In this episode of The Complete Picture (Controlling Selective Color Changes in Lightroom), Julieanne demonstrates how to use Hue, Saturation, Luminance and the Adjustment Brush to selectively control color in Lighroom. Note: although this video was recorded in Lightroom, the same techniques are available in Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop CS6.
• Command + U (Mac) | Control + U (Win) applies Auto Tone (which can help set black and white points and increase dynamic range for flat images).
• Command + Shift + U (Mac) | Control + Shift + U (Win) applies Auto White Balance.
• To apply an auto adjustment to every image, enable Apply Auto Tone Adjustments in the Preferences > Presets.
After posting my video Cyclical – The Creative Process I received a great question: If you start in Lightroom with a raw file and choose Photo > Edit In > Open in Photoshop as Smart Object, and then edit that Smart Object, how can you “extract” that raw file with the edited settings?
My first thought was to select the Smart Object in the Layers panel in Photoshop and choose Layer > Smart Objects > Export Contents. But surprisingly that method doesn’t export any edits made to the Smart Object. However, it turns out that the answer is even easier. In Photoshop, simply double click on the Smart Object’s thumbnail in the Layers panel (or choose Layer > Smart Object > Edit Contents) and, in the Camera Raw dialog, click the Save Image button in the lower left corner. Voila.
I thought I would post some images today instead of a tip and technique to remind me why learning all of this is important – so that I can make images!
(Plus, I’ve decided that instead of posting photos to facebook, each week I will choose some of my recent favorites and post them to my blog. That way, regardless of if you follow my “Personal” or my “Like” page of FB, everyone will see the same content.)
If you’re attending WPPI in Vegas next week I hope you’ll join me on Monday, March 11th from 4:00-5:30 for my Platform class – “Ten Minute Techniques – Creating Extraordinary Images in Lightroom and Photoshop”
Increasing the effectiveness of your post processing in Lightroom and Photoshop can help you stay ahead of your competition. In this seminar, Adobe’s Principal Digital Imaging Evangelist Julieanne Kost will demonstrate a series of expert techniques to help expedite your workflow and automate repetitive tasks while staying true to your style. You will learn not only the new features of Photoshop and Lightroom, but also but also insider secrets to get the exact results you want and your client needs.
Click here for more information and click here to register.
When you drag images onto the Map in Lightroom’s Map module, and you have Reverse Geocoding enabled (Catalog Settings > Metadata > Reverse Geoencoding), Lightroom will automatically enter Location information associated with the GPS information (Sublocation, City, State/Province, Country, and ISO Country Code).
It’s important to note that Lightroom can treat the Location Information and the GPS data independently of one another. If you move the location of the images (by dragging and dropping them to another location on the map), by default both the GPS as well as the Location Information will be updated. In fact, this is always true of the GPS information – if you move the image on the map, the GPS data will be updated.
You have, however, the option to override the Location Information. As I mentioned, by default, Lightroom will update the Location Information if you move the file, but you can also change the Location Information manually (perhaps you have a nickname for the location), by typing in any of the Location Information fields.
Lightroom displays the Location Information in grey if it is being automatically generated. If you customize the values (enter your own text), the custom information displays in white. Note: In both scenarios, the location Information will be exported with the file.
As you can see in the first example, the Location Information is gray indicating that Lightroom assigned the information based on reverse geoencoding the GPS data.
In the second example, I have entered “Ferry Plaza Farmers Market” in the Sublocation – overriding Lightroom’s reverse geoencoding information – locking it in so that moving the image on the Map will no longer automatically update it.
By default, when creating Virtual Copies, Lightroom automatically gives each Virtual Copy a sequential copy name: “Copy 1”, “Copy 2”, “Copy 3”, etc. To create a custom name for each Virtual Copy, in the Metadata panel (in the Library module) type the preferred name in the “Copy Name” field.
Note: to see the custom file name in the Grid or Loupe views, you may need to make a change under View >View Options. In the example below, I have set my view options to “Show Grid Extras: Expanded Cells” and my “Expanded Cell Extras” to “Copy Name or File Base Name”. Note that you can also choose to see both Copy and File name.
