Category: Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: I currently use Photoshop and Adobe Bridge. I have used keywords in Bridge. Will those keywords be included if I switch to Lightroom Classic?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, the metadata you add to photos with Adobe Bridge will be included in the catalog when you import photos into Lightroom Classic.

More Detail: When you add metadata to photos in Adobe Bridge, by default the standard metadata updates (such as keywords and star ratings) will be added to the metadata for the photos. For raw captures that means an XMP sidecar file will be created or updated, with the metadata updates included in that XMP file.

When you then import those images into Lightroom Classic, the metadata from the photos will be included as part of that import. Therefore, all keywords and other standard metadata will appear within your catalog, just as you saw it in Adobe Bridge.

Note that this metadata support only extends to standard metadata fields. One exception to this would be the Reject flag, which is a feature supported by both Adobe Bridge and Lightroom Classic, but that is not included as part of a metadata standard. Therefore, if you apply a reject flag in one of these two applications that reject flag will not appear in the other application.

So, in the context of importing photos into Lightroom Classic that had previously been managed in Adobe Bridge, any reject flags will not be visible in Lightroom Classic.

In addition, Adobe Bridge and Lightroom Classic use different definitions for color labels, even though both are applications from Adobe. For example, in Adobe Bridge a red color label gets the value of “Select” in metadata, while in Lightroom Classic a red color label gets the value of “Red”.

If you have worked with color labels in Adobe Bridge, you can maintain your existing workflow by setting the color label definitions in Lightroom Classic to the Adobe Bridge preset. To do so, go to the menu and choose Metadata > Color Label Set > Bridge Default. You could also change the existing color labels in Lightroom Classic to match the default definitions in Lightroom Classic, such as by assigning a “Red” color label to all images that have a “Select” color label from Adobe Bridge.

Overall, however, the transition from Adobe Bridge to Lightroom Classic is very seamless, with standard metadata fields being retained, and your existing folder structure being reflected for images you import into your Lightroom Classic catalog.

Today’s Question: Are multiple catalogs acceptable if you have the main catalog on a desktop computer and a laptop computer that you use when traveling?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, having a “temporary” catalog for use while traveling, and then merging that catalog with your primary catalog upon your return is a perfectly good reason to have more than one catalog for Lightroom Classic.

More Detail: One of the top recommendations I give photographers when it comes to using Lightroom Classic to manage your photos is that you use only one catalog to manage all of your photos. This helps to streamline your overall workflow and enables you to search for photos among your entire catalog, rather than having to first figure out which catalog might contain the particular photo you’re looking for.

One of the biggest frustrations I’ve found many photographers run into with Lightroom Classic is that they create multiple catalogs and then their workflow becomes confusing.

Of course, there are some exceptions in certain situations where I feel that having more than one catalog is necessary or preferential.

If you store your Lightroom Classic catalog on a desktop computer, that catalog won’t be available to you when you are traveling for photography. You could keep your catalog on an eternal hard drive or use a laptop as your primary computer, but you can also simply use a temporary catalog when traveling, and then merge that catalog with your primary catalog on your return.

This approach enables you to manage the photos you capture during your travels with your normal workflow. When you return home you can merge the traveling catalog with your primary catalog, preserving all updates you made to the photos during your travels, and consolidating your photos once again to the primary catalog.

To learn more about streamlining your overall workflow, cleaning up problems in Lightroom Classic, and merging catalogs into a single primary catalog, check out my “Cleaning Up Your Mess in Lightroom Classic” video course, available on my GreyLearning website here:

https://www.greylearning.com/courses/lightroom-mess

Today’s Question: I’m not clear on the reference to the term “Exposure Value”. What does it mean and how do I use it?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The term “Exposure Value” (often abbreviated as “Ev”) is a number representing the overall exposure settings based on specific lighting conditions. You can think of the Exposure Value as representing how much light is being reflected from a scene, and therefore what type of exposure settings can be used to produce a good photographic exposure.

More Detail: For a given scene you can produce the same good overall exposure with a variety of different camera settings. For example, let’s assume you achieved a good exposure with a lens aperture of f/16, a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second, and an ISO setting of 100. You could achieve the exact same overall exposure by opening up the lens aperture to f/11 and changing the shutter speed to 1/250th of a second.

In the above example, both exposures represent an Exposure Value of 15. That also happens to correspond to the “Sunny 16” rule of exposure, which serves as a good rule of thumb for exposure on a sunny day. With “Sunny 16” you use an aperture of f/16 and then use a shutter speed with a reciprocal that matches the ISO setting, such as 1/125th of a second at ISO 100.

When you have known good exposure settings, you can of course adjust the various settings to achieve the same exposure with a different effect, such as to match the exposure but get a long exposure blur effect. The Exposure Value is helpful at the very beginning of that process, when you need to determine good exposure settings to start with.

One of the easiest ways to study Exposure Values is with a table. I find the PhotoPills to be especially helpful in this regard, because it includes both an Exposure Values table as well as an Exposure tool for calculating exposure settings based on existing settings from a test exposure.

