Ask Tim Grey

Registration is now open for my next live online GreyLearning Ultimate Events, focused on “The Power of PhotoPills”. The live online event will be on Wednesday, June 21st, from 1pm to 5pm Eastern Time.

The PhotoPills app for iOS and Android mobile devices provides photographers with a variety of powerful planning tools. With this app you can calculate equivalent exposure settings, such as when adding a solid neutral density filter. You can calculate depth of field with precision, including being able to take into account the effect of hyperfocal distance. You can plan for the specific position of the sun and moon, both for planning for light and for including the sun or moon in the frame with a key subject. And there is so much more to explore in PhotoPills beyond these powerful features!

All GreyLearning Ultimate Events are included at no additional cost in my GreyLearning Ultimate Bundle (http://timgrey.me/atg99bundle). Recordings of all presentations will also available, so you can watch even if you can’t attend live, or review the presentations at any time.

If you’re not a GreyLearning Ultimate Bundle subscriber, that’s OK! Non-subscribers can attend the live online event and access recordings of all presentations for just $20.

You can get all the details of this upcoming live online event here:

https://www.greylearning.com/courses/greylearning-ultimate-event-the-power-of-photopills-june-2023

I look forward to helping photographers make the most of the remarkable PhotoPills app with this upcoming GreyLearning Ultimate Event!

Today’s Question: I will be taking a photo trip this fall and will only be taking my iPhone. I would like to know if it’s possible to also backup my phone images onto a LaCie Rugged during the trip?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can download photos from an iPhone directly to an external storage device by exporting them via the Files app that is included with the iOS operating system.

More Detail: While it is possible to transfer photos directly from an iPhone to a hard drive without using a computer, the process can be slightly cumbersome if you’ll be transferring a large number of photos. This can be compounded if you’ll be transferring batches of photos over time, such as downloading each day’s photos at the end of the day.

You can connect an external hard drive to your iPhone using a Lightning-to-USB adapter (https://timgrey.me/lightningusb). However, I find it more convenient to use a flash storage device, such as the SanDisk iXpand (https://timgrey.me/lightningdrive), which features a Lightning connector for plugging direcly into an iPhone as well as a USB connector for transferring to your computer.

After connecting the storage device to your iPhone you can go to the Photos app and browse your photos. Tap the Select button at the top right, and select the photos you want to transfer. Next, tap the Share button (the icon is a rectangle with an arrow pointing out of the top) and scroll to find the “Save to Files” option. Tap “Save to Files”, at which point you will most likely need to tap the Back button at the top left so you can browse all available destinations.

Tap the name of the storage device to initiate the transfer. When the process is complete you can disconnect the device. That storage device can then be connected to your computer to download the images from there.

I do recommend testing this process out before departing on your trip to make sure all the components are compatible with your configuration.

Today’s Question: You referenced your use of “fake keywords” in the answer about protecting collections in Lightroom Classic. What do you mean by “fake”? Aren’t these just normal keywords?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I use the term “fake keywords” to describe keywords that are used for a purpose other than the “normal” way keywords are traditionally used. These “fake keywords” are indeed keywords you add to your photos just like any other keyword, just used for a somewhat different purpose.

More Detail: Keywords can be tremendously helpful, and I think of keywords as working in two directions. You can use keywords when you want to search for an image that contains a particular subject, for example, but you can also use keywords to remind yourself what subjects are actually contained in a photo.

Some time ago I realized that my workflow would benefit from the use of keywords that go beyond these more typical uses of keywords. For example, as I mentioned in yesterday’s Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, I use the keyword “PixologyCover” to identify photos that I have used on the cover of an issue of my Pixology digital magazine. This helps me identify which images I’ve already used on the cover, but also makes it easy for me to locate photos I haven’t yet put on the cover.

The keywords I refer to as being “fake” keywords are very much normal keywords added to my photos in the usual way. I just use the term “fake” to make these keywords stand out as being useful beyond the normal way keywords are used.