For more information on Virtual Copies, you may want to watch this video tutorial (When to use Virtual Copies and Snapshots in Lightroom).
Many of you know that I spend a lot of time in airplanes flying between events for Adobe, and in fact these flights were the motivation behind “Window Seat – the Art of Digital Photography and Creative Thinking”, but what I don’t always tell people is that I’m scared to fly. And it’s not a rational fear. I “know” that there are plenty of things that I do that are far more risky, but it’s the lack of control (and the fact that when flying, we are moving through the air at 500 mph in a fragile little metal tube and, as I learned from my father (who is an engineer), all metal has stress points that can fail).
However, I decided that I didn’t want that to stop me from taking photographs from a helicopter over the Great Salt Lake in Utah. So last summer when I was out for Adobe’s Educator Summit, I took the time to make it happen. Obviously I’m a little behind on my editing, but here are six of my favorite shots.
In an attempt to make the hand-off between designer and developer easier, several attributes of Type and Shape Layers can be copied as CSS. To copy a single layer or a Layer Group, select it in the Layers panel, then use the fly-out menu to select Copy CSS.
The DIV shapes include:
• Rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse
• Solid Color fill, gradient fill (linear & radial), opacity
• Drop Shadow, z-index
Stroke Attributes include:
• border-width, border-color,
• border-style (dotted/dashed/solid)
• background-image (layer name)
Text Attributes include:
• font-size, font-family, color, font-weight (bold),
• font-style (italic), font-variant (small-caps),
• text-decoration (strikethrough, underline),
• text-transform (uppercase), vertical-align (sub, super)
• text-align, text-indent, transform
• Drop Shadows
In addition, there are third party plug-ins( such as CSS Hat) that can help with handing off Layer Style information to CSS.
Layer Groups – they’re not just for organizing your layers! In this episode of The Complete Picture (5 Reasons to use Layer Groups in Photoshop), Julieanne demonstrates 5 ways to use Layer Groups to create special effects in Photoshop.
The Lightroom 4.4 and Camera Raw 7.4 Release Candidates are now available on Adobe labs:
• Drag a vector mask thumbnail in the Layers panel to move it from one layer to another.
• Option -drag (Mac) | Alt -drag (Win) the vector mask thumbnail in the Layers panel to make a copy of the vector mask.
• Command + Shift -drag (Mac) | Control + Shift -drag (Win) the vector mask thumbnail in the Layers panel to make an “inverted” copy of the vector mask.
One of the ways that Photoshop can help blend multiple images together is through using the “Blend If” sliders in the Blending Options of the Layer Styles dialog. In this example I want to blend the clouds from the first image into the sky of the rock image.
With the Cloud image selected on the Layers panel, I choose layer > Layer Style > Blending Options (or, you can use the fx icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Blending Options…).
In the Layer Styles dialog, I moved the black slider for the Underlying Layer to the right to hide the dark foreground values of the cloud image. In order to create a smooth transition, Option + (Mac) | Alt + (Win) click and drag the black triangle to split it into two. The values to the left of the split triangle will be completely transparent the values between the split triangle will transition from transparent to opaque, and the values to the right of the second split triangle will be fully opaque.
It’s OK if the rock in the foreground is semi transparent at this point – you want to focus on the “transitional areas” – where the new sky (the clouds) will meet the ocean and the top of the rocks.
To bring back the solid rocks in the foreground, I made a copy of the rock layer and moved it above the new sky (the clouds) layer in the Layers panel. Then, I added a layer mask and painted with black to hide the drab sky and reveal the clouds below, while keeping the rocks solid.
Because this example has a fairly straightforward horizon to mask, you might feel that I’m making this process or technique overly complicated. However, the Blend if sliders can be tremendously useful when masking detailed objects such as a tree against a sky. Notice that you can even change the Blend If options to blend individual color channels.
In this episode of The Complete Picture (Lightroom, Photoshop, Image and File Size), Julieanne explains how Lightroom determines the file size and resolution of a file when using the “Edit in Photoshop” command.
