May 02, 2008

Lightroom Podcast #52: Martin Evening

Adobe evangelist George Jardine recently filmed photographer Martin Evening walking through the results of a photo shoot for his upcoming Lightroom book.  George writes,

This podcast was recorded on Wednesday March 12, 2008 at Martin’s home in London. It gives us a rare glimpse into the inner thinking of this talented fashion and beauty photographer, as he gives us a shot-by-shot evaluation of a recent session. This video footage was taken during a photo session to create assets both for an upcoming Lightroom book, as well as for demo purposes for Adobe Systems. In it Martin describes his approach to every element of the shoot, from the model selection, the hair, the makeup, the lighting and camera angles, all the way through to the final edit.

This video podcast can be downloaded from my iDisk. It can also be viewed by downloading it directly into iTunes (if you are accessing it by subscribing via the Music Store), or by copying it into iTunes on either a Mac or a PC (if you’ve downloaded the iPod version from my iDisk). Once copied into iTunes, the small version can be transferred to a Video iPod or iPhone, and viewed that way as well.

The podcast (labeled "20080310 Video Podcast - Martin Evening Fashion Shoot") is in the Public directory of George's iDisk. [Via]

01:42 AM | Permalink | Comments [4]

April 29, 2008

So long, and thanks for all the pixels

By now you may have heard that Mark Hamburg, one of the big brains behind the evolution of Photoshop, is departing the friendly confines & is heading off to work at--gasp--Microsoft.  We're all sorry to see him go, but everyone at Adobe wishes him well in his new adventures.  I'll miss our sparring matches (a process that sharpened everyone's thinking).

Mark is not going to go work on other digital imaging tools.  After 17+ years of driving Photoshop & subsequently Lightroom, he's looking for a complete change of pace & wants to work on operating system technologies related to user experience.  Given that Mark has always been a huge Mac guy (developing Lightroom first on the Mac, etc.), it's kind of a Nixon-goes-to-China moment. He says,

Now, given that I find the current Windows experience really annoying and yet I keep having to deal with it, this opportunity was a little too interesting to turn down. I can’t imagine doing serious imaging anywhere other than Adobe, but, I needed to do something other than imaging for a while.

The cool thing is that having recently launched the Lightroom 2.0 beta, Mark leaves the product in excellent shape & excellent hands.  We're really just getting warmed up.

PS--I probably shouldn't swing at a pitch in the dirt, but I was disappointed by ZDNet's inaccurate, typo-strewn coverage of the news.  When did major news outlets decide that labeling something a "blog" means that fact-checking no longer applies?  How sloppy do you have to be to fail to copy and paste Martin (not "Mark") Evening's name correctly, or to notice that there's no capital R in Lightroom or capital S in Photoshop (errors the article doesn't even make consistently)?  At least it's a good reminder not to believe everything you read.

08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments [18]

April 24, 2008

Tips on using the Lightroom 2 beta

  • Image sharpness is a good thing... except when it isn't.  Martin Evening shows how to achieve a "'pseudo' diffusion printing technique" using the Lightroom 2.0 beta's ability to go negative on the Clarity slider.
  • To even out exposures across multiple images, Lightroom features a "Match Total Exposures" command. Sean McCormack explains it in this brief video. (I'd listen just for the soothing brogue. ;-))
  • Lightroom lets you create virtual copies of a single image, applying different settings to each.  New in the LR2 beta is the ability to stack virtual copies as layers of a PSD file, letting you composite and blend them in Photoshop. Mucho groovio!
  • Lightroom marketing manager Frederick V. Johnson toted his camera to the Golden Gate Bridge in order to demonstrate handing off a panorama from Lightroom to Photoshop.
  • Ken Milburn touches on the improved Auto adjustment algorithms in LR2.
11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments [3]

April 10, 2008

Lightroom 1.4.1 and Camera Raw 4.4.1 now available

Lightroom & Camera Raw PM Tom Hogarty reports that revised versions of the two tools have been posted:

The Lightroom 1.4.1 and Camera Raw 4.4.1 updates have been posted to the following locations: Lightroom (Mac, Win), Camera Raw (Mac, Win). The updates provide all of the changes included in the original Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 releases but also include corrections for issues described below and in previous blog posts. The Camera Raw plug-in will also be available later this evening via the Adobe Update Manager and the Lightroom update can be located by choosing 'Check for Updates…' under the Help menu. The Lightroom and Camera Raw team apologize for any inconveniences caused by the issues presented in the initial updates

Check out Tom's post for full details.

10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments [2]

April 02, 2008

Photoshop, Lightroom, and Adobe's 64-bit roadmap

As you've probably seen, among the great features in the Lightroom 2.0 beta is its ability to run 64-bit-native on Mac (Intel, 10.5.x) and Windows (Vista 64).  If you think it feels great to beat Aperture to the punch here, you're right. :-)

What does 64-bit computing mean, practically speaking? In a nutshell, it lets an application address very large amounts of memory--specifically, more than 4 gigabytes. This is great for pro photographers with large collections of high-res images: Lightroom being able to address more RAM means less time swapping images into and out of memory during image processing-intensive operations.

It's also important to say what 64-bit doesn't mean. It doesn't make applications somehow run twice as fast. As Photoshop architect Scott Byer writes, "64-bit applications don't magically get faster access to memory, or any of the other key things that would help most applications perform better." In our testing, when an app isn't using a large data set (one that would otherwise require memory swapping), the speedup due to running in 64-bit mode is around 8-12%.

Therefore 64-bit is a good thing for Lightroom now, and as the amount of data photographers handle inexorably grows, it'll become a bigger win.

The Lightroom news naturally raises the question: What's Adobe doing with Photoshop? In the interest of giving customers guidance as early as possible, we have some news to share on this point: in addition to offering 32-bit-native versions for Mac OS X and 32-bit Windows, just as we do today, we plan to ship the next version of Photoshop as 64-bit-native for Windows 64-bit OSes only.

The development is frankly bittersweet for us: On the one hand we're delighted to be breaking new ground with Photoshop, and when processing very large files on a suitably equipped machine, Photoshop x64 realizes some big performance gains. (For example, opening a 3.75 gigapixel image on a 4-core machine with 32GB RAM is about 10x faster.)  On the other hand, we work very hard at maintaining parity across platforms, and it's a drag that the Mac x64 revision will take longer to deliver. We will get there, but not in CS4.  (Our goal is to ship a 64-bit Mac version with Photoshop CS5, but we’ll be better able to assess that goal as we get farther along in the development process.)


I imagine some Mac users are starting to flip out (breathe, guys, stick with me!), so let me explain how we got here & nip a few concerns in the bud.

As we wrapped up Photoshop CS3, our plan was to ship 64-bit versions of the next version of Photoshop for both Mac and Windows.  On the Mac Photoshop (like the rest of the Creative Suite, not to mention applications like Apple's Final Cut Pro and iTunes) relies on Apple's Carbon technology. Apple's OS team was busy enabling a 64-bit version of Carbon, a prerequisite for letting Carbon-based apps run 64-bit-native.

