Recently, Richard introduced an iPhone app that lets you learn on the go. To learn more about these iPhone-based tutorials, check out this helpful overview.
![screens_qf[1].png](http://blogs.adobe.com/phosphors/screens_qf%5B1%5D.png)
To use it, choose Help > Lightroom Help (F1) in Lightroom 3 Beta or go to Using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta.
Here are some of the Lightroom 3 Beta Help topics:
What's new in Lightroom 3 Beta
Importing photos into a catalog
Exporting using Publish Services
Keep in mind that just like the software, this documentation is prerelease. It may be incomplete or contain bugs. We hope to add commenting capabilities soon so you can provide feedback. Meanwhile, you can always share your thoughts at the Lightroom 3 Beta forum.
Enjoy.
]]>Recently, Richard introduced an iPhone app that lets you learn on the go. To learn more about these iPhone-based tutorials, check out this helpful overview.
"How do you attach and use plug-ins?"
And I realized that Lightroom Help doesn't provide an answer. Certainly, plug-in developers provide some documentation for their own tools--and by all means, do consult it--but here are some things you should know that will help you work more efficiently with plug-ins in Lightroom:
1. Lightroom 2 can work with export plug-ins regardless of where they're located, but it's easiest if you put them in one of the following folders:
• Mac OS: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules
• Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Modules
• Windows Vista: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Modules
To install a plug-in, simply drag it into one of those folders, and then launch Lightroom. Lightroom will automatically find the plug-in and make it available.
2. Use the Plug-In Manager to enable/disable plug-ins. Choose File > Plug-In Manager or click the Plug-in Manager button in the Export dialog box.
3. To use an export plug-in, click the double-pointing arrow ( 
) at the far right of the Files On Disk button that straddles the top of the Export dialog box. Then, choose the plug-in from the list.
4. Some plug-ins have additional functionality that is available by choosing Plug-In Extras from the File, Library, or Help menu.
For more information, see the Export Plug-Ins topic in Lightroom Community Help.
]]>First: email. Lightroom offers a preset that automates the process of exporting JPEGs that are sized for sending via email: 640 x 480 pixels, sRGB, medium quality, 72ppi. The easiest way to use the preset is to select the photos for export and choose File > Export With Preset > For Email. Specify a location for the exported files, and you're done.
Here's a tutorial with more detail on how to do this on the Mac, including how to use a post-processing action to automatically create the email with the photos attached: Email photos directly from Lightroom (7:07), by Julieanne Kost on Adobe TV. Victoria Bampton has written a similar tutorial, Attach exported files to email (PDF), for Windows and Mac.
All of this is now documented at Exporting photos using presets.
Second: GPS. If your camera records GPS metadata, Lightroom can read the information and display it in an EXIF field in the Metadata panel. If your camera does not support GPS, there are a couple of ways you can get the information into Lightroom. First, you can use a geotagging device to capture GPS coordinates, and then use third-party software to merge that data with the photo before it's imported. Alternatively, you can use Jeffrey Friedl's GPS Support plug-in, which allows Lightroom to read data from a GPS device's track log, or lets you directly "geoencode" a specific location.
Several great tutorials are available with more information about geotagging and Lightroom:
• Lightroom Killer Tips' GPS information video (3:31)
• Geolocation and Lightroom, by Richard Earney
• GPS metadata and linking to Google Earth, by Martin Evening (scroll past the "Extra tips for advanced users" and "Audio file playback" topics to get to the GPS topic)
• A GPS for your digital camera, by Terry White (old, but still accurate)
This, too, is now all documented at View photo metadata.
]]>1. Go to Using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2, the Lightroom online Help landing page.
2. Click the radio button at the bottom of the page: Help on the Web.
Now, when you choose F1 or choose Help > Lightroom Help from inside the application, you'll go directly to Lightroom online Help. You can change the preference again at any time.
And remember, you can always get to Lightroom online Help from the Help and Support page by clicking the big Lightroom Online Help button to the lower-right of the search field.
One final tip: When you're in Lightroom online Help, there's a search field in the upper-right corner of the page. Check This Help System Only when you search to restrict the search to just the Adobe Lightroom documentation. You can always expand the search to Community Help on the results page by deselecting the option Show Only Content From Adobe.
]]>Check out the new "chapter" on Managing catalogs and files, which includes all the topics you'd expect, such as Copying and moving catalogs, Backing up the catalog, and Combining and merging catalogs. In addition, the topics Locate missing photos and Locate missing folders now explain why/how photos and folders go missing, the errors Lightroom displays when it happens, and provide clearer instructions on finding and relinking the files.
