Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: Thanks for develop preset. Is there a way to see (read) what this develop preset does without applying to an image?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Sort of. You can open the source file for a Develop preset with a text editor and read the details of the adjustments. The file can be a little cumbersome to read, however.

More Detail: When you save a preset in the Develop module (or export a Develop preset from Lightroom Classic) the result is an XMP file that contains the metadata related to the adjustments included with the preset. You can import presets obtained from others, but within Lightroom Classic there isn’t an easy way to determine which adjustments are included in the preset. You could reset the adjustments for a test image, apply the preset, and then note any adjustment settings that differ from the defaults, but this isn’t a very easy or reliable approach.

You can, however, review the source XMP file for the saved preset and read the details about the included adjustments. The details can be a little obscure, but they are there.

To review the contents of the saved preset you can open it in a text editor or word processor. Just be sure not to make any changes or re-save the file, as that may corrupt the preset.

On the Presets list on the left panel in the Develop module in Lightroom Classic you can right-click on any preset you’ve saved or imported (not those included with Lightroom Classic) and choose “Show in Finder” on Macintosh or “Show in Explorer” on Windows. That will open a window in your operating system showing the location where the preset is saved, with that preset highlighted.

You can open the XMP file with a basic text editor, and then read the details of the adjustment. Unless you’re familiar with the Extensible Markup Language (XML) formatting, this won’t necessarily be an easy task. But you fill find lines that indicate adjustment settings that are being modified by the saved preset, such as this:

crs:ColorNoiseReductionSmoothness=”80″

The above line references a change for the Smoothness slider for Color Noise Reduction to a value of 80, up from the default value of 50. Note, however, that some of the names of adjustments won’t be particularly obvious relative to the name of the slider or control in Lightroom Classic.

Obviously, it would be nice if Adobe provided an easier way to discover the contents of a Develop preset, since within Lightroom Classic you pretty much only have the name of the preset to go by. However, in the meantime reviewing the source XMP file does provide a reasonable solution.

Today’s Question: Can (or should) old Lightroom Classic catalog files be deleted?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, I do think that older catalog files should be deleted to avoid confusion and clutter, and to some extent to free up hard drive space. The only additional consideration is how soon those older catalog files should be deleted.

More Detail: In Lightroom Classic it is critically important to ensure you’re always working with the correct version of your catalog. In general, I recommend that photographers only use a single catalog to manage their photos with Lightroom Classic, so that basically means always working with the most recent catalog.

Over time you will also accumulate “extra” copies of your catalog, such as when the catalog file needs to be updated for a new version of Lightroom Classic. That was the case with the upgrade to Lightroom Classic version 11, for example. When your existing catalog is upgraded from version 10 to version 11, you’ll end up with a new catalog for version 11 but the existing catalog from version 10 will remain.

You will also accumulate multiple backup copies of your Lightroom Catalog, assuming you’re using the built-in catalog backup feature, which I strongly recommend making use of so that your catalog can be checked for errors and optimized as part of that backup process.

When it comes to deciding when to delete older catalogs, I recommend trying to find a balance between the potential utility versus the potential for confusion. For example, even if I were to completely lose all recent copies of my Lightroom Classic catalog, I don’t imagine I would ever want to recover from a backup that was created ten years ago. There would be so much recent information missing from that catalog that recovering from it wouldn’t be of much help.

I generally consider any catalog more than about one year old to be of minimal value to a photographer who is actively capturing new images. So, in general I would say it probably makes sense to delete catalogs that are older than about one year.

Of course, it is also a good idea to be somewhat conservative when deleting files that have potential value. Therefore, you might consider an intermediate step of moving files that could be deleted to an archival storage location. For example, as soon as a catalog is updated for a new version of Lightroom Classic you could move the previous version files to an archive folder. The backup copies of the catalog should also not be stored in the exact same folder as the current catalog (by default they are stored in a “Backups” folder within the folder that contains the catalog).

The key is to avoid confusion about which catalog is your “real” catalog, to avoid clutter related to your catalog, and to avoid consuming hard drive space unnecessarily. As long as your current catalog is working properly and you have several backup copies, older files can certainly be deleted or at least archived.