At the WWDC show last June, however, Adobe & other developers learned that Apple had decided to stop their Carbon 64 efforts. This means that 64-bit Mac apps need to be written to use Cocoa (as Lightroom is) instead of Carbon. This means that we'll need to rewrite large parts of Photoshop and its plug-ins (potentially affecting over a million lines of code) to move it from Carbon to Cocoa.

Now let me be very clear about something: It's entirely Apple's call about what's best for the Mac OS and how to spend their engineering cycles. Like any development team, they have finite resources & need to spend them judiciously. They've decided that Carbon 64 doesn't belong on their roadmap, and we respect their decision. It's up to Adobe to adapt to the new plan.

As soon as we got the news in June, we began adjusting our product development plans. No one has ever ported an application the size of Photoshop from Carbon to Cocoa (as I mentioned earlier, after 9 years as an Apple product Final Cut Pro remains Carbon-based), so we're dealing with unknown territory. We began training our engineers to rewrite code in Objective C (instead of C++), and they began prototyping select areas to get a better view of the overall effort.

In short, Adobe has been taking prompt, pragmatic steps to enable 64-bit Photoshop as quickly as possible on both Mac and Windows. It's a great feature, not a magic bullet, and we're delivering the functionality as quickly as each platform permits.


Now, as I mentioned, I want to nip some concerns in the bud. You might think I'm a little paranoid, but I've been a passionate Mac user for more than 20 years, and I've seen more than a few controversies come and go. If any of the following come to pass, it'll really be annoying:

1)  Writers gin up controversy about Apple vs. Adobe, portraying this as a case of some tit-for-tat ("This one time, Steve wouldn't play golf with Shantanu, so Adobe is sulking!").  Oh, come on. This is why Lightroom x64 is a such a nice counterpoint: Adobe's decisions are pragmatic, not ideological. Look, Apple and Adobe share the goal of maximizing Photoshop performance on Mac hardware, and we're working together on all aspects of that story--64-bit included.

"If it bleeds, it leads," however, and writers looking to drive ad impressions will try to fabricate a grudge match.  Please don't let them.

2)  Adobe gets castigated for "dragging its feet" on Cocoa/x64.  This charge will be inevitable, I suppose, but I want you to know that we started work on the problem immediately after WWDC '07.  We started peeling senior engineers off the CS4 effort, and we'll keep pouring on the muscle in the next cycle.  This work comes at the expense of other priorities, but so be it.

3)  We start hearing all about "Cocoa Über Alles"--about how Adobe should have known that Cocoa is the One True Way™ and should have started the move years ago.  Most Mac users don't know Cocoa from Ovaltine, and nor should they: it's just an implementation detail, not a measure of quality.  I think Brent Simmons, creator of wonderful Cocoa apps like NetNewsWire, put it most elegantly: "Finder + Cocoa = Finder."  That is, rewriting one's app in Cocoa doesn't somehow automatically improve its speed, usability, or feature set.

I'll also note that Apple's Carbon Web site says, "Carbon is a set of APIs for developing full-featured, high-performance, and reliable applications for Mac OS X...  The Carbon APIs are also well-suited to cross-platform development."  I don't mention it to detract from Cocoa; I mention it to point out that each approach has its pros and cons, and in hopes that we don't hear all about how Cocoa is clearly the only way to write "real" Mac software.

So, the summary is this: 64-bit computing is an important part of the Photoshop and Lightroom story going forward, but it's not a magic bullet and we're not going to oversell it as one. We're delighted to be offering a 64-bit-native Lightroom on both Mac and Windows now, and to deliver a 64-bit-native Photoshop on Windows as part of the next release. As for Mac x64, we'll continue working closely with Apple (just as we've been doing) to make the transition as quickly and efficiently as possible.


PS: I know that users of other Adobe applications will want info on those apps' plans for 64-bit transition, and we'll work on sharing more info.  Broadly speaking, we’ll be applying similar criteria to what we followed in our digital imaging products to determine our 64-bit roadmap for the rest of Adobe’s applications. We’ll be prioritizing our 64-bit work based on the potential user benefits and the complexity of the code transition.

If you're a plug-in developer, you'll want to start reworking your code to run 64-bit native.  Note that there's an upcoming Creative Suite Developer Summit, and contact Bryan O'Neil Hughes if you need documentation on making the transition with Photoshop plug-ins.

[Update: The official FAQ on this subject is live on Adobe.com.]

09:01 PM | Permalink | Comments [148]

Lightroom 2: The deuce is loose!

I'm delighted to announce that the beta of the 64-bit-native Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 has been posted to Adobe Labs.  Everyone is free to download the beta build and try it for 30 days, while customers of Lightroom 1.x are free to use it for the duration of the beta program.  (This build expires Aug. 31.)

My favorite feature(s)?

Unbeatable Photoshop CS3 Integration:

  • Open files in Photoshop as Smart Objects.  (This way you can tweak your Lightroom adjustments within Photoshop just by double-clicking the Smart Object layer that contains your raw file.)
  • Select multiple images to merge as a panorama
  • Merge multiple exposures into a single Photoshop HDR image
  • Load multiple files (or virtual copies of a single file) into Photoshop as separate layers in a single document

Selective image editing that rocks:

  • Lightroom 2 adds a Retouch tool right within the Develop module (see screenshot).  That means you can paint regions of the image to dodge, burn, saturate/desaturate, adjust contrast, and more.  Edits are stored as metadata, just as all other LR adjustments are stored, and are applied directly to your raw images. (Because people will quickly ask, I'll point out that unlike Apple's newly released Aperture 2.1, Lightroom integrates its selective editing tools right in with the other adjustment tools.  In Lightroom you don't have to generate a TIFF file for editing, and unlike in Aperture, you can always tweak the results later.  In addition, Lightroom features Auto Mask technology for tweaking the clicked region without bleeding into neighboring areas.)

Other goodness:

  • Library Module:
    • Streamlined Library layout
    • Smart Collections (based on search criteria)
    • Powerful Filter Bar to search and refine images
    • Suggested Keywords for simplified keywording
    • 10,000 pixel size limit raised to 30,000 pixels
    • Output-based collections
  • Multiple monitor support:
    • Four flexible modes for an alternate window: Grid, Loupe, Compare, Survey
    • Live Loupe mode
  • Export functionality:
    • Auto-add exported images to the Lightroom catalog
    • Auto Output Sharpening for images on export
  • Develop Module:
    • Non-Destructive Localized Correction for dodging and burning specific areas of an image
    • Post-Crop Vignette
    • Basic Panel Keyboard Shortcuts
    • Improved Auto Adjustment
    • Improved memory handling through 64-bit support on OS X 10.5 and Vista 64-bit.(Not limited to develop module)
  • Print Module:
    • Picture Package for multi-page layouts
    • Print Module output directly to JPEG
    • Enhanced Print Sharpening based on PhotoKit Sharpener algorithms
    • 16-bit Printing for Mac OS X 10.5


A ton of blogs and publications are starting to push great info live as I type this, so I'll update the following list of resources as I see things pop up:


As you probably know, betas have their pros and cons.  On the upside, revealing Lightroom 2 as a beta now allows Adobe to continue the very successful dialog we've been having with photographers, incorporating their feedback before releasing the finished product.  The trade-off is that the beta is unfinished, so you may want to check out the list of known issues before diving in.

