Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: I’ve just noticed that when working in the Develop module in Lightroom some of the numbers next to the adjustment sliders are white, and some are gray. Is there some significance to the color?

Tim’s Quick Answer: There is indeed significance to the white versus gray text for the adjustment numbers in Lightroom’s Develop module. White represents values that differ from the default settings, and gray indicates a value that is still at the default value.

More Detail: In other words, you can think of the white text for an adjustment number as indicating an adjustment you’ve actually made a change to versus those you have not. If the number associated with a slider in the Develop module in Lightroom is white, that setting has been adjusted. If the number is gray, that adjustment has not been adjusted yet.

You will therefore notice that as soon as you make an initial change to a slider value in Lightroom, the numeric text associated with that slider becomes white. If you double-click on the slider handle for the adjustment in order to reset that adjustment to its default value, the text will return to gray.

This is one of the subtle features within Lightroom that can help make streamline your workflow, and speed up the process of evaluating which adjustments have been applied versus left at their default values.

Today’s Question: You’re never wrong, but today you’re wrong. It’s easy to flip a photo in Lightroom

Tim’s Quick Answer: I was indeed wrong when I said you couldn’t flip a photo in Lightroom. You can flip by selecting a photo, then choosing Photo on the menu followed by either Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical. You can also right-click on the full-size image in the Develop module and choose Transform followed by either Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical from the popup menu.

More Detail: Friday’s edition of the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter proves that I don’t always have the answer, or that what I think is the answer is sometimes wrong. And today’s edition demonstrates (hopefully) that I don’t mind admitting when I was wrong. Perhaps it also confirms that if we don’t exercise our brains, some atrophy may occur! I simply forgot about a feature that I have probably never used, even though at one point I knew it was there.

With Monday being the Labor Day holiday in the United States I was going to take the day off from the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, even though I’m not presently in the United States. But with my big error in Friday’s email, I decided a Monday email was necessary, and that it should be sent out early. So here it is!

I appreciate the many (countless!) photographers who sent me an email to (gently, for the most part) point out my error. Thank you! And I’ll certainly try to avoid such mistakes in the future.

In the meantime, rest assured that you can indeed flip a photo in Lightroom without sending it to Photoshop. And also rest assured that when I answer a question incorrectly in the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, more than a few readers will surely let me know, and then I’ll let you know.

Today’s Question: I would like to be able to flip an image in Lightroom. Is it possible, or only a Photoshop thing?

PLEASE NOTE: The original answer posted below was incorrect. Details of the correction can be found in a follow-up post here:

Flipping in Lightroom Redux

Tim’s Quick Answer: Flipping an image is not possible in Lightroom, and thus would require Photoshop (or another application). You can rotate an image in Lightroom, but not flip it.

More Detail: Fortunately, it is quite easy to flip an image in Photoshop, and you can send an image from Lightroom directly to Photoshop for this purpose. Just note that in the process a new copy of the image will be created as an additional file on your hard drive.

To get started, select the image in Lightroom that you want to flip. Then choose Photo > Edit In > Edit In Adobe Photoshop from the menu. Once the image is opened in Photoshop, you will want to convert the Background image layer to a normal layer so you can actually flip it. To do so, double-click the thumbnail for the Background image layer on the Layers panel and click the OK button in the New Layer dialog that appears.

You can then choose Edit > Transform from the menu, and then choose “Flip Horizontal” or “Flip Vertical” from the submenu depending on the direction you want to flip the image. After completing any other work you’d like to perform in Photoshop, simply choose File > Save from the menu to save the updated image file, and then choose File > Close from the menu to close that file.

You can then return to Lightroom, and the new copy of the image that has been flipped will appear alongside the original photo within your catalog.

Today’s Question: Not too long ago you addressed the crop overlay feature available in Lightroom to evaluate which aspect ratio one might want to crop to. Is there a similar feature in Photoshop?

Tim’s Quick Answer: There is a crop overlay feature for the Crop tool in Photoshop, but it doesn’t enable you to evaluate the effect of different aspect ratios at one time.

More Detail: The overlay feature for the Crop tool in Photoshop is primarily focused on composition. The available overlays, for example, include the rule of thirds, the Golden Ratio, and the Golden Spiral.

If you want to preview a particular aspect ratio, you need to either select that ratio from the Ratio popup on the options bar, or establish your own ratio using the Width and Height fields to the right of the Ratio popup. When you establish an aspect ratio with one of these two options, you’re really just constraining the shape of the crop box for the Crop tool.

As a result, you can only effectively preview a single aspect ratio at a time with the Crop tool in Photoshop. In Lightroom it is possible to overlay multiple aspect ratios on the crop box, so that you can get a sense of which aspect ratio you might want to use. In Photoshop this process would be more challenging, because you would need to switch between different aspect ratios to change the dimensions of the crop box. This can obviously require a bit of trial and error to find the aspect ratio you want to use.

It is worth noting that while Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom share the same underlying processing engine for RAW captures, Adobe Camera Raw only has a Rule of Thirds overlay option for cropping. In other words, the other compositional overlays aren’t available, nor are the aspect ratio overlay options available. So Lightroom certainly has a bit of an advantage with regard to the overlay feature for the crop tool compared to Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw.