Today’s Question: I continue to scan in old paper photos to build up a digital archive of my travels past and present. The photos are 5×4 prints. I have made good progress with the Lightroom Classic to Photoshop workflow, but the problem of sharpness and noise remains. Would Topaz help? Or can you suggest anything extra/extraordinary in the Lightroom Classic to Photoshop process?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I think Lightroom Classic is very well suited to improving the overall look of these photos. For that purpose, I would focus on noise reduction and sharpening, as well as Texture, Clarity, and possibly Dehaze. If there are blemishes that need to be dealt with, I would primarily use Photoshop for that work.

More Detail: The first step here is to try to ensure you are getting the best original digital image from your analog originals. A flatbed scanner can do a good job in general, but you’ll actually likely get better results by photographing the originals. I recommend using a copy stand with lights set at a 45-degree angle above the original. I also recommend avoiding the use of glass over the original if possible, opting for a document holder that will hold by the edges to keep the print flat.

Once you have a digital image, of course, you’ll want to optimize that result. If there is color noise that can be handled very well with Lightroom Classic. I would use a moderately high value for Smoothness (around 75 or so is reasonable), a relatively low setting for Detail (generally under 10), and a moderate setting for Color (the actual noise reduction amount) as needed. The Color slider will probably call for anywhere from around 25 to perhaps as high as 75 depending on the source image.

Sharpening can be applied in the normal way but being careful not to increase the Amount too high, resulting in an enhancement of paper texture and grain, for example, rather than the overall sharpness. I would take a very modest approach to sharpening.

For the overall texture of the image, I would generally use a positive value for Clarity in order to enhance midtone contrast and perceived sharpness. Values of at least 20 and possibly much higher can be helpful. For some images you may also find that increasing the value for Dehaze helps to enhance contrast and perceived sharpness.

It is possible that a positive value for Texture could help to enhance fine detail and the overall appearance of sharpness. However, having scanned an analog print there’s a good chance that Texture will lead to problems. Instead, you might consider a slightly negative value for texture (perhaps around -10 depending on the image), with a positive value for Clarity. This will diminish fine detail from the paper and film grain, for example, while enhancing midtone contrast for the actual photo.

Obviously, the general adjustments such as Whites, Blacks, Highlights, and Shadows can also be helpful for these images. And as noted above, if there are blemishes you need to deal with those are probably best worked on in Photoshop, where among other things you have the Content-Aware technology available with several of the image cleanup tools.

Today’s Question: I often capture videos along with still photos, and then use those videos in slideshows. However, when I try to review the videos in Lightroom Classic, the playback is not smooth at all. Is there a way to fix that?

Tim’s Quick Answer: While you can adjust a couple of settings to potentially improve the smoothness of video playback in Lightroom Classic, I’ve often found that the best approach is to simply open the video directly through your operating system from Lightroom Classic. You can do this by right-clicking on the video you want to play and choosing “Show in Explorer” on Windows or “Show in Finder” on Macintosh, and then double-click on the selected video.

More Detail: Lightroom Classic tends to be relatively slow when it comes to playing videos, meaning that if you play a video within Lightroom Classic there’s a chance the playback won’t be smooth. This is especially true for videos with a very high resolution.

It could help to increase the size of the video cache, though in my experience this doesn’t generally provide a real benefit in terms of video playback. You can go to Edit > Preferences on Windows or Lightroom Classic > Preferences on Macintosh, then go to the Performance tab and increase the value for the Maximum Size under Video Cache Settings.

However, a more dependable solution is to simply play videos through your operating system rather than within Lightroom Classic. If you right-click on a video in the grid view display or on the filmstrip you can then select “Show in Explorer” on Windows or “Show in Finder” on Macintosh. This will open a window in your operating system showing the contents of the folder where the video is stored, with the video selected.

You can then double-click on the selected video file to open it in the default video player application, or right click to access the Open With menu to choose which application you want to use.

Today’s Question: I help manage our local camera club and I often have to make slideshows using other people’s photos. Many club members use Lightroom, so when they submit their photos and I import them into my Lightroom catalog, I also import all their keywords. I’m very fussy about my neatly organized keyword list, so after each import I have to find and delete all their keywords. It’s a pain in the neck! Is there a way to import images without the keywords, color, and star ratings?

Tim’s Quick Answer: This is actually a rare circumstance where I would suggest using a separate Lightroom Classic catalog expressly for camera club images. If the source images are proprietary raw captures, you could also delete the associated XMP sidecar files. For images of any supported file format, you could remove keywords before import using other software such as Adobe Bridge.

