Phosphors

You learn something new every day, and I just learned a really useful tip from Jim Wilde in a thread over at Lightroom Forums.

As you probably know, you can work in one of two import windows in Lightroom: One is a relatively complex window in which you select the source photos, decide how to import, and then specify an array of import/destination options in panels on the right side of the window.

Or, you can click the Show Fewer Options button to work with just a bare minimum of import options.

But did you know that there’s a third way to work? In the full import window, you can use a keyboard shortcut to display only the import panels you want to see and hide the others from view. Right-click (Windows) or press Control+Command and then click (Mac OS) any of the panel headers on the right side of the window to open a context menu. You can show or hide all panels; expand or collapse them; select only those you want to view (the ones whose settings you always need to customize); or enter Solo Mode. You can use the keyboard shortcut on the Source panel on the left side of the window, too, but I tend to need to keep that panel open.

For more information, see the following Help topics:

• Import photos into a catalog (working in the full import window)
• Import using fewer options (using the minimal import window)
• Managing panels and the screen view (working in Solo Mode)

There. Now you’ve learned something, too.

When it comes to exporting photos from Lightroom 3 using the Publish Services panel, our traditional Help documentation wasn’t working for you, feedback showed. Typically, Adobe provides simple feature definitions and explains basic UI functionality—“This button does X, that slider does Y.” But that structure lacks context, and it seemed to be a particularly unhelpful way to document how to export photos to web-sharing sites from Lightroom. So I recently revised the topic according to (gasp!) how you actually use the panel: to publish photos to Facebook, Flickr, SmugMug, and Photoshop.com. Pick your website, follow the steps to upload your photos to it. Makes much more sense.

So check out the new-and-improved Exporting using Publish Services topic. You will also notice another positive change on the page: The addition of new, “Adobe recommends” links to the best-of-the-best community videos and tutorials on how to export photos to the web. The links were actually on the page before, but we’ve applied a new, more visual treatment to help you discover this great content–in some cases, we’ve actually embedded tutorial videos on the Help page. I rolled out the “Adobe recommends” links on a few other popular topics as well:

• Using the Watermark Editor
• Backing up the catalog
• Apply local adjustments

In response to a suggestion over at feedback.photoshop.com, we just published a new support document, “Optimize performance | Lightroom.”

For many years and versions, we’ve maintained a support doc on how to configure your system for optimal Photoshop performance, and a similar document for Lightroom is long overdue. Thanks to customer Chris Niestepski for starting the discussion and prompting us to create the doc.

“Optimize performance | Lightroom” explores hardware configurations, Lightroom catalog and preview settings, and system maintenance tasks that can help Lightroom run at peak efficiently. Check it out and give us your feedback. Answer the question, “Was this helpful,” at the top of the article and share comments on how we can improve the content.

OK, OK, so I’m a few weeks late. Lightroom 3.4 shipped at the end of April, but just today I finally pushed a long-overdue update to Lightroom Help. Mostly, I incorporated links to community tutorials into relevant topics and corrected lots of minor inaccuracies (thanks for the comments—keep ‘em coming). But more significant updates are:

Turn Lightroom auto-launch on and off

Many of you have been asking, “How do I make Lightroom stop opening automatically when I plug in a camera or camera card?” The answer is: Turn off the import preference that regulates this function. The setting is covered in the Set import and file-handling preferences topic, but since so many people asked on the Import photos automatically page, I put a tip there, too.

View raw+JPEG images

Another common question: “Where are the JPEGs in my raw+JPEG workflow?” They’re in Lightroom, but you’ll only see them if your import preferences are set accordingly. This setting is also covered in the Set import and file-handling preferences topic, but since it’s buried, I explain it in a new topic, View raw+JPEG photos.

Export to Facebook, Flickr, and SmugMug

Update to Lightroom 3.4. Many bugs have been addressed. That’s the advice I give at the top of the Exporting using Publish Services topic. There. Now you don’t even have to read it.

Rearrange slides

Folks, this isn’t rocket science. You just have to choose a bottom-level folder or a collection in the Library module as the source for your slide show, and then drag to rearrange the slides in the Slideshow module. And drag from the center of the thumbnail, not the edge. See Rearrange slide order.

Turn off printer color management

Color management is a thorny topic, no doubt. And so is the Help topic Set print color management. Many of you have asked for instructions on that page for how to turn off color management in your printer driver software. It’s a valid question, but unfortunately, one Adobe cannot easily answer. You need to check your printer manufacturer documentation for info on turning off CMS in the driver.

