Adobe Lightroom

The Adjustment Brush, located in the Tool Strip under the Histogram, allows you to make adjustments to exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, clarity, sharpness and color. You can choose any configuration of these settings to apply to selective areas of your photo, and you can even edit those settings on the fly while you work.

You can apply multiple brush strokes with different settings. For example, you might use a combination of reduced exposure and saturation to paint on the background, while you also apply a few strokes of increased brightness and sharpness to a subjects eyes. Be as creative as you need to be.

Let’s walk through an example to demonstrate the basics of how this tool works. The best way to begin to use the Adjustment Brush is after you’ve made your basic global adjustments, mainly white balance and exposure, since these global adjustments will affect the local adjustments you will make later. So perform the adjustments in the Basic panel before picking up the brush.

Here’s a photo that has had the basic global adjustments applied. It is OK, but I’d really like to see if I can make the subject pop a little more from the background. It has a shallow depth of field, and that is a good way to separate a subject from the background, but we can also enhance that separation by adjusting saturation, brightness, contrast and sharpness, which is where the Adjustment Brush comes in very handy.

Step 1.

Select the Adjustment Brush.

If you are already in the Develop module you can simply click on the Brush icon in the Tool Strip. An easier alternative is to just press K. You can press K from anywhere in Lightroom and it will bring you to the Develop module and activate the Adjustment Brush.

Once the Brush is activated you will see its options expand in the panel beneath it. Like the Graduated Filter, the Adjustment Brush also has two modes — Buttons and Sliders — that you can toggle between by clicking the Show Effect button. I usually prefer to work with the sliders because it just feels more intuitive to me.

Step 2.

Configure the types of adjustments you want to apply.

The first thing I want to do with this photo is make those frogs eyes really pop (as if they are not already popping right out of his head). To that end I want to increase the sharpness and bump up the brightness and saturation.

Sometimes it is easier to boost each setting higher than you really want to apply so the effect of the adjustment is easier to see while you are working. Then once you have painted over the chosen area, you can dial back any of the settings (or even add new ones) as needed.

Step 3.

Configure the characteristics of the brush itself.

Just like when using the brush tool in Photoshop you can control the size of the brush and the softness or feather of the brush. If at first you don’t see all the brush settings sliders click the black arrow to expand the Brush settings panel.

The four settings you can control are Size, Feather, Flow and Density. Size and Feather are the most familiar, where Size determines the diameter of the brush cursor and Feather determines how far out to fade the effect from the edge of the brush. When you look at the brush cursor, you see a crosshair at the center of a larger circle. The area inside of this circle gets the full effect of the brush settings. Depending upon the Feather setting you will see a second larger circle that defines how far out from the edge to fade the effect.

Flow and Density control how much of the effect is applied with each brush stroke. With Flow and Density both set to 100, you can apply the full amount of the effect with every stroke. With Flow set to 50 and Density set to 100, you can apply half the full amount of the effect with every stroke. So, by reducing the Flow setting you can build up the effect with multiple strokes. This is very helpful for making gradual levels of adjustment.

Another way to put it is that the Density controls the maximum amount of the effect you are able to apply with the brush and the flow controls how much of the effect can be applied in a single brush stroke. To help illustrate how this works, I applied 4 different brush strokes (just a single click of the mouse in each case) with a range of brush settings to a new image that is 50% gray. The only constants were the effect, which was a +4 Exposure, and a brush Size of 15.

The first brush stroke shows the full effect of the Exposure setting in a single click with a hard edge (Feather = 0) brush. The second stroke shows the difference of setting Feather to 100, which completely fades out the edge of the brush. In the third stroke Flow was reduced to 50, which applied half the amount of the effect in a single click. In the fourth stroke I left Flow at 50 and reduced Density to 50, and now the single click resulted in a barely perceptible change. All of these strokes were made without ever changing the effect setting from Exposure = +4, so you can see that just adjusting the brush settings can have a profound effect on your adjustment. I’d encourage you to create a new document in Photoshop and fill it with 50% gray, then bring it into Lightroom and experiment with the various brush settings to get a feel for how they work.

Moving back to the frog eyes, I want to use a hard edged brush, just large enough to fit inside the eye, and I’ll leave Flow and Density set to 100 to apply the full effect in one stroke.

