All Entries in the "Getting Started" Category
Lightroom vs. Photoshop
Do I need to buy both Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop CS4? Digital photographers ask me this question all the time. It’s a good question and one that deserves more than just a simple yes or no answer. Each program has it’s own strengths, and although the two programs share some common features, they are not competitors.
John Beardsworth on “10 Things I Wish I Could Tell a Slightly Less Novice Lightroom User”
Today, I came across a post from Lightroom expert John Beardsworth entitled “10 Things I Wish I Could Tell a Slightly Less New Lightroom User.” I believe that this article is worth your time. I am especially pleased with Mr. Beardsworth second point: “Unless you really know what you’re doing, never use Explorer or Finder for moving or renaming files that are catalogued in Lightroom” since I recorded a tutorial on this very topic just a few months ago. For more information read on…
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta Help Now Online
Adobe posted a new website today to support the Lightroom 3 beta release. Scott and I are already signed up as moderators for the new site and are looking forward to helping folks learn Lightroom v3.
Here’s a link to the new Adobe Lightroom 3 beta help site.
Scott Kelby’s “10 Things I Would Tell New Lightroom Users”
Scott Kelby, president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, posted an article recently that might help Lightroom beginners. If you are new to Lightroom, I encourage you to read his “10 Things I Would Tell New Lightroom Users” in addition to browsing all of the articles in our Getting Started Tutorials section.
I don’t agree with all ten, though. Read on to find out where I disagree.
Optimizing Lightroom for Best Performance: Top Ten Lightroom Speed Tips
It’s hard to argue that using Lightroom to manage and edit large collections of images is much faster than “the old way,” but we’re always looking for that way to squeeze out just a little more speed.
Here are my top ten tips for optimizing Lightroom for speed.
Proper Exposure With a Digital Camera
The digital camera’s sensor does not see the world the way our eyes do. With our eyes, brightness and tonal variation are linear, but for the camera this scale is logarithmic. Basically, this means that the camera can record lots of tonal variation at the brightest end of the spectrum but it captures very little tonal variation at the darker end.
Shameless Self-Promotion: My Ski Photography
I just put this video slideshow of my ski photography up on the web. You can watch it here in HD, or you can download the full-size mp4 from Vimeo.com. If you like it, please feel free to share it with your friends. Hope you enjoy it!
Digital Camera File Formats: Raw and Jpeg
Most digital SLR cameras can record images using either a Raw or a Jpeg file format. Both formats have their own advantages and disadvantages. It is up to you to decide which option is the most appropriate for the way that you work and for the equipment that you have at your disposal. Of the two formats, Raw is both the most straightforward and, ironically, the most complex.
Using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to Copy New Images in from a Memory Card
I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to copy new photographs from my digital camera memory cards into my computer. This is a critical step, and it is one of the first tasks that you will do with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Once you get everything setup, Lightroom makes transfering files from my memory card to the computer easy. Read on for a basic description of how I use Lightroom to empty my memory cards.
The Mega-Important Automatically Write Changes into XMP Switch
Today’s article is all about the “Automatically write changes into XMP” switch which lives inside of the Metadata tab. When I teach classes, I call this the “happiness vs. unhappiness switch” and from the factory it is set to unhappiness! The good folks at Adobe make fantastic software, but they don’t always pick the best words for their buttons and knobs. “Automatically write changes into XMP” should have been labeled “Auto-Save.”
Setting Preferences in Lightroom 2– Updated Now with Video!
Lightroom has the power to be the photographic computer program that you spend the vast majority of your time in. Because of this, you want to make sure that you’ve tweaked it to perform just the way you want it to.
Check out this article for descriptions of each of the preference settings, as well as my recommendations for each.
How to get your Lightroom Catalog onto an External Hard Drive
Today’s tutorial is on how to get your Lightroom Catalog files onto an external hard drive. This process of moving an existing Catalog, or creating a brand new Catalog, on an external drive is one of the very first things that we do in my Lightroom workshops. I know that this process is not one of the most interesting part of digital photography, but I truly believe that the long-term benefits are worth the extra hassle. Please read this tutorial and watch the video to find out how I move my Catalog files from drive to drive.
My Photo Storage System: Two External Hard Drives
As a professional digital photographer, I work with Adobe Photoshop and with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom every day. After eight years in the business of digital photography, I have shot about 30,000 images. I need a cost-effective, and scalable way, to store all of these images, but I also need a way to access any of these files from either my laptop or from my desktop.
Archives and Backup Copies
Most digital photographers are not taking the time to properly protect their precious digital images. As a professional photographer, the idea of losing a single important image scares me, but losing everything that I have ever shot because my computer crashes horrifies me. Ask yourself, “What would I lose if my computer died right now?”
Let me say this to you in bold for maximum impact: If you have neglected to prepare for total system failure, then you should expect to lose everything when disaster inevitably strikes.
How to Format an External Hard Drive – Updated
Regardless of brand or model, the very first thing that you must do when you buy a brand new external hard drive is to format it properly for your system. Format your new disk immediately, before you start using it for backup or for additional file storage. It is essential that you do this right away, before you start using the drive, because the formatting process erases everything on the external disk.
Read on for more information about properly formatting an external hard drive.
