Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: I noticed in one of your (excellent) video tutorials on Photoshop that you had the “Save a Copy” command on the menu highlighted in green. How did that color get added, and can I do something similar for the menu commands I use most often?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can assign a highlight color to individual menu commands in Photoshop in the Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus dialog. The colors you assign can be preserved by saving a workspace configuration that includes your customized menu options.

More Detail: Photoshop enables you to assign a highlight color to individual menu commands, so you can color-code commands in different categories or mark the commands you use most frequently for quicker access.

To get started go to the menu and choose Edit > Menus. This will bring up the Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus dialog, opened to the Menus tab. You can navigate among the menu commands by expanding the sections for each top-level menu you’d like to update commands for and locating the applicable command.

To the right of each command there are options for Visibility and Color. You can click the eye icon to toggle the visibility of menu commands off or on, so that for example you can hide menu commands that you know you’ll never need to use. More importantly in the context of today’s question, you can click in the Color column for a menu command to bring up a popup menu where you can choose a color to use for the command.

You can save the menu configuration within the Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus dialog, but I recommend simply saving the updated menu configuration with a saved workspace. You can click the OK button to close the Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus dialog when you’re finished configuring the highlight colors for menu commands. Then go to the menu and choose Window > Workspace > New Workspace. This will bring up a dialog where you can enter a name for the new workspace, and to preserve your changes to the menu configuration turn on the “Menus” checkbox. You can then click the Save button to save the workspace.

You can select the workspace you want to use by choosing Window > Workspace and the name of the saved workspace from the menu. You can also reset the current workspace to the saved configuration (such as after having moved some panels around) by choosing Window > Workspace > Reset (with the name of the current workspace shown after “Reset” on the menu).

I demonstrated how to configure menu colors along with the overall Photoshop interface in Chapter 1, Lesson 4, “Configuring the Photoshop Interface”, in my new comprehensive course on “Photoshop for Photographers”. You can learn more about this course on the GreyLearning website here:

https://www.greylearning.com/courses/photoshop-for-photographers-2024

Today’s Question: After reading your answer about the Remove tool in Photoshop I decided to give it a try, since I didn’t even know it was there. I noticed on the Options bar there are buttons for add and subtract, but the subtract button is disabled. Is it supposed to do something?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The subtract button for the Remove tool is available if you turn off the “Remove after each stroke” checkbox, and it enables you to subtract from areas you have marked for cleanup with the Remove tool before actually applying the cleanup to the designated area.

More Detail: By default, the Remove tool in Photoshop performs cleanup work on an area as soon as you paint a brush stroke on the image, in the same way the Spot Healing Brush tool performs cleanup after every brush stroke. However, you can change this behavior if you prefer, such as when you want to carefully paint over a relatively large object you want to remove from a photo.

If you turn off the “Remove after each stroke” checkbox on the Options bar for the Remove tool, you can paint using multiple brush strokes to define the area you want to clean within the image. This includes the option to use the add and subtract features for the brush. By default, the Remove tool is set to the add option. However, you can click the subtract option (or hold the Alt key on Windows or the Option key on Macintosh) to subtract portions of the area designated for cleanup, which will erase the color overlay that indicates the portion of the image to be cleaned up.

With the “Remove after each stroke” checkbox turned off, to apply the actual cleanup you’ll need to click the apply button (it has a checkmark icon) on the Options bar. To the left of the apply button is a reset button you can use to remove the overlay so that none of the image is marked for cleanup.

Note that I covered the Remove tool (and all the other image cleanup tools in Photoshop) in “Image Cleanup in Photoshop”, which is Chapter 2, Lesson 3, of my “Photoshop for Photographers” video course. You can learn more about this new comprehensive video course on the GreyLearning website here:

https://www.greylearning.com/courses/photoshop-for-photographers-2024

Today’s Question: Is the new Remove tool in Photoshop effectively a replacement for the Spot Healing Brush tool? Does it do a better job in most cases?

Tim’s Quick Answer: While the Remove tool shows promise based on artificial intelligence (AI) technology, in general I find you can get better results for image cleanup with the Spot Healing Brush tool or the Content-Aware Fill command.

More Detail: In general, the new Remove tool in Photoshop does a good job when it comes to image cleanup work. You simply paint over the object you want to remove, and the object is removed automatically, replaced with new pixels based on an analysis of the surrounding area of the image. Similar to the Generative Fill command, with the Remove tool new pixels may be created that are not directly related to the specific contents of the image.

However, while the Remove tool is impressive in general, I have found that it is much more likely than other tools to create obviously visible artifacts in the image. This can result in duplicative textures that stand out as areas that have clearly been modified, or odd duplications of shapes from other areas of the image that also stand out as not looking right.

While the Spot Healing Brush tool (set to the Content-Aware option) or the Content-Aware Fill command aren’t perfect, in general I do find that they provide good results with far less risk of obvious artifacts in the image when compared to the Remove tool.