Step 4.

Click and hold the mouse on the photo to “paint” the effect.

When you release the mouse, you will see a gray circle with a black dot has appeared at the point where you first clicked. This is called the adjustment pin, and it will be associated with all the effect settings you applied at this time. You can continue to paint these settings anywhere else in the photo, and so I will go ahead and paint over both eyes.

Although you can’t see it by default, while you are painting you are creating a mask over the areas you are brushing. If you hover the cursor over the adjustment pin you will see the mask become visible, which is great for seeing where you have painted. You can also press the O key to toggle the mask visible/invisible while you are painting. This way you can really see what you are doing.

You can also change the color of the mask by holding the Shift key and pressing O to cycle through the other colors (red, green, white and gray).

If you do paint over an area that you didn’t want to be affected, you can click on Erase in the Brush panel and change the brush into an eraser (notice the inner circle of the brush changes to a minus sign). You can also just hold the Alt/Option key to change the brush to the eraser on the fly. Release the Alt/Option key to go back to painting.

When you are done painting just click the Close button at the bottom of the Brush panel to exit the brush.

The Graduated Filter is one of my favorite new features of Lightroom 2, and it has considerably reduced my need to send photos to Photoshop for additional local adjustments. It is worth noting that like any software adjustment, you can only work on data that is actually in the photo to begin with, so it is always worth your while to start with the best capture possible to give yourself a better starting point for any future tweak in your digital workflow.

The Graduated Filter tool allows you to make adjustments to exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, clarity, sharpness and color. Not just individually either, you can apply any combination of adjustments with a single Graduated Filter. On top of that you can add multiple Graduated Filters to a single photo that function completely independently of each other. It is an incredibly versatile tool!

The Graduated Filter has two modes—Buttons and Sliders—that you can toggle between by clicking the Show Effect button. I usually prefer to work with the sliders because it just feels more intuitive to me.

The best way to learn about this tool is to see it in action, so let’s walk through an example of how I used it to make adjustments to a photo. Keep in mind that before applying the Graduated Filter I did set white balance and make basic global exposure adjustments.

The first thing I wanted to do was make the hillside in the background pop a little more. This is a photo of Barry Glacier where it meets Prince William Sound in Southern Alaska. It was a beautiful blue-sky day in July. Due to the amount of rainfall and daylight that occurs that time of year the plant life was vibrantly green. By exposing for the snow in the glacier the background is a little darker than I’d like even after the global adjustments I’ve made.

One of the important considerations of using the Graduated Filter is that you need to use it along a natural straight line to make the transition between the effected and non-effected areas look natural. The jagged diagonal line of the glacier works just fine in this instance.

Step 1.

Press D to jump to the Develop module (if you are not there already), then press M or click the Graduated Filter icon in the Tool Strip to activate the Graduated Filter tool.

I wanted to bump up the brightness, saturation and clarity just a little, so while working in Slider mode I made minor increases in each of those sliders. Don’t worry about getting it perfect here, because you can always go back and edit your settings after applying the filter.

Step 2.

To apply a Graduated Filter click on the point where you want the effect to begin and drag away from the area that you want to adjust. In this case I clicked along the top-edge of the glacier and dragged diagonally down toward the water, which applies the full effect of the filter on the hillside in the background.

The further you drag the wider the area of transition between the effected and non-effected areas of the photo. In this case I didn’t want the transition to be very wide so I only dragged a short distance and released the mouse. As soon as you start to drag you will see an adjustment pin (the gray circle with the black dot) appear where you first clicked, and three white lines that show the area of transition between the effect you are applying.

Step 3.

Reposition the filter as needed. You can click and drag the pin to move it to a better location, move the cursor just off the pin to rotate the lines that delineate the effected area, and/or click and drag either outside line to change the width of the transition zone. You can do this as much and as often as needed to get the effect you are looking for as long as you are in Edit mode (note the black dot on the pin tells you which filter you are adjusting and the word Edit is highlighted in the Filter panel).

Here’s a tip, hold the Shift key while you drag to create a perfectly horizontal or vertical adjustment.

Step 4.

Readjust any of the sliders to fine tune the effect. As long as you are in Edit mode you can tweak and tweak and tweak your settings to your hearts content.