You can learn to master the many features of the PhotoPills app with my comprehensive course on the subject, which you can find here:

https://www.greylearning.com/courses/photopills

Today’s Question: How do you copy a layer mask from one layer to another in Photoshop?

Tim’s Quick Answer: There are several ways you can duplicate a layer mask in Photoshop, but one of the simplest is to hold the Alt/Option key while dragging-and-dropping the layer mask to the destination layer.

More Detail: When you apply a targeted adjustment or create a composite image in Photoshop, the “stencil” that causes the layer to only be visible in certain areas is called a layer mask. At times you may want to duplicate a layer mask so it can be used with another layer.

One quick option is to hold the Alt key on Windows or the Option key on Macintosh while dragging-and-dropping the layer mask to the destination layer. If that destination layer already has a layer mask, as would be the case with an adjustment layer, you’ll be asked if you want to replace that existing layer mask.

You could also use a selection as the basis of duplicating a layer mask. To load a selection based on a layer mask hold the Ctrl key on Windows or the Command key on Macintosh while clicking on the thumbnail for the layer mask on the Layers panel. You can then add a layer mask (such as by adding an adjustment layer) with that selection active, and the selection will be used as the basis for the new layer mask.

In some situations you may want the opposite of an existing layer mask. In that case, after duplicating the layer mask, click on the thumbnail for the layer mask you want to invert so that mask is active. Then on the Masks tab of the Properties panel click the Invert button to invert the layer mask to apply to the opposite area of the image.

Note, by the way, that in many cases you can avoid having to duplicate a layer mask at all by using a layer group for the layer mask, with the adjustment layers or image layers you want to mask inside the layer group.

For example, you could create a selection of the area of the image you want to apply a targeted adjustment to. Then add a layer group by clicking on the folder icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. This will add a layer mask to the layer group with that mask being based on the selection you had created. You can then add adjustment layers (or image layers) to the layer group, and they will only be visible in the area defined by the layer mask.

Today’s Question: If I have feathered a selection in Photoshop and then added an adjustment layer for a targeted adjustment, is there a way to “unfeather” the result if the feathering was too much?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can reduce the feathering of a layer mask (or selection) using the Contrast adjustment in the Select and Mask workspace.

More Detail: In almost all cases when applying a targeted adjustment or creating a composite image in Photoshop you will need the effect of a feathered selection. Feathering creates a smooth transition along the edge of the selection or layer mask that defines where the adjustment or image is visible. In effect, feathering involves blurring the edges within the selection or layer mask.

While you will almost always want the effect of a feathered selection, I recommend that you never feather your selections. Instead, wait until you have created a layer mask based on the selection for a targeted adjustment or composite image. Then apply the feathering to the layer mask, at which point you’ll be able to achieve a better result because you can actually see the direct effect of feathering within the image.

If, however, you had feathered the selection by too much, you can indeed reduce the amount of feathering by applying a Contrast adjustment. Feathering involves blurring the edges of a layer mask (or selection), and Contrast sharpens those edges to reduce the blur effect.

After creating the layer mask, click on the thumbnail for the layer mask on the Layers panel to make sure that mask is active. Then go to the Masks tab on the Properties panel and click on the “Select and Mask” button. That will bring up the Select and Mask workspace, where you’ll find a Contrast slider in the Global Refinements section.

You can increase the value for Contrast to reduce the feathering along the edge of the layer mask. This is helpful whether you had applied too much feathering to a selection before creating a layer mask or you had previously applied feathering to a layer mask that had ended up being too much, and you need to reduce the degree of blurring for the layer mask.

Today’s Question: Is it possible to take a still image from a video file in Lightroom Classic? If so, how?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can very easily create a still image from a frame of a video in Lightroom Classic with the “Capture Frame” option.

More Detail: Lightroom Classic enables you to manage video clips alongside your still photos, which can be very helpful if you use video to supplement your photography. In addition to being able to trim or apply basic adjustments to a video, you can also capture a still frame from the video.

Start by browsing the video in the loupe view display in the Library module. You then want to pause the video at the frame you’d like to capture. You could play the video and pause at the right moment, but it is generally easier to use the slider that indicates the current point in the video being displayed to “scrub” through the video to find the right frame.

Once you’re viewing the frame of the video that you want to capture as a still image, click the “frame” button to the right of the numbers indicating the current position within the video. That button has an icon that features a rectangle with a frame around it. Clicking the button will bring up a popup menu, where you can select the “Capture Frame” option to create a JPEG image from the current frame of the video.

Keep in mind that this still image extracted from the video will generally be of relatively low resolution. Many still cameras that support video have a maximum video resolution of 1920×1080 pixels, which equates to about a 2-megapixel capture. If your camera supports 4K video resolution, the pixel dimensions will be around 3840×2160 pixels (the exact values will vary among different cameras), which translates to about an 8-megapixel capture.

Today’s Question: When I copy Develop Adjustments to other photos, the History doesn’t show what those adjustments are. Is there any way to show them?

Tim’s Quick Answer: No. When you apply a set of “batch” adjustments to an image in Lightroom Classic, the History section will only show that batch application, rather than the individual adjustments that were updated.

