Trouble with Presets

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Today’s Question: I would like to know how to create a preset [in Lightroom]. I created one, but neglected to set “As Shot” [for the White Balance adjustment] before creating it. So now every image I import is blue!

Tim’s Quick Answer: In general when creating a preset in Lightroom, I recommend working with an image for which the adjustments have been reset to the defaults. You may also want to limit which adjustments are included as part of the preset, so that other existing changes to adjustment settings will not be lost when the preset is applied.

More Detail: In the context of Lightroom, a preset simply records the value for adjustment settings found on the right panel in the Develop module. In other words, presets aren’t able to add any effect that isn’t already possible within Lightroom. Presets provide a quick way to apply specific adjustment settings to an image, which can be helpful in a variety of scenarios.

To get started, I recommend selecting an image that you aren’t particularly concerned about, but that still provides a good representative sample based on the adjustments you intend to include in the preset. Then click the Reset button at the bottom of the right panel in the Develop module in order to reset the adjustments to their default values. This would include, for example, the “As Shot” setting for White Balance noted in today’s question.

Next, apply the various adjustments you want to include in the preset. Perhaps you want to apply the Lens Corrections adjustments to all images you import, for example. Or you might want to make a creative preset that includes a conversion to black and white with a vignette effect added.

Once you’ve applied all of the adjustments you want to include in your preset, you can create the actual preset. Start by clicking on the plus symbol (+) to the right of the Presets heading on the left panel in the Develop module. In the dialog that appears, first type a meaningful name for the preset based on the adjustments you’ve applied. You can then choose the Folder you want to include the new preset in, which is simply a way to group presets together to stay better organized.

Next, you’ll want to decide which adjustments you want to include in the preset. In general, I recommend first clicking the “Check None” button to disable all adjustments, and then turn on the checkbox only for those adjustments you actually want to include in the preset. Note that you can also turn on the “Auto Tone” checkbox if you want Lightroom to apply the automatic tonal adjustments on a per-image basis when you apply the preset to one or more images.

When you have configured the settings for the new preset, click the Create button to save the new preset and close the New Develop Preset dialog. The preset can then be found in the folder you selected below the Presets heading on the left panel in the Develop module. You can apply that preset to any image by selecting the image and then clicking on the name of the preset. Note that it is also possible to apply a preset to all images being imported within the Import dialog, using the Develop Settings popup in the Apply During Import section of the right panel.

Avoiding Fogged Lenses

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Today’s Question: I am the photographer for a local volunteer fire department. I usually keep my camera bag in my truck year-round as I felt it was better to keep the camera at the temperature it would be working in rather than a warm (cool) house then quickly to a cold (hot) outdoor temperature. I haven’t had any real condensation issues, but I am not certain that some may have occurred which will haunt me later. What is your advice for people who need this ready access to extreme temperature changes?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Keeping the camera in a warmer environment close to the ambient working conditions can help prevent fogging up of the lens caused by taking a relatively cold lens into a relatively warm and humid environment. However, if this means storing the camera in a humid environment, I would suggest taking measures to avoid having the camera exposed to relatively high humidity for extended periods of time.

More Detail: In terms of the immediate issue of capturing photos, taking a camera from a relatively cool environment to a hot and humid environment can cause the lens to fog. Merely wiping the lens with a lens cloth will only provide a temporary solution, as the lens will then continue to fog up until it has warmed up to closer to the ambient air temperature.

For example, when I am teaching onboard a cruise ship in a tropical environment such as the Caribbean, my camera is kept in an air-conditioned room. If I see something that warrants capturing photos, I can grab my camera and head outside. However, because the lens will be relatively cold at that point, the front element will immediately fog up. If I wait about five minutes, the lens will warm up closer to the ambient air temperature, and the fogging goes away with no additional intervention required.

In this type of situation, you can avoid the fogging by keeping the camera stored somewhere where it will remain at about the ambient temperature. That could be an area of a vehicle, provided the camera won’t be exposed to extreme heat in this case. If the camera is already at about the ambient temperature, you would not see condensation as you do when taking a cool camera into a warm and humid environment.

However, there may be some concern of relatively long-term exposure to humidity, which have the potential to create problems for the camera. Therefore, I would suggest taking steps to keep the camera dry while at the same time keeping the camera at about the ambient temperature. For example, you could put the camera in a plastic bag that can be sealed, and include a desiccant in the bag with the camera. This will help ensure the humidity is relatively low in the bag, helping to keep the camera in conditions that are well within the operating limits recommended by the manufacturer.