If you want to compare how the photo looks with and without the filter you can click the on/off button at the bottom of the filter panel. While the filter is on you can also press H to show/hide the adjustment pin and the adjustment lines.

In my case I also wanted to make the water pop a little as well as give it a bit of a bluish tint, so I added another pin that bumped the contrast, brightness and clarity along with adding a little more blue. Again, attempting to bring the image more in line with my minds eye at the time of capture.

That’s the basics for how to use this handy new tool. Give it a test drive yourself and remember you can always delete a pin by placing your cursor over it and pressing Delete, so there’s no reason not put it though its paces.

Using the Painter tool requires a little bit of imagination. You see, you need to imagine you have a spray paint can that doesn’t use paint. Instead of paint you can load the Painter tool with a color label, flag state, star rating, metadata template, develop preset, rotation setting or one or more keywords. Once loaded with the item you choose you can click and drag over the thumbnails in Grid view to apply that item to your photos. You can even use the Painter to assign photos to a target collection (more on this at the end). This tool can really help speed up an otherwise tedious task and even make it a little more fun.

The Painter tool is the spray can icon in the Grid view Toolbar.

Once you click on the Painter tool icon, or go to Metadata > Enable Painting, the Toolbar will change to reflect the Painter’s options. Click the drop-down menu to choose what you want to apply to your photos.

The options in the Toolbar will change to reflect the selected item, so if you choose Keywords then a keyword entry field will appear, choosing Label will display the color label choices, Metadata will provide a list of all your metadata templates and so on.

The Painter is probably most commonly called in to service for adding keywords to large numbers of photos, so let’s walk through an example of how to do this important task.

Step 1.

Click on the Painter tool icon.

Step 2.

Click the drop-down menu and choose Keywords.

Step 3.

Enter the keyword or keywords you want to “spray” on to your photos. Lightroom will access your existing keyword list as you type and display a listing of all the keywords that match the letters you have entered so far. Just by typing the first 2 letters “br” I can see the keyword I wanted (“brown bear”) and can quickly choose it from the list.

To enter multiple keywords just type a comma after the first keyword and start typing the next keyword. No need to only add one keyword at a time if more than one applies to a given set of photos!

Step 4.

Click and drag the Painter tool over the photos you want to have those keywords. You’ll notice the cursor has changed to the Painter icon when you place it over a photo. As you click and drag Lightroom will display a confirmation message telling you what keywords have been assigned. Also note that the “painted” photos will display a white stroke so you will know which ones have been done.

If you “overspray” and hit a photo you didn’t want to have that keyword (or whatever you have loaded in the Painter at the time) you can move your cursor back over those photos and the cursor will change to an eraser. Just click and drag to remove those same keywords from the affected photos.

Step 5.

When you have finished applying those keywords to all the relevant photos you can click the Done button in the Toolbar to exit the Painter tool (or press the escape key). If you wanted to change keywords and keep working then just clear the old keywords and enter the new ones and start over with the new words. It is kind of fun once you get going and satisfying when you finish.

I did want to briefly mention how to use the Target Collection option on the Painter tool. A target collection is one of your existing collections that you designate as the target. Just right-click an existing collection and choose Set as Target Collection (Note: The Target Collection will display a + symbol after the name in the Collections panel). Once a collection has been assigned you can load Target Collection in the Painter tool and quickly add photos to that collection in just the same way I demonstrated keywords above.

The types of tasks performed in the Library module generally fall under file management, such as separating the keepers from the clunkers, applying keywords, organizing into collections, renaming, applying metadata, etc., and each of these views are designed to help make those tasks a little easier.

The four Library module views—Grid, Loupe, Compare and Survey—are accessible from the Library module Toolbar.

As you can see when you place your cursor over each icon that a tooltip appears displaying its name and its keyboard shortcut. I highly recommend that you learn at least two of the keyboard shortcuts—Grid and Loupe—as these will be the two you use most often.

• Grid = G
• Loupe = E
• Compare = C
• Survey = N

The Grid and Loupe view shortcuts are so often used that they will work no matter where you are in Lightroom. Meaning that if you are in the middle of Print module project and need to switch to the Library module for something just press G to jump straight to Grid view or E to view the currently selected image in Loupe view back in the Library module. Compare and Survey view shortcuts only work in the Library module.

