Adobe Lightroom

In the second half of this two-part interview, Martin Evening offers advice to users and gives a sneak peak of the second edition of his best-selling book The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers. In part one, Martin discusses his work and the role Lightroom plays in it.

Question: What is your favorite feature in Lightroom?

Martin Evening: Rather than point to one single thing, I would say that what impresses me most about Lightroom is the concept of having a workflow tool that can handle just about everything—except single-image retouching—in a complete package. Retouching of a single image I still do in Photoshop.

Q: What main benefit do photographers gain from using Lightroom?

ME: Without a doubt, speed and efficiency. I know that there have been complaints about Lightroom’s import speed compared to other products, but I think some of these issues have been addressed in the 1.3 version of Lightroom. Ultimately, it’s about whether you want to see images quickly with any preview, or whether you are prepared to wait a little longer and see them rendered fully in Lightroom. It’s similar to the way you would prefer to view the colors. The speed benefits are most noticeable when doing image searches or generating things like Web galleries and contact sheet prints.

Q: What technical questions are you most asked about Lightroom?

ME: It varies a lot. But I suppose the questions I get asked most are about the interrelationship between Lightroom, Photoshop, and Bridge. I also get asked about the 1.1 update and whether I am bringing out a revised book for this current version of Lightroom, to which I point people in the direction of the free 1.1 PDF update that you can download from the Peachpit Web site*. People also like to know about the capture sharpening controls and whether I think they are really any good, to which I reply, “Yes!”

Q: What piece of information or advice would you give to someone who is just starting to use Lightroom?

ME: I would start by guiding them to think about their hardware setup, especially which drives they plan to store their Lightroom library on and access it from. They need to think about good backup strategies. Then I would show them how to start an easy import of the Lightroom files that’s now on those drives. I’d follow that up by giving simple advice on setting up keyword categories.

Q: What capability would you most like to have in the next version of Lightroom?

ME: Well, let’s concentrate on improving the import stage and making tethered shooting easier. Tethered image capture is one of the things that Capture One from Phase One can do better than Lightroom. For the import photos stage, I would rather see an Import module that looks more like a file browser. I have lots of other wish list items, too, but those were at the top of my list for the next version of Lightroom.

Q: You’ve worked with Lightroom since its early days as a concept called Shadowland. What was it like to watch the evolution of a brand new product?

ME: It’s coming up to five years ago now since I was approached by Adobe for ideas about what would make an ideal photographers’ workflow tool. The early versions of the program were very rudimentary compared to what we see now, although there were some pretty neat concepts floated that never made it any further into what eventually became the Lightroom program.

This wasn’t the first time I had alpha tested a program from Adobe, but the Shadowland development was pretty special. I saw a lot of innovative ideas emerge thick and fast, and the engineering team was incredibly responsive to the ideas that myself and the other select alpha testers came up with. This was definitely a most memorable alpha testing experience.

Q: Anything special readers can expect in the next version of your book?

ME: The Lightroom development team has barely stood still since the first release of version 1.0 and neither have I. First of all, I wrote an update to accompany the release of version 1.1. Since then, I have continued to work on the book, expanding current themes and adding new content. As readers might expect, the next version of the book will be bigger and even more detailed than the first edition. I have also decided to split the book content up into more chapters, which I think will make it easier still for people to learn about Lightroom in gradual stages.

Martin Evening has worked in the field of fashion photography for nearly 20 years. Serving primarily commercial clients, Martin uses digital cameras and imaging software in the studio during live photo shoots. With his camera connected to his computer, he can look at the monitor to make immediate assessments of lighting, pose, composition, and other nuances of the shoot. An expert in Adobe Photoshop (and part of that product’s influential alpha tester group) Martin also provided critical feedback on the development of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, insight he incorporated in his best-selling book The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers.

In part one of this two-part interview, Martin talks about his work and the role Adobe Photoshop Lightroom plays in his workflow.

Q: How did you get started as a fashion photographer?

Martin Evening: Way back in the ’80s I assisted a number of well-known London fashion photographers and that gave me an introduction to the world of fashion. I started out quite young (at 23) on my own. Back then it seemed easy to get paid work. That’s not the case now, though, for youngsters just getting started in the business. I was quite lucky to start at a time when the fashion photography industry was quite buoyant.

Q: Describe your typical photoshoot.

ME: These days I don’t shoot any editorial. Most of the jobs I do are full-production PR and advertising shoots. This means that I do all the production in house from casting models to the finished retouching. Shoot days normally take place at the studio I use in Stoke Newington [in north London], where a typical shoot will include four to five models, a team of stylists for hair, makeup, and clothes, myself and an assistant. I usually aim to get about eight to ten finished shots done in a day. The photographs I take will often end up appearing in magazines to advertise hair and beauty products as well as on packaging and posters.