Testing Lightroom CC

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Today’s Question: Is it possible to test [the new] Adobe Lightroom CC without losing Lightroom Classic CC?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can test Lightroom CC without disturbing Lightroom Classic. I do, however, recommend only working with a test set of photos for this purpose.

More Detail: The new cloud-based Lightroom CC provides online synchronization of all of the original image files within your library, which is a key feature that many photographers may find intriguing. Of course, there are still key features that are not available within Lightroom CC, which means it may be too soon for some photographers to adopt this new software.

The best way to get a sense of whether Lightroom CC might work for you is to take advantage of the free trial for this new software. But, of course, you don’t want to create any problems for your Lightroom Classic catalog when you are performing this testing.

Lightroom CC will have its own library that is separate of the Lightroom Classic catalog. Note, however, that synchronization with Lightroom CC requires that you first disable synchronization with Lightroom Classic. That means if you later decide that Lightroom CC is not for you that you’ll need to re-enable synchronization in Lightroom Classic, and that all folders you had enabled for synchronization will need to be re-synchronized. Other than that, as long as you work with duplicate images, there aren’t any risks associated with testing Lightroom CC.

I do recommend exporting copies of a variety of your photos from Lightroom Classic, using the “Original” option for the Image Format popup in the File Settings section of the Export dialog. You can then add the images in that folder into the Lightroom CC library for testing purposes. When you’re finished testing, you could simply delete all of those photos since they are just copies of your “real” originals.

Provided you work with duplicate copies of specific photos in Lightroom CC, and don’t import any of the actual source photos that are being managed by Lightroom Classic, you can have both applications installed on your computer so you can determine which provides the best solution for your workflow.

You can view a webinar presentation that talked about Lightroom CC versus Lightroom Classic on my “Tim Grey TV” channel on YouTube here:

https://youtu.be/Os0-QNG1wjw

And don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel so you can receive future updates with new videos!

Batch Actions

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Today’s Question: In your answer about using an action in Photoshop to add a watermark to an image you said it was possible to apply the action to multiple images at once using a batch process. How do you initiate that batch processing?

Tim’s Quick Answer: My recommendation is to start with Adobe Bridge, selecting the photos you want to process with an action and then choosing Tools > Photoshop > Batch from the menu to get started batch processing the images.

More Detail: The first step is to use Adobe Bridge to select the photos you want to batch process with an action in Photoshop. You can make use of all of the various features in Bridge for this purpose, such as applying filters to narrow the range of images you’re viewing, and then selecting only the images you actually want to process.

Once you’ve selected the images you want to process, you can go to the menu in Adobe Bridge and choose Tools > Photoshop > Batch. This will cause Photoshop to be launched if it wasn’t already running, and the Batch dialog will appear.

Because you selected the images for processing using Adobe Bridge, the source of images to process will already be selected. You can then select the set (folder) that contains the action you want to use from the Set popup, and then the specific action from the Action popup.

You can then choose how you want to save the images from the Destination popup. Note that when you’ll be using an action for batch processing, it is generally necessary (or at least helpful) to include a Save As command as part of the action, so that step in the action can determine the settings for saving the images as part of the batch processing.

As a general rule I recommend using the Folder option from the Destination popup, because this will cause additional copies of the source images to be saved in a new location. In other words, the source images will remain unaltered, with new copies created as part of the batch processing.

After choosing the Folder option, you will want to turn on the “Override Action ‘Save As’ Commands”. In other words, for batch processing with an action you’ll generally want to include a Save As step to define how the images should be saved, but then you’ll need to override that step so that the images are saved individually in the location you specify in the Batch dialog, rather than in the location and with the filename that is included as part of the original action you recorded.

There are other options that may be applicable to some workflows, but in general the above process will work for most scenarios. Once you have defined the settings for batch processing, you can click the OK button to initiate processing of the images you selected in Adobe Bridge, using the selected action created within Photoshop.

Note that it is possible to initiate batch processing directly from within Photoshop as well. You can get started by choosing File > Automate > Batch from the menu. The challenge is that with this approach you either need to process a full folder of images, or to open all of the images first. In other words, the advantage of initiating this process with Adobe Bridge is that you’re able to filter and select photos from any source and then process only the selected images.

