One of the most common tech support questions we get is, “Why doesn’t Lightroom recognize my camera’s raw photos?” Or, similarly, “Why can’t I open my camera’s raw photos in Camera Raw?”
Jeff Tranberry answers these questions in his blog Why doesn’t my version of Photoshop or Lightroom support my camera? Read it to learn how to open your files.
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:
I updated some woefully out-of-date Adobe Bridge support articles this week. If you’ve been looking for info on the following topics or issues for Bridge CS4 or CS5 (as opposed to for Bridge CS2 or CS3), check ‘em out:
Nested and hierarchal keywording | Adobe Bridge (kb402660)
Troubleshoot errors and freezes | Adobe Bridge | Windows, Mac OS (317912)
Manually remove Adobe Bridge (328358)
Manage the cache | Adobe Bridge CS4, CS5 (kb405357)
Camera Raw files appear as generic icons | Adobe Bridge (kb407945)
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.
You probably spend a fair bit of your day singing praises or shouting curses at Photoshop. Why not talk directly to the Photoshop team? Here are but a few of the ways you can give your feedback to Adobe:
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:
icon and choose Add To Home Screen.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.
Educator, author, and photographer extraordinaire Jerry Courvoisier has created a 2011 calendar template for use in Lightoom 3. It’s a nice little custom template that lets you create a monthly 2011 calendar for display in a CD jewel case and show off 12 of your photographic works of art–a great gift idea.
You can download the free template, along with a video tutorial about how to create the calendar in the Print module, from Jerry’s Lightroom Workshops website. Don’t be alarmed; it’s a 30MB .zip file that contains the template and a .mov file with instructions.
I’ve also linked to Jerry’s template and tutorial on the Lightroom Help and Support page. Remember–I update the Help and Support page regularly, posting video and text tutorials on all variety of topics. Let me know what you might like me to feature. Tell your friends. Visit often.
Oh, and for those of you who didn’t get it together to send out a family photo Christmas card, check out the 10-minute Photoshop emergency Christmas card, by Gavin Hoey.