Today’s Question: Is there any way to lock or save a collection [in Lightroom Classic] so that it cannot be changed without a verifying question?

Tim’s Quick Answer: There is not a way to lock a collection in Lightroom Classic, but you could use other metadata to help preserve the status of photos that belong to a particular collection.

More Detail: Collections are a great way to group photos together for a purpose that goes beyond the folder structure you use to organize your images. For example, I use collections to group photos together for various projects, such as when I’m going to be presenting at an event or for photos I share to my Instagram feed, for example.

Once you’ve finished adding all photos to a collection for a particular project, it would be nice to be able to lock a collection so you can’t add or remove photos without unlocking the collection. Unfortunately, that feature is not currently available in Lightroom Classic.

However, you could use metadata to help identify photos as being part of a particular collection, so that even if the collection were lost or changed you would still be able to identify the images that were originally included in the collection.

For example, I use a concept I refer to as “fake keywords” to identify the status of certain images. I use “InstagramShare” as a keyword for photos I’ve shared to my Instagram feed. Similarly, I use “PixologyCover” as a keyword for images I’ve used for the cover of an issue of Pixology, my monthly digital magazine. You could similarly use keywords to identify photos that you’ve included in a particular project, such as “Book-Palouse” for a book featuring photos from the Palouse.

Once you’ve finalized a collection featuring photos for a particular project, you could select all the images in the grid view (not the loupe view) and then add a keyword referencing the project. You could even use a smart collection rather than a regular collection to automatically group photos that contain a particular keyword.

Using “fake keywords” in this case doesn’t provide a perfect solution. Just as you could remove a photo from a collection (or inadvertently remove a collection altogether) you could also accidentally remove keywords from one or more photos. But in my view, there’s a little more protection afforded by this approach, because I feel like it is less likely that you would remove keywords accidentally compared to removing a photo from a collection. And if you’re using a normal collection (rather than a smart collection) then you have the added advantage of having a somewhat redundant system. If you accidentally removed a keyword, the applicable photos would still be in the collection. And if you accidentally removed a photo from the collection, it would still have the keyword. So as long as you don’t perform both of those tasks by accident, you would still be able to determine which photos belonged in a particular project.

Note that I covered the use of “fake” keywords starting 12 minutes and 39 seconds into the lesson “Keywording Photos”, which is Chapter 2 Lesson 3 of my “Mastering Lightroom Classic” course. You can learn more about this course here:

https://www.greylearning.com/courses/mastering-lightroom-classic-2023

Today’s Question: When you use a circular polarizer filter is there anything you do special to make sure it’s easy to remove? Most of my polarizer lenses are the screw on type that screw directly into the front of the lens. However, those can sometimes be problematic when removing since the piece with the threads can be quite small.

Tim’s Quick Answer: I use magnetic filter adapters for my filters, so they can be very easily attached to or removed from a lens.

More Detail: Screw-on filters can be a real challenge to attach to or remove from a lens. If the threads don’t actually engage when attaching the filter you might assume it is attached when it isn’t, resulting in dropping the filter and possibly damaging it. Removing the filter can be a hassle because the filter is so thin it is difficult to get a good grip.

The best solution I’ve found is to use magnetic filter adapters. I had been using Xume adapters for a long time, but they were acquired by Manfrotto and then somewhat recently discontinued. I loved these filter adapters and wish they were still in production.

Fortunately, another solution exists in the way of magnetic filters and adapters from Kase. They offer both a Wolverine and Revolution lineup, with the latter being the newer and overall more expensive options.

With these Kase filters (https://timgrey.me/magneticfilters) and adapters (https://timgrey.me/magneticadapters) you screw the adapter onto the lens once, and never really need to remove it. You can then attach a Kase magnetic filter simply by placing it onto the adapter. This is very similar to the Xume products I originally used for this purpose, with the difference being that with the Kase system you use a magnetic filter rather than a screw-on filter.