Grid view is probably the most commonly used view and the one you may be the most familiar with seeing when you think of Lightroom.

Grid is the view to use when you want to work with multiple images at the same time, such as when batch renaming, applying keywords, creating collections, moving photos between folders, applying metadata, etc. Grid view allows you to get things done fast.

Loupe view comes in as a close second, and is for the times when you need to see a larger version of an image.

A very important distinction to make when you are working in Loupe view is that even though you can select multiple images via the Filmstrip the actions you perform via the Library module panels are only applied to the most selected photo you are viewing in the Loupe view. For example, if you have 2 photos selected in Grid view and apply a keyword to one of them the keyword is actually added to both selected photos. In Loupe view the keyword will only be applied to the most selected photo and not any other.

Compare view is a more specialized view and is most helpful for those times when (you guessed it) you want to closely compare two or more versions against each other.

This may seem like a narrow focus, but it is actually very helpful and you may find yourself using it more than you think. It really speeds up the process of making your initial selects by allowing you to quickly compare multiple exposures at both fit screen and 1:1 views. You can also take advantage of the controls in the Quick Develop panel for making minor tweaks to the photos you are comparing to help determine which shots are worth keeping. Likewise all the flagging, rating and color label controls are equally accessible.

Survey view is primarily a means for comparing multiple images simultaneously. This can be a great tool for facilitating the narrowing down process for the best of the best from a group of similars. Just select multiple photos in Grid view or from the Filmstrip in the Library module and press N.

Lightroom will fit each of the selected photos into the main content area dynamically resizing the thumbnails to fill the available space. While true with all Library module views you can use the Keyboard shortcuts for maximizing screen real estate to help you get the most out of each view.

The key function of this view is the ability to narrow down your selection choices by simply removing photos from the view without having to worry about removing the actual photos from the folder or collection they reside in. Just click the X under any photo to remove it from view. Lightroom will continue to dynamically resize the remaining photos to fill the screen.

In a normal Lightroom workflow no view is an island. You will find yourself flowing between them as suited by the task at hand to the point where you won’t even notice you are doing so. I’ll take a closer look at the specifics of each view in coming tutorials.

One of Lightroom’s greatest strengths is the database (known as the catalog file) that records everything you do when working in Lightroom. When you import photos all the information contained in the metadata gets added to the catalog, such as exposure, ISO, time and date of capture, f-stop, camera model, and so on. In addition you probably add your own custom metadata, such as contact information, copyright, titles, keywords, ratings, labels, and so on.

Now that you have all that data entered into the catalog it only makes sense that you should be able to leverage it to make your work more efficient and productive. This is where smart collections come in. If you open the Library module and expand the Collections panel you will find a default collection set labeled Smart Collections.

Inside that collection set are 5 starter smart collections designed to introduce you to what they are capable of doing. If you double-click one smart collection you will open the Edit Smart Collection dialog box. Let’s look at the first one called Colored Red to see what makes it tick.

In the Edit dialog you can see that there is a single rule that says any photo in the catalog that has a label color set to red will be added to this collection. Pretty simple, and perhaps, in its current state not all that useful. Click Cancel to close the dialog. Note: You can edit any smart collection at any time this way.

Here’s an example of one set of rules that I find useful. In my workflow I use rating stars to mark my favorite shots from a shoot. I also use the red color label to mark photos that I shot with the intention of stitching into a panorama. When I am traveling, a shoot may extend over multiple days, but I use a folder system based on the day of actual shooting. This means photos from a given shoot can be saved across multiple folders. Knowing this, what is useful to me is a smart collection that automatically groups all my photos from a specific range of dates, with a red color label, and with a high enough rating. This way I can leverage my normal rating and color label workflow to automatically group all my best panoramic shots taken over multiple days of shooting. That’s cool! Here’s how:

Step 1.

Click the + sign with the down-facing arrow in the Collections panel header and choose Create Smart Collection. This opens the Create Smart Collection dialog (which is essentially the same as the Edit Smart Collection dialog we saw before).

Step 2.

Give it a meaningful name. Describe the collection so it is clear to you what should be found within it, such as “Best Panoramas” or what makes sense to you.

Step 3.

