need to know about the sorting process that will keep you from pulling your hair out. Here's how to start managing your images with ease.

Step One Lightroom automatically sorts your photos in the Grid view, either by the time and date they were taken or by star ratings you assign to your photos. By default, it sorts by time and date, but you can choose whether you want your photos to appear in ascending order (starting with the most recently taken photo in the top-left corner of the Preview area, followed by the next most recent, etc.), or you can go under the View menu, under Sort, and choose Descending (as shown here) to have the oldest photo in the first position. [View full size image]

Step Two The other method of sorting (since you can't just drag the thumbnails into the order you want at this point in Lightroom's development) is to give your photos a 1- to 5-star rating (with 5 being the best). Assigning ratings is easyjust click on the thumbnail, then press either 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 on your keyboard to assign a rating. When you do this, you'll see a message appear near the bottom of the Preview area confirming that your rating has been applied (as shown here). To remove a rating, press the 0 (zero) key.

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Step Three Now, you're probably wondering why you just assigned a star rating and yet your photo didn't jump to the top? It's because you have to change your sorting choice to sort by rating. To do that, go under the View menu, under Sort, and choose Rating (as shown here). Now, if you want your highest-rated photos to appear first (at the top left of the Preview area), then you'll also need to make sure the sort is set to Descending (also found in the View menu, under Sort), so the 5-star photos appear first, and then the photos sort in a descending order down to 1 star (with the unrated photos appearing after the 1-star photos). [View full size image]

Step Four To save time, you can rate more than one photo at a timejust press-and-hold the Command key, click on all the photos you want to have the same rating (as shown here), and then press the number key on your keyboard for the rating you want them all to have. [View full size image]

Step Five Another way to apply ratings to photos is to make the star ratings visible under each photo's thumbnail, and then click directly on the rating you want to apply. To have the ratings appear under the thumbnails, click on the View Options panel header on the left side of the Lightroom window and the view options will appear (as shown here). Once the view options appear, make sure the Show Extras checkbox is turned on, and then turn on the Rating checkbox to make the star ratings appear below the thumbnails. When you move your cursor over photo thumbnails in the Preview area, photos that haven't been rated yet will have five tiny dots below them. To add a 4-star rating to a photo, click on the fourth dot. To give a photo a 3-star rating, click on the third dot, and so on. To remove a rating, click on the small circle to the left of the first star. [View full size image]

Step Six Using ratings can be really handy for sorting your images because once you've assigned ratings, you can use the Minimum Rating slider (shown circled in red here) so that only your highest-rated photos are displayed. The slider appears in the Search panel, just below the Search field, and when the slider is all the way to the left, all your photos, regardless of their rating, are displayed. As you click-and-drag the slider to the right, it raises the minimum rating. So, click-and-drag the slider to the right until it shows a 4, and then only your 4-star or higher rated photos will still be visible in the Preview area (as shown). [View full size image]

Step Seven You can also apply ratings in Loupe view and even in Compare view, by clicking on the dots in the Info panel on the right side of the Lightroom window (circled here), or by pressing a number key on your keyboard. In Compare view, you can also click on the dots beneath each image. Since right now we're narrowing your photo selections by using the Minimum Rating slider set to 4 or more stars, when you're in Loupe or Compare view, only the photos that currently have a rating of 4 stars or more will appear in the filmstrip. [View full size image]

Step Eight

One last thing before we leave this section. If you want to rotate the orientation of your photos (while you're in Grid view), you have two choices. First, turn on the Rotation checkbox in the View Options panel. Then when you move your cursor over a thumbnail in the Preview area, two small rotation icons will appear in both lower corners of the thumbnail (I've blown up two thumb-nails here, so you can see them better). Click on the left rotation icon and the photo rotates counterclockwise. Click the right rotation icon and it rotates clockwise. My advice? Leave this turned off, because there's a better wayjust press-and-hold the Option key and click on your thumbnail and each click rotates your thumbnail by 90°.

One-Click Sorting by Using Collections When you're sorting your photos, there are going to be plenty of times where you just want to focus on a particular group of images. Maybe it's all your best shots from a shoot, or maybe it's all your black-and-white shots, or maybe you want to decide which photos you want print. Luckily, you can make all of these groups of photos just one click away by using collections (which are there every time you fire up Lightroom) or Quick Collections, which are temporary collections you use just when you need them.

Step One Another way to quickly separate out your best photos is to create a Quick Collection of just those photos. Here's how it's done: As you're looking at your photos (in any viewGrid, Loupe, or Compare), when you come across one you like, just press the B key on your keyboard and that photo is added to your Quick Collection (it's like flagging your best photos). If you have the Quick Collection Marker checkbox turned on in the View Options panel, you'll see a black dot appear in the upper-left corner of your thumbnail (circled here in red) to let you know that it was added to your Quick Collection. [View full size image]

Step Two Now, to see just the photos you've flagged, click on Show Quick Collection (as shown here), which appears in the Photo Library panel on the top-left side of the Lightroom window (or just press Command-B). To remove a photo from your Quick Collection, just click on the little black dot again, or click on the photo and press the letter B again, or just click on the photo and press the

Delete key on your keyboard (don't worry, this only deletes the photo from this Quick Collectionnot from your Library of photos). [View full size image]

Step Three Quick Collections are great for helping you quickly rate your best photos. Now that your best photos from your shoot are in this Quick Collection, you can instantly give them all a 5-star rating by simply pressing Command-A to select all the photos, then pressing the number 5 to assign a 5-star rating to them all. Another cool thing about using Quick Collections is that once you've got one, you can create an instant slide show of just those photos by going under the Library menu and choosing Impromptu Slideshow. In just seconds, you'll see a full-screen slide show with transitions (to cancel this slide show, press the Esc key). [View full size image]

Step Four Once you've used the trick above to quickly rate your best photos, you can then clear your temporary Quick Collection (so you can use it later for sorting other photos). You can do this by either clicking on Options, in the bottom-left corner of Lightroom's window, and choosing Clear Quick Collection from the pop-up menu, or just pressing Command-Shift-B. You can also use the Options pop-up menu to add photos to your Quick Collection, but using the keyboard shortcuts is just so much faster.

Step Five Quick Collections are temporary collectionsjust a tool to help you temporarily sort your images or to make an impromptu slide show. But if you've come up with a Quick Collection that you'd like to keep for future reference, just transfer it to a regular collection so it's always just one click away. Here's how: Go to the Browse Collections panel (it's in the group of panels on the left side of Lightroom) and click on the large + (plus sign), as shown here circled in red. This brings up the Create Collection dialog where you can name your new collection (as shown). Enter a name and click the Create button. [View full size image]

Step Six Now, if you're not still viewing it, press Command-B to jump back to your Quick Collection. Press Command-A (the shortcut for Select All) to select all the photos in your Quick Collection. Next, click-and-drag on any one of those photos and they all drag together as a group (you'll see a tiny thumbnail appear as you drag that shows a stack of photos, as shown here circled in red). Clickand-drag this group of photos over to the Browse Collections panel and drop (release the mouse button) them right on the collection you created in the previous step. [View full size image]

Step Seven Now, just to make sure that the transfer from your Quick Collection to a permanent collection

worked, it's not a bad idea to quickly click on Show Entire Library in the Photo Library panel (so you see all your photos). Then, in the Browse Collections panel, click on your new collection (as shown here), just to make sure your photos really made it in there. I know, it's kind of paranoid, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. But I digress. Once you've confirmed that your photos made it into your new collection, you can clear out the Quick Collection by pressing Command-Shift-B or by choosing Clear Quick Collection from the Options pop-up menu on the bottom left of the Lightroom window. [View full size image]

Step Eight There are a few things you'll want to know about collections. First, as long as you're in the Grid view, you can add photos to your collection by just dragging-and-dropping them right onto your collection. To remove a photo from your collection, click on it and press the Delete key. This only removes the photo from your collectionnot from your main Library. If you do, in fact, want to remove a photo both from the collection and from your Library (meaning you're going to move the photo to the Trash and delete it for good), then press Command-Delete. You'll get a warning dialog (as shown here) just to let you know this photo is really going away for good. To delete a collection, click on the collection, and then click the (minus sign) on the right side of the Browse Collections panel. To rename a collection, just double-click directly on its name in the Browse Collections panel. [View full size image]

Staying Organized by Assigning Keywords One of the biggest challenges in managing thousands of images is finding the exact photo (or photos) right when you need it. Luckily, you can stay totally organized, and find the right photos fast, by simply applying keywords to your photos. It takes just a small amount of time up front, but it can save you hours every week and potentially extend your life by several years by removing a special level of frustration and stress that appears after searching for hours to find a photo you know is in there...somewhere. Ask your doctor.

Step One To create a keyword, go to the Browse Keywords panel (on the left side of Lightroom's window) and click on the large + (plus sign), as shown here. This brings up the Create Keyword dialog where you can type in the keyword you want to assign to one or more photos in your Library, then click the Create button to create this keyword. [View full size image]

Step Two You can assign a keyword to a photo in the same way you add a photo to a collection. In Grid view, just drag-and-drop a photo from the Preview area right onto the keyword you want assigned to it in the Browse Keywords panel (as shown here). You can do the same selectmultiple-photos-and-drag-and-drop trick as you did with collections. [View full size image]

Step Three Unlike collections, there's another way to assign keywords and you might actually like this way better (I certainly do). Instead of dragging the photos to the Browse Keywords panel and trying to hit that thin little panel, you can actually drag the keyword itself and drop it on your photos, as shown here (a thick black border appears around your thumbnail letting you know you've targeted that photo). I like this method better because thumbnails make a much larger and easier target to hit. You can still select multiple photos (Command-click on them) and drag-and-drop the keyword on any selected photo, and they'll all be tagged with that keyword. [View full size image]

Step Four

Now when you want to instantly see the photos that are tagged with a particular keyword, just click on that keyword. In the example shown here, I clicked on Acoustic and now only the guitars labeled acoustic in my Library appear. [View full size image]

Step Five Of course, the real strength of keywords is when you add more than just one, so you can quickly drill down and find just the photos you're looking for. For example, here I've added 10 more keywords, and dragged-and-dropped them on the appropriate photos. So, if for example, I wanted to see just my bass guitars, I'd click on the Bass Guitars keyword (as shown here) and instantly all my bass guitars, and only my bass guitars, are displayed. Even better, since you can assign multiple keywords to photos, my first bass guitar images show up not only under Bass Guitars, but also under Black Guitars and Flat Views. [View full size image]

Step Six Another advantage of creating and assigning keywords is that now you can search your entire library by simply typing in a name. For example, want to find all the guitars that are red? Go to the Search panel (shown circled here) and just type in "red." Now every red guitar shows up instantly. This keywording is great for tagging photos of family members (for example, my son is named Jordan, so I can instantly find every photo of Jordan just by typing his name in the Search field). [View full size image]

Step Seven Just a reminder, you can save yourself some time by assigning some of your keywords when you

first import your photos. For example, if you were importing a shoot of just one guitar, you could automatically tag all those shots with descriptive keywords from right within Lightroom's Import Photos dialog (shown here). There's a Keywords field for typing in the keywords you want (it's circled here in red). Just type in your desired keywords, separated by a comma, and once they're imported those keywords will be added to your Browse Keywords panel to make sorting easy, plus you can use the Search field to find images tagged with those keywords. [View full size image]

Step Eight To see the keywords you have assigned to a photo, just go to the Info panel, on the right side of Lightroom's interface under the Histogram (you may have to scroll the panels down a bit to reveal the Info panel). In the Info panel, you'll see a field that not only lists the keywords assigned to the currently selected photo, you can also add additional keywords by just clicking in the Keywords field (shown circled in red) and typing in your desired keywords. Also, keywords that you enter in this field are automatically added to the Browse Keywords panel. Once you get in the habit of adding keywords to photos, you'll be amazed at how quickly you can get right to the photo (or photos) you're looking for. [View full size image]

Chapter 4. Quick Develop Making Minor Adjustments

I know we'd like to think that every shot we take is worthy of the same level of careful color correction and individual selective sharpening, but the sad reality is some of our photos just don't require it. Not every photo we take is destined to hang in some famous gallery. Some photos, like those taken for insurance claim purposes after a fender bender in your car, will only wind up being shown in some of the smaller galleries, fetching only a few hundred dollarsperhaps a thousand on rare occasion but they have little chance of competing with your more serious pieces. It's those instances where you have to decide, "Do I really need to go into the Develop module and process the living daylights out of this puppy or can I just click a few buttons here in the Library module's Quick Develop panel and be done with it?" It's an age-old question, but you can make the decision easier if you take the time to ask yourself a few questions beforehand. First, ask yourself this, "When this shot of my dented fender is displayed, will it be exposed to high ultraviolet light content, and will that affect its overall sale price?" If the answer is "No," then you can safely correct this photo using the Library module's Quick Develop panel. However, if the answer is "Yes," then in order to maintain consistent color rendition you need to give careful consideration to the spill and angle of the fill lights in the gallery and whether using an undimmed, low-voltage 20W dichroic lamp will minimize any potential fluctuation in the color temperature. By the way, I have no idea what any of that means.

Using Quick Develop for Quick Fixes Some photos need lots of work, and usually the more important the photo, the more tweaking it gets. But when you've got photos that need just quick minor adjustments, you can do them from right within the Library module itself using the Quick Develop panel, which gives you simple oneclick adjustments for everything from Exposure to White Balance to black-and-white conversions. When you need minor simple changes, this is where to start.

Step One The Quick Develop panel appears just below the Histogram on the right side of Lightroom's interface. If you only see the words Quick Develop but don't see a list of controls under it, just click in the bar with the words Quick Develop (as shown here) and the controls will pop down.

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Step Two There's a Preset pop-up menu at the top of the Quick Develop panel, but most of these presets are special effects, like sepia tone effects, grayscale conversions, etc. More on these later, but for now we're going to focus on the most likely adjustments your photos are going to need: White Balance and Exposure. Since the photo we're using is so underexposed, we'll start by adjusting

the Exposure first.

Step Three Each of the Quick Develop adjustment setting controls has three buttons: the left arrow decreases the adjustment, the right arrow increases it, and the center button resets that particular adjustment to how it was set before you made any adjustments. We'll start with the Exposure setting, so click the right arrow once. You can see the image now appears somewhat brighter. Each time you click the right arrow, the overall exposure of the photo will get brighter. I had to click on the right arrow six times to get the exposure just about right (as shown here). [View full size image]

Step Four

If you're squeamish about making your own adjustments, there is an Auto button (shown here), which applies an automatic adjustment, but it only applies the Auto setting to the Exposureit doesn't affect the Brightness, Contrast, or Saturation settings. Now, I have to be honest with youI'm not a big fan of this Auto setting (at this point anyway). The changes either seem too subtle or too extreme, but so far I haven't had one that looked about right. Go ahead and open a few images, try the Auto button, and see what you think. If it works for you, don't be afraid to use it, but my guess is you're not going to fall in love with it. In fact, since the Quick Develop panel gives you kind of crude pushbutton adjustments, I doubt you'll use this entire section for much more than adjusting snapshots from your vacation taken with your point-and-shoot camera, rather than images you're shooting with your D2X or 1D Mark II.