Backup Metadata Automatically

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Today’s Question: Can you expand on the last paragraph of the November 29th newsletter?:

<<Note that if you had enabled the option to save metadata out to the actual image files, this process would effectively recover the majority of the metadata that had been included in your Lightroom catalog, including all of the adjustments you had applied to your photos.>>

Tim’s Quick Answer: There is an option in the Catalog Settings dialog in Lightroom that enables you to have metadata updates saved automatically to the actual image files on your hard drive. This can help minimize the risk of data loss in the event the Lightroom catalog becomes corrupted, or if you decide to no longer use Lightroom in your workflow.

More Detail: I recommend turning on the “Automatically write changes into XMP” checkbox in the Catalog Settings dialog in Lightroom. You can find this dialog on the Lightroom menu on the Macintosh version, or on the Edit menu on the Windows version. The checkbox is located on the Metadata tab within the Catalog Settings dialog.

With this option turned on, all standard metadata values (such as star ratings and keywords) will be saved to the actual image files on your hard drive as soon as you apply those updates in Lightroom (or the next time those photos are available if you’re working with photos that are offline). In addition to standard metadata, the settings for your Develop module adjustments are included.

It is important to note that not all updates you apply in Lightroom will be saved to your image files when you enable this option. Features that are essentially Lightroom-specific, with no standard metadata field associated with them, will not be saved to the files. So Pick and Reject flags, membership in Collections, the History states found in the Develop module, and Virtual Copies will not be backed up with this feature.

Note, by the way, that for raw captures the updates will be saved to an XMP sidecar file alongside the original capture. Other supported image formats (such as DNG, JPEG, and TIFF) will have metadata updates saved to the files themselves.

And yes, when you enable this option, Lightroom will go back and save all prior metadata updates for your existing images.

If for any reason you lose your Lightroom catalog, you could create a new catalog and import all of the photos from your hard drive. With the metadata saved to your actual image files, all of that information will then be included in that new Lightroom catalog.

Just note, as indicated above, that features based on Lightroom-specific features would have been lost in this scenario, meaning it would generally be preferred to recover from a backup Lightroom catalog as compared to depending on the saved metadata. But, if you don’t tend to make use of the features that can’t be saved to metadata, this wouldn’t be a significant concern.

Automated Watermark

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Today’s Question: Would you tell me how I can place a watermark on my images as an action [in Photoshop]?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The basic process here involves recording an action that includes (among other steps) the task of adding a text layer with your particular watermark text onto the image, and then playing that action for all other images you want to watermark in the same way (perhaps with batch processing).

More Detail: The first step is to open an image that you can use as a reference for creating your action. After opening such an image, I recommend creating a duplicate copy for purposes of creating your action. You can do so by choosing Image > Duplicate from the menu, and then clicking the OK button in the Duplicate Image dialog.

Next, choose Window > Actions to bring up the Actions panel. If needed you can create a new folder for this action (and others) by clicking the “Create New Set” button (the folder icon) at the bottom of the Actions panel, typing a name, and clicking OK.

To start creating the action, click on the “Create New Action” button (the blank sheet of paper icon) at the bottom of the Actions panel. In the New Action dialog you can enter a name for the action (such as “Watermark”), confirm which Set (folder) you want to include the action in, and assign a keyboard shortcut if you’d like for faster access to playing the action for other images. Then click the Record button to start recording the steps in your action.

You can then perform the tasks you want to include as part of the action. For example, I would probably include a step to flatten the image, so you can more easily align the watermark with the Background image layer. So, you could choose Layer > Flatten Image for example to flatten the current image.

Next, choose the Type tool and click in the image to start typing text, selecting the text if you’d like to change attributes such as the font and size. When you’re finished you can click the Commit button (the checkmark icon) on the Options bar.

To align the text within the image (which in turn will ensure the text is in the same position for horizontal versus vertical images, for example) you’ll want to first select the text and Background layer. Since the text layer will currently be active (since you just created it) you can simply hold the Shift key on the keyboard and click the thumbnail for the Background image layer to select both layers.

Now you can choose the Move tool from the toolbox, and then click the applicable alignment buttons on the Options bar. For example, you might click the “Align Right Edges” button and then the “Align Bottom Edges” button to align the text to the bottom-right corner of the image. I would then suggestion holding the Shift key on the keyboard while pressing the up arrow button followed by the left arrow button (in this example) to move the text layer a short distance away from the absolute corner of the photo.