With that, I'll shut up and let you get cranking.  Enjoy!

PS--Lightroom running 64-bit-native allows it to address large amounts of memory, something that can pay off when using large images in the Develop module.  Tomorrow I'll post more details about what 64-bit means & how it factors into our Photoshop roadmap.

02:14 AM | Permalink | Comments [46]

March 20, 2008

Photoshop + Lightroom = Killer B&W

One of my favorite things about working on the Photoshop team is that we get to build a product people actually want to use when they leave work.  That means that lots of the engineers, QE folks, marketroids, and others are avid photographers, and the halls of the floor are lined with their work.

Recently, every time I've walked by the office of Kelly Castro from the Lightroom team, I've noticed really striking black & white portraits on his monitors.  Knowing that my friend & fellow Photoshop PM Bryan O'Neil Hughes had recently co-authored a great book covering B&W in Photoshop and Lightroom, I suggested he touch base with Kelly to learn more about the way he combines the two products.  Here's his report. --J.

[Update: Note that Kelly added some more details via the comments.]

More…

03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments [9]

March 16, 2008

A note about the Lightroom/Camera Raw update

Ugh.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the Lightroom team has uncovered some problems with the Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 releases posted on Thursday.  The updates have been pulled down temporarily while the team addresses the problems.  In the meantime Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty has posted details and guidance on how to roll back to previous versions.  The most serious issue is that the time stamp generated by your camera & stored in EXIF metadata can get overwritten when you update other file metadata.

On behalf of everyone involved, I'm sorry about all this hassle.  We'll straighten things out ASAP.

[Update: Tom has posted an apology.]

08:38 PM | Permalink | Comments [10]

March 13, 2008

Lightroom 1.4, Camera Raw 4.4 now available

Adobe has released updates to Photoshop Lightroom (Mac|Win) and the Photoshop Camera Raw (Mac|Win) plug-in, both available immediately for download from Adobe.com or via the Adobe Update Manager (choose Help->Updates from within Lightroom or Photoshop). The releases provide added raw file support for nine additional digital cameras, including the Canon EOS 450D and Nikon D60--bringing the total number of supported cameras to nearly 200. Lightroom 1.4 also provides updated printer driver compatibility for Apple Leopard Mac OS X 10.5.

Canon

  • EOS 450D

Fujifilm

  • S100FS

Nikon

  • D60

Olympus

  • SP-570 UZ

Pentax

  • K20D
  • K200D

Sony

  • A200
  • A300
  • A350


According to the release notes, Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 include corrections for the following issues:

* Previous camera profiles identified in the Calibrate panel of the Develop module may have displayed poor results at extreme ends of the temperature and tint ranges. A new camera profile identified as Camera Raw 4.4 is now available and will be applied by default to all images without existing Camera Raw or Lightroom settings. The creation of new default profiles will also include the updated Camera Raw 4.4 profile. Images edited in Camera Raw or Lightroom with earlier profiles will retain the earlier profile value and visual appearance.

* In previous grayscale conversions the Color Noise setting was disabled and this could result in an image with excessive noise when grayscale channel mixing is applied.  Both the tool and effect have been enabled in Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 providing the ability to reduce noise in grayscale conversions.  In order to return to the prior visual appearance, Color Noise reduction can be set to zero.

Lightroom 1.4 includes corrections for the following issue:

* Compatibility with legacy printer drivers on OS X 10.5 (Leopard) has been updated.

11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments [12]

February 24, 2008

Lightroom Podcasts #50 & 51: Photoshop integration & color correction

George Jardine has posted a pair of new video tutorials for Lightroom:

Three Options, Unlimited Possibilities (9:28)

In this tutorial I outline the basics of using Lightroom’s Edit in Photoshop command, specifically as it pertains to RGB files. You’ll learn what your three basic options are, and how they are best used to begin taking advantage of the incredible variety of workflows available, when using Lightroom and Photoshop together.

Subjective Color Correction (6:04)

In this tutorial I outline the basics of color correction, in a situation where the color and density of the photograph are wide open to interpretation. Make sure you start with a calibrated and profiled monitor, and then learn to trust your eyes to bring out the very best in your photographs, using the Adobe Lightroom Develop Module.

Both podcasts can be downloaded from George's iDisk, and can be found on iTunes by searching under Podcasts for "Lightroom." [Via]

07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments [1]

February 20, 2008

Lightroom Podcast #49: Gregory Heisler

Photographer Gregory Heisler is one of the most interesting guys I've had the pleasure of meeting in my job.  He's shot numerous covers for Time Magazine, and his work really shines in large-format printing.  Now Gregory has sat down with Adobe photography evangelist George Jardine to record a podcast.  George writes:

"Maybe you want to do a Brett Weston, and you don’t want anyone to open your files. Maybe you want your files to just die a peaceful death, and you want to pull the plug on them, and send them on to eternity. And what you want are these finished prints; they are the realization of your vision. And everything else was just a way to get there. Like you don’t actually want somebody, in a sense, reprinting from your negatives. You’re done. It’s fine. Even though with photography the temptation is that it’s always an open door, it’s fine to lock the door and throw away the key. That’s OK." - Gregory Heisler

This podcast was recorded on Wednesday February 6th, 2008 at the National Arts Club in New York City. Gregory sits down with George to have a conversation about working with Arnold Newman, his love of portraiture, and some of his thinking on a wide range of subjects including the value of the print, and the difficulties of developing a personal style.

The 1:20:49 podcast, labeled "20080206 Podcast - Gregory Heisler" is in George's iDisk. It can also be found on iTunes by searching under Podcasts for "Lightroom," or via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed.

10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments [1]

February 13, 2008

A wealth of Lightroom tutorials

Digital photography experts Rob Sheppard and Tim Grey have created a wide range of Lightroom tutorials for the Adobe Design Center.

From Rob:


From Tim:


04:17 PM | Permalink | Comments [1]

February 11, 2008

Leopard 10.5.2 improves Photoshop, LR compatibility

I'm happy to see that Apple has released the 10.5.2 update to Mac OS X Leopard (check Software Update under the Apple menu).  The update addresses some snags reported in using Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom on the new OS:

  • Typing values into the options bar in Photoshop (e.g. to set brush size or crop dimension) is no longer problematic.
  • Prior to 10.5.2, some Apple apps (Finder, Aperture, iPhoto, Preview) could crash or fail to read some complex XMP metadata, such as Lightroom develop snapshots.  That problem has been fixed.


I've just installed the update, so I don't have more detailed notes to share right now.  That said, Macworld's Dan Frakes enumerates some of the user-friendly tweaks featured in this rev.