Step Five The other three tonal controls in the Quick Develop panel work the same way, (meaning you click the right arrow to increase their effect, left to decrease, center button to reset). Under the Exposure controls is the Brightness, which controls the overall brightness of the photo. Under that is the Contrast, and increasing the Contrast setting does just thatit increases the contrast (as shown here), making the shadows darker and the highlights brighter. [View full size image]

Step Six The last control, Saturation, makes the colors more saturated each time you press the right arrow, and less saturated when you click the left arrow. If you click the left arrow enough times, you'll remove all the color, making it a black-and-white photo. However, if that's what you're after (a black-and-white photo), you'll get better results by turning on the Convert Photograph to Grayscale check-box (circled in red here).

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Step Seven By the way, don't worry about trying things like a grayscale conversion, or tweaking your colors, or any kind of tonal correction, because everything you do in Quick Develop is non-destructive. You're always just one click away from returning to the original unedited photo by clicking the Reset button that appears at the bottom of the Quick Develop panel (it's shown circled in red here). [View full size image]

Step Eight Another thing you'll wind up using a lot within Quick Develop is the White Balance control. The

reason this control is so important is this: unless you go and set the white balance manually in your camera to match the lighting conditions of where you're shooting, chances are your white balance is set to Auto. That means in challenging lighting situations, like this indoor shot under fluorescent lighting (which makes everything look kind of yellow), having the ability to fix your white balance after the fact is huge. By default, As Shot (in the camera) white balance is displayed as the current White Balance setting. If you click on the White Balance pop-up menu (as shown here), you see the list of white balance settings you can apply.

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Step Nine If we had set the white balance to Fluorescent in the camera, we wouldn't have that yellow cast, but that's easy enough to fixjust choose Fluorescent from the White Balance pop-up menu (as shown here) and you can see how the yellow cast has been neutralized (which is fancy digital talk for "it's gone"). Compare this photo with the one in the previous step, and you'll see how much good the right white balance setting can do. [View full size image]

Step Ten I mentioned earlier that the Quick Develop controls are kind of crude you can only click a few times, and the photo either looks good or it doesn't. However, the Develop module of Lightroom is full-powered, containing all the RAW processing controls of Adobe Photoshop's Camera Raw, and more! So, if you make some adjustments in Quick Develop and you're not getting the results you hoped for, you can keep the edits you've applied in Quick Develop and continue editing the photo over in the more powerful Develop module. To do that, scroll down a little further in the Quick Develop panel and you'll see the phrase "Continue work in the Develop module." That's not just a phrase, that phrase is actually a button you can click on (move your cursor over it and you'll see it highlight). Click on that to continue editing your photo in the Develop module.

Step Eleven

Okay, so now that you've had a chance to edit your images using Quick Develop's Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation controls, along with setting the White Balance and converting your images to grayscale, you're now ready to use the presets, which give you both tonal corrections (like you've been doing) and some special effects. These are found at the top of the Quick Develop paneljust click anywhere to the right of the word Preset and a pop-up menu will appear (as shown here) with a list of preset corrections and effects (put there by Adobe).

Step Twelve Just so you can see how the presets work, go ahead and open a photo, and choose Sepia Tone from the Preset popup menu (as shown here), and you can see the instant results. The photo is first converted to a black-and-white, and then a sepia tint is added to the photo. There are no buttons to push, no decisions to makeit's a preset. However, if you want to tweak the photo now, you canjust click on the Exposure arrows, or the Contrast arrows, etc. What's nice about this is you can use the presets as a starting point, and then tweak the image to your liking with just a few quick clicks. [View full size image]

Editing Multiple Images the Easy Way With digital photography, and "free" film, we're pressing that shutter release more than ever and instead of just editing 24 or 36 photos, we're importing and editing hundreds. That's why it's so important to be able to edit one photo and apply those same edits to dozens, or even hundreds, of photos taken under similar lighting conditions. Here are a few different ways to make an edit once and have it applied to as many photos as you'd like, quickly and easily.

Step One If you want to make the exact same change to a number of similar photos, then this couldn't be easier: you start by Command-clicking on all the photos you want to have the exact same adjustments applied to (as shown here).

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Step Two Now, just head over to the Quick Develop panel and any changes you make here will automatically be applied to every selected photo (here I just simply turned on the Convert Photograph to Grayscale checkbox, and all the selected photos are then converted to grayscale, as shown here).

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Step Three More likely, you'll be performing your edits all on one photo, and then if you're happy with some or all of your edits, you'll choose which other photos you want to have those same edits applied to. Start by choosing a photo and then make your adjustments in the Quick Develop panel (in the example shown here, I increased the exposure and contrast by clicking on the right arrow button for each setting three times. I changed the white balance to Cloudy by choosing it from the White Balance pop-up menu, and then I lowered the saturation a bit to remove some of the green from the photo). Now, click on the Copy Settings button (shown circled in red here). [View full size image]

Step Four This brings up the Copy Settings dialog (shown here). This is where you get to choose which of the adjustments you applied to the first photo that you want applied to other photos you select. (Note: If most of the checkboxes here sound unfamiliar, it's because most of them are in the full Develop module, instead of just Quick Develop.) I want to apply just some of the changes I made to the other photo, so first click the Check None button (so all the choices are unchecked), then only turn on the checkboxes for White Balance and Saturation, and then click the Copy button. Now, only those two edits are copied into memorymy exposure and contrast changes are ignored.

Step Five Press-and-hold the Command key, go to the Grid view, and click on all the photos that you want to have the same white balance and saturation changes applied to. Now, near the bottom of the Quick Develop panel, click on Paste Settings (it's shown circled in red), and just those two corrections that you applied to the first image will now be applied to all your selected images (as shown here). [View full size image]

Step Six If you've got hundreds (or thousands) of photos to process, instead of copying-and-pasting your changes from one photo to a group of other photos (too slow), try Synchronize, which works particularly well when all your photos are in the same collection. Here's how it works: You click on the photo that has the look you like (in this case, I just applied the Antique Grayscale preset to one image), then press Command-A to select all the other photos in your collection (or Quick Collection). You'll notice that your selected photo has a thicker white border around it, so you know which photo is your source for the changes. Now press the Synchronize button (shown here circled in red). [View full size image]

Step Seven As you can see, the Synchronize Settings dialog looks exactly like the Copy Settings dialog. In this case, since we used a preset, I'm not sure which settings where actually used, so click the Check All button (so we're sure we got everything), then click the Synchronize button (as shown here).

Step Eight Now those edits are applied to every other photo in your collection (as shown here). [View full size image]

Chapter 5. Develop Making Serious Adjustments

Everything we have done up to this point every click of a button, every slide of a slider, every drag of a dragster, has all been leading up to this one single moment. The moment when you leave the relative safety and comfort of the Library module and venture into a wild, untamed territory that many seek but only few survive. This, my friends, is the Develop modulea scary and intimidating place with more complicated-looking buttons, checkboxes, and sliders than the Space Shuttle and a 747 combined. Now, if you're thinking that all this looks too technical and advanced for you, you're right. Nobody understands this module. I don't know what it does. Adobe doesn't know. I think a lot of the sliders are just put there for looks, and moving them doesn't actually affect anything in the photo whatsoever. For example, try moving the Deflatulator slider all the way to the right. I'm not sure it really does anything, but it sure took the wind out of me. Okay, that was pretty lame, but waitI have more. Open an image shot in RAW format, set your

Exposure and Shadows, then try dragging the Cutlery Sharpening Amount to 75%. I'll bet your image still looks dull, and it just doesn't cut it. Are you getting any of these puns? I hope you are, because I swear, they're cracking me up.

The Basic Adjustments Aren't Basic You use the Develop module when you've got some serious adjusting to do, so don't be fooled just because the first adjustment panel on the right side is named Basic. Those "Basic" controls are the same controls found in Adobe Photoshop's acclaimed Camera Raw plug-in, and give you the same power the industry's top pros use to process their RAW images (but in your case, you can also process JPEGs and TIFFs the same way). This panel should be renamed "Essentials" or "Critical" or simply "Start Here" because the term Basic is a bit misleading.

Step One In the Library module, click on the photo you want to do some serious adjusting to, then press Command-2 to jump to the Develop module. We'll start with the Basic adjustments (make sure you read the intro above so you understand that these are the most important, and most often used, adjustmentsnot basic ones). Like the Quick Develop panel, the Basic panel lets you choose a new white balance setting from the White Balance pop-up menu (as shown here).

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Step Two The big difference between Quick Develop's White Balance and the Basic panel's White Balance is

that here in the Develop module, you have more than just a pop-up menuyou can create custom white balance settings using the two White Balance sliders circled in the close-up of the Basic panel shown here. The Saturation slider looks like it's part of the White Balance controls, but it's not (more on that in a moment).

Step Three Adobe added a very helpful feature to the White Balance sliders, one that even Photoshop doesn't have, and that is both the Temperature and Tint sliders give you a visual clue what the sliders do. For example, take a look at the Temperature slidersee the color bar inside the slider? That tells you which way the temperature of your photo will be affected if you drag in that direction. Here, we dragged the Temperature slider toward the yellow side of the slider, and as you can see from the photo, the entire photo is now warmer and more yellow. [View full size image]

Tip Even if you start by selecting a preset White Balance from the pop-up menu, you can edit that preset setting by moving the Temperature and Tint sliders.

Step Four If you want to cool off the white balance a bit, rather than using the Tungsten or Fluorescent presets on the White Balance pop-up menu, you can get just the amount of cooling you want by dragging the Temperature slider to the left, toward the blue (as shown here). Again, all you have to do is look at the color there in the slider itself to see which way to drag. In most cases, you'll either want to warm up an image (by dragging the Temperature slider to the right, toward yellow), or cool it down (by dragging the Temperature slider to the left). However, if you want to have more of a green or magenta white balance (hey, it could happen), then use the Tint slider and drag toward the color you want. [View full size image]

Step Five Don't ever hesitate to try different White Balance settings, because you can always return to the original "as shot" setting by choosing As Shot from the White Balance pop-up menu (as shown here). Plus, if all you've adjusted at this point is the White Balance, you can click the Reset button that appears just below the panels themselves in the bottom right-hand corner of the Develop module's Panels area (shown circled here). This Reset button is always there while you're working in the Develop module, so anytime you need to start over just click directly on it and all your edits are undone. That's the whole non-destructive editing thing in action. [View full size image]

Step Six If you want a more precise way to set the white balance, try the White Balance tool (which looks like an Eyedropper, and is located at the bottom of the Panels areait's shown circled here). Here's how it works: Click the White Balance tool, then move your cursor out over your image and click on an area of your image that is a light gray (I clicked on the door on the left here). I know, you'd figure that you'd click on something white, right? But that's the way it works, so click on something light gray. That's itit sets your white balance for you. If you don't like the way your photo looks after clicking, then either try clicking somewhere else (a different gray area) or choose As Shot from the White Balance pop-up menu, then try again. [View full size image]

Step Seven The Saturation slider controls the overall saturation of colors in your document, so if your colors are looking drab and washed out, you could "pump up the volume" by dragging the Saturation slider to the right (here I dragged it all the way to the right, and the photo is way oversaturated, as you can see). If you drag the slider to the left, it makes all the colors in your photo less intense (it desaturates them). [View full size image]

Step Eight If you drag the Saturation slider all the way to the left, it removes all the color, and gives you a black-and-white image. However, this is not the method you'd want to use to create color to black-and-white conversions because there are much better ways that give you much better results (as you'll see later in this chapter). [View full size image]

Tip

If you feel like the sliders in Lightroom are too broad and don't give you precise enough control, then you'll love the finer control you get by using "scrubby sliders." Just move your cursor directly over the numbers to the right of the sliders, then click, hold, and drag left or right and the numbers will move one digit at a time.

Step Nine The next important slider in the Basic panel is the Exposure slider (shown circled here), which lets you set the white point for your image. Dragging the Exposure slider to the right increases the overall exposure (as shown here, where the image is much brighter), and dragging to the left decreases the exposure. Again, you get a visual cue by looking at the sliders themselves, because white is on the right side of the slider (indicating that dragging that way would make this adjustment lighter), and black is on the left side of the slider (indicating that dragging to the left would make your image darker). [View full size image]

Step Ten To get the best possible highlights, our goal is to drag the Exposure slider as far to the right as possible without blowing out the highlights (which causes loss of detail). To keep you from doing that, Lightroom gives you two types of warnings. If you press-and-hold the Option key before you start dragging the Exposure slider, your image turns black (as shown here) and as you drag to the right (increasing the exposure) any colors that are blowing out (losing highlight detail) will appear. If you see red areas (as seen in this image), that lets you know that the red in the image in that area is blowing out. If this is a sunset photo, and that red area appears in the center of the sun, you can pretty much ignore itthe center of the sun isn't supposed to have detail. But if you release the Option key and see that red area is an important area of detail in your image, then you know you've dragged too far. So, pull the Exposure slider back to the left a little.

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Step Eleven There's another way to make sure you're not clipping off important detail in your highlights (or shadows), and that's to turn on the Highlights (or Shadows) clipping warnings. You turn these on right under the Histogram by clicking on either the word "Highlights" or "Shadows." In this case, I turned on the Highlights warning. When you do this, you no longer have to press-and-hold the Option key while you drag the Exposure slider, but you get an entirely different type of clipping warning.

Step Twelve This clipping warning doesn't turn your screen blackit displays the full-color image, but it also now displays any areas that are clipping (losing detail) in bright red (as shown here). If you turn on the Shadows clipping warning, then any areas that have turned solid black (causing you to lose detail in those areas) will appear in bright blue. So, which clipping warning method should you use? Whichever you're most comfortable with. The only advantage the pressing-and-holding-theOption-key method gives is that you can see exactly which colors in your image are clipping (so if only a yellow area is clipping, you'll only see yellowif all the colors are clipping, you'll see white), so it does give you a little more feedback than just the red or blue warning.