Assign it to a collection set. Collection sets are how you group multiple collections together. It is common to have multiple collections from any given shoot and this makes it easy to keep them all in one place. If you don’t have a set in mind now you can always add collections to a set later by dragging and dropping the collection into the set.

Step 4.

Add your first rule. In this case I want to include only photos from a specific time period, so my first rule will be to set the parameter for a range of dates. Click the rule drop-down menu and choose Capture Date.

As you will see, once you choose the type of rule you want to use a series of relevant parameters for that type of rule will appear. I want to cover a range of dates, so I’ll set the first parameter to “is in the range” which will allow me to define the dates of this shoot.

After that I just enter the start and end dates of this shoot and the first rule is all set.

Step 5.

Add the next rule. Click the + sign at the end of the last rule to start a new one. My next rule will focus on all the photos in that date range that have been given a 2 star rating or higher. Set the rule to Rating and then the parameters to “is greater than or equal to” and 2 stars.

Step 6.

Add the last rule. The other criteria I want to use is red color label. Click the + sign at the end of the last rule to start a new one. Set the rule to Label Color, and the parameters to “is” and “red”.

Now, if I had more criteria I needed to match I could keep adding more rules as needed, but since I don’t, just click Create.

You will now see your smart collection appear in the Collections panel, and if you added it to a set, within that collection set. As soon as it is created Lightroom will automatically populate it will all photos matching that criteria. That’s all there is to it.

It is worth pointing out that because smart collections are rule based the only way to add a photo to it is by making that photo match the set of rules, likewise the only way to remove a photo from a smart collection is to have that photo no longer match the rules. In my example I can add any photo from that shoot to that smart collection by giving it a rating higher than 2 and a red label.

The more you use smart collections the more uses you will start to find for them.

The Folders panel may be one of the most used panels in all of Lightroom, but it may also be one of the least understood. There’s actually quite a bit of functionality in this little panel, and with the addition of the Volume Browser in Lightroom 2 it puts quite a bit of data at your fingertips. Let’s take a closer look at this panel and how to use it to help manage your photos and keep tabs on your drives.

One of the most important distinctions to make is that the Folders panel is not a file browser. You will only see folders that have actually been through the import process. Just like the photos that reside within them, nothing appears in Lightroom unless it was imported first.

The Folders panel consists of two elements—Folders and the new Volume Browser. Folders are exactly that, the folders on your hard drive(s) that you have imported into Lightroom. You can import any number of folders and subfolders, and they will always be sorted alphanumerically. Subfolders will “nest” under their parent folders, which mirror the structure you see in your file browser (i.e. Finder or Windows Explorer) when looking at your disk because they are one and the same set of folders.

In this next screen capture you can see I have two Volume Browsers labeled Local and sparta. Local is my internal drive and sparta is an external drive. These are the names I gave these drives on my Mac. On Windows, you’ll also see the relevant drive letter. This aspect alone is a real benefit because in Lightroom 1 it can be difficult to tell which drive your folders were located on.

With a glance at the Volume Browser I can tell a few things about my drives. First, the Local drive shows a green indicator, which means that the drive has ample free space. In fact, it shows that 71.6 GB out of 185 GB are free.

Second, I can see that sparta is offline since it displays a gray indicator and the name is faded out. Since it’s offline Lightroom can’t display how much free space it may have. The color indicator will turn orange as the free space gets low, then red when the disk is full.

Free space isn’t the only information the Volume Browser reveals. If you right-click (Mac: Ctrl-click) the Volume Browser, you can choose to display Disk Space, Photo Count, Status, or nothing at all. In addition, you can open that disk in Windows Explorer or Finder and even access information about that disk.

Another nice aspect of the Volume Browser is that it’s collapsible, which makes the Folders panel much easier to navigate, especially if you have multiple drives with multiple folders on each. The previous captures showed both of my volumes collapsed, but once they are expanded I can see my folder structure underneath.

Remember, you will only see imported folders displayed in the Folders panel. I find it preferable to always import the top-level or parent folder that contains all the subfolders where my photos stored. This provides the benefit of being able to collapse that group of subfolders so the list doesn’t run on forever, and it makes it much easier to move that entire tree of folders to a new drive if necessary just by dragging and dropping the top level folder.

