Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: In response to your answer about photos stored in iCloud rather than on the iPhone, it seems to me that Apple is intentionally making it difficult to get photos out of the cloud. Is that your sense as well?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, I absolutely believe that most companies offering cloud-based storage solutions intentionally make it difficult to remove data from that online storage. In most cases this seems to be aimed at ensuring users will need to start paying for more cloud-based storage space more quickly.

More Detail: I have become increasingly convinced (and frustrated) that companies offering cloud-based storage solutions take steps to ensure you use up greater storage capacity, so you’ll need to pay a higher recurring subscription fee for the storage.

This often takes the form of making it difficult to remove files from cloud-based storage, such as by making it difficult to easily and safely download the content so it can be stored locally instead of in the cloud. It can also take the form of defaulting to the use of cloud-based storage rather than local storage, or prompting you to store more files in the cloud.

If cloud-based storage makes sense for you, then it can be very helpful. For example, some photographers prefer the cloud-based storage employed by the cloud-focused version of Lightroom. Other photographers, such as myself and many others, prefer to manage the storage of our photos locally, preferring Lightroom Classic or Adobe Bridge to manage that local storage, for example.

There is certainly a convenience aspect to storing photos and other data in the cloud, such as to make those files more easily accessible from virtually anywhere. And to be fair, in many cases the subscription fees for additional cloud-based storage are often reasonable. However, I do with that companies offering cloud-based storage solutions were more transparent about the options available, and made it easier to migrate away from cloud-based storage for those that decide to make this change.

Today’s Question: I have been unable to download photos from my iPhone or iPad into Lightroom. Only one or two appear, despite there being a few thousand. Is this problem unique to me? Is there a solution?

Tim’s Quick Answer: It sounds like most of your photos are currently being stored in the cloud rather than on your devices. You’ll need to download the photos to the device before they can be discovered by Lightroom.

More Detail: When you enable iCloud synchronization for photos on an iOS device, the primary storage for your photos becomes Apple’s servers rather than your device. If the storage is getting full on one or more of your devices, the original photos will be removed from the device to free up space. It will still appear that the photos are there, meaning you’re able to see the images, but the source files aren’t actually on the device.

When photos are stored in the cloud rather than on your device, there will be a small cloud icon on the photo. This is the indication that the photos are not stored locally, but are stored in the cloud via Apple’s servers.

In the Settings app on your device you can go to your iCloud account and select Photos, you can choose the “Download and Keep Originals” option. However, this requires that you have enough storage space on your device for the photos to be downloaded. If you don’t have enough space you could remove other apps or data to make enough space available.

You can also download photos from the cloud using the Photos app on your computer, or by signing in to iCloud.com. However, you are limited to selecting and downloading less than 1,000 at a time, so you may need to go through several steps to get all your photos downloaded.

Once you have your photos downloaded either to your device or to your computer, they will be available locally so you can import them into Lightroom, for example.

Today’s Question: If you have taken a photo and want to make a print, but it has a blown-out highlights area, what will that look like on a print and is there anything that can be done in Lightroom Classic or Photoshop to fix it? I’ve been told that blown out highlights are unrecoverable, but in this time of AI has that changed?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Areas of a photo that are blown out will have no ink on the paper in the print, causing the area to look odd both in terms of tone and texture. This can be fixed by either pulling back the white point or using image cleanup techniques to fill in the area.

More Detail: When areas of an image are blown out to pure white, there is no texture in those areas. When printed, these blown out areas of the photo will not have any ink on the paper. That results in a complete lack of texture in the area, but also means the paper in that area will be exposed. This can look a bit odd, because the texture and degree of gloss can vary somewhat significantly between areas with ink versus no ink.

There are two basic ways to resolve this issue in the print. The first (and simpler) approach is to pull back the whites so that areas that are pure white are a very bright shade of gray instead. This can be done by reducing the value for the Whites slider in Lightroom Classic or Camera Raw. You could also adjust the white slider for Output Levels with a Levels adjustment in Photoshop. The result is that there will be ink on the paper in the areas that are blown out, but there still won’t be any texture in those areas.

Therefore, in many cases the better approach is to fill the blown-out areas using image cleanup techniques. This can be done with the Healing tool (with the Content-Aware option) in Lightroom Classic, or with the Spot Healing Brush tool or the Content-Aware Fill command in Photoshop.