I got an iPhone recently. The experiment this past weekend: Get photos that I captured on the device into Lightroom. I was apprehensive because I’d heard it was difficult to do—but it’s not. Sure, it’s tricky to do it wirelessly: you have to email yourself, or post photos one at a time to Dropbox or some other site, or get an app like Camera Plus Pro, which I wasn’t ready to do.

Happily, however, it’s a cakewalk to get my Camera Roll into Lightroom with a wire: Connect the iPhone to the Mac, open Lightroom, click Import. Voila. Lightroom recognizes the device, and I can import just as with any other camera.

For a video tutorial on going the other direction—getting photos from Lightroom onto your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad—see Terry White’s  Sync your photos from Lightroom to your iDevices (13:50).

Now that I covered some requisite learning content, here are the photos that I captured. Showing them is the real reason I wanted to write this post. I see these signs almost every day, down the street. The first one appeared a few months ago, along with the sculpture, on the fence next to the dry cleaner on the corner. Someone is adding a new sign every week or so, in roughly the order shown below. I find myself looking forward to passing this corner these days. It takes my breath away.

I got an iPad yesterday. One of the first things I did? Added Lightroom Help as a web clip to my Home screen:

1. Open Safari on your iPad and navigate to Using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.
2. Tap the  icon and choose Add To Home Screen.
3. While you’re at it, repeat steps 1 and 2 for the Lightroom Help and Support page.

Now you have Adobe documentation and links to dozens of useful tutorials a tap away. Having Help or a tutorial open on an iPad while you work in Lightroom on your computer: Not Flashy. Just fun and functional.

Understanding how catalogs work and learning how to effectively create and manage them are two of the biggest challenges that new Lightroom users face. Setting up a catalog properly at the outset of using Lightroom can prevent big headaches down the road—and prevent you from being an otherwise experienced user who suddenly encounters catalog confusion.

Luckily, a great deal of learning content is available on how to create and manage Lightroom catalogs. For the basics, see the Lightroom Community Help page Creating and managing catalogs. But better yet, see our support doc Catalog FAQ | Lightroom. I just expanded it to cover even more frequently asked questions, such as how to move a catalog from a PC to a Mac and how to bring a Lightroom 2 catalog into Lightroom 3. I also added links to some great community tutorials on the various topics.

When you read it, be sure to give feedback so I can keep the doc relevant. At the top of the page, answer the big orange question “Was this helpful?” Choose Yes or No, and then you’ll have the opportunity to add a comment. We use your comments to continually improve our content.

I updated Lightroom Community Help this week. Some of the questions you’ve recently asked (and I’ve just answered in the Help) include:

Q. Why has my photo been re-queued to publish to Flickr?

A. As many of you have observed, it doesn’t take much for Lightroom to move photos in to the Republish queue. Primarily, this is as-designed—any metadata change to a photo will queue it to be republished. But sometimes photos still unexpectedly get queued for republishing to Flickr. We’ve written an Adobe Support article on this issue, and I’ve linked to it from the Help topic Exporting using Publish Services. (Or, if you’re one of those people who need instant gratification, go directly to the article: Images unexpectedly return to the Republish section of Flickr publish service in Lightroom 3.x.)

Q. How does Lightroom determine what photos are duplicate?

A. Excellent question. So glad you asked. For the answer, see the Help topic Specify duplicate file handling when importing.

Q. Can Premiere Pro read metadata edits I make to video files in Lightroom?

A. Unfortunately, no. For more detail, see Work with video in Lightroom.

Q. Did you really remove the capability to export a slide show as JPEGs that was in Lightroom 2?

A. Surprise—no! A (previously) undocumented keyboard shortcut makes this feature available in Lightroom 3. See the tip at the end of the Help topic Export a slide show as PDF.

Q. How do I delete a custom copyright watermark?

A. I expanded the copyright watermark topic, now called Using the Watermark Editor, to include more information on how to manage and work with multiple saved watermarks, including how to delete them.

Q. I thought filters were sticky. What the heck happened in Lightroom 3?

A. The default behavior of filters applied to folders and collections changed from Lightroom 2 to Lightroom 3. Filters used to be sticky, now they’re not. However, you can simulate the old behavior. See Control filter behavior for a folder or a collection.

Finally, I added links to David DuChemin’s tutorials, which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, to Applying adjustments in the Develop module: Basic workflow and Apply local adjustments.