08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments [22]

February 06, 2008

Get your wet floor on in Lightroom

SlideShowPro developer Todd Dominey reports that he's issued a free update to this Flash gallery component for Lightroom.  Changes include:

  • New "Header" area to display a logo (with link), gallery title and gallery description
  • New "Wet Floor" effect (see example)
  • 4 template groups, each containing 8 variations for landscape/portrait, dimension and aspect ratio (32 options total).
  • New inputs to directly assign an audio file and caption
  • New Director formatting panel


Todd notes, "The templates are also a great way to get a "fitted" look really quickly, as it calculates all the dimensions for handling 3:2 / 4:3 imagery without gaps."  SlideShowPro for Lightroom is $25.

Note: It's also possible to use SlideShowPro together with Photoshop; see previous.

07:59 AM | Permalink | Comments [2]

January 24, 2008

Lightroom Podcast #48: Gerd Ludwig

What's it like to photograph inside Chernobyl?  That's one of the many topics discussed in George Jardine's latest Lightroom podcast.  George writes:

This podcast was recorded on Wednesday November 20th, 2007 at the home of Greg Gorman in Los Angeles, Calfornia. Gerd Ludwig sits down with George to have a conversation about working with National Geographic on many interesting and diverse assignments. We discuss how he photographed inside the Chernobyl reactor, about the victims, the environment, and many other aspects that particular assignment. After that we delve deeper into his early cross country road trips photographing in Europe and India, and how his education with Otto Steinert played a key role in his photographic perspective today.

This “video” podcast includes photographs by Gerd Ludwig. It can be viewed by downloading it directly into iTunes (if you are accessing it by subscribing via the Music Store), or by copying it into iTunes on either a Mac or a PC (if you’ve downloaded it from my iDisk). Once copied into iTunes, it can be transferred to a Video iPod, and viewed that way as well.

The podcast (labeled "20071120 Podcast - Gerd Ludwig") is in the Public directory of George's iDisk.

06:07 PM | Permalink | No Comments

January 21, 2008

Community-powered Lightroom help goes live

Ever complained that software documentation kind of sucks*?  (Do you have a pulse?  The correlation seems to be about 1:1.)  We all have, which is why Adobe's technical writing team has been working to enhance the product docs with community-sourced content.  If you think something could be explained better, jump in and make it so.

Adobe tech writer Anita Dennis passes along the news:

We're pleased to announce the new Lightroom community help system, which provides core Adobe documentation for Lightroom as well as links to additional learning content from around the web.
 
The new site takes the current online help—LiveDocs—and makes it more useful and interactive. You can still navigate to topics using links the left side of the browser. But now, when you click a topic to read about it, you'll find a Basics panel with Adobe documentation as well as a Learn More panel that offers links to tutorials, white papers, technical articles, and other instructional content.
 
This site is administered by Adobe, moderated by community experts, and developed with the assistance of a panel of Lightroom Learning Advisors. So you'll also find links to the moderators’ and advisors’ favorite Lightroom sites, plus links to troubleshooting sites and a page that lists third-party presets, galleries, and extensions.
 
We invite you to visit, comment on our documentation, add links to your favorite tutorials and articles, and share your opinions by commenting on the links that others have posted. And feel free to send feedback on the site to us at lightroom-help-feedback@adobe.com.


If the idea of integrating community knowledge into the apps lights your fire, check out my proposal on the subject.


* I'm not picking on the hardworking Adobe writers: beefs about software docs seem to be pretty universal.  I've often wondered why that is, and I think a few factors conspire keep things as they are.  Among them:

  • No one actually wants to RTFM.  We want expertise jacked straight into our heads.  As with photography, driving, or most other pursuits, it's much easier to buy gear than to learn to use it well.
  • Due to publishing/localization schedules, tech writing staffs are trying to document features as they're being written, instead of after the dust has settled.  Outside authors tend to write later in the cycle.
  • In-house tech writers have to be as broadly useful as possible.  That means it's harder for them to pick a tone or approach that's especially suited to one audience.
05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments [2]

January 19, 2008

Panoramas, HDR, and the future of Lightroom

On Wednesday CNET's Stephen Shankland sat down to talk with my boss Kevin Connor to talk about what's on the roadmap for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.  (I was there as well, but Stephen--correctly discerning that Kevin is the guy with the actual clue/plan/power--wisely focused his questions in that direction. ;-))  They conduced a fairly wide-ranging talk that hits on such topics as high dynamic range (HDR) imaging, panorama creation, and the future of Lightroom extensibility.

[Update: I see that Scott Kelby has posted extensive notes on what he'd like to see in Lightroom 2.0.]

08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments [8]

January 06, 2008

'007 in review: Photography, design, and more


Photography:

  • 2007 was the year the digital SLR boomed, reports CNET's Stephen Shankland, offering links to top stories throughout the year.  He notes that "Adobe released Photoshop Lightroom in March, and in just a few months it surpassed in popularity the earlier Apple rival, Aperture."
  • Serious photogs keep seeking a nice compromise between SLR quality & compact portability.  A number of folks around Adobe's West 10th floor have been intrigued by the Canon G9; see Ben Long's review.
  • Meanwhile a megapixel backlash seems to be building steam. "The more pixels, the worse the image!" says a German camera-testing lab, arguing that splitting a compact sensor into smaller & smaller bits is bad juju.
  • In terms of the craft itself (which keeps proving itself death-proof), Rob Galbraith rounds up a large group of pictures of the year collections.  The sheer number of galleries is a little daunting (paradox of choice, anyone?), but I can at least vouch for MSNBC & Canada Post galleries.  I find the little NatGeo gallery underwhelming.


Adobe:

  • The company was so busy (Creative Suite 3, Lightroom, new CEO...), it's hard to believe that it was just in '07 that so much went down.  Fortunately Scott Kelby provides a thorough overview.
  • Zeroing in just on Photoshop Lightroom, Scott's colleague Matt Kloskowski offers A look back at Lightroom in 2007, recalling the year's interviews, cool add-ons, and more.


Design:

10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments [3]

December 11, 2007

Lightroom Podcast #47: Catherine Hall

"So much of it is having faith in your work and your vision," says photographer Catherine Hall.  "If you believe in yourself, and you believe in what you’re doing, and you illustrate your vision, then the money will come, and everything will fall into place."  Adobe evangelist George Jardine writes,

This podcast was recorded on Wednesday November 21st, 2007 at Catherine’s family home in Lafayette, Calfornia. Catherine sits down with George to have a conversation about how her personal work inspires her wedding photography, about her personal approach to working with people, and how having the opportunity to work with people from many different socio-economic backgrounds makes it all worthwhile.

The 32:18 podcast, labeled "20071121 Podcast - Catherine Hall," is in George's iDisk.  It can also be found on iTunes by searching under Podcasts for "Lightroom," or via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed.