If the blown-out areas are relatively small, image cleanup techniques can work remarkably well. If the areas are relatively large, it can be a little more difficult to clean up the area in a way that looks natural. However, with a bit of work you can fill those areas in so they will look better in the final print, to the point that (hopefully) nobody would recognize that any work had been done in those areas at all.

Today’s Question: Can you explain how to expand the canvas in Photoshop for those of us that placed our subject too close to the edge?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The primary method I recommend for extending the canvas for an image in Photoshop involves copying a section of pixels along the edge, flipping those pixels, and using those pixels to extend the image.

More Detail: There are, of course, a variety of ways you could approach the task of extending an image in Photoshop, such as when you have a subject that is a little too close to the edge of the frame. You could simply extend the canvas, for example, and then fill that area using Content-Aware Fill.

However, in most cases I find that duplicating pixels from the image for the purpose of extending the canvas provides a simpler and more seamless solution.

To get started, use the Rectangular Marquee tool to create a selection of the area between the subject and the edge of the photo. I recommend starting the selection outside a corner of the image, and then drag to the opposite side outside the photo. The selection should include the entire edge of the photo and not include any of the subject.

With the selection active, click on the thumbnail for the layer you want to copy pixels from on the Layers panel to make that layer active. This will often be the Background image layer, for example. Then from the menu choose Layer > New > Layer via Copy to copy the selected pixels on to a new layer.

You’ll then need to flip the new layer you just created so that the edge of the new layer will match up with the existing edge of the image. If you copied pixels from the left or right side of the image, go to the menu and choose Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. If you copied pixels from the top or bottom of the image, choose Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical from the menu.

Next, select the Move tool, and drag the layer you created by copying selected pixels outside the image area. Drag directly outward on the side you copied, so that for example if you copied pixels on the right edge of the image you’ll drag the new layer outside the image on the right side. Make sure that the layer aligns with the outer edge of the photo. For example, if you duplicated on the right side you want the left side of the new layer to align with the right side of the image, with the top and bottom edges of the layer aligned with the top and bottom of the image.

To reveal the canvas extension, go to the menu and choose Image > Reveal All. This will expand the canvas to include the new pixels that you moved outside the image area, so you’re able to see the full expanded image.

At this point you may need to do a little image cleanup work to get a better blending of the textures where the edges of the two layers align. The fact that the pixels match up there is mostly a good thing, but it can lead to some odd visual artifacts that you’ll want to remove with image cleanup techniques, such as by using the Spot Healing Brush tool with the Content-Aware option selected.

Today’s Question: I was applying a targeted adjustment in Lightroom Classic to enhance contrast for the sky, and in doing so wanted to adjust the sliders for Whites and Blacks. However, the clipping preview that normally appears by holding the Alt/Option key didn’t work. Is this feature not available for targeted adjustments?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The more detailed clipping preview accessible by holding the Alt/Option key on the keyboard is not available within the masking features for targeted adjustments in Lightroom Classic. The only option is to use the clipping preview display available in the Histogram section.

More Detail: When adjusting the overall tone for a photo using the sliders in the Basic section of the right panel in the Develop module in Lightroom Classic, you can hold the Alt/Option key on the keyboard to see a detailed clipping preview display. This display makes it easy to determine when you are losing detail in the brightest highlights or darkest shadows based on the adjustment you’re applying.

When using the targeted adjustments available with the masking feature of Lightroom Classic, however, this detailed clipping preview is not available. In other words, holding the Alt/Option key will not provide you with any clipping preview at all when working with the masking controls.

However, the clipping preview options are still available in the Histogram section at the top of the right panel. You can click the triangle at the top-left of the histogram display to enable the clipping preview for the shadows and click the triangle at the top-right of the histogram for highlight clipping.

The clipping preview enabled with these controls in the Histogram section are not as detailed as those available by holding the Alt/Option key with the tonal adjustments in the Basic section for global adjustments. However, these options do provide a basic ability to evaluate when and to what degree you are losing detail in the highlights or shadows when applying a targeted adjustment.

Today’s Question: I have a pretty fast computer, but when I try to play videos in Lightroom Classic they don’t play smoothly. Is there a way to improve video playback in Lightroom Classic?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Lightroom Classic does not perform great in general when it comes to playing video. I recommend opening video clips you want to review in the operating system from within Lightroom Classic for playback.