Today’s Question: I’m having a difficult time wrapping my head around what you said about deleting photos. You said “When you delete photos from a card or (in most cases) when you format the card, the information isn’t actually deleted.” Is that really true? Will deleted photos always remain on my media cards?

Tim’s Quick Answer: It is true that in most cases deleting images from a media card or formatting that card won’t truly remove the information from the card. However, in order to be able to recover the information, you need to be sure not to write new information (photos) to the card.

More Detail: When you delete a file from a media card or other storage device, and in most cases when you format that media, the information contained on the media isn’t truly removed. Instead, the “table of contents” for the media is updated to indicate that the space that had been used for photos or other data is now available for use.

Because of this behavior, it is often possible to recover deleted photos (or other data) from storage media. The most important caveat is that if you write new information to the media, that information will replace the space that had been occupied by the deleted information.

For example, if you capture a single photo on a media card, and then format that media card, you could use special software to recover the photo that had been deleted.

If, on the other hand, you capture a photo, format the card, and then capture a new photo, the would not be able to recover the first photo you captured. This example over-simplifies the situation, but I don’t think the more involved technical details would really be helpful here. The bottom line is that as long as you haven’t written new data to the “empty” space on the media, files that had been deleted can still be recovered.

For many years I’ve been recommending PhotoRescue as a great application for recovering photos from media cards. A free trial enables you to see which photos can be recovered from a given media card, so you don’t have to purchase a license until you know what you’ll be able to recover. You can find PhotoRescue here:

http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/

Note that some cameras (and most computer operating systems) also include an option to format media in a way that makes it impossible to recover data from the media. For example, some software allows you to perform what is often referred to as a “zero-fill” format, where all available space on the media is filled with the zero character as part of the formatting process. In other words, all “hidden” data is replaced with meaningless data.

But it really is true that as long as you haven’t written new data to storage media, there is a very good chance you’ll be able to recover lost photos or other data from that media using special software such as PhotoRescue.

Today’s Question: During the import of images to Lightroom from a card reader, I inadvertently removed the images. I cannot find them anywhere in Lightroom. Is there any way I can retrieve the images? Or they totally lost? To make matters worse, I have reformatted the card.

Tim’s Quick Answer: There are a couple of basic ways you should be able to locate the images from Lightroom, but if they have been removed from the catalog you’ll need to look for them directly on your hard drive. In addition, as long as you haven’t captured new images on the media card, you can recover the photos from that card using special software.

More Detail: The first thing I would do is check the Lightroom catalog to see if the photos simply got imported to a location other than what you were expecting. To begin with, in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module you’ll find a “Previous Import” collection. Clicking on that collection will show you the photos imported during the most recent import operation.

You could also try to locate the images based on filter criteria. For example, you could select the “All Photographs” collection in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module, and then use the Library Filter (View > Show Filter Bar) to filter images based on, for example, the date of capture (or whatever other criteria you know).

If the images were removed from the Lightroom catalog but not deleted from your hard drive, you can re-import those photos from the hard drive. If you know what folder the images had been imported to, you can right-click on that folder in the Folders section of the left panel in the Library module and choose “Synchronize Folder” from the popup menu. In the dialog that appears make sure the “Import new photos” checkbox is turned on, and click the Synchronize button. Any images in the folder that are not in the Lightroom catalog will be added.

If all else fails, it is still possible to recover the photos from the media card, as long as you have not captured new photos on that card. When you delete photos from a card or (in most cases) when you format the card, the information isn’t actually deleted. Special software can recover the photos from the card. For this purpose I recommend a software application called PhotoRescue, which can be found on the DataRescue website here:

http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/

Note that there is a free trial version of PhotoRescue, so you can see which images can be recovered before you purchase a license for the software.

Today’s Question: After reading your 8/26 newsletter I decided to trash my Photos app. I got this message: “’Photos.app’ can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by OS X.”

Tim’s Quick Answer: The Apple Photos app indeed can no longer be removed through the normal process in Mac OS X. Fortunately, several readers shared a solution for disabling the auto-launch feature of Photos using a command that can be issue in the Terminal application.

More Detail: More than a few readers wrote in response to Friday’s edition of the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter to let me know that it is no longer possible to uninstall the Photos app through the normal process in Mac OS X. Fortunately, a few readers provided a solution that I have tested and found to work perfectly.

If you’d like to disable the auto-launch feature of Apple Photos, you’ll first need to launch the Terminal application. This application can be found in the Utilities folder, which can be found within the Applications folder.

Once you’ve launched the Terminal application, enter this command and press Return on the keyboard:

defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture disableHotPlug -bool YES

If you later decide you would like to re-enable the auto-launch feature for Photos, simply enter this command into the Terminal application:

defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture disableHotPlug -bool NO

My apologies to those who were confused by Friday’s answer, and big thanks to those who provided information about the solution.

Today’s Question: When I import photos to Lightroom, Apple’s Photos application opens. I cannot find an option in preferences for Photos to have it not open when I import photos. Your help will be appreciated.