To be fair, the Remove tool is the newest image-cleanup tool in Photoshop, and so it is the tool that is most likely to see improvements in the near term. I do think the Remove tool is capable of very good results, and it is worth trying with some images. However, I also recommend scrutinizing the results achieved with the Remove tool (or really with any of the image cleanup tools), so you will be sure to catch any problems that are created in terms of artifacts that need to be resolved. You can then either undo the work done with the Remove tool and try a different tool, or mix-and-match two or more tools to refine the image cleanup work to achieve a better result.

Today’s Question: I use Photoshop, not Lightroom. I’ve offered to print some images for a friend who uses Lightroom Classic. She’s sending me TIFs. If I modify the images with Photoshop and/or Topaz, how can she bring them back into Lightroom? Will they have to be different files than the originals?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The modified images can be imported into Lightroom Classic, such as by simply synchronizing the folder they’ve been added to. The files would need to have unique filenames within the folder they’ll be saved in.

More Detail: When you export copies of photos from Lightroom Classic such as so those images can be printed outside of Lightroom Classic, you may later want to add the resulting images back to the catalog. For example, if the files have been updated specifically for printing you may want to retain those derivative images in the Lightroom Classic catalog so they can easily be used for creating additional prints at a later date.

There are several ways you could import the derivative images into the Lightroom Classic catalog. In my view the simplest approach would be to move the files to the same folder as the original files the derivative images were created from and then synchronize the folder within Lightroom Classic.

In the Folders list on the left panel in the Library module in Lightroom Classic you can right-click on any folder and choose “Synchronize Folder” from the popup menu. This will bring up a dialog that enables you to choose whether you want to add new photos to the catalog, remove missing photos from the catalog, or check for metadata updates.

In this case you would want to turn on the “Import new photos” checkbox, which will have a number in parenthesis to the right indicating how many photos are in the folder but not currently in the catalog. You can turn off the checkboxes for “Remove missing photos from catalog” and “Scan for metadata updates”. Then click the Synchronize button and the new images will be added to the catalog.

Today’s Question: When I tell Lightroom Classic to edit a photo in Photoshop, it no longer asks if I want to edit it with Lightroom adjustments or if I want to edit the original file. It just sends the file directly into Photoshop with the edits I’ve already made in Lightroom Classic. Why is that?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You will not be asked what option you want to use when you send a raw capture to Photoshop from Lightroom Classic. Rather, when you send a raw capture to Photoshop the adjustments applied to the image in the Develop module will always be applied, and a derivative image will be created based on the settings on the External Editing tab of the Preferences dialog in Lightroom Classic.

More Detail: If you use the Edit In commend to send a non-raw capture to Photoshop from Lightroom Classic, you’ll be asked how you want the file to be processed. You can make a new copy based on the source image that is flattened if you choose “Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments”. You can create a copy that includes layers and other features from the original by choosing “Edit a Copy”, but the adjustments from Lightroom Classic won’t be visible while you’re working in Photoshop. You can also choose “Edit Original” to open the source file in Photoshop, in which case the adjustments from Lightroom Classic won’t be visible while working in Photoshop.

If you send a raw capture to Photoshop from Lightroom Classic, you aren’t able to edit the original since you can’t save the updated image as a raw capture. Instead, the image will be created as either a TIFF file or a Photoshop document (PSD) file based on the option established on the External Editing tab of the Preferences dialog.

By saving the derivative image as a TIFF or PSD file, you’ll be able to preserve all features you took advantage of in Photoshop, such as adjustment layers, additional image layers, layer masks, and more. Since this is the recommended workflow, and you’re not able to save an updated raw capture file, you aren’t prompted by Lightroom Classic about what to do when you send a raw capture to Photoshop.

Today’s Question: How do I change the overlay color for the Remove tool in Photoshop to something other than the default color (pink)? Can it be done?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can change the overlay color for the Remove tool in Photoshop by clicking the gear icon on the Options bar and choosing a different color from the Color popup. You can also adjust the opacity for the color overlay with the associated Opacity control.

More Detail: The Remove tool is relatively new to Photoshop and it provides image cleanup based on artificial intelligence (AI) technology. When you paint on the image with the Remove tool (which I recommend doing through the use of a separate image layer created for image cleanup work) a color overlay shows the area of your brush stroke. This makes it easy to be sure you’re painting completely over the object you want to remove from the photo.

The default color for this overlay is magenta, which I consider to be a good default because magenta tends not to be a color that is very common in a lot of images. But obviously there are also many photos where a magenta overlay wouldn’t be the best choice, such as when you are attempting to remove an object that has a color relatively close to magenta.

Fortunately, you can change both the color and the opacity of this overlay. Start by selecting the Remove tool from the toolbar (it is on the same button as the Spot Healing Brush tool, so you can right-click on that button to bring up a popup that includes the Remove tool). Then on the Options bar click the gear icon. That will bring up a popup panel where you’ll find a popup for Color and a popup slider for Opacity. You can select any color you’d like from the popup, and then adjust the opacity to your liking.