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Step Thirteen Now that you know about the different Highlights and Shadows clipping warnings (and why they're so importantto keep us from overadjusting and losing detail in our images), we'll move on to the next slider, which is Blacks. This is what you use to set the black point in your image, and if you look at the slider, once again it gives you a visual cue on what happens when you drag in a particular direction. Take a look at the Blacks slider. Which way would you drag to make the shadows darker? Right toward the black (hey, those visual cues save you a lot of guessing). [View full size image]

Step Fourteen If you press-and-hold the Option key while adjusting the Blacks (shadow) slider, the photo will turn white, and as you drag to the right, any areas that will turn pure black (and have no detail) will appear in black. If you see other areas in color (yellow, blue, green, etc.), that's telling you that the yellows, blues, and greens in that area are being clipped to black. Now, in the image shown here, the area inside of the doorway is clipping and the shadows in the windows are clipping. Those are areas that probably wouldn't have significant detail anyway, so I wouldn't worry about those areas, but it's nice to be able to see what will turn solid black so you can decide whether you need to back off the amount of blacks or not. Again, you could also use the Shadows clipping warning (below the left side of the Histogram) to warn you of clipped shadow areasit's up to you. [View full size image]

Step Fifteen The next control down is the Brightness slider, which lets you adjust the midtones in your photo. Look to the slider for a visual cue, and you can see that dragging to the right will lighten your midtones, and dragging to the left will darken them. You don't have the option of pressing-andholding the Option key to see if you're blowing out the highlights or shadows when you're adjusting the Brightness. So, you could turn on the Shadows and Highlights clipping warnings that appear directly below the Histogram. But if you move the midtones enough so that you get a clipping warning, your image will probably look so bad onscreen that the clipping warning isn't necessary. [View full size image]

Step Sixteen The last slider in the Basic panel is the Contrast slider and it does exactly what you'd expectwhen you drag it to the right it adds more contrast to your photo by making the shadows darker and the highlights brighter. In the image shown here, I dragged the Contrast slider quite a bit to the right, and you can see the photo has gotten really contrasty (and I'm not sure contrasty is really even a word, but I'm counting on the book's editors not looking too closely at this step). [View full size image]

Using the Tone Curve If you're used to working with Photoshop's Curves, then this is going to throw you for a loop, because it's an entirely different (yet somewhat more intuitive) way of working with curves. The first thing Photoshop users will notice is that you can't add points to the curveinstead the adjustments are made with sliders which control the angle of the curve. I know, it sounds freaky, but once you try it...you'll still think it's freaky, but it works. I don't think Dan Margulis (King of Curves) would like it, but he doesn't like rainbows, or puppies, or sunny days, or....

Step One If you scroll down from the Basic panel, you'll find the Tone Curve panel (shown here). First, you have to get your arms around the fact that the only way to move the curve is to drag the sliders, so you can think of the curve as more of a histogramit shows you what's happening, it doesn't make things happen like the curve in Photoshop does. One of the slickest things about the Tone Curve is how you can determine the range of what those three sets of sliders control.

Step Two You do that using the two Range sliders (those two sliding triangles under the Tone Curve graphcircled here in red). Essentially, they let you choose where the black and white points are in your photo (you determine what's a shadow, what's a midtone, and what's a highlight). For

example, the Range slider on the left represents the shadow areas, and the area that appears to the left of that triangle will be affected by the Shadows sliders. If you want to expand the range of what the Shadows sliders control, click-and-drag the dark gray Range slider to the right. Now your shadow adjustments affect a larger range of the image.

Step Three The area that appears between the Shadows and Highlights Range sliders (shown circled here) is the midtones. Dragging that Shadows Range slider to the right decreases the space between the shadow and highlight areas, so your Midtones sliders now control less of a range. A histogram appears behind the curve, and if you compare it with the histogram shown in Step One, you can see how moving the Shadows Range slider to the right has affected the midtones.

Step Four If you were to drag the Highlights Range slider to the right, you're limiting the control the Highlights sliders will have over your image. For example, if you moved the slider fairly far over to the right (like I show here) and then you dragged the Highlights Compression slider all the way to the right (as far as it will go) it will have hardly any effect on your curve (or on your image). Same thing with the Shadows Range slider. If you drag it far to the left, there's not much for the Shadows sliders to affect, so changes you make with those sliders won't have much effect. What this does give you is the ability to increase the control over any area that needs work, by moving the sliders closer toward the middle when you need to really tweak your highlights and shadows, or farther apart when your midtones need some help.

Step Five Let's return those two Range sliders (the ones under the graph) to their default position by clicking the Reset button. By the way, if you press-and-hold the Option key while you're moving those two Range sliders, you can get a clipping warning as well. Now let's start tweaking our image. We'll start with adjusting the Highlights and Shadows sliders since they pretty much work the same way. When you drag the Highlights Compression slider to the right, this affects just the brightest highlights in your image and pushes them toward white (you can see this expressed in the curve shown here).

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Step Six Dragging the Highlights Luminance slider to the right pushes the quarter-tones in your photo toward white, as shown here where the top of the curve is starting to steepen (the way the Tone Curve is designed, it helps keep you from creating overly steep curves that could potentially damage your photo. That's one advantage for new users of Curves, because if you're in Photoshop and you don't understand Curves well, you can really trash your image. But here in Lightroom, it's harder to do much harm). [View full size image]

Step Seven

If you want to darken the shadow areas of your image, drag the Shadows Compression slider to the left (as shown here) and you'll see the three-quarter-tone shadow areas of the curve start to steepen, and the shadow areas are pushed closer to black. What you're basically doing is creating the classic S-curve that creates contrast, and the steeper the curve, the more extreme the contrast. Dragging the Shadows Luminance slider to the left steepens the curve even further. Note: The two Range Sliders under the Tone Curve graph only affect the Luminance sliders for the Highlights and Shadows, and the Contrast slider for the Midtones. [View full size image]

Step Eight The last two slidersthe Midtones slidersadjust the midpoint of the curve and the slope of the curve. For example, dragging the Brightness slider to the right (as shown here) opens up the midtone areas of your photo by brightening the quarter-tones and darkening the three-quarter tones. You can see in the curve how the midtones have been affected. The Contrast slider adds contrast by steepening the position of the middle of the curve. Note: The Midtones sliders in the Tone Curve panel have exactly the same effect on your photo as the Tone Brightness and Contrast sliders in the Basic panel. In fact, when you move either the Brightness or Contrast slider in the Tone Curve panel, those same two sliders are moving in the Basic panel as well, so there's no reason to do both. [View full size image]

Converting to Black and White, and Split Toning Since Lightroom is an application just for photographers, you knew it had to have a great way to convert color images to black and white. Luckily, not only does Lightroom have a powerful conversion tool, it takes things one step further with its built-in split toning. This lets you add subtle tints to your black-and-white highlights and shadows to give your converted photos even more depth. Here's how they both work.

Step One If you don't want to mess with anything, and get a pretty darn good conversion to black and white, move your cursor over to the Presets Browser panel on the left side of the Develop module. Then, just hover your cursor over Grayscale Conversion (which is graphic designer speak for Black-and-White Conversion. I have no idea why, in a program for photographers, they don't just call it Black-and-White Conversion, but... well...don't get me started). In a few seconds, you'll see a preview (the thumbnail just above the Presets Browser panel) of how your converted photo will look.

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Step Two

The reason this preset conversion usually looks good is because (and this will only make sense if you're a fairly advanced Photoshop user) it creates a conversion that's similar to using the Lightness channel of a color image in Lab mode (see, I told you you'd need to be advanced in Photoshop to get that). If you're not, just understand that it does a good quality conversion for you. To actually apply that conversion to your image, click on the Grayscale Conversion preset (as shown). [View full size image]

Step Three Even if you don't want to use this one-click Preset Browser method, I recommend that you do it at least once (how about now?), and then look over in the Grayscale Mixer panel, on the right side of the Lightroom window. This is where you'd go to manually create a grayscale (black-andwhite) conversion. When you click the Grayscale Conversion preset it moves the Grayscale Mixer sliders into a position that would make a nice grayscale conversion (one similar to Photoshop's Lab conversion, which is very popular with photographers). If you want to tweak the image further, just grab a Grayscale Mixer slider and start-a-tweakin'. So, now you know another methodthe one-click preset, and honestly, it ain't bad. [View full size image]

Step Four As you can see, turning on the Auto checkbox in the Grayscale Mixer panel gives you a different conversion, which in some cases will look better, but again it's up to you to decide if you like it better or not. But here's the thing: with one click (clicking the Grayscale Conversion preset) you get a pretty good black-and-white conversion. Click once more (the Auto checkbox in the Grayscale Mixer) and you get a different version, so now you can choose between the two and decide which you like best. [View full size image]

Step Five

To further fine-tune your black-and-white conversion, of course you can drag the Grayscale Mixer sliders (to the right to make that color channel lighter, and to the left to make it darker), or use the Exposure and Blacks sliders in the Basic panel. For a quick way to see your photo with some subtle tone changes, scroll back up to the White Balance pop-up menu in the Basic panel and try different white balance settings. Even though your image is now black and white, you can still effect subtle changes in tone by choosing different White Balance settings from the pop-up menu (as shown here). [View full size image]

Step Six There's one more control that can come in real handy for getting those nice high-contrast blackand-white conversions (after you've done all the other things I've just outlined). Go back to the Basic panel and increase the overall contrast by dragging the Contrast slider to the right. I know, that probably seems obvious (dragging the Contrast slider to add more contrast), but sometimes the most obvious things get overlooked because we think to ourselves, "This must be complicated." Take a look at our black-and-white conversion now, after I dragged the Contrast slider to the right (as shown here). So now you've got a number of different ways to convert to black and white, or you can stack them one on top of another, trying one method, then adding the next one, and then the next, etc. [View full size image]

Step Seven Now that you've got a black-and-white photo, you can add a split toning effect (if you like). With split toning, you apply one tint to the highlight areas of your photo and a different tint to the shadows, and if done right (in other words, subtly), it can add some nice depth to your photos. You start by going to the Split Toning panel. If you drag the Highlights Hue slider to the right (as shown here), not a dang thing happens. That's because you also have to increase the Saturation amount (on the slider directly below Hue) or you don't see anything onscreen, because the Saturation slider is set to 0 (zero). [View full size image]

Step Eight Because you need two different sliders to make this work, you'll want to know about this trick that makes the Hue slider work. If you press-and-hold the Option key while you drag the Hue slider, it temporarily shows you the tint color as if the Saturation amount was set to 100%. Now, I have to tell you, this makes everything look too colorful (as shown here), and the key to this effect is subtlety, but it beats the heck out of guessing, or having to use two sliders to see one tint. [View full size image]

Step Nine Once you find your tint, here's what you have to do next: release the Option key and your photo returns to a regular black-and-white photo, but your Hue slider is in the right position. Now you just slowly drag the Saturation slider to the right to bring in the tint in the highlights. Again, this should be subtle (notice the subtle blue tint in the photo shown here). [View full size image]

Step Ten Since you used the Hue slider in the Highlights section, you've just affected the highlights in your image, and split toning is about two tintsone in the highlights and one in the shadows, so now you're going to do the same thing in the Shadows section of the Split Toning panel. Press-andhold the Option key and drag the Shadows Hue slider to choose the tint you want for your shadow areas (in this case, I chose kind of a sepia tone). Again, your color will look too intense (as shown here), but don't forget, this is just because it's simulating what the hue would look like if the saturation was set at 100%. [View full size image]

Step Eleven Release the Option key and, again, your photo returns to black and white, but your Hue slider is set at the tint you wanted. Now slowly drag the Saturation slider to the right to bring the tint into the shadow areas (as shown here). [View full size image]

Tip If you're not going to be using the Presets Browser panel on the left side of Lightroom's interface, then you might as well tuck it out of sight, which gives you a much larger Preview area for your photo (especially when the photo is in landscape orientation). Just click anywhere along the far-left edge of Lightroom's interface and that panel and its options will be tucked away. To bring it back, just move your cursor back over that area.

Step Twelve Now, in our example, we used blue for the highlights and a sepia tone for the shadows, but you can just as easily switch the two and apply blue to the shadows (as shown here) by dragging the Shadows Hue slider to the blue area of the slider and dragging the Highlights Hue slider to the sepia tone color. Other popular split toning combinations are to use cyan in the highlights and blue in the shadows; yellow in the highlights and green in the shadows; or red in the highlights and yellow in the shadows. It's worth trying at least a few of these combinations to find out which work best with your photo. [View full size image]

Adjusting Individual Colors Using HSL Color Tuning Since Lightroom doesn't have selection tools (like Adobe Photoshop has), how do you tweak or change just one individual color? You do it using the HSL Color Tuning panel, which lets you adjust individual colors within your image. This is great for removing obvious color casts, repairing skin tone problems, or just changing the color of an object within your photo. Don't let all the sliders throw you offthis is easy stuff.

Step One We'll start with one of the most useful things about HSL Color Tuning, and that's the ability to fix photos where the skin tone is too red. In the shot shown here, the model is oversaturated with red, so in the Develop module scroll down to the HSL Color Tuning panel on the right. There are three sets of sliders: the Hue sliders let you adjust the hue range of each individual color, the Saturation sliders let you control how vivid the color is, and the Luminance sliders control the overall lightness of each color.

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Step Two

Since what we want to do is lower the intensity of the red in the photo, just go to the Saturation sliders, and drag the Reds slider a little bit to the left. Moving just this one slider lowers the saturation of just the reds, and instantly gives her a more natural skin tone. If you had too much yellow in a photo, you'd do this same thinggo straight to the Saturation sliders and drag the Yellows slider to the left. If a photo with a blue sky needs to be bluer, go to the Blues (and Cyans) Saturation slider and drag it to the right. [View full size image]

Step Three Another area where HSL Color Tuning comes in handy is changing the color of individual objects. This is especially helpful because Lightroom doesn't have a set of selection tools (like Photoshop does). For example, let's say you want to change the color of the stripes on the blanket the baby is lying on. By the way, that's not just a baby, that's SuperBaby 2.0my little daughter, Kira Nicole, and that's her big brother Jordan watching over her just after her birth. Now, back to our story. So, we want to change the color of the cyan stripes on the blanket without disturbing the rest of the color in the image. This is when you'd use the Hue sliders in the HSL Color Tuning panel.

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Step Four Since the blanket is light blue (almost cyan), to change the hue of the cyan in the photo, you'd go under the Hue sliders and drag the Cyans slider either to the left (toward green) or to the right (toward blue). Look at the color bar that appears within each slider and you'll see which color you'll get when you drag the slider. If you want the stripes to look more purple, just look at the Blues Hue slider. If you drag the Blues slider to the right (as shown here), now the Blues in the stripes turn purple. It's easy if you remember to look at the photo for the color you want to adjust, then look at the color bars in the Hue section. The Luminance sliders control the lightness of each color, so if you want a color darker or lighter, this is the place to go (again, look at the color gradient on the sliders for clues). [View full size image]

Sharpening and Reducing Noise Although the controls for sharpening your image and reducing noise are not as powerful as the ones in Photoshop CS2 (like the Unsharp Mask filter and CS2's Noise Reduction filter), they're at least as powerful (and have pretty much the same functionality) as those in Photoshop CS2's Camera Raw plug-in.

Step One Sharpening is applied in the Develop module's Detail panel. So, on the right side of the Lightroom window, scroll down to the Detail panel, and you'll see a Sharpen slider (as shown here). In the example shown here, the slider is set to 0 (zero, the default setting), with no sharpening applied. To add sharpening to your image, just drag the slider to the right.

