Lightroom 3 beta 2 resources

Here is a quick list of links to resources about the Lightroom 3 Beta 2…

Jeffrey Friedl’s blog has a quick overview and details on his multitude of plug-ins.

Victoria ‘The Lightroom Queen’ Bampton has her traditional what’s new post.

Rob Sylvan has posted about his favourite features over on Lightroomers.

Ian Lyons has written an extensive post on the new features.

Richard Earney writes about the features he values most.

Sean McCormack has covered the main features on the Lightroom-blog.

John Beardsworth covers his favourites.

Gene McCullagh started his coverage at Lightroom Secrets.

Gilles Theophile has a complete overview in french.

Scott Rouse has his thoughts on the Lightroom Lab.

Official Adobe resources:

The Lightroom 3 Beta 2 release notes.

The Labs Lightroom 3 page.

The Lightroom 3 user forum.

Tom Hogarty’s official announcement.

Lightroom 3 Beta help pages.

-!-

Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta 2 has arrived!

Adobe has announced the release of a second beta of Lightroom 3 (download it here).  This comes five months after the first beta was released and promises a good selection of new features and further improvements in speed and image quality.

Having a  second beta release is a real contrast to Apple’s secretive approach to developing and releasing products (e.g. Aperture 3).  Adobe say that more than 350,000 photographers downloaded the first beta, allowing them to get valuable feedback on the new and improved features.  I think this feedback loop has really benefited the product.

The highlights in this beta release for me are:

• Luminance noise reduction
• Support for managing video files
• Tethered shooting support for Canon and Nikon cameras
• Improvements to the import dialog

Click through for more information on the changes in Adobe Lightroom 3 beta 2 (Lr3B2).

…

Before I go on, I should remind you that this is still beta software, released by Adobe to get feedback on the new features and performance of the product.  Make sure you are working with copies of your photos and have a good back-up of any data you work on with Lr3B2.

Noise reduction

Lightroom 2 didn’t have the best reputation for image quality with some of the internet pixel peepers, especially if you pushed the camera beyond it’s ISO comfort zone.

Adobe have been working hard on this and I am very pleased with the new improved noise reduction controls and general step-up in image quality overall.

To test this out Lr3B2, I re-processed one of my Whip-poor-will images.  This was created in near total darkness, using car headlights as the sole source of light.  I pushed my old Canon 1D mkIIN right to its ISO limit at 3200 and was working at shutter speeds of 1/13 second.

Now I know that ISO 3200 is not that extreme on modern bodies, but it really is pushing the limits on my aging 1D mk2N – bare in mind that I try to avoid going over ISO 400 with it!

I ran the image through Lr3B2, fiddling a little with the noise controls and I am amazed at the results!  It significantly cleaned up the high levels of grain in the background whilst retaining good definition in the feathers and ‘hairs’ around the beak.

Although I would prefer to manually and selectively clean up an extreme image like this in Photoshop with the Neat Image plug-in, I can see that my more typical images are not going to need their routine round of noise reduction in Neat Image any more.  Which is excellent news and a step removed from my workflow.

Video files

I know a lot of photographers were not that excited by the inclusion of video in their DSLRs but there are equally a lot who are very excited by this change in technology.  So I imagine there is going to be mixed opinions on this new feature…anyone remember when Flickr introduced video?

I do shoot a little video, not so much in the past couple of years but this is a welcome addition.  As well as ‘traditional’ video, I create a bit of time-lapse, so the big thing for me is that I can now manage final time-lapse video files along side the original photos – yet another simplification of my workflow.

Combine this with Sean McCormack’s timelapse preset, you can create and manage time-lapse video without really having to leave Lightroom.

Tethered image capture

All I can say is – hooray!  Finally I can avoid the rather fragile set-up of running the Canon software and monitoring a directory to import the photos ‘live’ into Lightroom.  I have only played with this briefly with some table-top macro fun but have plans to test this, quite literally, out in the field.  I’ll post more when I have it.

Import Dialog

Adobe have made quite a few changes to the import dialog, most minor but all really improve the ‘experience’.  Most significant for me was the fact that it now waits for you to select a folder before heading off to check for images and remembers where you were last time you imported.

Other improvements

Publish has a couple of tweaks, including allowing you to specify a target file size and support for uploading original video.

One of the bigger changes in develop is updates to the contrast curve.  As well as the original curve controls, Lr3B2 now allows you to alter it at specific points – very much like Photoshop.

Finally, the slightly confusing concept of process versions has been updated.  The biggest change is that the indicator has been moved and is much more prominent in the lower right of the image (rather than on the histogram).

Any more?

Yes there are plenty more changes – I suggest you look through the release notes and read through the extensive coverage that will be published by the Lightroom community over the coming few days.

I’ll also be adding more info over the next few days…

Click here for more on Lightroom 3 Beta

-!-

Configure default develop settings in Adobe Lightroom

In a previous post I gave the basic instructions to create your own custom colour profiles for your camera using Adobe’s DNG Profile Editor.

This is great but its a real pain having to go to the extra panel and clicking a couple of times to select your specific camera profile.

Adobe Lightroom has an excellent feature that allows you to configure the default develop settings that it applies when you import photos.

Find out more by clicking through.

…

The default settings allow you to apply your own post-processing style to every RAW photo without having to fiddle with any sliders.  Its kind of like applying a preset to every photo but with bells on.

If you have more than one camera you can configure the defaults by camera model, serial number and even down to ISO setting on individual photos.  So Adobe Lightroom applies develop settings based on which camera was used for each photo as it is imported.