10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments [5]

December 07, 2007

Lightroom updated to v1.3.1

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom has been updated to version 1.3.1, and the update is available for download for Mac and Windows.  Fixes include the following:

  • The Lightroom 1.3 Print Module could previously cause the application to crash on either OS X 10.5 or 10.5.1 during template usage.
  • On Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.5.1, the import process from a card reader or other device into Lightroom could fail to import all or a portion of the selected images.
  • A decrease in Develop slider responsiveness introduced in Lightroom 1.3 has been corrected.
  • The Lightroom 1.3 Develop module could cause the application to crash if adjustments were made in quick succession.
  • Compressed raw files from the Nikon D100 were read incorrectly in Lightroom 1.3.
  • A possible artifact in raw file support for the Olympus E-3 has been corrected.
  • The Lightroom FTP Plug-in provided as sample code with the Export SDK did not function properly if the password was not saved with the selected FTP preset.
  • Editing or creating a new FTP preset immediately prior to using the FTP plug-in provided as sample code with the Export SDK would cause the FTP process to fail.
  • Using the Export as Previous option did not work with the FTP plug-in provided as sample code with the Export SDK.

[Via Tom Hogarty]

01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments [4]

December 06, 2007

Camera Raw updated to 4.3.1; LR to follow

Photoshop's Camera Raw plug-in has been updated to version 4.3.1 (download for Mac, Win) to address two problems discovered following the release of v4.3 a couple of weeks ago:

  • Compressed raw files from the Nikon D100 were read incorrectly in Camera Raw 4.3
  • A possible artifact in Camera Raw 4.3 raw file support for the Olympus E-3 has been corrected

The same fixes plus a few others are slated for inclusion in Lightroom 1.3.1, due shortly.  Tom Hogarty has posted additional details on the Lightroom Journal.

08:10 AM | Permalink | Comments [2]

December 05, 2007

SlideShowPro Flash gallery comes to Lightroom

I'm glad to report that Dominey Design's excellent SlideShowPro Flash gallery is now available for Lightroom.  As the site notes, you can "change any of SlideShowPro's 60+ parameters and preview your changes inside a real, working preview of SlideShowPro before you publish."  The gallery offers a slick full-screen viewing option (click the icon in the lower right corner of the example here).  From within the Lightroom Web module you can upload directly to the Web server of your choice.  You can also upload to Dominey's SlideShowPro Director hosting service, which offers online tools for browsing and managing your uploaded library.  The gallery costs $25, and hosting is available at various rates (free for 14 days).

In covering this announcement, Rick LePage from Macworld also notes that Felix Turner's great Airtight Galleries for Lightroom (previously downloadable on their own) are now included with Lightroom 1.3.  So, if you've run the update and haven't looked at your Web module for a while, take a peek; you might be pleasantly surprised.

[Update: At Inside Lightroom Michale Clark talks about SlideShowPro in LR, calling it "one heck of a deal for the money."]

[Previously: You can also create SlideShowPro galleries and Airtight galleries directly from Photoshop.  See the whole Web Gallery category for more.]

12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments [3]

December 03, 2007

Upload from Lightroom to Flickr, SmugMug, & more

One of the sleeper improvements made in the recent Lightroom 1.3 release is the introduction of a beta export SDK.  That is, developers can now hook their tools into Lightroom's export pipeline.  Jeffrey Friedl has leveraged the SDK and is now sharing upload plug-ins for Flickr, SmugMug, and Zenfolio.  I haven't gotten to try these out yet myself, but I'm excited to see developers stepping up to provide some much-requested capabilities.  [Via]

On a related note, PixelNovel's FlickrShop plug-in enables uploading from Photoshop to Flickr.

12:14 AM | Permalink | No Comments

November 26, 2007

Photoshop typography, Fireworks symbols, & much more on Design Center

The Adobe Design Center says, 'Scuse me while I whip this content out...:

* New Gallery:


* New Dialog Box:


* New Lightroom Video Workshop from George Jardine:


* New Tutorials:

Adobe training gauchas Luanne Seymour and Jen deHaan are riding herd, so check out their sites for fresh material.  And as always, check out some of the 1000+ Adobe links on del.icio.us.  Info on how to contribute links is here.  [Via]

06:11 PM | Permalink | Comments [1]

That Synching Feeling: New Lightroom, Photoshop podcasts

  • George Jardine has posted Lightroom Podcast #46, a 12-minute video tutorial covering Lightroom's synch command.  He writes, "In this tutorial I outline the basics of Lightroom’s Synchronize command. You’ll learn how to apply Develop settings across multiple photos, in both the Library and the Develop modules. I also cover some of the new selection logic in Lightroom that is required to make working with large numbers of files, well…. logical!"
  • Me & Amadou Down By the Schoolyard: At PhotoPlus last month, I spoke with photographer & author Amadou Diallo about Photoshop, life, the universe, and everything (but mostly about Photoshop).  Here's our chat.  (I'm always pleased when I get to hang out on YouTube, rubbing shoulders with Rusty the narcoleptic dachshund & co. ;-))
  • Over at Inside Digital Photo, Scott Sheppard talks with Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty and Photoshop Elements PM Mark Dahm about the new versions 1.3 and 6.0, respectively, of their products.  Check it out here .
09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments [1]

November 15, 2007

Updates posted for Photoshop, Bridge, Lightroom, ACR

I'm pleased to announce that Adobe has posted updates to Photoshop CS3 (download 10.0.1 for Mac, Win), Bridge CS3 (2.1.1 for Mac, Win), Camera Raw (4.3 for Mac, Win), and Lightroom (1.3 for Mac, Win).  Each download page contains details about the corresponding update, but I'll hit some key points here.

[Update: Note that you can choose Help->Updates from within the apps in order to download and install the updates.  That's actually the easiest way to go.]

The Photoshop 10.0.1 update addresses the key pain points experienced by users printing from CS3, particularly on Windows.  I've posted a separate note that goes into more detail on the topic. The update also includes better support for preserving XMP metadata (including copyright) via Save For Web, through the inclusion of a new "Include XMP" option in the dialog's settings menu.  The Photoshop update does not address a problem with changing the values for various tools on Mac OS X Leopard, but Apple and Adobe are working together on a separate fix (details).

With Bridge 2.1.1, a new preference to enable High Quality Preview has been added to Bridge's Preferences->Advanced panel. When enabled, the preference addresses the problem of a soft or blurry preview appearing in the Preview panel and in Slideshow mode.  The Bridge update also remedies other problems reported by users, including a problem that could cause Bridge to lock up when using arrow keys to navigate.

Lightroom 1.3 improves compatibility with Mac OS X Leopard, fixes some bugs, and adds an option to render 1:1 previews during import.  New cameras supported in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and the DNG Converter include the following: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon PowerShot G9, Nikon D3, Nikon D300, Olympus E-3, Olympus SP-560 UZ, and Panasonic DMC-L10.  The applications also now support the sRAW format produced by the Canon 1D Mk III, 1Ds Mk III, and 40D.

There's also a preview Lightroom Export SDK available for developers on Adobe Labs.  If that sounds interesting, check out what Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty has to say on the Lightroom Journal.

By the way, in case you're wondering why the download size for the Photoshop update is large, it's because the updater is multi-lingual, and on the Mac side the update is Universal Binary.