I strongly believe that any photographer who uses a magnetic filter adapter system will immediately agree that this is an ideal solution for attaching and removing filters.

You can learn more about the Kase Wolverine filters and adapters here:

Filters: https://timgrey.me/magneticfilters
Adapters: https://timgrey.me/magneticadapters

Today’s Question: When I scroll through thumbnails using my mouse in Lightroom Classic I find it distracting that most of the time the top row of thumbnails is partway off the screen. Is there a way to lock the scrolling so the thumbnails don’t get cut off at the top?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can have the top row of thumbnails lock to the top of the grid view display when scrolling by turning on the “Scroll by Row” option found on the View menu. Just be sure to start from the top row of images, so the alignment will be set to the top of the display area before you start scrolling by rows.

More Detail: By default, when you scroll with a scroll wheel or touchpad in the grid view in Lightroom Classic, the thumbnails will scroll smoothly and without being locked to any particular position. This represents a natural scrolling that can be convenient, but it is also possible to have the thumbnails scroll row by row, always locking into the same position.

To enable this feature, go to the menu bar and choose View > Scroll by Row. Then as you scroll with the mouse the thumbnails will move a complete row at a time, so that the images always remain locked in the same alignment. Note that if you scroll using the scroll bar to the right of the thumbnails the scrolling will be smooth rather than row-by-row, even if you have enabled the Scroll by Row feature.

This doesn’t automatically ensure that the top row of thumbnails will align with the top of the display area, however. If you turn on the Scroll by Row feature with the top row of thumbnails halfway out of the frame, as you scroll with the mouse the images will remain locked in that position, with the thumbnails moving up or down one row at a time when you scroll.

If you want the thumbnails to always align with the top of the view area, you’ll need to either go to the top row of thumbnails before scrolling, or make sure that the thumbnails align with the top of the display area before you turn on the feature.

If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the current group of images, the thumbnails will align with the bottom of the display area rather than at the top. If you then scroll upward each row of thumbnails will continue to align with the bottom of the display area rather than the top.

Because of the overall set of behaviors associated with the Scroll by Row feature, I find that it can be more distracting than helpful. But it is available as a feature if you prefer to scroll row-by-row rather than smoothly.

Today’s Question: I learned that you can use an intersect option when masking in Lightroom Classic for targeted adjustments, but I can’t seem to wrap my head around what this intersect option actually does. Can you explain?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The intersect option for masks in Lightroom Classic represents the ability to subtract from an existing mask with the inverse of another mask.

More Detail: In Lightroom Classic you can apply targeted adjustments with the masking features. The basic process involves creating a mask that defines the area of the image you want to adjust, and then applying adjustments that only affect that area. As a simple example you could create a mask representing the sky, and then apply adjustments that only affect the sky.

You can also create compound masks that are built up from several components. For example, you could start with a mask based on the sky, and then subtract from the sky mask using a linear gradient. In this example you could have an adjustment that only affects the sky but affects the sky with a gradient transition.

The standard options for creating a compound mask are add and subtract. You can start with a basic mask, and then add additional areas of the image to that mask, so that all areas represented by the mask will be affected by the targeted adjustment. You could also start with a basic mask and subtract areas from it, as outlined above.

You can also hold the Alt key on Windows or the Option key on Macintosh to cause the Add and Subtract buttons to change to Intersect. The intersect option represents the ability to specify that you want to subtract all areas from the existing mask except for the areas defined by the intersection mask. In other words, if you start with one mask and then use the intersect option for another mask, the final mask will represent only the areas where the two masks overlap with each other.

Considering the example above where the sky is being affected by targeted adjustments based on a linear gradient, the easiest approach would be to start with a mask for the sky and then subtract from that sky mask using a linear gradient. Let’s assume, however, that you didn’t anticipate this and so you initially created the mask with a linear gradient.