Q: How do you use Lightroom in your own workflow?

ME: I use Lightroom exclusively in the studio with a tethered camera to import captured images, adjust image development, add keywords and make an initial image edit of the photos I’ve marked as good via one- or two-star ratings. I print out the best shots as we go along, using a contact sheet template in the Lightroom Print module. On most days, the clients walk out of the studio with a complete set of contact sheets.

Q: Have you stopped using Photoshop?

ME: Not at all. I use Photoshop for in-between retouching work. Lightroom is for organizing lots of photos without spending too much time on any one image; Photoshop is for spending lots of time editing selected pictures. Since retouching is a big part of the work I do, I will always spend a lot of time working in Photoshop. But I guess it is fair to say that with the advent of Lightroom, I spend much less time now working in Bridge.

Q: What do you like about Lightroom as compared to Photoshop?

ME: I like the fact that I can manage a whole catalog of images and quickly access the ones that I want. I prefer the way the camera raw tools are laid out in Lightroom and how quickly they can be accessed. I also like the speed of the Web module and the Print module tools.

Q: Lightroom was designed to be simpler than Photoshop, yet many users think it’s more difficult. Why do you think that is?

ME: Lightroom started out with the promise of “unreasonable simplicity,” but I would agree that the program has in some respects ended up with a lot of advanced features. If you want to learn about Lightroom in depth, then there will be a complex learning curve. The problem is that a lot of photographers have been working in digital imaging for some time, and each has come up with his own “cobbled together” solution to image management. Others have taken the plunge and bought into cataloging solutions—some of which are really very good and others less so. With Lightroom, I feel that these photographers are being asked to rethink their image management setup in a way that is either very new or not exactly the same as what they have been used to in the past and this can be quite a challenge.

Lightroom is often referred to as a “metadata editor,” meaning that the work you do in Lightroom isn’t applied to the pixels in the source photo, but rather is saved as a set of metadata instructions (inside the catalog file) that are only applied to copies of the source photo during any type of output. Everything you do inside Lightroom, from adding keywords to making tonal adjustments, is recorded into Lightroom’s catalog file. Therefore, it’s crucial that you take good care of the catalog file and keep it backed up to protect yourself from data loss.

Highlighting the importance of the catalog, Lightroom contains a built-in function inside the Catalog Settings dialog box that allows you to schedule how often to run backups. When the backup process runs, it saves a working copy of your current catalog to a location of your choosing. It’s important to understand that the only thing backed up in this process is the catalog file. Lightroom doesn’t provide a function to back up your photos, which means that you need to back those up using a different application outside of Lightroom. Adobe assumes that you already have a full system-backup process in place that takes care of all your important data.

Let’s go through the steps for configuring the backup schedule:

1. Choose File > Catalog Settings to open the Catalog Settings dialog box. While we’re here, take a look at the Information section of the General tab. Some key information about your catalog is displayed here, including the catalog’s location, filename, and size. If you ever need to open the folder containing the catalog file, just back come here and click the Show button.
2. In the Backup section on the General tab, click the arrow button to open the “Back up catalog” drop-down menu, and choose the frequency with which you want the backup to run. This is where you need to make a decision. Should you ever need to use a backup copy to replace a lost or corrupt catalog, you’ll want it to be as fresh as possible. Your choices here range from “Never” (not advised) to “Every time Lightroom starts.” The frequency you choose should reflect how often you use Lightroom. If you’re working in Lightroom every day, backing up daily might be best. If you’re not using Lightroom that often, a weekly schedule probably would be a safe choice.
3. Click OK.

When you launch Lightroom and the timing corresponds to the backup schedule you selected, you’ll be prompted to back up.

Follow these steps to make your backup:

1. If desired, click the Choose button to change the location where you want the backup copy to be saved. Navigate to the desired folder and select it.
2. Select the “Test integrity of this catalog” option. This feature is really the best reason to use Lightroom’s catalog backup function, as it can provide an early warning if there’s a problem in the catalog. Integrity testing adds a bit of extra time to the backup process, but I think it’s worth doing. I’ve seen cases where a catalog can become corrupted, but still be operational. The corruption isn’t detected until the backup process is run. If you have iterative backup copies to fall back on, you should be able to go back to an earlier, uncorrupted state.

   NOTE

   Every time the backup process runs, it creates a new copy of the catalog and ignores any existing backup copies. The upside of this approach is that in time you’ll have multiple iterations of catalogs that reflect different points in the catalog history. The downside is that, left unchecked, your catalog backups eventually will fill up that drive. With that issue in mind, choose a drive that has ample free space, and remember to delete outdated backup copies periodically. I typically delete all but the last two backups.