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Step Two In the example shown here, I dragged the slider all the way to the right so you could easily see the effects of sharpening. Now, if at some point you're going to take your image into Photoshop for further editing, I'd recommend applying the sharpening in Photoshop instead of here in Lightroom, for two reasons: (1) Photoshop offers better sharpening with more control, and (2)

sharpening should be added as the last thing you do to the photo before you save it. So, if you're for sure going to Photoshop at some point, personally I'd skip the sharpening here. [View full size image]

Step Three Another downside of sharpening in general is that if your photo has any noise in it (those annoying red, green, and blue spots that sometimes appear in shots taken either in low light, with a high ISO setting, or with a really cheap digital camera), adding sharpening makes that noise stand out even more. That's why you'll be glad there's a De-noise slider. It's in the Detail panel as well. Here it's set at 0, so the noise in this image is very visible in the roof, in the white area above the doors, on the doorsheck, it's visible everywhere.

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Step Four To lessen the noise, just drag the De-noise slider to the right (as shown here) until the noise is no longer visible. You can see that the red, green, and blue spots are nearly gone just by dragging the slider to the right. If the noise in your photo seems to mostly be in just shadow areas (or it's high ISO noise), then instead of using the De-noise slider, leave that set at zero and try the Smooth slider instead (it's right above the De-noise slider). However, be careful not to overdo the Smooth filter, because it can tend to make your entire photo look soft if you apply too much. So, it's okay to use Smooth (in fact, sometimes it works best), just keep an eye on the rest of your photo when you do. [View full size image]

Fixing Problems Caused by the Camera Believe it or not, there are two whole panels just for this. The first panel does two things: (1) it helps you deal with problems caused by some digital camera lenses (the cheaper the lens, the more likely you're going to encounter problems), and (2) it helps hide any color fringe that appears on edges within your photo (called chromatic aberrations). The second panel helps you address any miscalibration in your camera (some cameras produce photos that always have a blue or cyan tint, some always have a red tint, etc.).

Step One First, we'll look at reducing color fringe using the Lens Corrections panel (shown here). Color fringe usually appears as a color lineusually red, green, or blue that sometimes appears along the edges of objects.

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Step Two If you zoom in tight on the bike rider's arm, you can see there is a line of red fringe along the rider's left arm (as shown here). Finding out the color of the fringe is the first step in reducing the

fringe (we'll need to know this for our next step).

Step Three Once you've identified which color the fringe is (red, in this case), find that color in the Reduce Fringe section of the Lens Corrections panel (if the fringe is red or cyan, you'll use the top slider; if the fringe is blue or yellow, you'll use the next slider down), and then you'll drag away from that color (as shown here, where we're dragging to the right, away from the Red side and toward the Cyan side). That's how easy it is to reduce color fringe.

Step Four Here's what the arm looks like (zoomed in tight again), and as you can see, we've been able to reduce the red fringe quite a bit. Now on to the other most common lens problemvignetting.

Tip

Another way to get finer control of the sliders in the Develop module panels is to make the panels widerthen the sliders are longer and the controls are not as broad when you drag them. Just click directly on the three dots that appear to the immediate left of the panels and drag to the left to drag the panels out wider. Now try the sliders and you'll see what I mean.

Step Five Edge vignetting is where the corners of your photo look darkened or shadowed (as shown here) and what the Lens Vignetting adjustment in Lightroom does is basically lighten those corner areas so the vignetting isn't noticeable. The reason there are two controls is so you can control the amount of correction and adjust how far in toward the center of your photo the corners will be brightened.

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Step Six To remove the edge vignetting, scroll down to the Lens Corrections panel, and simply drag the Amount slider to the right until the corner vignetting disappears (as shown here). [View full size image]

Step Seven Although the Lens Vignetting controls are used for removing lens vignetting, they can also be used for adding a darkened edges effect, which makes it look like a soft spotlight has been aimed at the center of your photo. For years, I've been adding this effect to my photos manually in Photoshop, but once Adobe included the Camera Raw plug-in with Photoshop (with its built-in Vignetting controls), I started using it there instead. Now, you've got the same control in Lightroom. To darken the edges, just drag the Lens Vignetting Amount slider (shown here) to the left. The farther to the left you drag, the darker the edge areas of your photo will appear.

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Step Eight As I mentioned earlier, the Midpoint slider determines how far in toward the center of the photo your darkening extends, so if you drag the Midpoint slider to the left (as shown here) it enhances the spotlight effect by putting the focus on the center of your photo. [View full size image]

Cropping and Straightening You should be happy that Lightroom now has the ability to crop and straighten photos, because when it first came out (Beta 1), it didn't have either. We would all just sit around and say stuff like, "I love this program, but I can't believe you can't crop a photo." I guess Adobe heard our plaintive wails because in Beta 2 they added cropping, and although it's an entirely different way of cropping than in Photoshop, you might find that you like it even better. Hey, I said, "you might find," so it gives me a pretty big out if you don't like it.

Step One To crop your photo, click on the Crop icon (circled here in red) and two things happen: (1) a cropping border appears around your photo, and (2) the Crop & Straighten panel appears in the list of panels on the right side of Lightroom. (Well, it doesn't "appear." It basically scrolls down there in a jiffy.)

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Step Two

To crop your photo, just grab one of the corners (or the sides, or anywhere on that border for that matter) and drag inward. As you drag, you'll notice that a grid appears dividing your cropped area into thirds, giving you a "rule of thirds" overlay as you drag (how sweet is that?!). If you press-and-hold the Shift key while you drag, the cropping border will stay proportional. If you don't press-and-hold the Shift key, it's a freeform crop, and you can move any side, top, or bottom without disturbing the other sides. [View full size image]

Step Three Once you let go of the borders, you can reposition your photo within the cropping border by moving your cursor inside the border (as shown here), and just clicking-and-dragging the photo around right where you want it. [View full size image]

Step Four

You also have the option of using preset crop sizes by choosing them from the Crop & Straighten panel's pop-up menu (as shown here). When you choose one of these presets, your cropping border resizes to fit your choice, and the area that falls inside that border will be the size you chose (so, for example, here we chose 4x6, so the area inside the cropping border will be exactly 4x6"). If you choose Enter Custom from this pop-up menu, it brings up a dialog where you can type in the cropping aspect ratio you'd like. [View full size image]

Step Five If at any time you want to cancel your cropping, just press the Reset button in the Crop & Straighten panel (as shown here). [View full size image]

Step Six

If you need to straighten your photo, you do that in a similar way. You can do it while you're cropping by just moving your cursor outside the cropping border, and you'll notice it turns into a curved, two-headed arrow. Just click, hold, and rotate. A grid will appear over your cropping area to help you with visually straightening your photo. You can also just drag the Straighten Settings Angle slider in the Crop & Straighten panel (as shown here). No matter which method you choose, as you rotate the photo, Lightroom automatically adjusts the size of the photo, so that when you're done straightening there are no white gaps in the corners (like there would be if you did this in Photoshop. Very helpful). [View full size image]

Step Seven Once you're done with your cropping and straightening, you can just move on with your work, and from now on, only the cropped and straightened view of your photo will appear. For example, when you return to the Library module, you can see that the thumbnail (top center) now displays just your cropped and straightened version. [View full size image]

Step Eight Now, because of the non-destructive nature of Lightroom, this crop can always be removed, and your original photo brought back unscathed by going back to the Develop module, scrolling down to the Crop & Straighten panel, and clicking the Reset button to the right of the Show Crop Overlay checkbox. If you just want to change your crop (rather than remove it), then turn on the Show Crop Overlay checkbox, and your cropping border returns over your photo for easy editing. [View full size image]

Step Nine Once your cropping edits have been made, just turn off the Show Crop Overlay checkbox (as shown) and the newly cropped version now appears, and you can then return to working as normal, all with the peace of mind of knowing that this cropping is not destructive and can be undone at anytime (in Lightroom). [View full size image]

Overcoming Color Problems Inherent in Some Cameras Some cameras (okay, a lot of cameras) put their own color signature on your photos. Some cameras produce every shot with a slight red color bias, some have a slight cyan color bias, some have a different color balance, and if your camera does any of these, you can compensate for that in Lightroom's Camera Calibration panel.

Step One There are two parts to the Camera Calibration panel (shown here). The first (topmost) slider controls any tint in the shadow areas of your image, and this may be enough to calibrate the image for your camera if your tint problems appear in just the shadow areas. If your problems appear in other areas, then you'll have to go on to the next set of calibration sliders.

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Step Two There are three sets of sliders (for the Red, Green, and Blue Primaries). The top slider in each color controls the hue, and the slider below each controls the amount of saturation. In this example, the camera gives each photo a bit of a cyan cast, so in the close-up of the Camera Calibration panel shown here, we're dragging the Blue Primary Hue slider away from cyan, and to

reduce the overall saturation of cyan, we're dragging the Blue Primary Saturation slider to the left just a little bit. At this point in the Beta development cycle of Lightroom, you can't save these settings for your particular camera and apply them with one click, but it appears as though that's Adobe's intent in a future release.

Creating Your Own Presets Lightroom comes with a handful of presets. The real power of presets, though, is not just to use the ones Adobe included in Lightroom, but to create and apply your own custom presets, so you can correct your photos, your way, with just one click. It may sound complicated, but it's much easier than you'd think.

Step One First, just for example purposes, let's create a one-click preset that makes a split-toned blackand-white conversion. So, click on a photo, turn on the Grayscale Mixer checkbox, turn on the Auto checkbox, then go to the Split Toning panel, make the highlights a yellow hue, and increase the Saturation a bit. Then for the shadows, set the Hue to blue, and increase the Saturation (as shown here). Then increase the Contrast quite a bit in the Basic panel. Basically, just tweak the settings until you have something you like.

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Step Two To save these exact settings as a preset, click the Add Preset button on the lower-left side of Lightroom's interface (below the Presets Browser). A dialog will pop up where you get to

determine which of Lightroom's Develop module settings will be copied into this preset (and you get to name your preset here as well). In the example shown here, I only left checked the areas that I adjusted, and I recommend that you do the same so you always get just the results you see onscreen, and not any other settings you didn't want applied.

Step Three When you click OK in the Save Named Settings dialog, it adds your newly created preset to the Presets Browser (as shown here, where our new preset appears at the bottom of the list).

Step Four Now let's put our preset to work. First, open another image that you want to apply this same effect to. In the example shown here, once I opened the photo I wanted, I needed to do a quick tone correction, so I first clicked on the Lightroom Defaults preset that appears in the Presets Browser. It's fine to choose a preset first, because if you apply one preset, adding another preset on top of it doesn't erase what you did previously, so the split toning preset I'm about to apply will be added on top of the tone correction preset I just applied here.

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Step Five Now click on the split toning preset you created a few steps back (it appears in the Presets Browser, as shown here). It immediately applies the grayscale conversion, the added contrast, and split toning effect, just as you had created earlierall with just that one click. That's what is so great about creating your own custom presets. [View full size image]

Step Six Another nice thing about creating your own presets is that you now have access to them while

you're in the Library module in the Quick Develop panel. Just click on the Preset pop-up menu and a list of all your presets appear, including the one you just created (as shown here). Nice. [View full size image]

Jumping from Lightroom to Photoshop and Back While Lightroom is great for organizing your photos and processing RAW images, it's not Photoshopit doesn't do special effects, or photo retouching, or one of the bazillion (yes, bazillion) things that Adobe Photoshop CS2 does. So, there will be numerous times where you'll want to take your photo and jump directly over to Photoshop to do some retouching, and then jump right back to Lightroom. Luckily, the two applications were born to work together.

Step One To edit the photo you're currently working on in Photoshop, just go under the Photo menu (in either the Develop module or the Library module) and choose Edit in Adobe Photoshop CS2 (as shown here). This will bring up a dialog (shown in the next step) that asks how you want to edit the photo.

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Step Two The first two choices, Edit Original and Edit a Copy, ignore any of the changes you've made thus far in Lightroom (these two choices are not available if your photo is in RAW or DNG format). If

you pick the third choice, Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments (as shown), then it creates a copy of your photo (so you're not editing the original), but that copy does contain any edits you made to the photo in Lightroom. So, if you adjusted the white balance, or shadows, or exposure, all those changes will be applied to the copy that will open in Photoshop.

Step Three When you click the Edit button, it launches Adobe Photoshop CS2 and opens your photo within Photoshop. Now you can make your edits (in this case, I applied a quadtone effect to my photo in Photoshop CS2 to add depth and make it look warmer overall). When you're done editing in Photoshop, close the file and save your changes (that's important). Now, when you return to Lightroom and look in the Library, you'll see you now have two versions of your photothe original (shown in the second row down, on the far left), and the edited version with the quadtone effect applied in Photoshop (circled in red here). Notice that the edited version has the word "Edit" added after its name.

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Step Four If you want to quickly compare the original with your version just edited in Photoshop, click on the original, press-and-hold the Command key and then click on the edited version. Then click on the Compare button on the bottom-left side of the Lightroom Library module, and both photos will appear for your review (as shown here). [View full size image]

Note: The only reason we have two copies of our file is because we chose to work on a copy in the Edit Photo dialog that appears in Step Two. If you have a JPEG or TIFF file and choose to work on the original, then you're doing just that working on the original in Photoshop. So when you return to Lightroom, you've edited that one original photo.

Chapter 6. Slideshow Sharing Your Photos Onscreen

It's kind of funny that in this digital day and age, we still use the term "slide show," even though traditional slides are nearly as outdated as records. For example, my 9-year-old son has never seen a record album. For him, music has always come from either CDs or iPods. Although I have many photographic slides, my son has never seen a real slide show using real conventional color slides. But it's not just him. I speak at conferences and tradeshows, and if I walked into the room where I was scheduled to speak and asked the class moderator where the slide projector was, he'd look at me like I was from Mars. Yet, Adobe Lightroom still uses this term. So, today, in this very book I'm suggesting that not only should we, in the photography industry, use a different term for what was previously called a slide show, but I actually want to propose the new term. I have crafted a new word that I feel better represents the experience of viewing photographic images onscreen, and thus I'm quite certain this term will be quickly and unilaterally embraced by the worldwide photographic community. It's "flobotnor" (flow·bot·nore). So, once it's officially adopted (any day now, I'm sure), you'll see future releases of Lightroom where the Slideshow module will have been renamed the Flobotnor module. Of course, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that not only were you there when it all happenedyou helped shape modern history. These are amazing times, my friend. Amazing times, indeed.

Getting Photos Into Your Slide Show Well, the first step is figuring out which photos you want to include in your slide show, and easy ways to add photos to it, and delete photos from it. Lightroom gives you lots of different options, so we'll start here and build on it as we move through this chapter.