11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments [52]

November 12, 2007

Drunken bridesmaids, the Exxon Valdez, & more in LR podcasts

George Jardine has been in the zone lately, recording all kinds of good Lightroom podcasts:

  • "I joke with my couples when they come in," says photographer Natalie Fobes, "and they look around my office studio, and they see pictures from the Exxon Valdez, or from the Salmon project, or Komoto Dragons walking down the beach in Indonesia, an I kind of joke with them and I say 'Those were my long term projects, but your wedding will be my short term project!' The elements of storytelling that go into a 10 year project on Salmon, or a 6-week project on poverty in America, are the same elements that go into the coverage of the wedding day."  Podcast #43, labeled "20070824 Podcast - Natalie Fobes" is, along with the others, downloadable from George's iDisk, or via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed.
  • "Today we’re doing something completely different," writes George of Podcast #44.  "Welcome to a completely unscripted conversation with 6 top women wedding photographers (Susan Stripling, Allegra, Jen Bebb, Kim Bednarski, Jen Capone, and Kristin Reimer). Come listen in to this fun and friendly conversation, as they tell all about shooting weddings. What are the most gratifying things about shooting weddings? What are the most difficult? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen at a wedding? The funniest story? The dresses. The shoes. The drunken bridesmaids. It’s all here."  The episode is labeled "20071017 Podcast - 6 Women Wedding Photographers."
  • Podcast #45 is all about business.  According to George, "This video tutorial covers the basics of understanding Lightroom’s catalog model. We cover where Lightroom stores your previews and metadata, how Lightroom links to your source files, and how to use Lightroom with Bridge’s browser-based workflow.  Look for "20071111 Tutorial Podcast - The Lightroom Catalog - Part 1." [Via]


And while we're on the subject of Lightroom tutorials, if you're interested in geocoding your images for use with LR, check out what engineer Eric Scouten has to say on the subject.

11:36 AM | Permalink | No Comments

October 29, 2007

Lightroom + Leopard: compatibility notes

Just a brief note: Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty has posted some notes concerning the state of compatibility between the current Lightroom 1.2 & Mac OS X Leopard.  Tom mentions that a Lightroom update is due in the next few weeks which should address the snags people are hitting.
10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments [1]

October 28, 2007

Why do we photograph? A discussion.

"Welcome to what may be my very best conversation yet," says George Jardine of the latest Lightroom podcast.  "Or at least the most fun and insightful."

George sat down with photographers Jay Maisel, Greg Gorman and Seth Resnick for "a long and rambling discussion about film archives, digital archives, various sorting and editing methods, and how they all intersect. Or not... I found Jay continually driving at a singular point about why he photographs, how he edits, and why he feels shooting to please yourself is the only important thing for a photographer." [Update: George has transcribed a couple of key bits & added some comments; I've now included these in this post's extended entry.]

The podcast is on George's iDisk under "20071016 Podcast - Maisel Gorman Resnick."  This podcast & others can be found on iTunes by searching under Podcasts for "Lightroom," or via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed. [Via]

More…

07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments [1]

October 16, 2007

Aperture vs. Lightroom: What do the pros use?

It's been exactly two years since Apple threw its hat into the professional photography ring with the introduction of Aperture.  Adobe responded shortly thereafter with the introduction of Lightroom.  So, how does the pro photography market look now?
 
InfoTrends recently surveyed 1,026 professional photographers in North America to determine which software they used for raw file processing.  Here's what folks reported: 

  • 66.5% using the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in
  • 23.6% using Lightroom
  • 5.5% using Aperture


To be fair to Aperture, it might be helpful to remove Windows users from the equation for a moment.  Even after doing so, Lightroom's usage among Mac-based pros is still nearly double that of Aperture (26.6% vs. 14.3%).

It's also worth pointing out that photographers haven't started to abandon Photoshop as a result of using tools such as Lightroom.  (Photoshop usage overall remains in the 90% range.)  The vast majority of photographers seem to understand pretty clearly the different nature & roles of the apps, and they continue to view Photoshop as a must-have part of any serious arsenal.

Lightroom is clearly off to a tremendous start, and everyone here is really pleased & grateful to the photography community for such a warm welcome.

10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments [55]

October 15, 2007

New Lightroom Podcasts: Chris Rainier, Steve McCurry

Adobe pro photography evangelist George Jardine has been back in the field, mic in hand, to chat with photography heavyweights.  (Note to self: Bump off George, steal his much-cooler-than-mine job. ;-))

  • "It [being able to 'see and pre-visualize' in black and white] allowed me to speak of things that were beyond the color spectrum, beyond a certain reality, and go into what I like to call magical realism," says Chris Rainier.  George writes,

This podcast was recorded on Saturday October 6th, 2007 at National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington D.C. Chris sits down with George to have a conversation about working with Ansel Adams, Chris’s love of the landscape, and his sense of how photography can influence the social issues of our times. He also tells the story of the genesis of the Society’s Cultures initiative, which he currently directs. [The podcast is on George's iDisk under "20071006 Podcast - Chris Rainier"]

  • "Some of the great pictures, you just look at them and you marvel at them, for the subject matter and somehow they struck a chord in you," says Steve McCurry.  "But it’s rarely about the technique. It’s not about the lens, or the film, or the light necessarily. It’s really just some story in that picture. Some emotional element which you connect with."  From George's description:

This podcast was recorded on Saturday September 29th, 2007 at Steve McCurry’s workshop in NYC. Steve sits down with George to have a conversation about photographing people, and the effort and dedication required to make great photographs. [The podcast is on George's iDisk under "20070929 Podcast - Steve McCurry."]

See also my previous posts about Chris & Steve.  These podcasts & others can be found on iTunes by searching under Podcasts for “Lightroom," or via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed.

10:26 AM | Permalink | No Comments

September 22, 2007

On the personality of Lightroom

Over in the Lightroom Journal, software architect Mark Hamburg shares his thoughts on power vs. complexity & other aspects of the personality of Lightroom.  I find his thoughts refreshingly candid:

We wanted Lightroom to seem elegant. To exhibit grace. To show an attention to style beyond the utilitarian aspect that dominated Adobe's products up to that time. We wanted a richer UI experience.

We've been successful in many ways. At the same time, we are painfully aware that there are places where we could be yet more graceful or elegant.

If you're interested in more, see also Mark's interview on since1968.com, or listen to the podcast in which he & other members of the Lightroom team tackle these issues. As for the personas of Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash, see previous.

04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments [3]

September 13, 2007

Camera Raw 4.2, Lightroom 1.2 now available

I'm pleased to report that Camera Raw 4.2 (download for Mac|Win) and Lightroom 1.2 (Mac|Win) are now available for download from Adobe.com, and via the Adobe Update Manager (choose Help->Updates within Photoshop or Lightroom). 

