Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: I appreciated your tip about using a keyboard shortcut to add photos to a collection. However, when I select multiple photos on the filmstrip and press the letter “B” to add to the target collection, only one image is added to the collection, not all selected photos. Am I doing something wrong?

Tim’s Quick Answer: To add multiple photos to the current target collection in Lightroom Classic you’ll want to select the images in the grid view. If you have selected the loupe view only the active image will be added, not all selected images.

More Detail: As noted in yesterday’s Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, if you right-click on a collection in the Collections section of the left panel in the Library module and choose “Set as Target Collection”, you can then press the letter “B” on the keyboard to add selected photos to that collection.

As addressed in today’s question, however, this option is subject to what I refer to as the “loupe view snafu”. What I mean by that is that by default when you’re in the loupe view (rather than the grid view) in the Library module, even if you have selected multiple photos on the filmstrip you’re only actually updating the image currently shown in the loupe view. In the context of today’s question, that means in the loupe view if you try to add multiple images to a collection with a keyboard shortcut, only one image will be added rather than all selected images.

The quick and easy solution is to simply make sure you’re in the grid view before pressing the letter “B” to add the selected photos to the target collection. More broadly, I recommend getting in the habit of always using the grid view (rather than the filmstrip) when you want to select multiple photos, just to avoid a situation where you think you’re updating multiple photos but really only one image is being updated.

Today’s Question: Is there a way to assign a keyboard shortcut for adding photos to a specific collection in Lightroom Classic? It seems very slow and cumbersome to have to drag photos into a collection.

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, if you assign the intended collection as the target collection you can press the letter “B” on the keyboard to add the currently selected photo(s) to the target collection.

More Detail: Many photographers think of the letter “B” as a keyboard shortcut in Lightroom Classic as being associated with the Quick Collection, which is found in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module. But in fact, the letter “B” is the keyboard shortcut for adding photos to the target collection. It’s just that the Quick Collection is the default target collection.

To change the target collection to the collection you want to add photos to, right-click on collection in the Collections section of the left panel in the Library module and choose “Set as Target Collection” from the popup menu. When you do so you’ll notice that a plus symbol (+) appears to the right of the collection, which is a marker indicating this is the current target collection. By default, that plus symbol would have been to the right of the Quick Collection.

With the target collection set you can now select photos and simply press the letter “B” on the keyboard to add the selected images to the current target collection. When you’re done working with that collection I do recommend right-clicking on the Quick Collection and choosing “Set as Target Collection” so that the letter “B” keyboard shortcut will be set back to the default behavior of adding to the Quick Collection, just to avoid confusion about which collection photos will be added to.

Today’s Question: How do you add a new external hard drive for Lightroom Classic when your current drive is almost full?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can either transition to a new and larger hard drive or add an additional hard drive to supplement your existing storage. The key is to make sure you manage this process in the context of the Lightroom Classic catalog.

More Detail: If you want to migrate your photo storage to a larger hard drive, I recommend first copying the entire contents of your existing hard drive to the new drive. Then disconnect the original hard drive, and make sure the new hard drive has the same drive letter (Windows) or volume label (Macintosh) as the original drive. This will ensure that the photo storage has the same location and folder structure as the original drive, so that from the perspective of Lightroom Classic nothing will have changed. In other words, all the photos and folders will be where they are expected, they are just on a drive that has more free space now.

If you want to supplement your existing storage with an additional hard drive, you need to add a folder to that drive within Lightroom Classic to make it visible for access. To do so go to the Folders section of the left panel in the Library module and click the plus (+) button to the right of the Folders heading. Choose “Add Folder from the popup menu that appears and navigate to the new hard drive. Then create a new folder on that drive with a meaningful name such as “Photos”. Click the Choose button to complete the process.

At this point you will see the new folder you just created under a separate heading for the new hard drive. You can then drag folders from the original drive to the top-level folder on the new drive if you need to free up space on the original drive. You can also make a point of importing any new photos to the new drive from that point forward, since you will have more free space available on the new drive.

Today’s Question: Sometimes when creating a selection in Photoshop I want to get it aligned perfectly with an object in an image. For example, sometimes I want to create a perfectly rectangular selection that aligns with a sign or other object. When using the Rectangular Marquee tool it is difficult to draw a full rectangle while zoomed out and still get the selection aligned exactly where I want it. Is there some trick for making a more precise selection in this way?

Tim’s Quick Answer: In this type of situation I think the best approach is to make the initial selection reasonably accurate but without worrying about being too precise, and then use the Transform Selection command to zoom in and perfectly align the selection.

More Detail: When you need to get a selection in Photoshop to perfectly align with an area of the image, the Transform Selection command can be invaluable. Start by creating the initial selection, such as to drag from corner to corner with the Rectangular Marquee tool. Then to improve the accuracy of the selection choose Select > Transform Selection from the menu to initiate the transformation of the selection.