The updated settings will remain in place unless you change them, or if you reset the tool, or if you reset preferences for Photoshop.

Today’s Question: [In response to a previous question about updating the Copy Name field for virtual copies in Lightroom Classic:] When I update the Copy Name field, it only affected the image I selected, not any Virtual copies. The Copy Name seems to only affect the name displayed in Grid view and the Copy Name is not inherited by the Virtual copies. I tried setting Copy Name both before and after creating Virtual copies.

Tim’s Quick Answer: The Copy Name field can be thought of as just another metadata field available for photos. When you create a virtual copy in Lightroom Classic, however, the Copy Name for the source image will not be retained by the virtual copy, which will instead be automatically assigned a name such as “Copy 1”.

More Detail: When you create a virtual copy in Lightroom Classic, that virtual copy inherits the metadata from the image you used as the basis of creating the virtual copy. However, the Copy Name field is an exception to this.

Regardless of whether or not you have updated the Copy Name field for the source image, when you create a virtual copy it will be automatically assigned a value for the Copy Name field such as “Copy 1”, with the number incremented for each additional virtual copy based on the same source image.

For example, let’s assume you optimized the original image in color, so you update the Copy Name field to “Color Final” to indicate the status of the image. You then create a virtual copy based on that image, but the Copy Name field for the virtual copy will be “Copy 1”, not “Color Final”.

If you then apply adjustments to the virtual copy to make it a black and white image, you might update the Copy Name field to “B&W Final”. But if you make a virtual copy based on that virtual copy, the Copy Name field for the new virtual copy will reflect “Copy 2”.

So, the Copy Name field in metadata should be thought of as a unique field for each image, which will not inherit the value from the source image when creating a virtual copy.

Today’s Question: I haven’t really done much photography since 2020, and back then my batteries were already old. Should I get new ones? If I do, should I always opt for Canon or should I consider batteries from other manufacturers?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, I recommend replacing those batteries to ensure longer battery life. In my experience it is also advantageous to opt for replacement batteries from the manufacturer of your camera, rather than using third-party batteries.

More Detail: The primary sign that rechargeable batteries need to be replaced is that they’re holding much less of a charge than they originally did. Eventually this can become a frustrating issue, where a battery will last for a very short amount of time before it needs to be recharged.

If the batteries had already been somewhat old several years ago, and especially if they weren’t holding their full charge then, it would definitely be a good idea to replace the batteries. This will ensure you’re getting the maximum life possible from the batteries.

Camera manufacturers offer replacement batteries, though these are often at least a little more expensive than third-party batteries. However, in my own experience third-party batteries have offered a noticeably shorter charge compared to batteries from the camera manufacturer, even when comparing batteries with the same capacity. That capacity is generally measured in milliampere-hours (mAh) as a specification for the battery.

Therefore, I generally recommend opting for replacement batteries from the camera manufacturer rather than from a third party, even though the latter can be less expensive.

Note, by the way, that you should be sure to dispose of your old batteries properly, ideally through a battery recycling service. For example, you can find local options for battery recycling on this website:

https://www.call2recycle.org/locator/

Today’s Question: I just got a new computer and want to transfer my Lightroom Classic catalog files over to the new machine. I keep my photos on a removable hard drive, and changed the drive letter of that disk to match what was in Lightroom Classic. But now need to move the catalog and appropriate helper files over and am unsure which ones I should copy.

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can transfer the entire folder that contains your Lightroom Classic catalog to the new computer, although you can exclude the Backups folder if that is contained within the folder where the catalog is currently stored.

More Detail: The Lightroom Classic catalog “file” consists of multiple helper files in addition to the core catalog file. Therefore, it is important to transfer all related files when migrating to a new computer.

If you’re not sure where your Lightroom Classic catalog is currently stored, you can go to the Catalog Settings dialog and click the Show button found on the General tab. This will take you to the location where the catalog folder can be found, with that folder highlighted.

Quit Lightroom Classic before copying the catalog to the new destination. You can then copy the entire folder to the new location, using an external storage device if needed to transfer the files to the new computer.

After copying (rather than moving) the folder that contains the catalog I recommend renaming the “old” version of the catalog folder to something that will make it obvious that this is not the current version. I typically add “BACKUP” to the beginning of the folder name, for example. This folder can later be deleted, once you’re sure the catalog is functioning properly on the new computer and has been backed up.

Once the catalog files have been copied to their new destination, you can open the folder and double-click on the file with the “.lrcc” filename extension. This is the primary catalog file, and double-clicking will cause that catalog to be opened in Lightroom Classic.

I also then recommend making sure that the new copy of the catalog is set as the default catalog on the General tab of the Preferences dialog in Lightroom Classic. The popup where you can select the catalog that should be used as the default is labeled “When starting up use this catalog”. Setting your catalog as the default will ensure it is used every time you open Lightroom Classic, even if you had since opened another catalog, such as opening a backup to make sure it was in good working order.