More Detail: Even with a very fast computer, video playback in Lightroom Classic will often be less than smooth. Fortunately, it is very easy to open videos from Lightroom Classic through your operating system, so you can use an application that is better suited for video playback to review your videos.

The first step to opening a video from Lightroom Classic is to reveal the source video file. To do so, right click on the thumbnail for a video in Lightroom Classic and from the popup menu choose “Show in Finder” on Macintosh or “Show in Explorer” on Windows. This will open a window for the folder that contains the video, with the video itself highlighted.

You can then either double-click on the video to open it with the default application, or right-click on the video to select an option to open with a different application. Using this approach will ensure you’re able to view the video with great performance using an application that is better suited to playing videos compared to Lightroom Classic.

Today’s Question: I use several cameras with different sensor sizes, and therefore different factors for multiplying the focal length. Is there a way to display the 35mm equivalent focal length for all cameras in Lightroom Classic?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Lightroom Classic is only able to display the 35mm equivalent focal length if that information was written to metadata by the camera. For supported cameras, you can view this information in the “Focal Length 35mm” metadata field.

More Detail: Lightroom Classic will not automatically calculate the equivalent focal length for cameras with different sensor sizes. Some cameras, however, write the full-frame (35mm) equivalent focal length to metadata. For those cameras, you can view the equivalent focal length in metadata within Lightroom Classic.

Unfortunately, many (if not most) cameras do not write this metadata to the photos. For example, as far as I am aware none of the Canon or Nikon cameras with sensors smaller than full frame write the equivalent focal length to metadata. Therefore, the utility of this field is limited depending on which camera models you’re using.

If you’re using a camera that updates the “Focal Length 35mm” field (or if you want to check to see if your camera does) you can enable the display of this field in Lightroom Classic.

The first step is to switch to the Default metadata display configuration using the popup to the left of the Metadata heading on the right panel in the Library module in Lightroom Classic. Next, click the Customize button at the bottom of the Metadata section. This will bring up the “Customize Metadata Default Panel” dialog, where you can turn on the checkboxes for the metadata fields you want to have displayed in the Metadata section when you’ve enabled the Default view option.

Once you’ve turned on (or off) the desired checkboxes, you can also click the Arrange button to adjust the order of the metadata fields. You can then click the Save button in the Arrange Metadata Default Panel dialog, or the Done button in the Customize Metadata Default Panel dialog, and the Metadata section will be updated based on the changes you made.

This can enable you to display the “Focal Length 35mm” field to view the 35mm equivalent focal length from metadata, but again that information will only display if it was recorded by your camera. But you can also update the overall list of metadata fields displayed in the Default configuration based on your preferences.

Today’s Question: I am unable to pull the corners of a crop outside of the image canvas in Lightroom Classic, yet it is easy to do in Photoshop. When straightening an image this is especially applicable because I want to keep all that I have in the frame. I can use content aware or clone the blank spots later. Is there a way to enable this?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can enable the option to crop beyond the image area in Lightroom Classic by reducing the value for the Scale slider in the Transform section of the right panel in the Develop module. However, you can’t alter the pixels beyond the image area in Lightroom Classic, so you would need Photoshop or other software for that purpose.

More Detail: By default, Lightroom Classic does not enable you to extend the crop box outside the actual image area. This is aimed at preventing you from having empty areas around the outer edges of the photo, but of course considering you can use image-cleanup techniques to fill in those areas, it would be reasonable to be able to extend the crop beyond the image area.

Fortunately, you can work around this limitation by reducing the value for the Scale slider found in the Transform section of the right panel in the Develop module. Reducing the value for Scale will effectively zoom the image out a little bit. You can then go back to the Crop tool and make sure the “Constrain to Image” checkbox is turned off. At that point you’ll be able to move the crop box beyond the edge of the image.

However, you still can’t alter the pixels that were created beyond the crop box in this scenario. Therefore, to perform image cleanup work to fill in those pixels, or otherwise alter the appearance of that area, you would need to send the image to Photoshop or another external editor. For this reason, there isn’t much advantage of using the above workaround to be able to extend the canvas area for an image within Lightroom Classic.