Step One There are a number of different ways to get the photos you want into a slide show. You start in the Library module by going to the Grid view and Command-clicking on the photos you want in your slide show (you can also Command-click on the thumbnails right in the filmstrip at the bottom of Lightroom's window). Once the photos you want are selected (as shown here), press Command-3 or click on the Slideshow module in the upper right-hand corner of the Lightroom window (as shown).

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Step Two Once you switch over to the Slideshow module, the photos you selected now appear in Slideshow Grid view. These are the photos that will appear in your slide show. If you look at the filmstrip at the bottom of the window, you'll see all the photos in the collection or shoot you chose your

photos from. A thin white line appears around the photos that you selected to be in your slide show. [View full size image]

Step Three To remove a photo from your slide show (in this case, the flowers), just Command-click on it within the filmstrip and it's removed from the Grid view (but that photo will still appear in your filmstrip, just in case you need it again). [View full size image]

Step Four To add a photo from the filmstrip to your slide show (in this case, the boats), just Command-click on its thumbnail and it's added to the Grid (as shown here). [View full size image]

Customizing the Look of Your Slides The defaults are okay, but after you create a slide show or two with them, you're going to be saying stuff like, "I wish I could change the background color" or "I wish I could add some text at the bottom" or "I wish my slide show looked better." (Note: You're not saying you wish your photos looked betteryou wish your slide show looked better.) Well, this is where you start to create your own custom look for your slides, so it looks just the way you want it, every time.

Step One Once the photos you want in your slide show are in place, now it's time to focus on the look of your slide show. Lightroom comes with several pre-designed templates, and you can apply any of them by just clicking on them in the Template Browser on the left side of the Lightroom window (as shown here, where I've clicked on the Default template, which puts your photos over a gray background with a thin white border and a hard drop shadow, and makes your Identity Plate appear in the upper-left corner. More on this later). [View full size image]

Step Two If you move your cursor over each template name in the Template Browser, you'll see a preview (up in the preview window above the Template Browser) of how a slide in your slide show will look if you use that particular template. Besides the Grid view, there's also a Slide view so you can see your slide layouts up close. To switch to Slide view, either double-click on a slide, or click the Slide button (shown circled here). Once in Slide view, click on the EXIF Metadata template to put your photo on a black background with your photo's metadata printed below it.

[View full size image]

Step Three If you decide that you'd prefer to create your own custom look for your slides, rather than using Adobe's templates, then you might as well tuck the Template Browser out of sight so you have a larger work area. To do that, just click once on the far-left side of Lightroom's window (as shown) and the panel will tuck itself away. Look how much larger your work area is now, and all the essential adjustment panels are still on the far-right side of the window. Now, let's get to customizing your look. [View full size image]

Step Four To create your own custom look, you can use the current template as a starting place (if you like), or you can switch to a different template and use that (if you move your cursor to the left side of the screen, your Template Browser will pop back out). For our example here, we'll just use that EXIF Metadata template as a starting place to customize our slide show. First, let's look at sizing your photos on the slide (basically, determining how large your photos will appear). You do this by clicking-and-dragging on the margin grid lines that appear around your photo. If you clickand-drag inward, it shrinks your photo (as shown here). [View full size image]

Step Five You can move the margins by dragging them, or you can use the Margins sliders in the Slide Layout Tools panel (shown here). As you can see, the margins are all set at exactly the same amount201 pixels. That's because by default they're linked together (see the checkbox at the end of each Margins slider? They're all checked, so your margins move as one unitif you click-anddrag one margin, they all move in unison. Same thing with the slidersmove the Left Margins slider and all the other Margins sliders move as well).

Step Six Now, what if you want to change just one margin's size while leaving the other margins unchanged? Then just turn off the Link checkbox beside the margin you want to adjust. For example, if you want to create more room below your photo (so you can create a gallery print effect), turn off the checkbox beside the Top slider (as shown here), then within the Slide view area, click on the top margin grid line and drag it straight upward. As you can see, this gives you a smaller margin at the top of the slide, and the photo increases in size until it hits the side and bottom margins. Remember, as the margins get smaller, the photo gets larger (and vice versa). By the way, anytime you want to hide those margin grid lines, just press Command-Shift-H. [View full size image]

Step Seven Now, there's still that EXIF data under the photo. Before you delete all that text (you'd just click on it, then press the Delete key on your keyboard), you'll want to know how to edit that text, in case on a different project you actually do want that info to appear on the slide. First, click on the block of text you want to edit (as shown here). When you do this, the controls that appear below the slide become active. These controls let you decide which text is visible and where it winds up on your slide.

[View full size image]

Step Eight On the bottom-right side of the Slide view area are some controls for the placement of your text. For example, if you want your text to appear on the edge of your slide, it's a two-click process: (1) click directly on the words Edge of the Slide, then (2) pick a black dot in the nine-dot grid to the right of your placement choices. You use these dots to choose on which edge your text appears. By default, your text appears on the edge of the slide in the same grid position it was in to begin with (that's why the lower right-hand corner dot was filled in). If, instead, you wanted that text to appear on the upper left-hand corner of the slide, you'd click the upper-left grid dot. [View full size image]

Step Nine Now let's change the position of the text. In the Placement controls, click on Outside the Image so it appears just outside the edge of your photo, then click the right-center dot (on the dot grid) so your text appears centered on the right side of your image. If you need to rotate your text, then you'll use the Rotate Left and Rotate Right buttons to the right of the dot grid (shown circled here). By default, the Auto Rotate checkbox is turned on. While your text is highlighted, click the Edit button at the bottom left of the Slide view window. This brings up the Edit Text Adornment dialog where you can change the font, font style (bold, italic, etc.), and point size using the popup menus in the center of the dialog. To change the color of your type, click on the button to the immediate right of the Point Size pop-up menu. [View full size image]

Step Ten Okay, so now that you know how to work with type on your slide, let's get rid of those blocks of type. Click on either one and then press the Delete key on your keyboard. Now click on the other block, and delete it as well. You'll also need to click on the rating stars (if your image had any) in the upper-left corner of the photo and delete them. Now there should be no text visiblejust your photo, with a thin white stroke around it, on a black background, with no visible text (and, of course, the margin guides are still visible). [View full size image]

Step Eleven Let's hide the margin guides from view (press Command-Shift-H), so now you see just your photo on a black background. However, the reason your photo has that thin white border around it is because that feature was included in the EXIF Metadata template we originally started with (you can see the white border in the previous step). To turn off this thin white border, go to the Image Settings panel on the right side of the window and turn off the checkbox beside Stroke Photo Border (as shown circled in red here). [View full size image]

Step Twelve While we're up there in the Image Settings panel, turning off the Stroke Photo Border checkbox,

take a look at the checkbox right above it called Zoom and Crop Photos to Fit Grid Cells. Here's what this very handy checkbox does: First, go back two steps and look at how the photo doesn't fill the margins on the sides. Although the photo touches the top and bottom, there's an empty gap on the left and right sides. Turn this check-box on, and your photo will increase in size (zoom) until there are absolutely no gaps whatsoever, as shown here (make the margin guides visible by pressing Command-Shift-H, then turn on the Zoom and Crop checkbox, and you'll see what I mean). The little lines that appear above the top and bottom margins when you click on the image show the area of your photo that extends beyond the margins, but is hidden from view. [View full size image]

Customizing the Background I don't want to say the background is as important as the photo, but it's important enough that if you don't use one that complements the photo, it can pretty much wreck your slide show. Luckily, Lightroom gives you lots of control over how the Backdrop (that's what Lightroom calls it) behind your photos looks. Unfortunately, it doesn't come with a built-in "good taste" button, but if you stick with classic backgrounds (like black, white, or gray), you can have your Backdrop support and complement your photos, instead of competing with them.

Step One The background on our slide is black (because we started customizing a slide by using the EXIF Metadata template as our starting place). But you can change that to any color you'd like (like a nice gray perhaps) by going to the Backdrop Settings panel and clicking on the black color swatch to the right of the Set Backdrop Color checkbox (as shown here). This brings up the Colors panel where you can choose which color you'd like (for a light gray, just drag the slider up above the center, as shown here). Now hide the margin guides to see how things look. [View full size image]

Step Two Another built-in background choice found in the Backdrop Settings panel is the Color Wash. When you turn on the Apply Color Wash checkbox (as shown here), it applies a diagonal gradient as your background. Luckily, you have lots of control over how that gradient is applied, as well as the color of the gradient (as you'll see in the next step). [View full size image]

Step Three The colors that appear in this gradient come from two places: (1) the first color comes from the current color chosen as your Backdrop color in the Backdrop Settings panel (look at the first small color swatch), and (2) the color set as your Color Wash color (which by default is set to a dark gray). So when you first apply this Color Wash, you get a gradient that goes from a light gray to a dark gray. If you want to change the light gray color to say...red, then click on the tiny color swatch next to the Set Backdrop Color checkbox, choose a red from the Colors panel, then close the panel by clicking on the round red button in the top-left corner. As you can see, this red-togray color gradient looks really awful. Luckily, it's not permanent. [View full size image]

Step Four To change the gray part of the gradient, click on the gray color swatch to the right of the Apply Color Wash checkbox and when the Colors panel appears, pick a more suitable color to go with

red. I picked white here, but what this really tells us is that red to white makes a pretty stinky background gradient. You'll certainly want to pick two colors that don't get in the way of your photography (which is why the gray gradients work so well). You can also change the angle of the gradient by using either the Angle slider or the Angle wheel (they're tied together, so it doesn't matter which one you choose). Here I moved the angle so the white is on the left, and it graduates over to the red. Yecch! [View full size image]

Step Five Besides the solid color Backdrop and the Color Wash, you can also add an image as the background for your slides by turning on the Apply Image to Backdrop checkbox (circled in red here). For example, I imported two wedding photos into Lightroom: a photo of the bride and groom, and a close-up photo of a rose that I want to use as a Backdrop image. You can see them both in the filmstrip at the bottom of the Slideshow window.

©STOCKPHOTO/SANDRA O'CLAIRE AND ROB SYLVAN

[View full size image]

Step Six Now all you do is click-and-drag the rose photo from the filmstrip and drop it on the gray background that's currently surrounding the photo (as shown here), and that photo becomes the Backdrop. My only problem with what you see here (besides the total cliché cheesiness) is that the background photo tends to overwhelm the subject. It should be a background element not competing with the foreground, but luckily there are two ways to have it take a step back from the front of the stage. [View full size image]

Step Seven

The first is to lower the Opacity setting of the Backdrop image using the slider at the bottom of the Backdrop Settings panel (as shown here, where I lowered it to 30%). This kind of fades the Backdrop photo a bit, and lets the main image stand out more. But there's another method I like even better, and that's to create a backscreened effect (as shown in the next step). [View full size image]

Step Eight To create the backscreen effect, click on the Set Backdrop Color swatch, and when the Colors panel appears, choose white, and then close the panel. Use the Opacity slider (at the bottom of the Backdrop Settings panel) to lower the opacity of the Backdrop image to 50%. You can see how much different this looks, as opposed to just lowering the opacity of the Backdrop image itself. A third option is to use the Color Wash, and lower the opacity of it, so your tinted Backdrop image graduates from one color to the other (it looks better than it sounds. Unless you pick red and white, of course). Now let's look at adding and editing a drop shadow behind your photo. [View full size image]

Adding and Editing Drop Shadows Lightroom has the ability to add soft drop shadows behind your photos with just one click. However, what if you don't like the direction your shadow is casting? Or what if you think the shadow is too soft (or not soft enough), or it's not close enough to the photo (or it needs to be further away), or it's too dark (or too light)? Do you see where I'm going with this? That's right, although you add the shadow with one click, you're surely going to want to mess with it once you've added it. Here's how.

Step One As long as your photos don't take up the whole slide, you'll be able to add a shadow behind your photo that casts onto your Backdrop. You do this by turning on the Cast a Shadow Behind Images checkbox (as shown here) in the Image Settings panel. There are four controls. Opacity determines how dark your shadow looksthe lower the number the lighter (and more transparent) your shadow will appear. Offset determines how far away the shadow will appear from the photo. The Radius slider controls how soft the shadow will be (the higher the number, the softer the shadow), and Angle determines where the light source is coming from, which determines which direction the shadow falls.

Step Two The default shadow is fairly hard-edged, fairly dark, and appears quite close to the photo itself (as shown here). By the way, as a rule of thumb, the closer the shadow appears to the photo, the closer the photo is to the background. So if you move the shadow farther away, it makes the photo appear as though it is farther above the background. [View full size image]

Step Three Generally, I like drop shadows to be softer and a little further away. I also lower the opacity quite a bit because I like the shadow to be so subtle that you barely notice it's there. In fact, if the person doesn't actually notice the shadow, I like it best. I feel like it should create a subtle depth, and not really be part of the composition. But hey, that's just me. So, if you feel like I do (and Peter Frampton does), then increase the Radius (to make the shadow softer), increase the Offset (to move it farther away), and lower the Opacity (to make it lighter), as shown here. [View full size image]

Step Four Another look you might try is to turn off the white stroke around the photo (as shown here) by turning off the Stroke Photo Border checkbox that appears above the Shadow controls. This makes your shadow stand out a little more while still maintaining a decent degree of subtlety. [View full size image]

Adding Text to Your Slides Adding text to your slides isn't hard, but I have to say I've never run across an application that handles text the way Lightroom does. It's not hard, but it's not real obvious either, so this tutorial will certainly come in handy when it's time to add some type.