Once you’ve initiated the Transform Selection command the selection will have a bounding box with handles, similar to the Free Transform command or to the Crop tool. You can then drag any of the corners or edges of the bounding box to perfectly align with the area you want to select. It can be helpful to zoom in closely on the corners, for example, to ensure you’re getting the selection positioned perfectly.

Once the selection has been transformed, you can apply the change by pressing Enter/Return on the keyboard, clicking the apply button (checkmark icon) on the Options bar, or by double-clicking within the bounding box.

Today’s Question: During one of your presentations you used a brush with a unique shape for an effect, but I don’t have the same brush. Am I missing brushes I should have, or do I need to buy brushes somewhere?

Tim’s Quick Answer: While there are many sources of brushes you can use in Photoshop, a great variety is available for free from Adobe. You can download those brushes and then import them using the Brushes panel in Photoshop.

More Detail: To get started you can go to the Brushes panel in Photoshop. If the Brushes panel isn’t currently visible go to the menu and choose Window > Brushes. Then click the panel popup menu button at the top right of the Brushes panel, which is an icon with three horizontal lines. From the popup menu choose “Get More Brushes”, which will take you to this page on the Adobe website:

https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop-brushes.html

There you’ll find a variety of different creative brush categories, with links for downloading any that appeal to you. After downloading the brush files, which will have a .abr filename extension, from either the Adobe page above or from another provider, you’re ready to load them into Photoshop.

To load the new brushes, go back to the Brushes panel in Photoshop and click the panel popup menu, this time choosing “Import Brushes” from the popup menu. Navigate to the location where you saved the brush file downloads, and select the applicable files. Click the Open button to complete the import.

You’ll then find the new brush sets under the applicable heading on the Brushes panel, so you can use the new brush tip shapes with any of the brush tools in Photoshop.

Today’s Question: I had previously enabled synchronization for some collections in Lightroom Classic, but have decided I don’t want to have any photos in the cloud. I turned off synchronization for the collections that had it enabled, but the photos still appear in “All Synced Photographs”. I assume that means they’re still in the cloud. If so, how do I remove them?

Tim’s Quick Answer: As long as you’re totally sure that the only way photos were synchronized to the cloud via collections in Lightroom Classic, you can remove all photos from cloud storage by selecting all images in the “All Synced Photographs” collection and then right-clicking on a selected image and choosing “Remove from All Synced Photographs” from the popup menu.

More Detail: Once you’ve enabled synchronization for a collection in Lightroom Classic the photos in that collection will be synchronized to cloud-based storage. However, if you disable synchronization the photos won’t be removed from cloud storage. This issue can cause there to be “stragglers” in your cloud storage, meaning photos that are taking up space but that you don’t want to have in cloud storage.

As noted above, you can remove photos from the “All Synced Photographs” collection in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module to remove the photos from cloud storage. Simply select the applicable photos, right-click, and choose “Remove from All Synced Photographs” from the popup menu.

However, because this will remove the photo from cloud-based storage it is important to be sure that is safe to do. If the photos were only added to cloud storage by being included in a collection with synchronization enabled, removing them from cloud storage is no problem because the originals should still remain in your local storage (as long as you haven’t since deleted any of those images).

If, on the other hand, the images were added to cloud storage by capturing a photo using the Lightroom mobile app, or by importing a photo to Lightroom mobile, web, or desktop (excluding Lightroom Classic), then you’ll want to be sure you have the source files being managed locally via Lightroom Classic before you remove them from cloud-based storage. For example, images synchronized from Lightroom mobile to Lightroom Classic can simply be dragged to your preferred folder location and managed as a normal part of your workflow.

Note that you can also review photos that are in cloud-based storage, and remove them if needed, by using Lightroom in a web browser. To get started with that, point your web browser to https://lightroom.adobe.com and sign in with your Adobe Creative Cloud account.

Today’s Question: I’ve been reading about a new adjustment layer in Photoshop apparently called “Color and Vibrance”, but I can’t find it anywhere. How to I access (and use) this adjustment?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The new “Color and Vibrance” adjustment is currently available in the public beta version of Photoshop and is not yet available in the current general release version. This adjustment combines Temperature and Tint sliders for adjusting overall color balance along with Vibrance and Saturation sliders for adjusting color saturation.

More Detail: The new “Color and Vibrance” adjustment layer doesn’t actually add any new functionality that wasn’t in Photoshop previously, but it does provide a more efficient way to apply the most common basic color adjustments to an image. In effect, Color and Vibrance will enable you to use one adjustment layer to take the place of both Color Balance and Vibrance adjustment layers.

If you would like to try out the new adjustment before it is added to a general release of Photoshop, you will need to install the public beta version of Photoshop. To do so, go to the Creative Cloud application (the same application you use to install updates to other Creative Cloud applications), go to the Beta category, and install the Photoshop beta version.

Once you’ve installed the public beta version of Photoshop you can open an image and then on the Layers panel click the “Create New Adjustment Layer” button (the half-black/half-white circle icon) and choose “Color and vibrance” from the popup menu. Then on the Properties panel you can adjust the Temperature and Tint sliders to shift the color balance between blue/yellow and green/magenta, respectively. The Vibrance and Saturation sliders are also available for adjusting overall saturation for colors in the image.

