Why do you need this update? If you have used the latest Lightroom 4 Develop controls on an image and then open it in Photoshop Elements, it is likely Photoshop Elements won’t show all of the Develop edits made in Lightroom. Update Camera Raw and this problem should go away. It also adds new camera support and other improvements.

TPG-Elemental Lightroom plugin users: you need this update to take full advantage of the plugin when using these product versions.

Currently these Camera Raw 6.7 download links aren’t showing on the main Photoshop Elements update pages (Macintosh and Windows so users might not be aware of the release. Hence the PSA.

Unfortunately users of Photoshop Elements 9 and older are out of luck as the latest Camera Raw version only supports the latest Photoshop Elements version.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Public Service Announcement for users of Lightroom 4 and Photoshop Elements 10

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Still some users choose to go to the effort of rolling their own Lightroom catalog backup solution instead. Why? There are many potential reasons but two that stood out for me were the amount of disk space the uncompressed backups consumed, and the awkward steps required to trigger a backup outside of your regular schedule.

My TPG LR Backup plugin was created to help resolve these backup limitations. It reduces the disk space consumed by Lightroom’s catalog backups. And now it can also help trigger those catalog backups whenever Lightroom 4 users need them!

With the introduction of Lightroom 4 my plugin can now schedule a catalog backup at the next shutdown, regardless of your regular backup schedule. In fact you don’t even need a backup schedule to use this new feature. Once the TPG LR Backup plugin is installed you simply open up the File –> Plug-in Extras menu and select the new Offer to Backup Catalog at Next Shutdown menu item. Once you OK the resultant dialog Lightroom will now show you the standard catalog backup dialog when you next exit Lightroom. Simple!

Currently the only other ways I know of to backup a Lightroom catalog on demand are to:

• temporarily change Lightroom’s catalog backup schedule to “Every time”, and then reset it to the normal schedule after you next restart Lightroom
• set Lightroom’s catalog backup schedule to “Every day” or “Every time” and cancel the backup dialog when you don’t need to run a backup
• copy the catalog file to a new location while Lightroom isn’t running

I know which approach I’d rather use to keep my Lightroom catalog safe!

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Easily backup your Lightroom 4 catalog on demand

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Overview

This latest version adds a number of significant features to the product:

• A Map module for managing location information
• A Book module for creating photo books
• Advances in image processing via a new Process Version (PV 2012) and controls
• Soft Proofing for a better colour management workflow
• Emailing images directly from within Lightroom
• Enhanced Video capabilities and format support
• Enhanced DNG capabilities and workflows
• New Adobe Revel (formerly Adobe Carousel – see here for details) export workflow

More details about these and other features later.

With the latest beta the minimum system requirements have been changed with support being dropped for some older operating systems. The new minimum requirements are:

Mac:

• Multicore Intel® processor with 64-bit support
• Mac OS X v10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) or v10.7 (Lion)
• 2GB of RAM
• 1GB of available hard-disk space
• 1024×768 display

Windows:

• Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 processor
• Microsoft® Windows Vista® with Service Pack 2 or Windows 7 with Service Pack 1
• 2GB of RAM
• 1GB of available hard-disk space
• 1024×768 display

If your system is up to specification why not start the download while we dive deeper into what is included in the beta?

My Five Favourite Features

Rather than provide an exhaustive overview of the beta I’ll be talking though some of my favourite features instead. At the end of the post I’ve include links to other Lightroom 4 beta resources that will help fill in the gaps for those interested in the features not covered here.

Enhanced Video Capabilities and Format Support

While Lightroom 3 already includes some support for video files this beta has significantly expanded those:

• Lightroom is now able to directly playback video within the Library module
• Videos can be trimmed using the new controls visible within the Library module’s Loupe view
• Most Quick Develop tools can be used for processing a video, including the application of presets. See screen shot below for further details.
• Publish and Export services now fully support video and can optionally convert to H.264 or DPX formats during export.
  