3. Click the Backup button to start the backup process. Lightroom warns you that the backup process can take several minutes. When the process is complete, Lightroom opens.If you’re pressed for time or want to just get to work rather than waiting for the backup, click the Skip Now button to bypass the backup process until the next time. Don’t skip too often, but it’s good to have the option.

Once you’ve set up your backups, you just need to remember to manage the backup copies as they grow.

With all the marvelous things Photoshop Lightroom does, one thing it really doesn’t do is professional-level image sharpening. That’s something for which we still have to jump over to Adobe Photoshop. However, if you don’t mind spending just a few minutes in Photoshop now, you can make this process almost fully automated from here on out, which will save loads of time in your daily workflow.

Step One
We start this process in Adobe Photoshop, so go ahead and open a photo in Photoshop that could use some sharpening. We’re going to create an action here in Photoshop. Photoshop’s Actions feature is basically a step recorder that records your steps as you perform a particular task. Once you’ve recorded your action, you can apply that recording (those same steps) to a different photo automatically—and much faster, which is why actions are ideal for repetitive tasks such as sharpening.

Step Two
To create an action, choose Window > Actions to display the Actions palette. Click on the Create New Action icon at the bottom of the palette. It looks just like the Create a New Layer icon, and is circled. Clicking this button brings up the New Action dialog box. Give your action a name (let’s call it “Luminosity Sharpening” for this example) and click the Record button. Notice that the button doesn’t say OK or Save; it says Record because it’s now recording your steps.

Step Three
Now that you’re recording, choose Filter > Sharpen, and choose Unsharp Mask. When the Unsharp Mask dialog box appears, enter 120% for Amount, 1.0 for Radius, and 3 levels for Threshold; then click OK. This setting adds a nice snappy amount of sharpening to your photo.

Step Four
Now choose Edit > Fade Unsharp Mask to open the Fade dialog box. From the Mode pop-up menu, choose Luminosity. We’re doing this so our sharpening is applied only to the luminosity of the photo (the detail areas) and not to the color in the image. By avoiding sharpening the color in the photo, we avoid some of the color halos and color artifacts (annoying little color specks) that sometimes appear when you sharpen the full-color image. The result is that we generally apply more sharpening without damaging the photo, so this is a good extra step.

Step Five
Press Command-S (PC: Ctrl-S) to save your photo and then Command-W (PC: Ctrl-W) to close the photo. Now that the photo has been saved and closed, go back to the Actions palette and click the square Stop Recording button at lower left on the palette. That’s it—you’ve created your action. Next, we turn the action into a droplet by choosing File > Automate> Create Droplet.

Step Six
You’re probably thinking, “What’s a droplet?” I’ll explain that in the next step (it’s easier to explain then). For now, just follow along with me in the Create Droplet dialog box. At the top of the dialog box, click the Choose button, choose your Desktop as the destination for saving your droplet, and name this saved droplet “Unsharp Mask.” In the Play section of the dialog box, choose Luminosity Sharpening (the named we gave our action earlier) from the Action pop-up menu. You can ignore the rest of the dialog box, and just click OK.

Step Seven
Now look on your Desktop. You’ll see a large arrow icon, pointing to the name of the droplet. Here’s what a droplet does: If you drag-and-drop a photo that’s on your Desktop, or in a folder on your computer, right onto this droplet (a JPEG, TIFF, PSD, etc.), the droplet automatically launches Photoshop, opens that photo, and applies the Luminosity Sharpening action to that photo you dropped. Then it saves and closes that sharpened photo automatically (because you recorded saving and closing as part of the action). You also can create batch actions, so that you can drag-and-drop an entire folder of photos onto the droplet and it will process each one automatically. Cool stuff.

Step Eight
Now that we’ve built our Unsharp Mask droplet in Photoshop, we’re going to add that droplet to our Lightroom workflow. Go back to Lightroom and choose File > Export. When the Export dialog box appears, go down to the Post-processing section. From the After Export pop-up menu, choose Go to Export Actions Folder Now.

This pop-up menu lets you choose what happens to your exported photos once they leave Lightroom. We’re going to add something to this list in the next step, but to do that we have to get to the folder on your computer where Lightroom stores all this stuff, and the quickest way to get there is to have Lightroom bring up the folder for us, which is what we’re doing in this step.

Step Nine
When you choose Go to Export Actions Folder Now, it brings up the main folder with all of Lightroom’s extras (such as the Export Actions folder).Now, take that Unsharp Mask droplet on your Desktop and click-and-drag it into the Export Actions folder. If you look inside that folder, you’ll see the droplet you just dragged in there. Now you can head back to Lightroom and close the Export dialog box.