These releases add support for a number of cameras (and yes, 40D shooters, you can stop stuffing the feature request form now ;-)):

Canon

  • EOS 40D
 Panasonic
  • DMC-FZ18

Fuji

  • FinePix IS-1
 Pentax
  • K100D Super

Leaf

  • Aptus 17
  • Aptus 54s
  • Aptus 75s
 Phase One
  • P 20 +
  • P 21 +
  • P 25 +
  • P 30 +
  • P 45 +

Olympus

  • EVOLT E-510
 Sony
  • Alpha 700


It's possible to use these cameras in older versions of Photoshop by converting their proprietary formats to DNG using the new version of the free DNG Converter.  In case you want the full details of what's new & improved in these releases, read on for this post's extended entry.

More…

09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments [24]

September 06, 2007

Save up to $150 buying Photoshop + Lightroom

A new promotion has launched on the Adobe.com Store: Purchasing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and a full or upgrade version of Photoshop CS3 or Photoshop CS3 Extended together can knock up to $150 off the total price:

  • Upgrade to Photoshop CS3 + buy Lightroom: save $75
  • Buy Photoshop CS3 (full version) + buy Lightroom: save $125
  • Upgrade to Photoshop CS3 Extended + buy Lightroom: save $100
  • Buy Photoshop CS3 Extended (full version) + buy Lightroom: save $150

Obligatory official details blurb: The bundle product discount is available only when Lightroom and Photoshop CS3 or Photoshop CS3 Extended are purchased simultaneously. The bundle discount is reflected prior to checkout. Bundle pricing is available only through the Adobe Store and certain select resellers. Education, OEM, and licensing customers are not eligible for bundle pricing. This offer is valid in North America only. [<--Folks are working to extend the offer to other geographies, but that's not quite ready yet.  --J.]

07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments [2]

August 30, 2007

Fresh Podcasts: Pete Turner, Kevin Connor, Magnum

  • George Jardine sat down recently with pioneering color photographer Pete Turner at Pete's home studio in Wainscott, NY, discussing how he got started in photography and his early experiments with color.  The podcast can be downloaded from George's iDisk ("20070809 Podcast - Pete Turner"), or from iTunes by searching under Podcasts for "Lightroom."

  • George writes, "If you haven't been watching the Magnum In Motion podcasts... now is the time. (They are short. You do have time.) Lots of stunning stuff here."  Among the highlights he recommends:


  • Scott Sheppard of Inside Digital Photo has interviewed Kevin Connor . Scott writes, " Kevin shares the details of how they setup their popular public beta programs and how they ultimately implemented the feedback they received firsthand.  He explains Adobe’s vision and synergy behind both Photoshop and Lightroom... He shares some tips, including using the “targeted adjustment” tool in Lightroom. Hear how other markets, including medical imaging, influence future application features."
10:38 AM | Permalink | No Comments

August 29, 2007

Lightroom named Imaging Software of the Year

Popular Photography has given Adobe Photoshop Lightroom the nod as Imaging Software of the Year.  Congrats, guys!  'Nuff said.
11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments [1]

August 25, 2007

RawShooter Migration Tool now available

In the year since Adobe acquired Pixmantec, makers of the RawShooter image review & processing tools, RawShooters have been asking for a way to migrate their image settings to be compatible with Adobe Lightroom & Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw.  The solution has arrived in the form of the Pixmantec RawShooter Migration Tool, now available on Adobe Labs.  According to the Labs site:

The Pixmantec RawShooter Migration Tool is designed to provide a way to migrate the settings made in Pixmantec RawShooter Premium or Pixmantec RawShooter Essentials to visually similar settings in Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom™ or Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw. Given that the controls in each application are not identical, the results of these conversions will not provide visually identical images.

11:18 AM | Permalink | No Comments

August 16, 2007

Lightroom Podcasts #36-38 now posted

Adobe's Pro Photography Evangelist George Jardine has gone on a podcasting tear recently:

  • Episode #36, "Adobe Raw Sharpening Controls," is a video offering "a new mini-tutorial showing how Lightroom’s 1.1 sharpening controls work, to help you quickly adjust your capture sharpening in the Develop Module."
  • "What’s so unique about still photography," says photographer Ed Kashi, "is that it forces you to stop, it forces you to think. It’s almost meditative. Particularly compared to the other media that exists today."  In Episode #37, Ed sits down with George to have a conversation about his career, his passion and motivation for photojournalism, and telling stories that matter.
  • “I’ve always loved films," says Bob Sacha, "and I’ve always loved documentary films, partly because I love music, and I love sound. And so in a way I saw film as a way of combining what I knew from still photography with this idea of sound. Light, motion, moment, composition, those are all the sort of hard skills that we possess as photographers. Makes it easier to move over into new media.”  In Episode #38 Bob sits down with George to have a conversation about his career, his love of film, and his quest to integrate sound, video and still photographs into media-rich journalism. Bob also discusses the fellowship project he recently worked on at Ohio University.

All three new podcasts, plus previous episodes, are available via George's iDisk.  (Scroll to the bottom of the list.) [Via]

08:20 AM | Permalink | No Comments

July 25, 2007

Hearing voices in Lightroom

James Duncan Davidson at Inside Lightroom has happened across a hidden little gem in the app--namely, the ability to play audio files attached to photos.  Some high-end cameras, especially those geared towards photojournalists (e.g. the Canon 1D Mk III), allow a shooter to record voice notes that get attached to images, becoming essentially part of the images' metadata.  Lightroom 1.1 quietly introduced the ability to recognize & play these annotations. It's a cool way to take notes in the field, then access them while reviewing photos.

In a related vein, Lightroom also recognizes embedded GPS metadata & offers the ability to display the location via Google Maps.  Ian Lyons has the details.

10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments [1]

July 11, 2007

Free 177-page Lightroom 1.1 overview available

Martin Evening, photographer/author/apparent insomniac, has just released a 177-page supplement to The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book.  The supplement, in which Martin describes in detail all the new features found in Lightroom 1.1, is free not only to book owners, but to everyone. He writes,

I wanted to provide a free update for Lightroom 1.1 that would satisfy readers who had already bought the book as well as all those who hadn’t bought it yet but wanted to make sure they were up to speed on all the new program features.

The supplement is illustrated with 20MB of images and contains page cross references to the main book.  Lightroom News has the details on how to download the file from Peachpit.

11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments [1]

July 10, 2007

Lightroom Podcasts #34, 35

Adobe Pro Photography Evangelist George Jardine is back in the podcast saddle, offering up image- and video-enhanced insights into the personalities behind Lightroom, as well as tips on using the tools themselves.

In podcast #34 (a 7-minute video tutorial), Geroge demonstrates Lightroom's handy "Refine Photos" command.  Here's a brief overview of the feature (not a prerequisite for watching, but maybe handy for reference):

Refine photos is a tool used during "editing" with pick and reject flags. Once you have gone through all your photos and marked some as picks and others as rejects, choosing the Refine Photos menu item does these three things:

  • Sets all unflagged photos to Rejects
  • Sets all Picks to unflagged
  • Turns on unflagged and pick filters, so that rejects disappear from view

The idea is to help you narrow down an edit. Let's say you're looking for one good photo. Or 10. First go through your photos and mark the best shots (assuming there are more than 10). Then choose Refine Photos. This sets all the unflagged photos to reject status, and hides them using the filter. It also sets the photos flagged with the Pick flag back to unflagged.... so that you can repeat the process. Now go back through them again... and pick your best ones out of this "refined" group. Then choose Refine Photos again. Until you're down to 10. Or whatever your target is.  This feature can work in conjunction with the "Delete Rejected Photos" command (Command-Delete).... if you wish to actually remove the rejected photos from disk. 