Step One Adding text to your photos is easy, it just takes a minute or two to understand how Lightroom handles text. Once you get that, it's fairly easy. The first thing we'll look at is how to add your Identity Plate text to your photo ( remember we talked about this briefly in Chapter 2, where we showed you how to customize the program by replacing the words "Adobe Lightroom" with your name or the name of your studio?). To have your Identity Plate added to your slides, go to the Overlay Options panel and turn on the Show Identity Plate checkbox. You'll see the text that's entered in your Identity Plate appear in the top-left corner of your slide (as shown here), using the default Identity Plate font, Zapfino. [View full size image]

Step Two If you're wondering how to change what appears on your Identity Plate, just go under the Lightroom menu and choose Identity Plate Setup to bring up the dialog you see here. Highlight your name in the name field (as shown here). Then you can choose a different font or change font sizes by clicking on the Font Panel button (as shown), which brings up the Font panel with a list of your installed fonts. [View full size image]

Step Three Another way to quickly edit the text and font that appears in your Identity Plate is to click on the pop-up menu that appears immediately to the right of the Show Identity Plate checkbox in the Overlay Options panel. Choose Edit from the pop-up menu that appears. This brings up the Identity Plate Editor dialog where you can edit your text or access the Font panel. Another thing you can do in the Overlay Options is control the Opacity and Scale (size) of your Identity Plate text. In the example shown here, I lowered the opacity to 44% to make the text lighter, and then scaled the text down in size using the Scale slider (as shown here). I also clicked-and-dragged the Identity Plate text itself and I moved it above the top-left corner of my photo. [View full size image]

Step Four If you don't want to use the whole Identity Plate thing, and you just want to add regular text, then turn the Show Identity Plate checkbox off, and instead click on the Add Text button that appears on the left side of the Slide view window under your slide (as shown here). [View full size image]

Step Five This brings up the Add Text Adornment dialog (shown here). You just type in the text you want to appear on your slide in the field at the top, and you get a preview of how your text will look at the bottom of the dialog. You can choose your font, style, font size, and color here as well. Now, one feature that isn't in Lightroom is the ability to add spacing (positive tracking) between letters, so I pulled a fast one hereI just typed the first letter, hit the Spacebar two times, then typed the second letter, hit the Spacebar two times, and so on. So, the letters appear to have positive tracking (extra space) between them. [View full size image]

Step Six There are also some things here to help you automate at least part of the process. For example, if you wanted to add the year after your text, just click-and-drag the light blue Date (YYYY) token up after your text and it automatically adds the year the photo was taken (as shown here). The only problem is, it adds it directly next to your last typed letter, so there's no space between the date and your text. But there's a way around that. [View full size image]

Step Seven Just click your cursor between the last letter you typed and the Date token, and then press the Spacebar. In this case, because I manually added so much space between the letters, I pressed the Spacebar four times to add more space. [View full size image]

Step Eight If you wanted to add the month and year, you would just drag another Date (YYYY) token up to the text field at the top, but drag it so it appears before the year token. By default, all date tokens are year tokens, but if you click on the downward facing arrow that appears on the right side of the token, a menu pops up and you can choose Date (Month), as shown here. So, now it will add the month and year after your type. Again, you'll need to click your cursor and add some extra space between your Date (Month) and Date (YYYY) tokens. I also added a large dash between my text and the date, with four spaces on either side. When the text looks the way you want it, click the Create button. [View full size image]

Step Nine By the way, before I clicked the Create button, I clicked on both of the Date tokens and hit the Delete key on my keyboard. I didn't actually want them on my slides, but I wanted you to know how they work. See, I care. Once your text appears, you can click-and-drag it where you want it to appear or you can use the Placement controls at the bottom right of the Slide view. To use the Placement controls, under Placement, click on Outside the Image to put your text outside the photo, but inside the slide area. Then click on the bottom-center dot (in the nine-dot grid to the right) so the text will appear centered under your photo. [View full size image]

Step Ten So, what's the advantage of doing it this way, using the Placement controls, rather than just dragging it where you want it? Well, if you use the Placement controls, and then you wind up resizing your image (by dragging the margin guides), your text automatically moves right along with your photo. Here I clicked-and-dragged out the margins, making the photo larger, and the text moved down right along with it. You may prefer the freewheeling drag-it-where-you-want-it style, but at least you know there is another option, and why it exists. By the way, to get the clean, uncluttered look you see here, I turned off the drop shadow and the border stroke, so it's just the photo on the Color Wash backdrop. [View full size image]

Step Eleven So you can see how easy it is to change your setup, let's tweak this layout. First, go to the Backdrop Settings panel, turn off the Apply Color Wash checkbox, and change your Backdrop color to white. Now, your text is white against a white background, and you can't see it. So click where your text was (centered under the photo) and the text controls will become active. Click on the Edit button to get the Edit Text Adornment dialog. Click on the color swatch (to the right of the Font Size pop-up menu) and choose black from the Colors panel. Press Change to finalize your edits. Then, click-and-drag your text down just a bit, so it's no longer using the Placement controls. [View full size image]

Step Twelve Grab any margin guide and drag inward, shrinking your image and leaving more room on the bottom. Now you can drag your text down further. Then, go to the Slide Layout Tools panel, turn off the Top Link checkbox, and click-and-drag the top margin up to create a gallery print effect. In the Image Settings panel, turn on the Zoom and Crop Photos to Fill Grid Cells checkbox, so your photo completely fills the margins. Then turn on the Stroke Photo Border checkbox, but change the stroke color to black by clicking on the color swatch to the right. Lastly, in Overlay Options, turn on the Show Ratings checkbox, and any star ratings you assigned (in the Library module), will now appear in the upper left-hand corner of your photo. You control the stars' size using the Scale slider, and change the color by clicking on the color swatch to the right. [View full size image]

Saving Your Custom Layout as a Template Now that you've taken all this time to create your own custom look, you want to make sure you don't have to jump through all these hoops the next time you want the same look. The solution? Save this "look" as a template. Then, the next time you want this custom look for your slide show, you're just one simple click away.

Step One First, go and make the Template Browser visible again by clicking on the thin black border on the far-left side of the Lightroom window. Click on the Grid button (as shown here) and you'll see that the custom layout you created earlier has automatically been applied to all the other photos in your slide show. Now, let's save this layout as a template so we can apply it later to other collections of photos. [View full size image]

Step Two Click on the Add Template button at the bottom-right corner of the Template Browser. This adds a new line to the Template Browser list, and the text field is already highlighted for youall you have to do is type in a name (as shown here). That's ityou created a template. Now, let's put it to use.

Step Three Go back to the Library module and choose a different set of photos (in this case, I chose two photos that we added a split toning effect to earlier in the book). Now switch to the Slideshow module and click on the Default template in the Template Browser (as shown here), which adds the default slide layout. [View full size image]

Step Four To apply your new custom template to these photos is now a one-click processjust click on your named template (as shown here). Remember what we went through to create this whole thing? Now you're applying it with just one click. Life is good. Again, you get an instant preview (up in the preview window above the Template Browser) of how any of these templates would look on your photos by just hovering your cursor over the templates in the list. Sweet. [View full size image]

Playing Your Slide Show Okay, you've spent all this time customizing your slide show so it looks just the way you want it tonow it's time to see what it actually will look like. Luckily you can choose from seeing either a small preview, or you can have the whole full-blown, full-screen slide show play right on your screen. Here's what you need to know to take the final stepplaying your slide show.

Step One First, I have some wonderful news: although you can't just drag-and-drop photos into the order you want them when you're in the Library module's Grid view, you actually can do that here in the Slideshow module. So let's start therein the Slideshow Grid view, click-and-drag the photos into the order you want them to appear in your slide show. [View full size image]

Step Two If you scroll down to the bottom of the Slideshow panels, you'll find the Playback Settings panel (shown here). This is where you set how long each slide will appear onscreen (using the top slider) and how long the dissolve transition between slides will last (using the bottom slider). If you don't care which order your slides are displayed in, you can turn on the Randomize Slides checkbox.

Step Three If you want to add music to your slide show (and believe me, you do), then in the Playback Settings panel turn on the Play Music checkbox, and click-and-hold on the down-facing arrow to the right of the checkbox. What appears is a pop-up menu of the playlists in your installation of Apple's iTunes software, where you can choose which playlist you'd like to play during your slide show. By the way, if you don't have Apple's iTunes software (which means you don't have an iPod, which means you may well be the only person left on earth without an iPod, which is just sad), then you can go and download it (free) from Apple.com. [View full size image]

Tip Unfortunately, you can only choose playlists of songs, not individual songs, to add to your slide show. So if you want just one song to play, create a playlist in iTunes with just that one song.

Step Four To see a preview of how your slide show will look, click the Preview button that appears below the panels on the right side of the Lightroom window (as shown here). The preview appears in the center, where the Grid used to be. (Note: If you want a larger preview of your slide show, just hide the Template Browser before you click the Preview button.) To quit Preview and return to Slide view, press the Esc key on your keyboard. If you have added music to your slide show, clicking the Preview button will launch iTunes. [View full size image]

Step Five Directly under the Preview button is a set of controls for moving through your slide show, and they're pretty much like any standard video controls. You've got (from L to R) a Rewind to the Beginning button, a Rewind button, a Play (full screen)/Escape button, a Pause/Play button, and a Fast Forward button.

Step Six Here's the larger preview layout with the Template Browser panel hidden. Okay, so you've chosen the photos, applied your template, watched a preview of your slide show, tweaked any other

things that needed tweakingnow it's time to see your slide show in its full-screen glory. To do that, just click the center Play button (on the right side of the window, as shown here). [View full size image]

Step Seven When you click that Play button, your slide show appears full-screen (as shown here) and moves automatically through the rest of the slides based on the settings you chose in the Playback Settings panel. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Command-Return to start the full-screen slide show. To pause a running slide show, press the Spacebar, and to resume, press the Spacebar again. To exit the full-screen slide show and return to the Slideshow module at any time, press the Esc key on your keyboard (go ahead and hit Esc now to exit your slide show). [View full size image]

Step Eight Let's finish up by doing a quick variation on the slide show we've created. Go back to the Backdrop Settings panel and change the Backdrop color to black. Then scroll back up to the Image Settings panel and change your Stroke color to a medium gray. Next, click directly on your text to select it and then click the Edit button. In the Edit Text Adornment dialog, click on the color swatch and choose white for your text color. Now, make the Template Browser panel visible and click the Add Template button, then name this template "Gallery Print Black," and press Return. Now, run your slide show using this new modified look. See how easy it is to change the look of your slide show? And better yet, we've saved this new look as a template so we can apply it in the future with just one click.

Exporting Your Slide Show to the Web Well, this really should be called "exporting your slide show to a webpage or to a PDF for emailing" but I couldn't fit all that. The reason exporting is important is because without it you can only show slide shows from within Lightroom. That's great if the person you want to show your slide show to is sitting right beside you, but what if it's a client across town or across the country? Ahhh. See, you knew you'd need this one day. Luckily, Lightroom does all the hard work. In fact, it actually builds the HTML webpage for you. Sweet!

Step One To export your slide show to another format (so you can show your slide show outside of Lightroom), click on the Export button (as shown here), which appears below the panels on the right side of Lightroom's window. [View full size image]

Step Two This brings up the Export dialog, shown here. The Choose button (up top) lets you choose where your slide show will be saved (I chose my Desktop so I could find it easily). When you export, all your files wind up in a folder, and the next field down lets you choose the name of the folder that Lightroom creates for you. So, go ahead and type in what you'd like that folder to be named (as shown here).

[View full size image]

Step Three The next section down is for people who manage their own websites manually, and want to transfer (via FTP) this new Web-based slide show directly to their Web server. If you're asking yourself, "What's an FTP server?" or "Why would I want to do an FTP transfer?" then you can skip right over this part of the dialog, and move on to the next step. [View full size image]

Step Four

The section at the bottom of the Export dialog is pretty important because this is where you choose which kind of Web-based slide show you're going to create. The Slideshow Format pop-up menu is where you make that choice. The default choice is HTML, which creates a standard webpage using the standard Web formatting, or you can choose PDF or Flash. You get to choose a Quality setting for your images, and if you want your slide show to be an exact size, then go to the Size section (bottom left of the dialog), turn on the Constrain Size checkbox, then type in the size (in pixels) you want for your slide show. There's also a Render Slides with Adornments checkbox that lets you choose whether or not you want text added in the slide show to appear on your slides. If you click OK at this point, Lightroom will create a folder on your Desktop with all the necessary files to make a webpage. If you want to see a preview of your finished webpage, double-click on the file in that folder named index.html and it will launch your Web browser and open that page (shown here). The finished page doesn't have dissolve transitions (you'll need to choose Flash from the Slideshow Format pop-up menu for that). [View full size image]

[View full size image]

Step Five If you choose PDF as your Slideshow Format, the Quality and Size sections are still there, but in the Settings section (on the right) you have some new controls: one for Full Screen, if you want your PDF to go full screen while playing, and another to determine the duration of the slide show. If you click OK at this point, Slideshow saves a PDF to your Desktop, ready to be emailed (you just attach it to your email like any other photo) or uploaded to a website where people can download it. Note: The slide show only works if the person you're sending the PDF to opens it in Adobe's Acrobat Readerit won't play as a slide show with transitions in Apple's Preview application, even though it reads PDF files. [View full size image]

Step Six Here's one of the benefits of Adobe's acquisition of Macromediathe ability to save your slide show in Flash format for the Web. From the Slideshow Format pop-up menu choose Flash, and in the Settings section on the lower right of the dialog a number of new settings appear. There are three fields that let you type in information that you want to appear on your Flash-based webpage. The Draft Mode checkbox uses the preview files to make your slide show, rather than the full high-res images, so it's much faster. The same duration slider that was there for the PDF export is here for the Flash slide show as well. If exporting to a Flash-based website is what you're looking for, then just click the OK button (as shown here). [View full size image]

Step Seven When you click OK, Lightroom gathers everything together for you and puts it neatly in your named folder. Here's a look inside that folder (the one I saved to my Desktop) and inside it you'll see a file named index.html. That's your web-page. Although you'll need to upload the entire contents of this folder to the Web, if you just want a preview of the final page (before you upload it), double-click on the index.html file and it will open in your Web browser.

Step Eight Here's a look at the final Flash-based webpage. You can see the title you entered in the Export dialog now appears at the top of the page. Visitors to your page can click on individual thumbnails to see the image, or they can press the Play button to see the Flash-based slide show. There's even a button (in the bottom-right corner of the page) for viewing the slide show in Full Screen mode. [View full size image]

Chapter 7. Print Printing Your Photos

It could be argued that this is the single most important module of all Lightroom's modules, because it's all about "the print." Everything we do is, ultimately, to produce a final printed image. In fact, one of my friends, the award-winning nature photographer Vincent Versace, has a saying he's quite fond of: "We are in service of the print." He must be right, because he's a brilliant photographer, and one heck of a Photoshop instructor, too. However, Vincent himself will be the first one to tell you he's a better chef than he is a photographer. Now, if you've seen any of Vincent's photography (some of his original prints go for upwards of $5,000 a pop), you know he's got to be one hell of a cook. Vincent has invited me over to his house for dinner on numerous occasions, but I've never gone. You know why? Because I'm afraid Vincent will slip hallucinogenic drugs into my food. Why do I think that? It's because I think Vincent slips hallucinogenic drugs

into his own food. Always. So, it only stands to reason that if he's cooking dinner, I'm going to wind up singing "Purple Haze" while staring intently at a ball of yarn. Maybe that's why everybody loves Vincent's cooking so much. By the time the main course comes around, they're all hopped up on crank and everything tastes yummy. Of course, I could be wrong. But if you get a chance to hear Vincent speak at a conference, see if you don't subscribe to my "don't eat the brownies theory" afterwards. However, I think Vincent's statement that "We are in service of the print" has some merit. Not that I really understand it, but I've noticed it really starts to sound good after a few appetizers.

Printing Essentials Ahhh, finally we get to move from just viewing our photos onscreen to actually printing them out. Luckily, Lightroom has about the best printing setup of any program I've ever seen. We're going to start with using one of the built-in printing templates. I'm generally not a big fan of the default templates that ship with any program, but Adobe broke the mold a bit with the templates in the Print module and provided some very useful templatesat the very least, ones that can be easily tweaked to fit your needs. So, we'll start here.