If you will be using the action for batch processing, you’ll generally want to include a step for saving the resulting image as the final step within your action. This will define the file format and options to be used for saving the image, which can then be used as part of the basis of batch processing. If you won’t be batch processing, you may not want to include a Save command as part of the action, but this depends of course on the specific details of your workflow.

When you’re finished performing the steps you want to include in the action, click the “Stop Recording” button (the square icon) at the bottom of the Actions panel. You can then open another image, select the action from the Actions panel, and click the Play button (the right-pointing triangle icon) to play the action for the current image. Or you could initiate a batch process for the action from Adobe Bridge.

Note that this type of approach involves setting the text for your watermark at a particular point size. As a result, the action will only work well if the images you’re preparing for output with a watermark are of approximately the same overall pixel dimensions.

Wrong Time Correction

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Today’s Question: I accidentally changed the capture time in metadata for a bunch of photographs in Lightroom and they no longer depict the correct time of capture for the photograph (don’t ask me how or why I did such a silly thing). Is there a way for me to change the date metadata back to the original correct date/time of capture?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The option to correct the capture time for photos in Lightroom is not something you can undo. Therefore, your only option is to apply an additional correction to compensate for the degree of error introduced by your first correction.

More Detail: When you adjust the capture time for photos in Lightroom, it is not possible to undo that task. Therefore, it is important to make sure you have established the correct settings for the capture time adjustment before committing the change.

However, there is still a way to resolve a situation where you’ve applied the wrong correction. You can simply select the same photos and apply an adjustment to compensate for the error.

Let’s assume, for example, that you originally adjusted the capture time by adding three hours to the existing capture time. You then realize that you should have only added two hours to the capture time. You can’t undo the original change, but you can correct the issue by subtracting one hour from the capture time for those same photos.

The key is to determine the new correction that is required. As long as you can determine the “new” error in the capture time, however, you can correct that capture time discrepancy by simply using the “Edit Capture Time” command (found on the Metadata menu in Lightroom) once again.

Difficulty Working Offline

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Today’s Question: We travel throughout Australia full time and as a result lose Internet access often. When there is no Internet and I try to use Lightroom mobile offline, either many photos are missing or the resolution is so low it is next to useless. Is there a fix?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The only solution here is to make sure that all of your photos and updates are synchronized to the Creative Cloud before you find yourself offline, so that the full-resolution previews will be available regardless of whether or not you are online.

More Detail: The Lightroom mobile application for iOS and Android devices can be very convenient for reviewing your photos and even updating metadata or adjustments for those photos. Those updates can be applied even if the source images are not available, such as when you are only using a mobile device without the benefit of a computer and external hard drive, for example.

Of course, Lightroom mobile revolves around synchronization to the Adobe Creative Cloud servers. So if a synchronization does not complete before you go offline, you won’t have access to all of your photos or may see lower-resolution previews of some photos.

Fortunately, it is possible to check the status of synchronization with Lightroom on a computer or on a mobile device. On Lightroom for the desktop, you can check the synchronization status on the Identity Plate. When photos are synchronizing, you’ll see an indication of that on the Identity Plate, which is located at the far left of the top panel in Lightroom. If you click on the Identity Plate itself, you can see some additional details about the synchronization status.

On Lightroom on your mobile device, you can check the synchronization status by tapping the cloud icon toward the top-right of the interface. This will show an indication of whether a synchronization is active, or whether it has completed and everything is therefore up-to-date.

When you are online and getting ready to head into a situation where you may not have Internet access, it is important to make sure that synchronization has completed. You should first confirm that Lightroom on the desktop has finished synchronizing, so that the source images have been synchronized to the Creative Cloud servers. Then check your mobile devices to make sure they have completed the synchronization process as well. Once synchronization is completed on both desktop and mobile platforms, you should have full utility when working offline on your mobile device.

Lost Catalog

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Today’s Question: I’m hoping you can maybe point me in the right direction. My computer crashed and I’m trying to use my portable drive on my husband’s new laptop. Although I see all my folders and images on the external drive I do not see the catalog they live in. I’m worried it’s just gone!

Tim’s Quick Answer: Hopefully you can locate the catalog that had been in use on the computer that crashed (even if that is a backup that isn’t completely current). Failing that, if there is no existing catalog to work from, the only solution would be to start with a brand new catalog and import all photos from the external hard drive into that new catalog.

More Detail: This type of situation underscores how important it can be to maintain a regular schedule for backing up your Lightroom catalog. By having a backup of your catalog, the loss of your master catalog can be a minor inconvenience rather than a bit of a crisis.

