Craigslist Lightroom 3 Serial Number Scam on The Lightroom Lab

Seven by Five just posted an article on “10+ Lightroom Tips That Can Make a Big Difference”. Normally when I read these sort of articles, unless its when a new version of something has just come out, I tend to know most of them already. However this article contained both some good reminders and a couple of tips I didn’t know so I thought I’d post a link.

You can check out the article here. Enjoy!

Whilst strictly speaking I think its more of a product integration, I do accept that with many other programs offering Lightroom plugins, providing one click actions to export your images into their software for retouching, effects, noise reduction, etc there is no reason why you can’t view Photoshop as being the same.

The article covers each of the options, the settings for transferring images into Photoshop and even how to set up droplets. Well worth a visit.

1. Brand new import screen makes it much easier to get your photos from your camera/memory card onto your hard disk in the format you want and with the initial settings you need
2. Tethered shooting is now a lot easier for those of you that need this
3. Drastically improved noise reduction (this is the biggie!) with amazing results allowing you to do more in one product without having to break your workflow and move to another tool
4. Lens correction automatically reduces lens defects like geometric distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting
5. Image watermarking with improved options for placement, style and opacity
6. More flexible print layouts to allow you greater creativity when outputting your work
7. Integration with online sites such as Flickr (including two way updates for comments/favourites)
8. Its just faster!

You can see some of the above features in action over at the LightroomLab blog where they’ve posted a video of their top five new features. Additionally, Thomas Hawk has posted an article on his blog showing his take on some of the new features. He’s especially blown away by the noise reduction features. I’m ordering my copy today, so hopefully will have some more articles once I’ve had a chance to play around with it more.

LightroomLab: Five New Features of Lightroom 3 for Professional Photographers

Thomas Hawk: The Most Significant Advancement In Photo Noise Reduction I Have Ever Seen

One such committed individual is Brandon Oelling over on the X= Blog. After soliciting feedback, one reader emailed to indicate that they wanted more information on the items in the right-hand menu of the Develop module – especially things such as the tone curve and detail panel.

Thankfully Brandon has come to their aid with a great post listing each of the tools available in the Develop panels along with links to articles that go into more detail on each.

So if you’re having trouble with the develop module or just want a refresher on what a particular panel does then check out the X= article “Everything in the Right Hand Menu“. As for my Lightroom series I’ll see if I can get something out this year (but no promises!).

Like many of the other articles (and me!) he recommends converting to DNG and listed a selection of the concerns and comments around why others might not feel comfortable doing this.

Follow the link below to check out the full article on his site.

To DNG or Not to DNG? (Lightroom Killer Tips)

A recent post on The Lightroom Lab covers an oft overlooked feature in Lightroom – Keyword Sets. These allow you to create small collections of keywords that you use frequently or that are specific to certain shoots and allow you to add them to selected images via a single click.

Follow the link below for more information on this including a handy tip (which I didn’t know about) to switch between multiple keyword sets via a quick keyboard shortcut.

The Lightroom Lab: Keyword Sets Make Repetitive Keywording Push Button Easy

1. Use Solo Mode To Tame All Those Panels
2. Use Collections instead of Folders
3. Store all your photos inside one main folder
4. Do as much work in Lightroom as possible
5. Create Presets and Templates whenever possible
6. How to Save Your Image as a JPEG
7. Turn off Auto Show for panels
8. Throw away your old backups
9. It’s OK to have multiple Catalogs
10. Ask yourself whether you need lots of keywords or not

Now most of these I agree 100% with. I’m not that great and creating presets and templates but hey – there’s so many good ones available out there I tend to use them and tweak as required. Plus of course, considering my free Keyword Sets I would say that answer to number 10 is “Yes you do need keywords!”.

Scott Kelby – 10 Things I Would Tell New Lightroom Users

So in a similar theme I thought I would reference a great post over on Lightroom News which covers using plug-ins in Lightroom.

Although LR v1 was pretty limited in this respect, since v2 and following Adobe opening things up there is now a great list of plug-ins to make your life easier when using the tool. These range from utilities and metadata plug-ins to export options to help you create online galleries or upload to your favourite photo sharing site.

The article on Lightroom News is only short so I’m not going to replicate much of it here, however it does list, and link to, the majority of the main plug-ins available so its a great page to bookmark.

Lightroom News: An Introduction to Lightroom Plug-ins

I’ve added a new keyword list to my collection of keywords for Lightroom. This time it focuses on terms used to describe weather and associated atmospheric conditions – rain, cloud types, fog/haze, storms, etc.

I’m not 100% happy with the list at the moment but thought I’d post it anyway. So if you’ve any suggestions for things I’ve missed or better ways to sub-categorise some of the items please use the contact form to let me know.

Otherwise, head on over to the keywords page (link at top) and download the new list.