Don’t worry if you haven’t imported your top-level folder because a new feature of Lightroom 2 makes it a snap. Just right-click (Mac: Ctrl-click) a folder and choose Add Parent Folder. The parent folder will automatically appear in the folders panel with all the subfolders nested underneath.

Along the same line, if you have a folder you want to remove from Lightroom, you can right-click (Mac: Ctrl-click) that folder and choose Remove. This won’t delete the folder from your disk, but rather just remove it from the Lightroom catalog. If the folder you’re removing has subfolders, Lightroom will ask you if you want to Promote Subfolders or Remove Entire Folder. Promote Subfolder will just remove the top-level folder from the Folders panel and leave all subfolders. Remove Entire Folder takes away the top-level folder and any subfolders.

Stay tuned for future installments that cover the differences in how Lightroom 2 handles moving folders and reconnecting to missing folders and photos.

When in Grid view, you’ll find the Filter bar located at the top of the image display area. You can show and hide the Filter bar by pressing the \ key, so if you don’t see it right away press the \ key once to bring it out of hiding.

There are three types of filters—Text, Attribute, and Metadata—found on the Filter bar. You can use them independently or in tandem to drill down into your photo collection. It can’t be understated that the more data you enter in the form of keywords, flags, color labels, and IPTC, the more powerful the Filter bar will become. In other words, the keyword search won’t help you if you don’t first apply keywords to your photos.

Let’s start by taking the Text filter for a test drive.

Step 1.

Click All Photographs in the Catalog panel. This tells Lightroom to display every photo in your catalog. Likewise, if you wanted to apply the filtering to a single folder or collection you would start by clicking on that item to display just those photos.

Step 2.

Click the Text label in the Filter bar. This reveals the Text filter options beneath the bar. By default, it is set to Any Searchable Field and Contains All. Click into the text field and start typing a keyword that you know you have applied. In my case, I’ll search on “glacier”. As soon as you begin typing, Lightroom starts filtering. Any photos that don’t match what you’re entering are removed from view. I only entered “gl” and found all my glacier photos in this catalog.

To exit the filter you can click None in the Filter bar or press Ctrl+L (Mac: Cmd+L). This works on every type of filtering. I’m going to leave my text filter active and drill down further using the Attribute filter.

To use more than one filter in tandem, just hold the Shift key and click another filter type. In this case, I clicked Attribute, which results in the attribute options expanding below the text filter. The Attribute filter allows you to narrow your results based on flag state, rating, color label, and virtual copy vs. master photo.

Back to my example, I’d like to leverage the ratings I’ve applied to only display glacier photos that have been rated 1 star or higher. Here’s how:

Step 3.

Hold the Shift key and click Attribute to expand its options.

Step 4.

Click on the attribute(s) you want to add to the filter. I wanted to use ratings to drill down further, so I clicked the first star so that now only photos with the Glacier keyword that have been rated 1 star or higher are shown.

You can apply more than one attribute filter as well. So, if I wanted to drill down to photos that had a color label applied and/or were virtual copies, I could click those attributes too and make my filter even more specific. I’ll add the red label attribute just to demonstrate.

OK, let’s add the Metadata filter to the mix.

Step 5.

Hold the Shift key and click the Metadata attribute to expand its options. The Metadata filter is comprised of customizable columns that display data stored in the Lightroom catalog. This includes data recorded by your camera at the moment of capture as well as metadata you’ve entered through Lightroom.

When the Metadata filter is expanded, you’ll see the accumulated metadata for the group of photos being displayed. Click on any piece of metadata to drill down to just the photos that match that criterion. So, in my example, the group of photos currently displayed was taken with two different lenses. If I click on the 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 in the Lens column, I can drill down to just my wide-angle shots.

Move your cursor over each column and you’ll see a drop-down menu arrow appear next to each column header and another menu arrow appear on the right. Click the header drop-down menu to change the metadata displayed in that column.

The menu on the top-right of each metadata column allows you to remove that column or add a new one. You can add up to eight different columns!

If there is a particular configuration of filtering that you find you use a lot, you can save that as a filter preset. Click the drop-down menu at the right edge of the Filter bar and choose Save Current Settings as New Preset. Give the preset a name and it will be added to the drop-down menu for future use.

The Filter bar is incredibly powerful and customizable and it only becomes more useful over time as you add more and more metadata to your photos. Be sure to experiment to get a feel for all the ways you can use it!