   

   

   

   

• Most popular DSLR, compact camera and smart phone video formats can now being imported, including 3GP and AVCHD.
• The video frame (“Poster Frame”) used for the Library module’s thumbnail can be chosen by the user. 
• Individual frames can be extracted from a video as standalone images.
• A new Video Metadata Tagset has been added to the Library module’s Metadata panel, containing a variety of new video specific metadata fields. For the metadata geeks these fields appear to be a subset of those defined by the XMP Dynamic Media namespace.

These additions make Lightroom a much more useful part of a photographer’s video workflow. It is now capable of importing, playing, trimming, processing and publishing videos so could become the main video digital asset management tool for many photographers.

Lightroom’s video editing capabilities are no match for a full Non Linear Editor (NLE) but even larger projects requiring more full featured video editing tools could benefit from Lightroom’s video management and publishing capabilities. Smaller video processing tasks (e.g. cleaning up and publishing a video from your smartphone) can be quickly completed in Lightroom’s Library module.

TIP: When attempting multiple edits to a video at once it can be useful to capture a “Poster Frame”, use the Develop module to adjust the captured frame to the desired look, create a preset from the edits then use the Library module’s Quick Develop to apply the preset to the whole video.

Map Module

The beta adds a new Map module for working with location information in a visual and engaging way:

• View recorded locations for images directly within Lightroom, using satellite, street, or terrain maps
• Add location information to photos by dragging and dropping them only the map
• Save favourite map locations for use when searching for or tagging image locations (see screen shot below).
• Manage publication of location information selectively, through checking the private flag on a saved location, or broadly by checking the Remove Location Info option in your Publish or Export service.
• Load GPX tracklogs and use them to tag images with matching date/time stamps (see screen shot below).

The Lightroom Map module is fun to play with, but strangely enough it is the location information privacy features that are making GPS location capture a more regular part of my photography. I try not to attach location information to photos taken at the homes of my friends and family for privacy reasons but I frequently forget to turn tracklogs on or off and it made this a fairly frustrating experience. Now I can save these locations in Lightroom, and enable the privacy setting to hide their location information, and always capture location information safe in the knowledge this will never be published outside of my personal catalog.

Advances in Image Processing (Process Version 2012)

Lightroom 3 introduced some major improvements to the product’s image processing capabilities (officially known as “Process Version 2010”), and Lightroom 4 has taken this even further with the new Process Version 2012 and associated controls:

• Controls in the Basic Panel have been simplified (no more Fill Light or Brightness adjustments) (see screen shot below)
• Content aware Shadow and Highlight controls extract greater dynamic range from a single image
• Improvements to the operation of the Clarity and Chromatic Aberration controls
• Additional settings can be applied as Local Adjustments, including Noise Reduction, Temperature and Tint (White Balance), Shadows, Highlights and Moire (see screen shot below)
• Curve adjustments can now be applied per channel
• Soft proofing is now available in the Develop module (a separate headline feature)

The new controls may require some time to get used to but the results that can be achieved make this well worth the effort!

Book Module

Lightroom 4 adds the oft requested photo book creation feature via its new Book module:

• New Book module helps users create Blurb and PDF photo books directly within Lightroom
• Auto layout feature quickly creates initial book layouts using your preferred presets
• Easily adjust page and photo locations via drag and drop
• ~180 page layouts have been built-in for use in your creations
• A Favourites feature is available for easy access to your preferred page layouts
• Advanced layout, formatting and type features are included to give you the flexibility to customise your photo book’s appearance
• Easily add photo metadata (e.g. captions) to your pages
• Tight integration is provided to the Blurb book printing service allowing you to prepare, cost and upload your book directly within Lightroom

Initially the Book module will provide deep integration with the Blurb book printing service only, but I suspect this will expand over time just as Lightroom 3’s tethering feature started with a restricted set of camera makes and models and slowly expanded from there.

Personally I’m looking forward to spending more time with PDF photo book creation, to produce electronic photo books to share online with family and friends or view on my tablet.

