Lightroom Tips
September 9, 2013
Todays exciting tip is tomorrows boring and well known fact.
With that thought firmly in mind, I am collecting exciting tips while they
are still exciting. If nothing else it helps me fix them in my mind.
This all began back in 2013.
Panorama stitching
This could not be easier. Be sure you are running the latest Lightroom.
(my old static license version 5 doesn't have this).
First select the photos. Click on the first, shift click on the rest.
Then right click to get a menu, select "Photo merge" and then "panorama"
on the submenu, and away you go. There is also HDR merge which I should
investigate.
Only import what you need right now
When you get started with lightroom, do not start by importing every photo you have ever
taken. Start with a recent or current shoot and then add shoots one by one as you have
reason to work with them. This was excellent and valuable advice and got me quickly
working with lightroom without getting bogged down.
On the other hand, don't forget someday to add all of your photos -- once you have
settled on a scheme to organize them.
Keyboard shortcuts
Note that upper and lower case usually (always?) do very different things.
"g" takes you to the grid view in the Library Module.
"l" cycles through 3 lights out settings (one of which is lights on).
"f" takes you to full screen.
Batch rename
Use Ctrl-A to select them all, then F2 brings up the rename dialog.
Exporting a bunch of images as JPEG
To export a whole gang of images as jpegs, you select them all (all of them you want to export anyway)
then use the same export dialog you would use to export one image as a jpeg. Control-A selects all.
Previous button
This applies a set of changes you made to one image to the next image you select.
See this Kloskowski video:
Moving directories
You must do this within lightroom. If you do move a folder outside of lightroom, you can
use "find missing folder" to reconnect lightroom to the images (if you know where you moved them).
Easier by far is just letting lightroom move the images. You simply drag and drop entire directories
using the left "Folders" panel. A trick here is that the folder you want to move into may not be
shown. Use "show parent folder" to solve this issue!! In one case lightroom did an import onto my
local drive, namely C:\Pictures\xxx in one case. I wanted to put this onto a network drive
called P:\lightroom\xxx. I already had P:\lightroom\zzz and other such folders, but lightroom was
just showing me "zzz", so I click on "zzz" with the right mouse, and once I select "show parent folder"
it shows me the lightroom folder -- I drag xxx there and voila!
Moving a bunch of photos between directories
The need to do this usually arises when I forget to download photos from a flash card and
reformat it. So I get two shoots in one directory after I import.
- Do this in grid mode.
- Make the target directory. Right click on the intended parent directory,
and you get a menu, the first entry says "Create folder inside ...".
- Select the photos you want to move. Click on the first, Shift click on the last.
- Drag and drop. Sounds simple, but this is what always gives me trouble.
Do not click on the frame around the photo, but depress the mouse on the
image itself and drag to the target directory on the list on the left.
You should see the cursor become a stack of photos as you drag.
- Do a rename of the moved photos. Control-A selects them all.
F2 brings up the rename dialog.
Moving a bunch of photos (better way 4-2023)
First select the photos in library mode that you want to move to a new directory.
Then pull the navigator thing in from the left, and click on the intended parent
directory (in my case 2023 and I want to create a new 2023_04_magic under that).
It offers the option "create new folder under 2023" in the menu that appears.
When you select this you get a dialog where you type the name of the new folder,
but there is a checkbox that says "move selected photos". You better have
already known about this and selected the photos. Click this box and then the
button to actually do it and you are done.
Change white balance for an entire shoot
For some reason (i.e. something I did and forgot about), my camera shot a bunch of
outdoor photos with white balance set Custom to 3500K or some such. I want to
convert them all to daylight (at least as a starting point). Select the some photo
(perhaps the first) in the develop module and change the white balance to what you
want. Then drop down to the filmstrip and type Ctrl-A to select them all.
Notice that there is a "Sync" button at the bottom of the screen, click this.
You get a big dialog with everything turned on. A button lets you turn everything
off, then select "white balance" and press the "do it now" button, and you are done.
Ratings
Matt Kloskowski (and Scott Kelby) recommend not using the 5 star rating system.
Their claim is that you will waste too much time worrying about rating each image.
Martin Evening says he does use the 5 star system, but pretty much just uses the
first 3 stars, saving 4 and 5 star ratings for phenomenal photos.
I am (for now), buying into Kelby's advice.
He and Kloskowski recommend using the "flag" system,
which leads to a three tier rating scheme.
If you flag the image, it is special.
If you mark it as a reject, then it is just that, a reject and will fairly soon be deleted.
If you do nothing to it, it is someplace in between and you aren't wasting time trying to rate it.
This may be good advice, I will have to see if it works for me.
I like it based on the fact that when I load myself down with some fussy task
(like rating hundreds of images on a 5-star system), I end up never doing it and then being guilt ridden.
To do this use "P" (for pick) to flag an image, "X" to mark it as a reject, right arrow to move to the next image.
Links to other peoples tips
Feedback? Questions?
Drop me a line!
Tom's Digital Photography Info / tom@mmto.org