Step One Printing is done in the Print module, so press Command-4 to switch to the Print module. You don't even have to have a photo selected to enter the Print module, and the reason isyou've got that nice filmstrip across the bottom, so you can choose which photos you want to print right from there. Start by clicking on the Maximize Size template in the Template Browser (as shown), then click on a photo in the filmstrip, and that photo now appears as large as possible on the page to be printed.

©ISTOCKPHOTO/ANDRZEJ BURAK

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Step Two If you want to print more than one photo, press-and-hold the Command key and, in the filmstrip, click on any other photos you want printed (as shown here). As you click on other photos, Lightroom automatically adds pages for you (the number of pages you're printing appears directly below your current photo, so it shows that you're looking at the first page of six to be printed). If you press Command-A (Select All), then it would automatically add as many pages as necessary. To remove a photo from your print selection, Command-click on it in the filmstrip. [View full size image]

Step Three This is more of a timesaving shortcut than a step, but you know that number of pages appearing under your main photo? Well if you have just a small number of photos set up for printing (like we do here), you can view those pages by using the left and right arrows on either side of the page numbers. However, when you've got a lot of photos, you can jump forward or backward much faster by placing your cursor right over the first number (your cursor will change into a text Ibeam cursor) and then click, hold, and drag to the left or right to quickly jump through the page numbers. It makes getting to photo page number 42 much, much faster. Now, back to our story already in progress. [View full size image]

Step Four Remember when we chose the Maximize Size template? Well, what that template does is it tries to print your photo as large as possible, and to do that it had to turn your photo sideways, so it prints wide, rather than trying to fit on a tall page. So how did it know to do that? Because the option Rotate Photos to Best Fit Cells was turned on. If, instead, you wanted to print your wide photo on a tall page (like the one shown here), you'd go up to the Image Settings panel (top right) and turn off the Rotate Photos to Best Fit Cells checkbox (as shown heremore on this feature later when we get into contact sheets). All right, so far we learned how to print one or more photos, and how to change the photo's orientation on the page. Now, it's resizing time. [View full size image]

Step Five Before we head straight into the sizing issue, I do want to mention that by default there are two onscreen rulers that appear on the left side and bottom of your photo (as shown here). The default unit of measure is inches, although the bottom side of the ruler is always in centimeters (I have no idea why). If you want to change the top measurement, go to the Page Layout Tools panel, and next to the Show Rulers checkbox, you'll see the word "Inches." Click-and-hold on that word and a pop-up menu of units of measurement appears (as shown here)just choose your desired unit from this menu. [View full size image]

Step Six By the way, if you find those rulers distracting, you can turn them off (as I have here) by turning off the Show Rulers checkbox in the Page Layout Tools panel. Now, first off, how do we determine how large a print we're going to print? That is actually done not in Lightroom, but in the Page Setup dialog for your printer. Conveniently, Adobe added a Page Setup button (shown circled here) at the bottom of the Panels area on the right side of the window, so click that now and we can set up the size of the paper we want to print on. [View full size image]

Step Seven Once you click that button, the Page Setup dialog will pop down from the top of Lightroom's window. From the Settings pop-up menu at the top of the dialog, choose Page Attributes. In the Format For pop-up menu, choose your printer (in the dialog shown here, I picked my personal printer, the Epson Stylus Photo R2400, which I think is the best pro-quality 13x19" printer out there). The Paper Size pop-up menu is where you ultimately choose which size paper you'll be printing to, so go ahead and choose that from the menu (here I chose to print 8x10" borderless prints). Also, for orientation, choose Portrait (the first icon from the left) because you can auto rotate your photos to print correctly in Lightroom. [View full size image]

Step Eight Now click OK, and you're set (you can turn the Rulers on for just a second or two to confirm that, yes indeed, you are printing 8x10s, but that's only necessary if you're fairly paranoid). Now let's get to sizingchoosing how large our photos will appear on our 8x10" prints. There are two ways to do this: The first is to go to the Page Layout Tools panel and use the Margins sliders. As you change the margins, the size of the photo changes to accommodate the new margins. In this instance, I dragged the Top Margins slider to the right a little bit (increasing the top margin) and the top margin moved down. I then dragged the Bottom Margins slider further to the right and you can see how the photo resized (which created lots of space below the photo). [View full size image]

Step Nine As you move these Margins sliders, the photos resize live onscreen, so you can always see exactly where, and how large, your photo will be. Here I increased the left and right margins (by dragging their sliders to the right), and you can see how it repositioned the image on the page. [View full size image]

Step Ten Okay, are you ready for a "Gotcha!"? If you drag all of the Margins sliders back to 0 (all the way to the left) your photo doesn't always jump back up to size. Why? I have no idea, but it just doesn't sometimes. So if you decide you want to start over, you may really need to start overgo back over to the Template Browser and click on the Maximize Size template (as shown here). Now your photo is back up to filling as much of your 8x10 as it can. Well, technically, you could fill more of that 8x10, right? Because there are white margins on each side of the image. If you really wanted to fill every square inch, then you could turn on the Zoom and Crop Photos to Fill Grid Cells checkbox at the top of the Image Settings panel. [View full size image]

Step Eleven When you turn on the Zoom and Crop Photos to Fill Grid Cells checkbox (as shown here), Lightroom zooms in until the photo fills as much of the cell area as possible (in this case, the whole page because you chose the Maximize Size template). Now, once your photo is zoomed in like that, if you move your cursor over the image, your cursor turns into a Grabber Hand (as shown circled here). This lets you click-and-drag to move your image around within the borders of your page (or cell), so you can position it (basically cropping it) just the way you want it. So now that you see how Zoom and Crop works, turn that checkbox off for now. [View full size image]

Step Twelve The second method of sizing and setting your margins is to just click-and-drag the margins right where you want them. Now, we started with the Maximize Size template and our margins are at the very edge of the page so, for example, if you had a printer that required a 1/4" margin at the top, you'd move your cursor to the very top of the page, and you'd see it change into a bar with two arrows. Just click-and-drag downward and the margin line will appear, and your photo will shrink to accommodate this new height restriction. As you drag, the exact position of this top margin appears in inches (shown circled here) so you can easily see how far you're dragging down. That's pretty darn slick. [View full size image]

Step Thirteen Here, to add more space at the bottom, grab the bottom margin (which is at the very bottom edge of the page) and drag upward (as shown here). Again, you'll see a measurement as to how far you're dragging up appear right above the margin line as you drag. As you can see here, the photo resizes accordingly. [View full size image]

Step Fourteen Are you ready for another "Gotcha!"? Okay, so you're dragging the bottom margin upward, the photo is scaling down in size as you drag, and all of a sudden the photo flips over on its side (as shown here). Why is it doing that? It's because the Rotate Photos to Best Fit Cells feature is turned on, and when you dragged upward far enough that the photo would actually be larger if printed sideways, Lightroom automatically flipped it. Depending on how you look at this, this is either utterly brilliant or incredibly annoying. Either way, it's easy to changejust turn off the Rotate Photos to Best Fit Cells checkbox in the Image Settings panel (go ahead and turn that off now, so we can increase the margins and shrink the photo's size a bit more). [View full size image]

Step Fifteen Now grab the side margins (remember to click-and-drag from the edges) and drag them inward until there's a nice open area below your photo (as shown here). [View full size image]

Step Sixteen Now that we have that big open area, we can add some text there. In the Panels area on the right, scroll down to the Overlay Options panel, and turn on the Print Identity Plate checkbox. This makes your Identity Plate text visible, as shown here (if you can't see your text, try dragging the Scale slider to the right, as shown here, to make your text bigger. Also, if your text appears in white, choose Edit from the pop-up menu that appears to the right of the Print Identity Plate checkbox. Then highlight your text, click on the Font Panel button to bring up the Font panel, click on the color swatch at the top left, and choose black as your text color). [View full size image]

Step Seventeen Click-and-drag your Identity Plate text down so it appears under your photo in the open area of space (as shown here). Now, so we can get a good clean look at our photo layout before we print it, go ahead and hide the page margins by turning off the Show Guides checkbox in the Page Layout Tools panel (as shown here). [View full size image]

Step Eighteen Now remember, although we're setting up this one photo for printing, this layout you just created is also applied to any other photos you have selected. So, go ahead and press Command-A to select all your photos in the filmstrip, then click the right-facing arrow below the center Preview area (as shown here) to move through your group of photos to be printed. As you can see, they each have your custom layout. [View full size image]

Step Nineteen Click to move on to another photo, and let's tweak things a little while we're here. One thing I like to do with the Identity Plate is to lower the Opacity setting to around 40% (as shown here in the Overlay Options panel), so the text looks gray and doesn't draw as much attention or compete as much with the photo. Another option you might like (depending on the photo and the background) is to have Lightroom automatically add a thin border around your photo. To do that, turn on the Print Other Options checkbox (in the Overlay Options panel) and then turn on the Border checkbox below that (as shown here). If you want the photo's name, caption, date, or EXIF data also printed on the photo, turn on the Print Photo Information checkbox, also in the Overlay Options panel, and turn on the checkboxes below it for the data you want to print. [View full size image]

Step Twenty Now that we've gone through all this trouble to create a custom layout for our printing, let's save it as a template so the next time we want this exact same layout, it's just one click away. Below the Template Browser on the left side of the window, click the Add Template button (as shown here), which adds a template to the list with the text field already highlightedjust type in the name you want. Now, we're ready to print (well, once we tweak a few settings, anyway). [View full size image]

Step Twenty-One Before we actually hit the Print button, there's a couple of controls you'll want to adjust in the Print Job Settings panel. First, there's the Print Resolution setting. The default resolution is 240 dpi, but you can raise or lower that amount by clicking directly on the number and dragging your mouse to the left or right (240 dpi is fine for printing an 8x10 to a color inkjet printer). In the Color Management section, for Profile, ideally you'd want to load a profile of the exact paper you're going to be printing on (download these from the paper manufacturer's web-site). If you've downloaded the printing profiles from the Web (they're free), click-and-hold where it says Managed by Printer and a pop-up menu will appear. Choose Other from this menu.

Step Twenty-Two A Printing Profile dialog will pop down from the top of Lightroom's window. Click on the pop-up menu in this dialog and a list of your installed printing profiles will appear. I'm printing to an Epson Stylus Photo R2400, and I'm printing on Epson's Premium Luster paper, so I downloaded and installed Epson's free profiles (the installation only took a double-clickit does the rest for you). Now the SPR2400 PremiumLuster profile appears in my profile list (as shown here). By choosing this, you're letting Lightroom manage your color, instead of your printer (which is what you want). If you want the best results from your printing, you'll definitely want to download, install, and use these profiles. [View full size image]

Step Twenty-Three For the Rendering Intent, if you're printing to a color inkjet printer (and I imagine that you are), I recommend choosing Perceptual from the pop-up menu (as shown here) because it seems to give the most consistent color.

Step Twenty-Four We're going to skip Draft Mode printing for now (we'll talk about that in the Contact Sheet section), but we can discuss Print Sharpening. This is a modified Unsharp Mask that you can add if you feel your images need additional sharpening. The Low setting (the default) works pretty well for images 8x10" or smaller, but if you're printing larger images, you'll probably need to use

Medium (for 13x19") or High (for 16x20" or larger). You choose these by turning on the Enable Print Sharpening checkbox, and then clicking directly on the word Low and a pop-up menu appears (as shown here). Okay, we're almost done. Click the Print button that appears under the Print Job Settings panel.

Step Twenty-Five When the Print dialog appears, choose your printer from the Printer pop-up menu at the top of the dialog (here I've chosen my Epson R2400 again). [View full size image]

Step Twenty-Six From the third pop-up menu down, choose Print Settings (shown circled here) to make the printing options visible. (The choices on this menu may vary depending on your printer, so if you don't have Print Settings, look for the menu or menus that will allow you to make the following choices.) For Media Type, choose the exact paper you're going to be printing on (if you don't see

your paper here, you probably haven't gone to Epson's, or your paper manufacturer's, website and downloaded the profile for your paper). For Mode, choose Advanced, and for Print Quality choose the highest quality your printer will allow. Don't click the Print button quite yetthere's one more dialog to go. [View full size image]

Step Twenty-Seven Again, from the third pop-up menu down, choose Color Management, and then turn your printer's color management off (as shown here). This is critically important, because you've chosen to have Lightroom manage your color. If you let Lightroom manage it one way, and then also let your printer manage it another, there's almost no chance that what you see onscreen and what comes out of the printer will match. The key to color management is consistency, so you'll need to turn your printer's color management off, as shown here. [View full size image]

Step Twenty-Eight Now you can click the Print button, and as long as you started out with a calibrated monitor, and you followed the steps shown here (including downloading and installing the proper profiles), then what you see in print will match what you saw onscreen, and life is good.

Printing Contact Sheets (or More Than One Photo on One Page) I really can't explain why, but to this day getting multiple photos on one page has always been a struggle. I mean, we can send men to the moon, but...(don't get me started). Anyway, the good news isLightroom has changed all that, and I doubt there's a program on the planet that does a better job of creating contact sheets than it. Finally, printing multiple photos (or the same photo multiple times) is done right. This is a great day in the land of digital photography, so please join me in raising a glass to those valiant engineers who made the undoable, doable.

Step One To get a feel for how this all works, in the filmstrip select a number of different photos, and then click on the Maximize Size template so your photo takes up the entire page. With this one-photoper-page setup, even though you have a number of photos selected to print you only see the first photo to be printed (as shown here).

©ISTOCKPHOTO

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Step Two

If you want to print more than one photo per page, you can set that up in the Page Layout Tools panel, shown here. You get to choose how many rows and how many columns you want printed on your page (using the Page Grid sliders); you get to determine the space between them (using the Cell Spacing sliders); and you get to determine how close to the edges of your page these photos get (using the Margins sliders).