Step Ten
In Lightroom, select a photo that you want to export from Lightroom as a JPEG, and that you want sharpened in Photoshop before you send it to a client, burn it to CD, etc. Choose File > Export. When the Export dialog box appears, choose Burn Full-Sized JPEGs from the Preset menu at the top, as a good starting place. In the Export Location section of the dialog box, choose the destination folder for your saved JPEGs. Then give your photo a name, and choose your JPEG quality setting. Finally, in the Post-processing section at the bottom of the dialog box, from the After Export pop-up menu choose Unsharp Mask (your droplet). When you click Export, your photo will be saved as a JPEG; then Photoshop will automatically launch, open your photo, apply your luminosity sharpening, and save and close the photo, so it’s fully sharpened and now ready to send to your client.

Adobe Photoshop CS5
Tethered shooting with Lightroom offers several advantages:

• As a photographer, you can quickly evaluate a photo on your computer screen much better than you can on the small screen on the back of the camera.
• You can check lighting, exposure, and the sharpness of the photo much more easily on the computer than on the small LCD.
• Clients and art directors can watch photos as they’re being taken; the images appear directly on the computer screen.

Lightroom has an innate ability to shoot tethered; by changing a few settings, you can be up and running in a snap.

What You’ll Need
Make sure that you have the following items before you get started:

• Camera. Matt Kloskowski uses Nikon and Canon for examples in this article.
• USB cable connecting your camera to your computer. You should have received one in the box when you bought your camera. Chances are that it’s still in the box.
• Some type of tethered shooting software. Your camera needs to be connected to the computer, and your computer needs some software on it to pull off the photos from the camera. (Lightroom doesn’t do this part.) Matt covers the options in step 1.
• Computer with Lightroom installed and an unused USB port. The computer should be booted and ready to go.

Step 1

The very first thing to do is acquire and install another piece of software in addition to Lightroom. This software will enable remote capture of your photos from your camera to a computer. If you’re shooting with Nikon, purchase Nikon’s Camera Control Pro. For Canon, EOS Viewer (or maybe Capture) should have come with your camera.

Step 2

With the remote capture software installed, fire up Lightroom and choose File > Auto Import > Auto Import Settings. For this process to work, you tell Lightroom to set up a watched folder. When images appear in that watched folder (we’ll get to that in a minute), Lightroom automatically imports them into its library. For the Watched Folder setting, specify which folder on your computer Lightroom should watch. Then change the Destination setting to a folder where you want to store your newly imported photos.

Step 3

Next, select options as desired to rename the images automatically as they’re being transferred, or to apply any default development settings, metadata, or keywords.

Step 4

After you’ve entered all of your choices in the Auto Import Settings dialog box, click OK. There’s one more thing to do in Lightroom, though. You still need to tell Lightroom to turn on Auto Import. Select File > Auto Import > Enable Auto Import.

Step 5

Nikon shooters: If you’re a Canon shooter, skip to the next paragraph. If you’re a Nikon shooter, connect your camera and computer with the USB cable that came with your camera. Then start Camera Control Pro and choose Tools > Download Options. The folder listed in the top setting in the Download Options dialog box is where Camera Control Pro will put the photos that come from the camera. Specify the same folder that you specified as the Watched Folder in Lightroom in step 2. Click OK when you’re done. You’re almost ready to shoot.

Canon shooters: Connect your camera to your computer, using the USB cable that came with the camera. Then start EOS Capture and click the Preferences button. For the destination, click Browse and select the folder that you specified for the Watched Folder setting in Lightroom in step 2. Click OK when you’re done, and you’re just about ready to shoot.

Step 6

Actually, I lied in step 5—you could shoot right now, but there’s one more step you should try. Take a test shot. After you do, you’ll see the dialog box transferring your photo to the computer.

Step 7

When your test shot is done, look in the Library module. Click Previous Import under the Library panel so you see the latest photos. The test photo appears there, but the thumbnail is probably very small—which defeats the purpose of shooting tethered, because that thumbnail size isn’t much larger than what you’d see on your camera’s screen.

You need to set up Lightroom to display your imported photos as large as possible. Otherwise, after each shot, you’d have to go to the library and zoom in on each photo, which would get annoying pretty quickly.

In the Library module, click Fit next to the Navigator panel at the upper left of the screen. Then press F F L L. Pressing F twice takes Lightroom into full-screen mode. Pressing L twice goes into Lights Out mode and hides all of the panels around your photo. Now, when you take a shot, the photo is large onscreen. You can even click the photo to zoom in and see the detail, if you need a better view.

In a nutshell, that’s tethered shooting with Lightroom. But keep in mind a couple of things:

• Shooting tethered won’t work in every environment. This practice typically works best in a studio, or on location if you’re not doing a lot of moving around.
• If anything goes wrong, double-check your tethered software in step 5 to make sure that the folder setting is exactly the one you used in Lightroom in step 2.