More Detail: I completely understand not wanting to commingle keywords or other metadata from images captured by other photographers versus your own. There are several approaches you could use here to help avoid importing keywords to your master catalog.

First, you could simply use a separate catalog for camera club photos. You could then import photos from club members, and as needed import copies of your own photos, into this catalog. You can then open the camera club catalog on an as-needed basis. Note that just to avoid confusion I always recommend setting your master catalog as the default catalog on the General tab of the Preferences dialog.

By using a separate catalog for camera club photos, that catalog could obviously end up with a wide variety of keywords and other metadata that isn’t of interest to you, but that won’t affect your master catalog. You just need to be sure you’re working with the correct catalog depending on the current task at hand.

If the images being submitted are proprietary raw captures, any keywords the photographer previously added would be contained within an XMP sidecar file rather than the original capture file. In this scenario you could simple remove the XMP sidecar files from the folder containing the raw captures you are importing. Those imported raw captures would then only contain the metadata that was added by the camera, not later in the photographer’s workflow.

For file formats other than proprietary raw captures, such as JPEG, TIFF, or DNG image, the keywords and other metadata updates will be contained directly within the files themselves. In this case the best option would be to remove the metadata using other software before importing the photos into Lightroom Classic.

For example, you could browse the images with Adobe Bridge, select all of them, and clear out the Keywords field. Once the changes are applied, you could import those photos into Lightroom Classic and no keywords would be added as part of the import.

All things considered I think the simplest approach is to simply use a separate catalog for the camera club photos. As longtime readers know very well, I am a strong advocate for using a single catalog to manage all photos, so this is a rare recommendation indeed!

Today’s Question: You recommended a BenQ monitor [https://bhpho.to/3s9zB79] with resolution of 1920×1200 in spite of the fact that there are monitors with greater resolution. Could you comment on the tradeoffs?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I personally prefer a monitor that isn’t especially large, since I tend to sit relatively close to the display. I also prefer using a moderate resolution so that interface elements on the display are not tiny.

More Detail: There are a variety of monitor displays available now that support 4K resolution, which are approximately 4,000 pixels across. Even higher resolutions are possible as well.

While a monitor with a very high resolution can produce a beautiful display, that isn’t always conducive to working on a computer. At very high resolution, for example, interface elements including graphics and text can be quite small. Some people are comfortable with such a display, but many (including me) are not.

Because I sit relatively close to my monitor display, I prefer a 24-inch display. Keep in mind that part of the reason I’m probably more comfortable with this is that when I’m not at home I am looking at a 13-inch laptop display. A relatively small display only exacerbates the issue of interface elements being very small when displayed at a high resolution.

Of course, if you prefer a higher-resolution display, there are many great options available. I do recommend evaluating such a display in person first to get a sense of the impact of the high resolution. I also recommend that if you prefer a display with a 4K resolution you will probably want to opt for a display size of around 27 to 32 inches.

So, while I favor a display that is a little on the smaller side with a moderate resolution, such as the BenQ SW240 (https://bhpho.to/3s9zB79) I had previously recommended, that doesn’t make this an ideal fit for all photographers.

If you prefer a larger display that supports a high 4K resolution, I suggest looking at these models as potential options to consider:

27-inch BenQ PD2700U: https://bhpho.to/3viwps1
32-inch BenQ PD3200U: https://bhpho.to/3HqdYnt

Today’s Question: I’m in the market for neutral density (ND) filters. I noticed a Variable ND filter that you can rotate (much like a polarizing filter) and dial in anywhere from ND8 to ND2000 [three stops to eleven stops of density]! Gimmick or purchase worthy?

Tim’s Quick Answer: While variable neutral density filters certainly aren’t a gimmick, I don’t really recommend them because they be a little tricky to use and can produce a form of problematic vignetting within the image.

More Detail: I absolutely understand and appreciate the appeal of variable neutral density (ND) filters. Instead of carrying several solid ND filters you can use a single filter that could run the range between about two or three stops and as much as ten or eleven stops. However, there are some problems with variable ND filters that cause me to prefer solid ND filters.

The most significant problem with variable ND filters in my view is that they can produce problematic vignetting and crosshatching artifacts in images. In some cases, for example, you might see a darkened “X” shape across the photo. These visual artifacts can be very difficult to correct later in your workflow.