Step Three Let's start by adding two photos to the same page. Go to the Page Layout Tools panel and in the Page Grid section, click-and-drag the Rows slider to the right until you see two photos appear onscreen (Lightroom updates live as you move the slider, which really makes this process very easy). Here you can see the results of dragging the Rows slider to the right just a little bityou have two rows of photos, each in its own adjustable cell. Now, as you can see, although there's a little white margin on the sides of the two photos, in the middle they're touching. You may be fine with them touching, but you might also want some room between them. [View full size image]

Step Four Now, it's helpful if you start thinking about your two photos as if they were in individual cells (kind of like cells in a spreadsheet) because that's how Lightroom treats them. For example, to add some space between your two photos you'd need to increase the spacing between the two cells. You do that (get ready for a shocker) using the Cell Spacing sliders. In this case, you need to increase the Vertical spacing, so click-and-drag the Vertical Cell Spacing slider to the right just a little bit (as shown here). As you drag it, you'll see the spacing increase live, so you can see just how much you want. By the way, we started this project with four photos, each on its own page. Now, you've got only two pages, with two photos on eachall the pages update automatically as you add rows and columns, and change the spacing. [View full size image]

Step Five So, now you have space between your photos, but if you look back at Step Four, you can see that the photos still touch the top and bottom of the page. If you want to put a little margin in there, you'd move the Margins sliders, so grab the Bottom Margins slider and drag it a little bit to the right (as shown here) and drag the Top Margins slider to the right the same amount. Of course, if you don't feel like dragging sliders, you can just drag the margins themselves, right on the page (as shown earlier in the book). [View full size image]

Step Six Now, let's put four photos on the same page. Just slide the Page Grid Rows slider over until you see four photos. Now, notice that we're down to just one page. We started with four photos selected one on each pagethen we added a row, which gave us two photos on two pages, and now all four photos are on one page, so there's only one page to print. Let's look at some options for what we can do with our multi-photo page. [View full size image]

Step Seven If you scroll up to the Image Settings panel and turn on the checkbox for Zoom and Crop Photos to Fill Grid Cells, it zooms in on your photos so they fill as much of the cells as possible (as shown here). When this option is turned on, you can reposition your photos within each cell by just moving your cursor over the photo, then clicking-and-dragging it around within the cell until it's cropped the way you want it. Now, let's turn that feature off again (in other words, uncheck the checkbox). [View full size image]

Step Eight If you want the same photo to appear multiple times on the same page, then you'll want to go to the Image Settings panel and turn on the checkbox for Repeat One Photo Every Cell Per Page (as shown here). That gives you the look you see here. Now, you might be wondering to yourself, "Why in the world would I want to do that?" Well, with this photo of a flower you might not want to, but if it was a portrait of your daughter, and you wanted to quickly create some wallet-size photos and print them all on one page, it would make perfect sense. Okay, now you can turn off that checkbox, too. [View full size image]

Step Nine Go back to the Page Layout Tools panel and drag the Page Grid Rows slider back to 2, so you only have two rows again. Of course, besides adding vertical rows, you can also add columns (so you have rows of photos side-by-side). To do this, in the Page Grid section, drag the Columns slider over to the right until a second column appears (as shown here). So, you're still displaying four photos per page, but now you've got two columns. [View full size image]

Step Ten Now let's add some more rows, so we can add more photos on the same page. Drag the Rows slider until you have four rows again, giving you the layout you see here (four rows in two neat columns). The reason I was able to add more rows and have them automatically fill up with photos is because when you weren't looking, I went to the filmstrip and selected more photos, until I had 15 selected in all. So, if you don't have at least 15 photos selected, go ahead and do so (by the way, if you don't have 15 photos handy, you're just not shootin' enough). [View full size image]

Step Eleven If you want to turn this multi-photo page into a contact sheet, then there's another option you'll want to use. Scroll down to the Overlay Options panel and turn on the checkbox for Print Photo Information, then directly under that turn on the checkboxes for Name (to have it print the name of the photo under each image) and Dates (if you also want the date the photo was taken included). In the example shown here, both the file's name and date are displayed under each photo. [View full size image]

Step Twelve If you're just going for the artistic effect, then you might want to turn off the Print Photo Information checkbox, and instead turn on the Print Other Options check-box, then turn on the Border checkbox below it, which puts a thin black border around all your photos (as shown here). You may also want to scroll back up to the Page Layout Tools panel and turn off the Show Guides checkbox so you can see an uncluttered view of your multi-photo layout (shown here). Okay, on to more contact sheet stuff. [View full size image]

Step Thirteen If you're going to be creating contact sheets, you should consider using the contact sheet templates Adobe included with Lightroom, at least as a starting place until you create your own. Start by clicking on the 4x5 Contact Sheet template (as shown here). By the way, that doesn't give you 4x5" photos. It creates a grid that is four columns wide by five rows deep (as shown here).

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Step Fourteen What's nice about using this 4x5 Contact Sheet template, besides the fact that it takes just one click to get to four columns by five rows with some decent cell spacing already in place, is the fact that it's set up to put the image names under the photos as well. It's just darn handy. My only gripe is that the photos print right to the edges of the page (you can see that in the previous step), so I usually wind up increasing the margins a bit (as shown here), so they're not right smack up against the edges. Once you've tweaked these margins a bit, I'd recommend clicking the Add Template button (on the left side of the window, at the bottom of the Template Browser) and saving this setup as your own custom 4x5 contact sheet. That way, you won't have to tweak the margins every time. [View full size image]

Step Fifteen There are some other nice printing templates here (they're not all contact sheets). Try the one called 4 Wide (as shown here) which gives you four nice wide rows, zoomed and cropped, and includes your Identity Plate at the bottom (as shown here), ready to print. Also try the one called Fine Art Mat, which I particularly like for photos you plan on framing. Okay, just to show you how easy it is to tweak a template, click back on your custom 4x5 contact sheet (the one you just saved as a template in the previous step), then go to the Page Layout Tools panel and decrease the number of columns to just three, so you get the layout shown in the next step. [View full size image]

Step Sixteen Okay, one last thing. Now we've got a nice contact sheet ready to print, but isn't it going to take a long time to process and print 15 high-resolution photos (even if they are on one page)? Nopein fact it's going to print so fast you'll be stunned, because you're going to scroll down to the Print Job Settings panel, and at the bottom you're going to turn on the checkbox for Enable Draft Mode Printing (as shown here). Now, instead of rendering 15 high-res photos to create these small contact sheet thumbnails, Lightroom instead uses the lower resolution preview versions, which does two things: (1) it makes your contact sheet print in a fraction of the time, and (2) the photos still look absolutely crisp and clear, because you don't need any more resolution for images this small. [View full size image]

Inside Back Cover The Adobe® Lightroom™ eBook for Digital Photographers The best way to organize, correct, print, and show your digital images Digital photography has made shooting photos more fun than ever, but the process of sorting, managing, editing, and printing those images had still been too time consuming, too complicated, and too much of a hassle. Then came Adobe Lightroom, the workflow application for professional photographers, and all that changed. Award-winning, best-selling author Scott Kelby (Editor-in-Chief of Photoshop User magazine) shows you how to unlock the amazing power of Adobe Lightroom and really start using it like a pro. This isn't just a book of theory and technical jargon, this is a step-by-step, project-based book that will teach you not only exactly how it's all done, but the precise order it should be done in (it makes a big difference in both your efficiency and in the final print). This is the book that will show you, in plain English, how to put Lightroom to use today in your everyday work. You'll learn: How a few extra steps on import can save hours later on. When it's okay to quick-edit photos, and when you need "the big guns." Essential shortcuts to speed your work and make you even faster! The easy way to process RAW photos, which controls you need to learn, and which ones you can usually ignore. How to quickly sort your images, get down to the "keepers" fast, and how to deal with the rest. How to manage your photo library so the photo you need is always just two clicks away. How to create your own custom slide shows with your studio's branding. How to create gallery prints, custom contact sheets, and your own custom templates to work faster and smarter than your competition. Plus dozens of little tips, tricks, insights, and workarounds to give you a serious competitive advantage.

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If you're ready to start using Lightroom like a pro, there's no easier, faster, or more fun way than with the book you're holding right now. If you're one of those people who learn by doing, then this is definitely the book for you.

Scott Kelby is Editor-in-Chief of Photoshop User magazine, President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, Training Director for the Adobe Photoshop Seminar Tour, and one of the leading seminar instructors in the country today. Scott is author of the best-selling books Photoshop Classic Effects, Photoshop Down&Dirty Tricks, and The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers. His easygoing, plain-English style of teaching makes learning Photoshop and Lightroom fun. He trains thousands in his live seminars each year and knows firsthand which techniques are in hot demand, and now he shares them here in his latest book.

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z]

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] 4 Wide template 4x5 Contact Sheet template

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Activity Viewer Add Text Adornment dialog Adobe Lightroom Identity Plate feature importing photos into jumping to/from Photoshop locating photos in module navigation screen modes Adobe Photoshop editing photos in jumping to/from Lightroom Apple iTunes software ascending order sort

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Backdrop Settings panel 2nd backgrounds for slide shows color selection for 2nd images added to backing up photos Basic panel Blacks slider Brightness slider Contrast slider Exposure slider Saturation slider White Balance sliders black-and-white conversions Quick Develop panel Tone Curve panel Blacks slider Brightness setting, Quick Develop Brightness sliders Basic panel Tone Curve panel Browse by Shoot panel Browse Keywords panel 2nd

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Camera Calibration panel cameras fixing problems caused by 2nd importing photos from Cell Spacing sliders clipping warnings 2nd 3rd collections adding photos 2nd creating deleting Quick removing photos 2nd renaming Color Management 2nd Color Wash colors adjusting individual fringe reduction slide show background 2nd Colors panel 2nd Compare view applying ratings in entering from Grid view Compression sliders 2nd 3rd contact sheets setup process for templates used for Contrast setting, Quick Develop Contrast sliders Basic panel 2nd Tone Curve panel controls Copy Settings dialog copyright information Create Keyword dialog Crop & Straighten panel cropping photos

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] date settings 2nd Date tokens De-noise slider descending order sort 2nd Detail panel Develop module 2nd Basic panel Camera Calibration panel Crop & Straighten panel Detail panel entering from Quick Develop panel grayscale conversions HSL Color Tuning panel Lens Corrections panel Photo menu preset creation Presets Browser panel 2nd Reset button Split Toning panel Tone Curve panel Digital Negative (DNG) format Dim mode draft mode printing drop shadows

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] edge vignetting Edit photo dialog Edit Text Adornment dialog 2nd 3rd editing multiple images photos in Photoshop text in slide shows 2nd Enable Draft Mode Printing checkbox EXIF Metadata template 2nd 3rd Export dialog exporting slide shows Exposure setting, Quick Develop Exposure slider, Basic panel

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] File Handling pop-up menu files copying to Library naming and renaming filmstrip Fine Art Mat template Flash-based slide shows folders, importing photos in FTP Transfer dialog full-screen slide show

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Grayscale Conversion preset grayscale conversions Quick Develop panel Tone Curve panel Grayscale Mixer panel Grid view applying ratings in Compare view from keyboard shortcut for Slideshow module and 2nd sorting photos in 2nd

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] hiding panels Highlights clipping warning 2nd Highlights Compression slider 2nd Highlights Luminance slider Highlights Range slider Histogram HSL Color Tuning panel Hue sliders HSL Color Tuning panel Split Toning panel

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Identity Plate adding to slide shows contact sheets with printing photos with Image Settings panel Print module Slideshow module images [See photos.] Import Photos dialog 2nd 3rd importing photos backup process file handling options folder options from memory cards keyword assignments locating imported photos Metadata options previewing images renaming options stopping import process stored on your computer Info panel iTunes software

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] keyboard shortcuts Grid view module navigation keywords assigning 2nd creating searching

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Lens Corrections panel Lens Vignetting sliders Reduce Fringe sliders Lens Vignetting sliders Library module collections in Compare view copying files to Grid view 2nd 3rd keywords used in locating photos in Loupe view 2nd Photo menu Quick Develop panel sorting photos in Lightroom [See Adobe Lightroom.] Lights Out mode locating photos Loupe view applying ratings in Compare view from Luminance sliders HSL Color Tuning panel Tone Curve panel 2nd

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Margins sliders 2nd 3rd Maximize Size template 2nd memory cards, importing photos from Metadata pop-up menu Midtones sliders Minimum Rating slider modules [See also specific modules.] navigating multiple image editing music in slide shows

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] nameplate navigating modules New Metadata Preset dialog noise reduction numbering photos

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Opacity setting, Identity Plate Overlay Options panel 2nd 3rd

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Page Grid Rows slider 2nd Page Layout Tools panel 2nd 3rd 4th Page Setup dialog panels expanding hiding minus and plus signs resizing viewing panning photos Paste Settings button PDF slide shows photos backing up cropping editing multiple importing numbering previewing printing rating renaming resizing rotating 2nd sharpening sorting straightening Photoshop [See Adobe Photoshop.] Playback Settings panel 2nd playing slide shows presets creating your own Crop & Straighten panel Grayscale Conversion Quick Develop panel 2nd Presets Browser panel 2nd previewing imported photos resizing images for slide shows Print dialog Print Identity Plate checkbox Print Job Settings panel 2nd Print module Image Settings panel 2nd Overlay Options panel 2nd 3rd

Page Layout Tools panel 2nd 3rd 4th Page Setup dialog Print Job Settings panel 2nd Print Other Options checkbox Print Photo Information checkbox Print Resolution setting Print Settings pop-up menu printing contact sheets Identity Plate text 2nd multiple photos per page paper selection for 2nd printer selection for saving custom layouts for selecting photos for setting options for sharpening photos for sizing photos for Printing Profile dialog

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Quick Collections adding/removing photos assigning ratings to clearing out permanent collections from Quick Develop panel 2nd Auto setting Brightness setting Contrast setting Develop module access editing multiple images Exposure setting grayscale conversion presets 2nd Reset button Saturation setting White Balance control

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Randomize Slides checkbox Range sliders rating photos Reduce Fringe sliders renaming collections files Rendering Intent options Reset button Crop & Straighten panel 2nd Develop module Quick Develop panel resizing [See sizing and resizing.] Rotate Photos to Best Fit Cells feature rotating photos 2nd text Rows slider 2nd rulers 2nd

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Saturation settings, Quick Develop Saturation sliders Basic panel HSL Color Tuning panel Split Toning panel screen display modes scrubby sliders Search panel searching keywords segmenting photos Sepia Tone preset shadows clipping warning 2nd drop Shadows Compression slider Shadows Luminance slider Shadows Range slider Sharpen slider sharpening images 2nd Show Crop Overlay checkbox sizing and resizing panels photos 2nd thumbnails Slide Layout Tools panel 2nd slide shows backgrounds for 2nd controls used for customizing slides for date display in drop shadows in exporting Flash-based full-screen Identity Plate in music added to PDF format playing previewing Quick Collections removing photos from saving custom layouts selecting photos for templates for 2nd text used in 2nd Web-based

Slideshow Format pop-up menu Slideshow module Backdrop Settings panel 2nd 3rd Image Settings panel Overlay Options panel Playback Settings panel 2nd Slide Layout Tools panel 2nd Slideshow Grid view 2nd Smooth slider sorting photos collections for Compare view Grid view 2nd keywords for Loupe view star ratings for Split Toning panel star ratings Straighten Settings Angle slider straightening photos Stroke Photo Border checkbox Synchronize button 2nd Synchronize Settings dialog

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Temperature slider Template Browser 2nd templates contact sheet saving custom layouts as 2nd slide show text adding deleting editing 2nd printing rotating thumbnails, resizing Tint slider tinting photos Tone Curve panel grayscale conversions Highlights sliders Midtones sliders Range sliders Shadows sliders type [See text.]

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Versace, Vincent view modes

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Web-based slide shows White Balance controls Basic panel Quick Develop panel White Balance tool

Index [SYMBOL] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [V] [W] [Z] Zoom and Crop feature zoom square