Perhaps even more important, this issue underscores how important I feel it is to enable the option to write metadata from Lightroom out to the actual image files on your hard drive. By making use of this option, if you lose your catalog the majority of the information about your photos (such as keywords, star ratings, and other standard metadata values) will be preserved along with your original photos. As long as you keep your photos backed up securely, most of your metadata will be available even if you lose your Lightroom catalog. The exceptions would be Lightroom-specific features such as Pick and Reject flags and Collections.

The setting for saving metadata out to your photos can be found in the Catalog Settings dialog, accessible from the Lightroom menu on the Macintosh version or the Edit menu on the Windows version. On the Metadata tab, you can turn on the “Automatically write changes into XMP” checkbox to enable this feature.

The first step in this case is to try to locate the original catalog. By default the Lightroom catalog is stored in the Pictures folder on the internal hard drive of the computer from which you’re using Lightroom. In other words, if that computer experiences a catastrophic failure, you will have lost your Lightroom catalog.

If, however, you stored your catalog somewhere else, you can search for the file with the “lrcat” extension, which is the main Lightroom catalog file. If you have been backing up your Lightroom catalog regularly, this search may also yield a recent backup you can make use of.

If you can’t locate the catalog (or a recent backup) that you can make use of, your only real option would be to create a new catalog and import all of your photos into that catalog. Note that if you had enabled the option to save metadata out to the actual image files, this process would effectively recover the majority of the metadata that had been included in your Lightroom catalog, including all of the adjustments you had applied to your photos.

Pivot on Lightroom

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Today’s Question: I am curious what you think of the new direction Adobe is taking with Lightroom direction. Are they aiming at the pure amateur market?

Tim’s Quick Answer: To me the new direction for Lightroom is not so much about amateur versus professional photographer, but rather about workflow. The new Lightroom CC is aimed at photographers who want to leverage cloud-based storage, while Lightroom Classic is aimed at photographers (like me) who very much want to primarily use local storage to manage their photos.

More Detail: I completely understand the concern many photographers (including myself) have as it relates to the changes Adobe has made to their photography software solutions. Perhaps most obviously, many photographers are frustrated about only having a subscription option for Lightroom and Photoshop, instead of being able to pay once and use the software (at least theoretically) forever.

The launch of the new Lightroom CC (and re-branding of the existing Lightroom application as Lightroom Classic CC) has only exacerbated this issue. Many photographers are concerned that Lightroom Classic will eventually be discontinued in favor of the new Lightroom CC. I’m sure that is a possibility at some point down the road, but that won’t be realistic until cloud-based storage provides a solution that is just as reliable and fast as local storage. I expect that to not be possible for many years, so I suspect Lightroom will continue to be available as a desktop-centric solution for many years to come. But of course I have not insights into what Adobe might be thinking along these lines.

My personal approach is to define a workflow that makes the most of the software that works for me (which at the moment is Lightroom Classic CC), without becoming dependent on the software. In other words, I always want to have an exit strategy.

For example, many photographers who adopted Apple Aperture as the foundation of their workflow faced considerable pain when Apple discontinued Aperture and they had to find a new workflow solution.

I don’t really have any fear of this type of situation. To begin with, I really do believe that Adobe is committed to providing excellent workflow solutions for photographers. Obviously Adobe is a for-profit company, and as such wants to find ways to maximize the revenue they can earn from photographers. But I don’t believe there is any risk of Adobe abandoning the photography community.

I think it is sensible for photographers to make sure they aren’t getting “locked in” to a particular software solution. This is why, as just one small example, I don’t use Pick and Reject flags in Lightroom. These flags are not part of any established metadata standard. Therefore, I use star ratings instead, with the confidence that any other image-management software will support this feature since it is part of an established metadata standard.

I do understand the anxiety some photographers are feeling about the recent changes from Adobe. Personally, while I don’t feel Lightroom CC (as opposed to Lightroom Classic) is likely to meet my needs anytime soon, I’m not worried about the changes involved.

I’ll continue to use Lightroom Classic for as long as that makes sense in my workflow. If at any point I decide Lightroom Classic is no longer a good fit for me, I’ll adopt a new solution. In the meantime, I make a point of employing a workflow that provides the greatest utility without making me dependent on specific software. In other words, I want to keep my options open, but make the most of my workflow in the meantime.