Today’s Question: You mentioned saving selections as alpha channels in Photoshop. Is this intended to save the work to return to that photograph for continued editing, or can you save the selection and use it in a new image?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The main reason for saving a selection in Photoshop is so you can return to that selection either to refine it or to use it as the basis of some other work. That said, it is actually possible to transfer a selection to a different image as well.

More Detail: Generally speaking, I don’t actually find it necessary to use the Save Selection command (found on the Select menu), which will preserve the selection as an alpha channel on the Channels panel. Note that with a selection saved as an alpha channel you need to save the image in a format that supports alpha channels, such as TIFF or PSD.

The reason I don’t generally need to save a selection is that the selection will most often be used as the basis of a layer mask, either for an adjustment layer or with an image layer in a composite image. That layer mask in effect represents a saved selection, even though it isn’t saved in the same way as with the Save Selection command.

Once a selection has been used as the basis of a layer mask, you can always load a selection based on that layer mask by holding the Ctrl key on Windows or the Command key on Macintosh while clicking on the thumbnail for the layer mask on the Layers panel. This is similar to loading a saved selection with the Load Selection command.

Of course, there may be situations where you’re working on a selection that is quite complex, and you want to save your work in stages along the way. In that type of situation, you can use the Select > Save Selection command to preserve the selection in the current state. You can then return to the image later to load the selection and continue refining it. Of course, in many cases I will actually create a layer mask based on the selection even if it is incomplete, and then continue working to refine the layer mask rather than a saved selection.

It is also possible to effectively transfer a selection to a different image, though this isn’t an especially useful feature since in many cases the destination image might be at least slightly different, requiring a different selection. However, you can save a selection to a different document.

With both images open, you can start by creating a selection in the first image. Then choose Select > Save Selection from the menu. In the Save Selection dialog you can select from the currently open images on the Document popup. Type a name for the new selection in the Name field and click the OK button. The selection from the current document will then be saved as an alpha channel in the document you selected in the Save Selection dialog. While there aren’t a large number of situations where most photographers would put this feature to use, it certainly can be helpful in some cases.

Today’s Question: I need to edit some JPEG files provided by a client and return modified JPEG files. I know that generally every time you save a JPEG it incurs some slight degradation. Is there any combination of Adobe Camera Raw/Lightroom Classic Develop followed by Photoshop editing that would not incur this degradation or would have the least degradation?

Tim’s Quick Answer: My recommendation is to minimize the amount of editing that is done while the images are in the JPEG format. In other words, I would convert to a different format and only save again as JPEG when you’re completely finished and ready to deliver the files to the client.

More Detail: The first thing I would do is see if the source images are available in something other than JPEG files. If the images were captured as JPEG images in the first place, then you should just obtain the JPEG images that have not been edited by the client. But if they were captured in a different format or scanned from slides or negatives, I would get the original images rather than JPEG copies.

If the images are only available as JPEG images, I suggest converting to another file format first to avoid the potential for cumulative degradation caused by JPEG compression. To be fair, this degradation is minimal, and only occurs when you have modified the image and then re-saved the result as a JPEG. That’s because when the pixel values have changed the image must be rendered again with the JPEG compression applied, which degrades image quality to some extent.

If you’re working in Lightroom Classic you can select the JPEG images and choose Photo > Edit In > Edit in Photoshop from the menu. In the dialog that appears, choose “Edit a Copy” and click the Edit button. This will open the image in Photoshop, creating a derivative TIFF or PSD file based on the current setting in Preferences. You can then perform all the work in Photoshop, preferably with a non-destructive workflow such as by using adjustment layers and additional image layers. When you’re finished, simply choose File > Save from the menu (not Save As or Save a Copy) and then close the image. You can export the result from Lightroom Classic as a JPEG to deliver to the client.

If you’re working directly in Photoshop you can simply open the JPEG images, and immediately use the File > Save As command to save them as a TIFF or PSD file. Once again I would suggest working non-destructively, and then save the updated image with layers intact. You can then use the File > Save a Copy command to save an additional copy of each image as a JPEG for the client.

The main thing to avoid in this context is to continually be updating the pixel values for a JPEG image and then saving the updates along the way, causing the compression to be applied to the image multiple times. Again, this degradation is very minimal in general, but I still consider it a best practice to work on images in a format other than JPEG to avoid the degradation and help ensure maximum image quality.