Month: January 2019

Today’s Question: I’m trying to add a line around a photo using the Stroke feature, but it never actually appears in my image. I have even set the size very large, but it doesn’t show up. Do you have any idea what I’m doing wrong?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Under typical conditions, the most likely reason the Stroke effect isn’t showing up in your image is that the stroke is being added outside the image area, causing it to be beyond the visible canvas. You can use the “Inside” option for the Position setting, or use the “Reveal All” command to reveal a stroke that has been placed outside the image.

More Detail: To add a Stroke (or other effect) to an image layer in Photoshop, that layer first needs to be a “normal” layer rather than a Background layer. To convert a Background image layer to a normal layer you can simply double-click on the thumbnail for the Background image layer on the Layers panel, and then click OK in the New Layer dialog.

Next, click the “Add a Layer Style” button (the button with the “fx” icon on it) at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose “Stroke” from the popup menu. In the Layer Style dialog you can then adjust the settings for the appearance of the stroke.

I generally start out setting the color for the stroke, which in my case is most often black. You can select “Color” as the Fill Type for the stroke, and then click the color swatch labeled “Color” to bring up the Color Picker where you can select the color you want to use for the stroke effect.

Initially you can set the Opacity to 100% so you are better able to see the effect. You can always reduce the Opacity setting later. You can also change the Blend Mode if you want to use something other than “Normal”. And if you have reduce the Opacity setting, turning on the Overprint checkbox will cause the underlying image to show through the stroke, if applicable.

The Position is a key setting that can cause confusion. If the Position is set to Outside, and the current image layer extends all the way to the end of the canvas, you’ll never see the stroke effect. Instead, you can use the Inside option, in which case part of your image will be covered by the Stroke effect. Note that the Center option for Position will cause the Stroke effect to appear half inside and half outside the image.

If you don’t want to cover up any of your image, you can use the Outside setting for Position. You won’t see the actual stroke at this point if the image extends to the edge of the canvas. But after adding the stroke you can choose Image > Reveal All from the menu to enlarge the canvas so the entire stroke area is visible.

Today’s Question: Under what circumstances do you feel it is a good idea to have multiple catalogs in Lightroom Classic CC?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The only time I think it may be helpful to have your photos divided up among more than one catalog in Lightroom is when there is a need to keep certain photos separated from others. But frankly, even then you could still use a single catalog and divide those photos through other means, such as storing them on different hard drives or using metadata values to identify the various categories of images.

More Detail: It seems that many photographers want to maintain multiple catalogs in Lightroom, or at least the idea seems to make sense early on. Eventually, in my experience many photographers who start out with multiple catalogs realize that this approach adds complexity and potential confusion to their workflow. That is when they decide it would be best to merge their catalogs into a single “master” catalog, which is a decision I am in complete agreement with.

As I mentioned in my answer in yesterday’s Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, I recommend keeping your image-management workflow as simple as possible. Ideally that means storing all of your photos on a single storage device and using a single Lightroom catalog to manage those photos. This approach means you always know which catalog your photos are in, because it is your only catalog. And it would also mean you know which drive a given photo is on, because it is your only drive.

You can then use the folder structure, keywords, star ratings, and other metadata to identify the various properties of your photos that you can later use to locate any photo you need.

If you’d like to merge multiple Lightroom catalogs, and otherwise cleanup your workflow, you can get a special “New Year’s Resolution” discount on my full bundle of video courses on Lightroom by using this link to get started:

https://www.greylearning.com/bundles/lightroom?coupon=newyear19

Today’s Question: Do you recommend creating a new catalog in Lightroom Classic CC for the new year? I saw this advice, suggesting that it was better to have a separate catalog for each calendar year. Your thoughts?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Absolutely not. My general recommendation is to use a single Lightroom catalog for all of your photos and videos, and I certainly don’t recommend creating a new catalog for each calendar year.

More Detail: I recognize there are situations where a photographer may want (or need) to maintain more than one catalog in Lightroom. However, in my mind those situations represent an exception to what I consider “best practices” in Lightroom.

In general I recommend using a workflow that is as streamlined as possible. When it comes to managing your photos in Lightroom, I feel that having multiple catalogs can be cumbersome and confusing. After all, if you use multiple catalogs and want to find a particular photo, first you need to know which catalog that photo is contained in.

Therefore, I think it makes the most sense to use a single catalog for all photos whenever possible. And if you’re concerned about performance issues, that isn’t a significant issue. My Lightroom catalog currently contains a little less than 400,000 images, and the performance is nearly identical to when I’m working with a small catalog for demonstration purposes.

If you’d like to merge multiple Lightroom catalogs, and otherwise cleanup your workflow, you can get a special “New Year’s Resolution” discount on my full bundle of video courses on Lightroom by using this link to get started:

https://www.greylearning.com/bundles/lightroom?coupon=newyear19