While the new Color and Vibrance adjustment layer doesn’t add any new adjustments to Photoshop, it does provide a more convenient option for adjusting overall color in an image. I’m therefore grateful to see that it is being added to Photoshop. And keep in mind that by virtue of being an adjustment layer you can also use a layer mask to focus the adjustment only affect specific areas of an image.

Today’s Question: Recently I had heard that Denoise AI in Camera Raw and Lightroom is now capable of outputting a native RAW file instead of the usual DNG. When I tried Denoise AI in the Camera Raw Filter with a native RAW file the result was an ACR file at just 7.3 MB alongside the original untouched RAW file at 30.3 mb. What’s the real story?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Denoise no longer requires converting a raw capture to a DNG, but it doesn’t save the edits in a raw capture format. Rather, the Denoise information is effectively metadata, which gets applied to the image when it is rendered, such as by saving the processed raw image in a file format such as TIFF or JPEG.

More Detail: When the Denoise and Super Resolution features were added to Camera Raw and Lightroom, the processing required that an Adobe DNG file be created based on the original raw capture. That DNG file would include all the processing applied via Camera Raw or Lightroom.

With a recent update, a DNG file is no longer created. However, that doesn’t mean that the Denoise processing is being saved as part of the original raw capture. Camera Raw and Lightroom do not modify the original file (raw or otherwise) when you apply adjustments. That is still true with the updates for Denoise and Super Resolution.

In the case of Camera Raw the additional metadata is stored in an ACR file rather than the XMP file that is used to store other metadata updates. In Lightroom Classic that additional information is saved within the catalog files. The original raw capture is not altered. To create an image that has the pixel values updated to reflect the adjustments, you would save a derivative image in the usual way. In Camera Raw that means saving the resulting image using Photoshop, while with Lightroom Classic this would involve exporting a copy of the image.

Today’s Question: Can you explain what exactly is meant by the option to intersect a mask [or selection]? I understand the options to add or subtract, but can’t wrap my head around intersect.

Tim’s Quick Answer: The intersect option involves modifying a mask or selection to only include the overlap between the existing mask or selection and a new mask or selection. I recommend thinking of the intersect option as providing a way to say “subtract everything but this”.

More Detail: Admittedly, the intersect option for masks and selections can be a little confusing. Adding to a selection or mask is rather straightforward, as is subtracting from a selection or mask. The intersect option isn’t quite as clear.

Let’s assume you have a mask or selection of three hot air balloons in the sky, but you only want to modify the middle balloon. One approach you could take would be to subtract the balloon on the left and then subtract the balloon on the right, leaving only the balloon in the middle being included in the selection or mask.

A faster option, however, would be to subtract everything except the middle balloon in one step. That’s what the intersect option makes possible. Using the intersect option, you select only the middle balloon, and that middle balloon becomes the only balloon that is selected or included in the mask.

What’s happening in the background is that the two selections or masks are being compared, and the final selection or mask will represent only the overlap (or intersection) between both of them. However, I think it is easier to think of it as an option to “subract everything but this”. In this example that would mean you are selecting the middle balloon, effectively saying “remove all balloons from the selection or mask except this one”.

Another way you could look at this is that the intersect option is the same as subtracting the opposite of what you’ve selected. In the example above, that means intersect is the same as creating a selection of the middle hot air balloon, inverting that selection or mask, and using that to subtract from the selection of all three hot air balloons.

Today’s Question: I’d like to rename my Lightroom Classic catalog. The option for renaming asks about renaming the parent folder. When would I want to do this?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You might want to rename the folder that contains your Lightroom Classic catalog just so the folder name is more clear to you. Just be sure to NOT rename the folder if you have photos stored within the same folder structure as the catalog.

More Detail: With a relatively recent update Lightroom Classic includes an option to rename a catalog. Simply make sure you have the catalog you want to rename open in Lightroom Classic and choose File > Rename Catalog from the menu. You can then enter a more meaningful name in the New Name field, or simply update the filename such as to remove the text along the lines of “-2-2-2-v13” that may have accumulated over the years from various updates to the catalog over time.

In the Rename Catalog dialog there is also a “Rename parent folder” checkbox. If you turn this checkbox on, the folder containing the catalog will be renamed to match the new base filename of the catalog. This can be convenient, since a meaningful name for the catalog probably represents a good name for the folder containing the catalog and related files.

However, if you have any photos stored within the same folder structure as the catalog that have also been imported into the catalog, renaming the parent folder will cause the photos and any related folders to appear as missing in Lightroom Classic.

So, if you’re not sure whether you have any photos stored in the folder structure along with the catalog, it is better to not rename the folder. If you’re certain there are no photos stored in that folder structure (and there’s really no reason for there to be), you can rename the catalog folder if you’d like. If you do have photos stored in the same folder structure, you can rename the catalog as above, but then rename the parent folder from within Lightroom Classic to avoid creating any missing photos or folders.