"Watermark" is consistently the most-searched term in Lightroom Community Help, but Help about it has been scattered and, frankly, obtuse. So to be perfectly clear: Lightroom only supports text-based copyright watermarks. These are derived from copyright IPTC metadata. To create graphical or custom watermarks, you need a plug-in.
To apply a copyright watermark to photos that you're sharing online, such as at Facebook, Flickr, or SmugMug, do so when you export the photos. Read how at Specify metadata handling.
To apply a copyright watermark to photos that you're uploading to an HTML website, use the Web module. See Display a copyright watermark in web photo galleries.
I've also made a few other minor corrections and clarifications based on your comments and questions, including one that's come up often: What do the various mysterious Numbering options for filenaming mean? Find out at The Filename Template Editor and the Text Template Editor.
]]>* Specify catalog backup frequency
* Choose the catalog backup location
* Check catalog integrity
* Perform a catalog backup
* Restore a backup catalog
The Help also includes general recommendations for comprehensive backup strategy. And you can still read about how to back up photos during import.
In addition, I’ve elaborated on Lightroom’s capabilities with regard to sharing watermarked photos online, and creating web galleries with watermarked photos—two very different workflows.
To upload photos from Lightroom to a photo-sharing website such as Facebook, you need to export the photos and then either use the sharing site’s upload functionality, or use a third-party Lightroom plug-in to automate the process. You can apply a text watermark when you export photos from Lightroom, but again, you need a third-party plug-in to add a graphical watermark. See Specify metadata handling and Export plug-ins.
When creating an HTML or Flash web gallery, meanwhile, you use the Web module. You can add a text watermark based on IPTC metadata to photos in a web gallery, but again, you cannot customize the watermark unless you use a third-party plug-in. See Display a copyright watermark in web photo galleries.
First is Laura Shoe's Digital Daily Dose blog. Laura is an instructor and photographer based in Seattle, WA. Some of her tutorials include Are you clear on Clarity?, which explains the Clarity slider in both Camera Raw and Lightroom, including how to use negative values to improve certain types of shots. Another is An easier way to get your color in Lightroom, which explains how to use the color palette in Lightroom 2. Laura also wrote About your images and the Lightroom catalog, which explains the catalog concept by making an analogy to a public library.
Next is The Lightroom Lab. The writers at The Lightroom Lab, including Scott Rouse and David Marx, aren't afraid to tackle both technical and creative topics. For example, Converting Camera Raw files to DNG in Lightroom is not exactly a glamorous subject, but it confuses many people and the tutorial explains it well. Using Photoshop actions as droplets in Lightroom, meanwhile, is a clever tutorial about expediting tasks by saving Photoshop actions as droplets so that they're available from the Lightroom Export dialog box.
Finally, I've added Lightroom tutorials from the Digital Photography School. The site offers great photography tutorials, such as How to shoot in direct sunlight and Where is your subject looking and why does it matter?, as well as tutorials about working in Photoshop, Lightroom, and Elements. Some of the articles now in our CSE are Working with virtual copies in Lightroom and Warning, don't make these 5 mistakes in Lightroom, both by contributor Helen Bradley.
Check out the sites, or just read their tutorials when they come up in Lightroom Community Help search results.
]]>Change the photo capture time Sounds like an easy task, but Lightroom photos can have the three types of EXIF date/time metadata: Date Time, Date Time Original, and Date Time Digitized. Read the updated topic to find out which one(s) are affected when you change a photo’s capture time.
Specify image sizing The Resize To Fit options in Export dialog are: Width & Height, Dimensions, Long Edge, and Short Edge. Gee, are those confusing? Hopefully not anymore.
Personalize identity plates and module buttons The file formats and size of graphics that can be used as identity plates were incorrectly documented. Thanks, Glyn Churchman, for letting us know.
Search for photos using the Text filter There are four primary rules available to text searches in Lightroom: Contains, Contains All, Contains Words, and Doesn’t Contain. These rules are also available when you create a smart collection. We’ve now defined these rules, and given some examples, so you can use them more effectively.
Create and apply keyword shortcuts Customer Anders Sorensen recently commented that the instructions on this page weren’t clear, and indeed the benefit of being able to quickly apply multiple keywords to multiple photos at once wasn’t obvious. Hopefully, the instructions—and the reasons for using keyword shortcuts—are now more understandable.
Photoshop: http://community.adobe.com/help/rss/comments.html?label=photoshop_product_adobelr&language=en_US
Lightroom: http://community.adobe.com/help/rss/comments.html?label=lightroom_product_adobelr&language=en_US
Bridge: http://community.adobe.com/help/rss/comments.html?label=bridge_product_adobelr&language=en_US
]]>Highlights include:
• Single sign on to all forums
• Updated look and feel
• E-mail participation: subscribe or post to threads
• RSS support
• Rich text options: inline images and videos, file attachments, code samples
• Improved search