Lightroom 2.2: Simple adjustment tips

I have been making an effort to use the graduated filter and adjustment brush in Lightroom 2 more and more during my RAW processing, rather than using similar techniques when I get the image into Photoshop.

The biggest advantage for the way I work is the ability to adjust these later in my workflow, even when in Photoshop.

Click through to find out more.

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So, how do I do that?

Easy...just open the RAW file as a Smart Object in Photoshop (available from the Edit In menu). I can then double click on the layer icon and the RAW file is opened in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and the RAW adjustments can be…erm…adjusted.

While using the graduated filter and adjustment brush, I found a couple of handy keyboard shortcuts.

M - selects graduated filter
K - selects adjustment brush

When you have created a graduated filter, you can click on it's pin to select it and alter the settings. While a filter is selected, pressing the apostrophe ' key will reverse the direction of the filter.

Personally, I find the pins that indicate a filter or adjustment brush a little distracting when trying to review the effect...so I make liberal use of the H key. It toggles showing the pins - press once to hide them, and press H again to show them.

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Lightroom 2.2: Removing Camera Profiles

This is something I have been meaning to do for ages - since Adobe releases version 2.2 of Lightroom, I have had 2 sets of camera profiles in the Camera Calibration panel. I wanted to remove the older, beta profiles and just leave the Adobe ones and my own, created with the DNG Profile Editor.

It turns out that it couldn't be easier - you just need to delete some files and thats it! So close Lightroom then, depending on your operating system, open up the folder indicated below in Explorer (win) or Finder (mac) and delete all the files with "Beta" in the name. Start Lightroom and you should have a tidy Camera Calibration panel again!

Tip: use a search rather than ploughing through all the camera directories - it should be much quicker!

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

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101 Photoshop tips...

...in five minutes.

In case you ever wondered what CTRL-SHIFT-A did in Photoshop Deke McCelland tells you and gives another 101 Photoshop tips in 5 minutes.

Yup, 101 tips in 5 minutes...and he kind of raps/sings them...

Winter sun

The sun shone this morning and I spent some time at my feeders.  15 Common Redpoll have been visiting the past couple of days and I finally managed to get some images I was pleased with.

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And I got some frames of a Mourning Dove too!

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Megapixels or ISO?

Stephen Shankland's Underexposed blog on CNET is running a poll today - Megapixels or better camera sensitivity.

Go vote and see the result...not really surprising, someone just needs to go tell the camera manufacturers...

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