Lightroom is built upon a database. Inside this database, commonly referred to as the catalog, is all the data about your photos. This includes all the metadata created by the camera at the time the photo is taken (shutter speed, f-stop, ISO, etc.) as well as all the data you add in Lightroom (keywords, IPTC data, ratings, etc.) and all the adjustments you make in the Develop module.

The import process is the gateway to the database. You can think of it as the introduction between your photos and the catalog. During the import process Lightroom creates a new database entry for every photo and fills that entry with the information contained in each photo’s own metadata as well as each photo’s file name and location on disk. That is the sole purpose of importing. Once Lightroom has been “introduced” to each photo you can access those photos inside each of Lightroom’s 5 modules.

Remember, when you open Lightroom you are really opening a catalog and then accessing and changing the data contained within that catalog.

Since the import process is the common gateway through which all photos must pass there are a few other jobs that can be accomplished via the Import dialog as a way to save you time and effort. These tasks can include:

• Copying or moving photos to a new destination on disk.
• Copying and converting copies of the source photos to DNG format.
• Renaming copied or moved photos.
• Copying photos to a second location as a backup.
• Adding common keywords to all imported photos.
• Applying develop settings to all imported photos.
• Adding common metadata to all imported photos.
• Scheduling the rendering of previews when the import is finished.

The location of the source photos is a factor in determining whether or not the import process will include copying or moving photos to a new location. If you are importing photos from a memory card then you have to choose to either copy the source photos to your hard drive or copy and convert the copies to DNG. Lightroom will not give you the option to move photos from a memory card. This is done for safety. If something were to go wrong during a move operation you could lose data (such as power loss or the card reader coming unplugged). By using a copy operation you know that your source files are safe even if something goes wrong with the copy.

If you are importing photos that are already on your hard drive then you have the option to just leave them where they are and add the data to the catalog or youcan copy or even move them to a new location. The choice is up to you and how you want to organize your photos on disk.

At no time are your photos actually “inside” Lightroom. Lightroom does create previews, which are essentially JPG copies, of all your photos and stores the previews in a special cache alongside the catalog file. Your actual photos will always be on your hard drive at the location of your choosing.

The essential distinction between a preset and a template is that a preset contains a collection of settings that can be applied over and over again (such as develop and metadata presets), while a template is more of a structural collection of settings that you can reuse into the future (such as a Web, Slideshow, Print or filename template). The distinction is rather subtle and many people use the words interchangeably, which can be confusing, but is ultimately somewhat splitting hairs.

Call them what ever you prefer as long as you actually make use of these incredible timesavers. The ability to reuse and apply settings is one of Lightroom’s greatest strengths in regards to boosting your efficiency.

Hopefully we’ll see import presets at some point in Lightroom’s development.

In a typical workflow scenario you can apply a filename template to rename, add a Develop preset to process photos and apply your custom metadata via preset all at the same time during the Import process. By the time your photos appear in the Library module they can be almost ready for export in some cases. Put all your keeper photos in a collection then quickly put them online using a web template, save out a slideshow thanks to a slideshow template or run them through your favorite print template. The bonus is that Lightroom will associate those settings with your collection so you can quickly repeat any of those processes if needed.

If you are a high volume shooter presets and templates are your best friend!

A common question I’ve seen asked is how can you get a preset or template from one computer to another. There are a couple of ways you can do this. One option that works for all types, except filename templates and metadata presets, is to right-click (ctrl-click on a Mac) the preset or template you want to share and choose Export.

Then give it a name and choose where you want Lightroom to save it to and click Save.

This will result in a file with an .lrtemplate extension being saved to that location. The file extension is the same regardless of it being from a preset or a template (just one more point of confusion). You can then copy that file to another computer.

To import that file into another installation of Lightroom you reverse the export process. Jump to the relevant module for that preset/template, right-click the User Template/Presets heading and choose Import. Navigate to the .lrtemplate file and select it to import.

That process works fine for a few templates or presets, but what if you want to copy all your presets/templates to a new computer or maybe you just want to see where Lightroom stores them. Piece of cake!

Go to Edit > Preferences > Presets (Lightroom > Preferences > Presets on a Mac) and click the Show Lightroom Presets Folder button.