PLEASE NOTE: The original answer posted below wasn’t entirely correct. Details of the correction can be found in a follow-up post here:

Photos App Redux

Tim’s Quick Answer: The only truly effective solution here is to remove the Photos app from your computer. Otherwise you will continue to experience this frustration in certain circumstances.

More Detail: The Photos application included with newer versions of the Macintosh operating system actually includes a setting that can be used to disable the import. The problem is that this setting doesn’t work properly for many scenarios.

When importing from an actual device (such as an iPhone) you can turn off the “Open Photos for this device” checkbox toward the top-left of the Photos interface to prevent the Photos app from launching when you connect that device.

However, for media cards inserted into a card reader, this option doesn’t actually work in most cases, because reformatting the card in your camera will cause the card to appear as a different device.

Therefore, the only true fix for this issue is to remove the Photos application altogether. As long as you aren’t using Photos to manage any images outside of your normal workflow, this is a perfectly good solution. Simply go to the Applications folder and move the Photos application to the trash. You will then no longer see the Photos application when importing photos to Lightroom.

Today’s Question: Is there any way to paint in transparency on part of an image in Photoshop?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, sort of. Transparency in an image really means that pixels have been erased (or partially erased). To streamline the overall process with a non-destructive workflow, I recommend “bundling” all layers for the image into a new layer group, and then using a layer mask with that layer group to paint transparency where it is wanted in the overall image.

More Detail: Many photographers choose to employ transparency in an image for a variety of reasons. For example, including transparency around a key subject in a photo can enable you to place the resulting image on a web page or in certain documents, so that the background color or texture appears in the transparent areas.

If you are printing it is probably easier to simply add white in the areas where you would otherwise want transparency, since white won’t actually be printed and thus produces the same effect as transparency would.

In some cases adding transparency can be very simple. But since there are a number of variables related to how many layers you might have as well as the type of layers involved, I recommend an approach employing a layer group that will work under virtually all circumstances.

To get started, you’ll want to be sure that the Background image layer has been converted to a “normal” layer. To do so, simply double-click the thumbnail for the Background image layer on the Layers panel and click OK in the New Layer dialog that appears.

Next, select all of the layers on the layers panel by clicking on the bottom-most layer (the layer that had been the Background image layer) and then hold the Shift key on the keyboard while clicking on the top-most layer on the Layers panel. Then click the panel popup menu at the top-right of the Layers panel and choose “New Group from Layers” from the popup menu. This will create a new layer group that contains all of your existing layers.

At this point you can add a layer mask to the layer group by clicking the “Add Layer mask” button (the circle inside of a rectangle icon) at the bottom of the Layers panel. You can then use the Brush tool to paint with black on the layer mask in areas where you want to add transparency.

If you are only creating this transparency to have white areas in part of the image (such as to have the image fade to white at the outer edges), you may find it easier to add a single layer for this purpose. Start by clicking on the thumbnail for the top-most layer on the Layers panel. You can then, for example, click the “Create Adjustment Layer” button (the half-black/half-white circle icon) at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose “Solid Color” from the popup menu. In the Color Picker dialog that appears, choose white as the color and click OK.

You will now have a white layer that completely covers the image. To hide this white layer from the entire image, click on the thumbnail for the layer mask associated with the Solid Color adjustment layer and then choose Image > Adjustments > Invert from the menu. The layer mask will now be filled with black, blocking the white layer from the entire image.

To paint the white pixels into the image to create the equivalent of transparency for your print, you can now use the Brush tool to paint on the layer mask with white in areas where you want the white pixels created by the Solid Color adjustment layer to be visible.

Today’s Question: In the past when shooting black and white film, adding a yellow/red filter darkened an over-exposed sky. Would adding a filter to a digital image and then converting to black and white have the same result?

Tim’s Quick Answer: While there would be some effect achieved with a colored filter with a digital capture, the effect will not be the same in most cases as what you would have achieved with black and white film. Therefore, my recommendation would be to save those effects for post-processing.

More Detail: To begin with, digital sensors respond differently than black and white films. For example, most digital camera sensors employ colored filters so that each individual photo site on the sensor (which will become pixels in the final image) have a colored filter so that each is only capturing a relatively narrow range of light values from the scene. With most sensors that means some pixels are only recording red light, some are only recording green light, and some are only recording blue light.

In other words, the camera isn’t exactly capturing a color image, but isn’t exactly capturing a black and white image either. A colored filter can produce results that are different from what you would achieve with film, and that in many respects would not be in line with your intent.

In addition, the camera will attempt to compensate for the presence of the colored filter with changes to the white balance setting (temperature and tint) for the capture. So in some ways you could say the camera is trying to reverse the behavior of the colored filter.

Because of these (and other) issues, I recommend saving your black and white conversion and related adjustments for post-processing. Set an exposure in the camera that preserves detail in the highlights, and then apply adjustments to the resulting image. You can, for example, apply an adjustment to darken only the blue values in the image, without affecting the other color values.

While a colored filter might provide a “shortcut” in theory, you’ll find that in actual practice it is better to use adjustments after the capture (and even presets as a good starting point) to achieve the effect you’re familiar with based on using colored filters with black and white film photography.