In addition, variable ND filters can be a little challenging to work with. While there are marks on the outside of the filters that provide some sense of how much you’re blocking the light, you don’t know exactly how much light is being blocked. At lower density settings you can often just depend upon the metering in your camera. But at greater density settings the metering may not be reliable.

I very much prefer being able to configure a good exposure, and then add a solid ND filter of a known density and adjust the exposure settings accordingly. This can’t really be done with a variable ND filter.

So, I very much prefer carrying a couple solid ND filters rather than a single variable ND filter. Note, by the way, that while a variable ND filter generally offers a pretty good range of stops of light it can block, I only find that I need a couple of solid ND filters.

I typically carry a 6-stop (https://timgrey.me/6stop) and a 10-stop (https://timgrey.me/10stop) solid ND filter. If I need the equivalent of a filter with less density I can simply raise the ISO setting to compensate.

Today’s Question: Does Photoshop compress a JPG each time it’s saved, causing continued loss of quality? Do image viewer apps not have this problem?

Tim’s Quick Answer: There is only a cumulative degradation in image quality for a JPEG that is both modified and saved. Simply saving repeatedly without changing the image will not cause further degradation, and simply viewing the image will not cause degradation.

More Detail: JPEG files are almost always saved with “lossy” compression applied, meaning there is some loss of fidelity and quality for an image that is saved as a JPEG image. This degradation from compression obviously applies the first time an image is created, such as when you capture a JPEG image with a camera or save an existing image as a JPEG for the first time.

If you open and re-save a JPEG image without making any changes, the source pixel values have not changed and therefore the JPEG encoding will not be changed, assuming the file settings (such as the Quality setting) have not been changed.

Only when you make changes to a JPEG image and then save it again will there be a cumulative degradation in image quality. Opening an image to view it and then closing without making any changes will not alter the JPEG image. Furthermore, opening a JPEG image and then saving repeatedly without actually making any changes to the image will not cause any degradation. You’d simply be saving the exact same file repeatedly.

The reality is that the cumulative degradation of a JPEG image is not generally a significant issue that you would be able to actually notice even with close examination, provided you used a relatively high setting for Quality. However, because of the general issues of JPEG compression degrading image quality, I don’t recommend using JPEG as a format for saving files that will be modified.

If you are capturing with the raw capture format and need to create a derivative image for editing, I recommend saving as a TIFF or Photoshop PSD file. If you are working with a JPEG capture, I still recommend converting to TIFF or PSD for your working file. I only recommend saving to JPEG when creating a derivative image for sharing with others.

Today’s Question: When I back up my files, I use EaseUS Todo Backup Free and it backs up all the docs, photos, and music I select and it consolidates them into one file, not individual files like a copy function would do. Does this consolidating and compressing create problems for the photo files in particular? With this system I cannot extract a single file but have to restore all the files backed up by the software which must decompress the files in storage.

Tim’s Quick Answer: Using backup software that compresses the source files into one (or more) compressed archives isn’t a problem for the files themselves, as they will be a perfect match to the original if restored from that backup. The challenge, however, is that a potentially time-consuming restore process is required, which is why I prefer a synchronization-based approach to backing up, in my case using GoodSync (http://timgrey.me/greybackup).

More Detail: As far as I’m concerned, any backup that enables you to recover lost or damaged files counts as a “good” backup. However, some backups are better than others.

I very much prefer (and recommend) a synchronization approach to backing up photos and other important data. This approach provides a number of benefits, by virtue of the fact that the backup will be a perfect match to the original files.

First, with a synchronization backup recovery is very straightforward. For example, I backup my “Photos” hard drive to a “Photos Backup” drive. If my Photos drive were to ever fail, I could simply replace it with the Photos Backup drive.

In addition, with a synchronization approach you can always boost your confidence in the backup by browsing the backup directly. In the above example I could simply connect and browse my Photos Backup drive and visually confirm that it is indeed a perfect match to the Photos drive.

A synchronized backup is similar in concept to a common approach to an incremental backup, meaning each time you perform a backup only the files that have actually been changed since the last backup will need to be updated for the backup. However, with a compressed incremental backup the restore process can require considerable time, since the original backup plus each incremental change must be processed. That is not an issue for a synchronized backup.

There are a number of software solutions for backing up via synchronization. The software I use and recommend is called GoodSync, which you can learn more about here:

http://timgrey.me/greybackup