This will open that folder in either Windows Explorer or Finder on the Mac. Inside this folder you will find all your custom presets and templates in their respective subfolders. All you need to do is copy the .lrtemplate files to a new location and then transfer them to the same exact folder location on another computer running Lightroom. You can also delete presets/templates by simply dragging them to the Recycle Bin/Trash. Restart Lightroom and you will see any newly added presets/templates have been found or deleted ones removed.

This is also a great way to create a backup of your presets/templates!

The location of this preset folder is as follows:

Mac:

~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom

XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom

Vista:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom

The White Balance Difference

One of the first things to keep in mind when working with rendered files—JPG, TIF or PSD files—is that they already had a white balance setting applied to them at some point in their history. It was the first time that rendered version was created, which may have been from a camera shooting in JPG mode or it may have been when a copy was created from a raw file for editing. It doesn’t really matter when it happened, only that it did, and this means all future adjustments to white balance will be made relative to that original setting.

What does that mean on a practical level? Well, let’s look at a raw file in the Develop module. If I want to make adjustments to the white balance of this raw file I have the option of clicking the White Balance (WB) drop-down menu and choosing from a range of white balance presets that actually set the Temperature slider to a specific color temperature.

I can switch between any combination of Temp and Tint slider settings to my hearts content and each setting changes the interpretation of the raw image data accordingly.

Now let’s take a JPG copy rendered from that same raw file (the same would be true of either a TIF or PSD copy). When I click the WB drop-down menu I only have 3 options to choose from—As Shot, Auto and Custom.

As Shot just means as is with no additional settings. The Auto setting tells Lightroom to analyze the file and take a stab at neutralizing the color balance. The Custom option appears as soon as you make your own adjustment with the Temp and Tint sliders or use the White Balance Selector tool to do your own relative adjustment.

So in the case of working with a rendered file the white balance was already set before, so all we can do is tweak the color balance relative to that original setting.

The Camera Calibration Difference

Another benefit of shooting raw is that you are in the driver seat when it comes to choosing the default rendering of that raw data. If you take a raw file into the Develop module and expand the Camera Calibration panel you will see a number of different options to choose from under the Profile drop-down menu. Switching between each of these profiles will result in a different interpretation of that raw data, which is quite cool.

Take any rendered file into Develop and expand that same menu and all you will only see Embedded displayed.

This is simply due to the fact that you are looking at a rendered file with an embedded color profile and Lightroom can’t change that. Yes, you can convert exported copies to a different color space, but you can’t change the color space of the original file inside of Lightroom.

The Edit in Photoshop Difference

After making a set of adjustments to your raw photo you may want to move over to Photoshop to do more. If you go to the Photo > Edit In > Edit in Photoshop menu the only option Lightroom has is to create a copy of that raw file, apply all Lightroom adjustments to that copy and open it in Photoshop. Since this is the only option available to raw files the Edit Photo dialog box does not appear with raw files in Lightroom 2, which is a change in behavior from Lightroom 1. Don’t let that throw you.

After that copy opens in Photoshop it will appear to still have the raw file extension, but you can simply go to File > Save and that copy will be saved to the same folder as the raw file and it will be added to the Lightroom catalog automatically. The file format, color space and bit depth of this new copy will be determined by the settings you choose in the External Editing Preferences.

Let’s compare this to a rendered file. Select a JPG, TIF or PSD file and go to Photo > Edit In > Edit in Photoshop and you will be greeted with the Edit Photo dialog box.

Now you have choices. If you want to apply new adjustments you’ve done in Lightroom to a copy of that file you’d want to choose the Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments option. This will create a new copy of the selected photo, apply adjustments and open the copy in Photoshop. Lightroom only applies adjustments to copies so there is no way around this.

However, say you selected a TIF or PSD file that you have already edited in Photoshop, and as a result this file has multiple layers that you want to resume editing in Photoshop. In this case you would want to choose either the Edit Original or Edit a Copy. Why? Because with either of these options you can open your file with the layers intact since Lightroom is not applying any additional adjustments to that file. The only difference in these two options is that one creates a copy of the original layered file and the other simply opens the original.

The key to point to keep in mind is that in order to apply Lightroom adjustments to any file a copy has to be created. If you want to apply adjustments to a layered TIF or PSD source file a flattened copy is created.