In episode #35, George chats with Lightroom engineer Eric Scouten:

This podcast was recorded on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at Adobe offices in Seattle, WA. Eric sits down with George to have a conversation about Lightroom 1.0, improvements in 1.1, about Eric’s photography, and how his personal methods of photo organization have played a role in the development of Lightroom’s database strategy.

Both podcasts, as well as previous editions, are available via George's iDisk.

09:36 AM | Permalink | No Comments

July 06, 2007

Slimbox & more Flash galleries for Lightroom

Matthew Campagna, a kindergarten teacher in South Korea, has modified the slick, lightweight (7kb), JavaScript-powered Slimbox Web gallery for Lightroom, offering it as a free download from his site.  Here's a sample gallery generated using the template.  The site features installation instructions (straightforward once you know the file path, but something I'd like to make one-click easy in the future), as well as details on hacking the template for more options. [Via Richard Earney of Inside-Lightroom.com]

Elsewhere, LightroomGalleries.com is devoted to just what you'd imagine.  I'm enjoying the LRG FlashFlex gallery.  It has some wonky qualities, and I'm not sure what purpose the draggability of images is supposed to serve, but fortunately it's possible to tweak these parameters inside Lightroom (e.g. disabling dragging).  Use the installation instructions mentioned above to find the path to your templates folder. [Via]

If you know of other good Lightroom templates, please let me know.

05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments [6]

July 05, 2007

Going Lightroom -> iPhone

James Duncan Davidson has figured out an easy way to carry one's photo selects around on an iPhone: By setting up a synched folder in iTunes (which manages what goes onto the phone), you can export JPEGs from Lightroom and have them automatically appear on the phone.  By saving an export preset, you can make this a one-click operation.  More info is in James's post. [Via]

As I remain stuck on my phone's activation screen (I'm starting to think that the AT&T logo is some kind of ball gag), I can't confirm the steps myself, but they sound straightforward.  Also, if you're a Photoshop Elements on Windows, you can synch easily; Apple shares the details here.

12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments [3]

June 30, 2007

More spray, less pray with Lightroom 1.1

I'll admit that one of the features I never really understood in Lightroom 1.0 was the Keyword Stamper tool.  It seemed vaguely interesting, but I never took the time to grok its ins and outs.

No matter: the tool has now beem morphed into something that looks more powerful and more comprehensible: the metadata-centric Painter tool.  This quick video from Layers magazine demonstrates how to use the tool to paint keywords, develop settings (nice!), or other metadata onto one or more images just by clicking and dragging.  Martin Evening goes into more depth on LightroomNews. [Via]

06:05 PM | Permalink | No Comments

June 29, 2007

Great new Flash galleries for Lightroom

Here's a little Friday afternoon treat: the Lightroom team has been working with Felix Turner, creator of the excellent Airtight Flash galleries, to integrate support for the galleries.  Lightroom engineer Andy Rahn has posted three gallery templates on the LR team blog, along with installation instructions.  Here are examples I generated using each one:

What's really sweet is the way the Adobe Flash Player is directly integrated into Lightroom, so that as you adjust the specific parameters for each gallery (image size, colors, number of rows/columns, etc.), you see the results immediately. With other apps you'd need to set parameters, export, review the results in a browser, go back to the authoring tool, tweak, and so on.

I think this is a sign of more good things to come, and if you're a Flash developer who's like to integrate with Lightroom, drop me a line.  We'll work on updating the galleries to run in the new Bridge-based Adobe Media Gallery (which uses the same engine) as well.  To use PostcardViewer directly from Photoshop, see previous.

03:10 PM | Permalink | Comments [8]

June 26, 2007

Lightroom 1.1 now available

I'm delighted to report that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.1, a free update that adds numerous feature enhancements while squashing bugs, is available for download* from Adobe.com (Mac|Win).  Besides adding the sharpening and clarity controls that debuted in Camera Raw 4.1, Lightroom 1.1 adds a ton of polish around catalog management, keywording, easier metadata synching, and more.

There's too much to list here, so check out LightroomNews for a run-down of what's new, or see the product ReadMe file (PDF).  LightroomNews plans an eight-part series covering the update, starting with a terrifically detailed overview of new menu items here.  Lots of other good info will be forthcoming on the Lightroom team blog and elsewhere.  I'll try to update this post & subsequent ones as resources become available.  In the meantime, you're welcome to suggest links via the comments.  

*The English update is available now; French, German, and Japanese editions are expected shortly.

09:47 PM | Permalink | Comments [5]

June 19, 2007

CS3 news: "Summer of Adobe" & more

Here's a quick round-up of good Photoshop, Bridge, and Lightroom-related info I've seen lately:

  • Photographer & author Martin Evening has shared a wealth of content from his new book, Photoshop CS3 for Photographers.
  • Dingbat Magazine offers a deep dive across the whole CS3 line in their Summer of Adobe feature.
  • Ben Long talks about a subtle, but useful, new feature of Bridge CS3: the ability to create and edit metadata templates easily, then apply these to your images.
  • Dave Story and Kevin Connor, the guys who head up Photoshop engineering and product management respectively (and thus who cut my checks), sat down with Derrick Story to talk about Photoshop & Lightroom development in a pair of podcasts.
  • The folks at Total Training have been making great video content for years.  They're now moving their library online.
  • To streamline your photo importing, check out Julieanne Kost's video on how to optimize the process using Lightroom.
07:32 PM | Permalink | No Comments

May 23, 2007

Lightroom Podcast #31: Develop module basics

Continuing his focus on short, practical video tutorials, Adobe photography evangelist George Jardine has posted a new Lightroom podcast. This installment demonstrates the basics of working with Lightroom's Develop module. George writes,

This mini-tutorial podcast is the second in a series that will cover bite-sized tips and techniques designed to help you get the most out of Lightroom. The focus of this series will concentrate primarily on basic color correction techniques using the Develop module, but will also touch on many other parts of the application. This tutorial shows the basics of using the Develop module to make corrections to a slightly underexposed photo.

The podcast is available via George's iDisk (look for “20070512 Tutorial Podcast - Develop Module Basics”). It's also available via iTunes (search for "Lightroom"), and via the Lightroom Podcasts RSS feed.

10:51 PM | Permalink | No Comments

Tips on Lightroom Flash galleries

If you're interested in wringing the most out of Lightroom's Flash-based Web galleries, check out the Bluefire Blog.  It's written and maintained by the guys at Bluefire, the Web developers Adobe hired to build the galleries.  They get down to the nuts and bolts of how the galleries work, revealing hidden settings and mor