More Detail: Lightroom Classic includes a variety of features that enable you to apply a “batch” of adjustments to an image. You can copy and paste adjustments from one image to another, use the “Previous” button to apply all adjustments from the previously edited image to the current image, or apply a preset to a photo.

However, when you use one of these options to add a batch of adjustments to an image, the History section of the left panel in the Develop module will not show you all of the adjustments that were actually applied. Instead, you’ll see an indication that a preset was applied or that settings were pasted to the image, for example.

This can certainly be frustrating when you’re trying to figure out exactly which adjustments were applied to a given image through one of these “batch” options. You could, of course, review the individual adjustments on the right panel in the Develop module. By going to the state in the History section just before the batch of adjustments were applied, and then returning to the most recent history state with those adjustments applied, you can watch for the changes on the right panel to see which adjustments were altered.

However, there is not an option to have the history show all of the adjustments included in a batch application of adjustments, other than a history state for that batch adjustment.

Today’s Question: I have many document files with same name as an image, but with DOC or TXT extension. I use these for extensive info about the image, such as the people or location featured in the image. If I import my photos into a Lightroom Classic catalog will these files create confusion?

Tim’s Quick Answer: No, these unsupported files won’t create any confusion for Lightroom Classic. The documents won’t be imported into the catalog along with the photos, but they will remain on your hard drive for you to review or update as needed.

More Detail: When you import existing photos that are already stored where you want them into a Lightroom Classic catalog, only supported image and video formats are imported. All other files will remain where they are, and the folder structure shown within Lightroom Classic will match the folder structure on the hard drive.

Documents stored in the same folder as your images will not be imported into your catalog, but you can still access those documents directly on the hard drive. Just be sure you don’t make any changes to the photos or folder structure on the hard drive. Those changes should be initiated within Lightroom Classic.

Of course, if you start using Lightroom Classic you manage your photos, you’ll likely find it easier to add the information about your photos to the metadata for those photos within your catalog. For example, you could use keywords to identify the subjects that appear in each photo, and you could use the Title or Caption fields in metadata to add more details about the circumstances of the photo. This will help streamline your overall workflow, so that all of the information you need about your photos is contained within your Lightroom Classic catalog.

Today’s Question: Do you need to hold the camera steady during the second half of the long exposure when using long exposure noise reduction?

Tim’s Quick Answer: No, you don’t need to continue holding the camera steady during the second exposure created when you have enabled long exposure noise reduction in the camera.

More Detail: When you enable long exposure noise reduction your camera will actually capture two images for each photo you capture. The first exposure is the actual photo, and the second exposure is a “dark frame” that is created to measure the actual current noise behavior of the image sensor, so the noise can be subtracted from the actual photo.

During that “dark frame” exposure, the camera is not actually recording any image data through the lens. It is instead taking the equivalent of a photo captured with the shutter remaining closed. That would theoretically produce an image that is completely black. In reality there will be noise in that capture, and so the noise is known to have been generated by the sensor and can therefore be subtracted from the photo.

Because there is no image data being captured through the lens during this “dark frame” exposure, there is no risk in moving the camera during that exposure. You’ll just want to be sure that the real exposure has indeed completed, before moving the camera.

You may obviously want to keep the camera in the same position in any event, so that you can capture another photo of the same scene, perhaps with different camera settings, as soon as the long exposure noise reduction capture is completed. However, after the initial exposure and during the “dark frame” exposure you could certainly start moving the camera into a different position for your next shot.

Today’s Question: When I attempt to import photos into Lightroom Classic on a Windows computer it only imports my raw captures. But when I try from my Mac it imports both the raw files and the JPEGs. Is there a way to fix this? I do have the “Don’t Import Suspected Duplicates” checkbox turned on.

Tim’s Quick Answer: On the Macintosh you simply need to turn on the “Treat JPEG files next to raw files as separate photos” checkbox on the General tab of the Preferences dialog in Lightroom Classic. Note, however, that in the context of Lightroom Classic I don’t generally recommend using Raw+JPEG capture in the first place.

More Detail: When you choose the Raw+JPEG capture option on your camera, you end up with two copies of every photo you capture. The original raw capture is preserved, and the camera then also renders a JPEG image based on that raw capture.

By default, Lightroom Classic will copy both the raw and the JPEG files of raw+JPEG sets to the selected folder location on import. However, only the raw capture will actually be imported into the catalog.

If you want both the raw and JPEG captures imported into your catalog, you can simply turn on the ” Treat JPEG files next to raw files as separate photos” checkbox on the general tab of the Preferences dialog. For future imports, both the raw and JPEG captures will be imported alongside each other.

In general, however, I don’t recommend importing the JPEG along with the raw capture, as doing so can cause confusion about which is the “real” source photo. Lightroom Classic will generate JPEG previews based on the raw captures, which in many respects takes the place of what you might otherwise use the JPEG captures for. And you could always export a JPEG copy based on the raw capture that includes the adjustments you’ve applied in Lightroom Classic.

If you have other reasons you want to preserve a JPEG copy of your original raw captures at the time of capture, that’s perfectly fine. But you might give some thought to whether there is a real benefit to the additional clutter created by having two copies of every photo.