As well as using this feature to speed up post-processing of my own photos I have used it to streamline the workflow for teams of photographers working an event.

By creating custom profiles for each camera and tweaking the default settings per camera and photographer, we could remove the editing burden on the majority of images – Adobe Lightroom did the hard work as the photos imported.

So, how do you do it?

Its easy.  First thing, decide on how granular you want control.

Do you want to configure settings for every ISO or just by camera make?

I set-up my personal Adobe Lightroom by serial number but if you only have one camera then by camera model is probably good enough.

In Adobe Lightroom, open the Preferences dialog and select the Presets tab.  The top section is “Default Develop Settings” and this is where you tell Adobe Lightroom how you want your default settings applied (hint: its the 3rd and 4th checkboxes…).

Now, you need to select a photo from your catalog that is a typical example of your photography – that is, it reflects how you tend to expose a scene, contains areas of shadow and highlight and has some colours.

Go to the Develop module in Adobe Lightroom and process the image to a point you feel would suit the majority of your photography – these are the develop settings that you are going to apply to every photo that you import.  Whilst it won’t be perfect every time, you want settings that get you close most of the time.

Remember – your goal is only to reduce your post-processing time. You still have presets for specific circumstances, effects etc.

Once you have it set-up stay in the Develop module, open the Develop menu, click “Set Default Settings…” and then press “Update to Current Settings”.

Thats it, all you have to do.

Remember that it only applies these settings to new photos you import (not photos already in you catalog) and it applies the settings before any import presets you specify.

Questions or feedback? Let me know in the comments!

-!-

Create a custom colour profile for your camera

Adobe have made it simple to get good colours in your images during RAW conversion by including camera calibration profiles in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) and Adobe Lightroom 2.

Initially Adobe released a selection of beta camera profiles that you installed with the existing ACR 3.3 and 4.4 profiles.  More recent releases of ACR and Lightroom have included the complete profile sets - you can use them straight away.

So, what is special about these profiles?

Firstly, Adobe’s profiles match the picture styles that are available with JPEG creation in many cameras.  This allows you to get closer to the vibrant look of the preview JPEG without having to fiddle too much with settings during RAW conversion.

Secondly, they released a little software tool that lets you create your own camera profiles using a standard 24 colour chart (like the x-rite ColorChecker).

You can create custom profiles for each of your cameras to get consistent colours from your workflow regardless of the camera body you use.  You can also create specific profiles for specific conditions, such as awkward lighting.

Click through for instructions on creating your own camera specific colour profiles.

…

First step is to get yourself a copy of Adobe’s DNG Profile Editor, the most recent release is still in beta but freely available from the Adobe Labs website.

Secondly you need to buy or borrow a standard 24-patch ColorChecker chart.

Thirdly you need to take a photo of the chart, evenly lit (just use that big light in the sky, the sun).  Keep the chart a decent size in the frame!

When creating the photo, watch our for subtle reflections from nearby bright surfaces – these can mess up the calibration profile.

As the name suggests, the DNG Profile Editor needs a DNG file to work it’s magic, so convert the chart photo using your favourite convertor.  Don’t worry, you only need to convert your photo of the colour chart to DNG - you can continue using your camera’s proprietary format for your photos.

Once you have the DNG file, open it in the Adobe DNG Profile Editor.

On the top right, click the ‘Chart’ tab and position the four circles into the centre of the outer four colour boxes.

Make sure you have selected ‘Both color tables’ and then click ‘Create Color Table’.

Once it is finished, use file->Export <name of your camera> to save your newly created profile.  Give the profile a unique name – if you have multiple bodies of the same type, use the serial number.  Also, if the profile was for a specific scenario, make sure you are explicit in the profile name – you don’t want to load a profile for blue lights when the image was created in sunlight.

The editor should save them to the correct place but if you are unsure…

• Mac: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles

• XP: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles

• Vista: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles

You will need to restart Photoshop ACR or Lightroom to see the profile added to the calibration list.

Tomorrow I will show you how I set-up Lightroom 2 to use these profiles automatically.

-!-

Zip photos from Lightroom

I recently needed to compress a bunch of photos from my Adobe Lightroom catalog into a zip file and couldn’t find an easy way to do it. So I threw together a quick export plug-in to do the work for me.

Rather than leave the plug-in sitting on my hard-drive, I thought I would take a few minutes to tidy it up and share it with the rest of you Adobe Lightroom users.

Of course, those few minutes turned into a couple of hours, mainly due to the fact that Windows does not have a real built in zip utility, so I had to add some extra bits (Apple got it right with built in zip support on the Mac).

It is pretty simple to use.

1. Download, unzip and install the plug-in with Plug-in Manager.
2. To zip up some photos, select them in the Library module and Export. Select ‘Export to Zip’ (by clicking on the banner).
3. Specify the name and folder location where you want to save the zip file, specify your normal file export parameters and press Export.

You can download the plug-in from here and yes, its free.

Hopefully it will be of use to someone!

UPDATE July 3rd: Thanks to help from Matt (The Photo Geek), I have included Info-zip with the plugin for Windows users, so now no need to install 7-Zip!

UPDATE July 7th: Yes, it works on Mac and Windows, hit me in the comments if you get problems!

UPDATE August 21st: Fixed the bug where the temp directory information was included in the zip file and the file dialog defaulting to a '.txt' file on Macs.

You can find more of my Adobe Lightroom plug-ins here.

-!-