In this example you would want to subtract the non-sky areas from the initial mask. That equates to subtracting the inverse of the sky, and subtracting the inverse is exactly what the intersect option provides. So, after creating a linear gradient mask, you can hold the Alt/Option key and click the Intersect button, choosing “Select Sky” from the popup. This will cause all non-sky areas to be removed from the mask initially created based on a linear gradient.

I demonstrated compound masks in great detail in the lesson on “Advanced Targeted Adjustments”, which is Chapter 3, Lesson 6 in my new “Mastering Lightroom Classic” course. This comprehensive course is included in the GreyLearning Ultimate Bundle (http://timgrey.me/atg99bundle) at no additional cost, but is also available as a standalone course here:

https://www.greylearning.com/courses/mastering-lightroom-classic-2023

Today’s Question: During one of your online presentations I noticed that the metadata for a photo showed a lens focal length of 4mm. I’ve never heard of such a short focal length lens, so I was wondering if that was an error in metadata?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The lens focal length was accurate, but it isn’t as dramatic as it may seem. That extremely short focal length was simply a tiny lens on a smartphone with a tiny sensor.

More Detail: The meaning of a particular lens focal length can be rather unclear, depending on your frame of reference. For example, I think most photographers are familiar with the potential confusion of lens focal length when it comes to full frame versus cropped image sensors.

A 100mm lens on a camera with a full-frame sensor would provide the same cropping as a 160mm lens on a camera with a sensor that has a 1.6X cropping factor, and as a 200mm lens on a camera with a 2X cropping factor. Thus, just saying that you used a 100mm lens isn’t necessarily clear unless we know whether the sensor was full frame or cropped. Many photographers assume lens focal lengths relate to a full-frame sensor, which is based on the dimensions of 35mm film. But that assumption is not always correct since many photographers do not use full-frame sensors.

Things can get even more confusing when we’re talking about significantly different sensor sizes. The sensor on a smartphone is extremely small, even compared to a cropped-sensor mirrorless camera. As a result, the lens also needs to be small, such as the 4mm lens referenced in today’s question.

The focal lengths of the lenses on iPhone models I’ve used range from 1.54mm to 6.6mm. Those would indeed be wild focal lengths for a full-frame sensor. But the 4mm lens (from an iPhone X) actually equates to a 28mm lens on a full-frame sensor. So, while the number may seem outrageous to many photographers, it actually represents a very normal lens in the context of the sensor it is being used with.

Today’s Question: Is it possible to download raw captures directly to my iPhone or iPad from a memory card so I don’t have to travel with a laptop, and then import those images into Lightroom Classic later?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, as long as you have an adapter that enables you to connect your memory card to the mobile device, you can download from your cards without a laptop and then transfer those images into your normal workflow when you return home.

More Detail: For those using Lightroom Classic to manage their workflow, I recommend making use of the Lightroom mobile app to download photos to a mobile device when traveling. That enables you to make use of cloud-based synchronization from the Lightroom mobile app to both ensure your photos are backed up and also automatically import the photos into your Lightroom Classic catalog.

Photos can be imported directly from a memory card into the Lightroom mobile app. You just need to make sure you have the appropriate adapter to enable you to connect your media card to the mobile device. This could include a Lightning to USB adapter for an iPhone, for example, or a USB-C adapter for an iPad.

Once you’ve imported the photos into the Lightroom mobile app, they will synchronize to the cloud whenever you’re connected to the internet. When you return home, Lightroom Classic will also synchronize, which will bring the images that you imported to your mobile device into your catalog. You can then move those photos to a folder based on your storage structure, and remove them from cloud storage.

I demonstrated the full workflow that I’ve outlined here in a lesson on “Workflow on the Go” (Chapter 2, Lesson 8) in my new comprehensive “Mastering Lightroom Classic” video course. You can get all the details of this course on the GreyLearing website here:

https://www.greylearning.com/courses/mastering-lightroom-classic-2023