JDI (“Just Do It”) UI Refinements

In addition to all of the major features added by the beta, there are a number of small refinements that help make the product more usable and deserve calling out. Some that I personally appreciate:

• Develop preset lists displayed by the Import dialog and Quick Develop panel are now hierarchical, making large sets of Develop presets (e.g. collections bought from third parties) much more usable.
• Metadata Status can now be used in Smart Collections and the Library module’s Filter bar. Very handy for those who don’t use the “Automatically save to XMP” preference but still want their Develop settings saved to their images once they have finished with a set of images.
• Additional options for restricting metadata Published or Exported with your images (e.g. “All except Camera & Camera Raw Info”). 

Lightroom Beta Learning Resources

To help get you started with the Lightroom 4 beta Adobe has provided a number of resources:

• Beta download site on Adobe Labs
• Forums for discussing the beta
• Official post announcing the beta and the features it offers. There is also a list of resources available regarding the beta, including a number of non-English resources for our international friends.
• Lightroom video channel on YouTube

Lightroom regulars have also been preparing learning resources so if you are looking for additional information I’d recommend checking out the following:

• Victoria Bampton’s Lightroom Queen site will have an exhaustive “What’s New” post and an updated keyboard shortcuts sheet.
• John Beardsworth has launched his new Lightroom Solutions site and will be covering the beta. I’m particularly looking forward to his thoughts on the new Book module.
• Laura Shoe will be covering the beta on her blog and has a knack for being able to explain product features and usage in an easy to understand fashion.
• Usual suspects Rob Sylvan (Lightroomers), Gene McCullagh (Lightroom Secrets), and Sean McCormack (Pixiq) will be providing What’s New posts and more content over the next few weeks.
• Andrew Rodney (Digital Dog) provides a  colour geek’s view of Lightroom’s new Softproofing feature
• If you prefer your beta information in video form then check out David Marx’s contributions at The Lightroom Lab and Terry White’s walkthru of the beta.

I’m sure lots more great content will be coming from these Lightroom legends over the coming weeks!

Hopefully this post has piqued your interest and you will try out the Lightroom 4 public beta. Have fun experimenting with the latest and greatest imaging tool from Adobe, and please let us know either in the comments or official forums about your personal experiences with the beta!

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Adobe Releases Lightroom 4 Beta!

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Personally I used to find it daunting to sit down to edit a largish photo shoot. Confidence in your critical judgement and editing process is something that doesn’t come easy to everyone and as with most things it takes practice to develop. When you shoot irregularly it can be difficult to build up that experience and a repeatable process you can be confident in. That is why I found this post on Chase Jarvis’s blog so intriguing.

I’m a mere mortal. I don’t have to deal with 15000 photo shoots, and it is rare I have any larger than 500. And the post isn’t the first article or book I’ve seen discussing volume photo rating and culling. But it did resonate with me for a number of reasons:

• it requires multiple passes over a shoot. Initially this felt inefficient but I’m seeing the wisdom of it now. It really helps develop a sense of the whole shoot while cutting down on the temptation to double back and second guess myself I experience when trying to use a single pass approach. Multiple passes help you gain confidence you are making the right choices and can be quicker in the long run.
• each pass through the shoot indicates a speed it should be performed at, not just the type of photo you are trying to eliminate during the pass. It helps remind me to spend less time agonising over the photos that never had a chance of making it anyway.
• the way Scott presented the process made it feel real and achievable. Sometimes a clinically described process makes sense but you trip over the details when trying to implement it. No such issues encountered here.

Scott uses Aperture when describing his photo editing process but I found it quite easy to implement using Lightroom. Some suggestions for those interested in trying it out:

• you might already (like me) be using stars as a permanent rating system for your photos. This isn’t a problem – you can use both rating schemes together! Pick a label colour and keep it just for your bulk photo editing process and use this new star rating system with that colour label only. When you have finished editing the shoot change the label applied to the photos and reset the star ratings to align with your permanent rating system. I recommend using the purple label colour, as it is the only label without a keyboard shortcut so is a perfect choice for setting as your initial, unprocessed colour label via an import preset.
• you might be tempted to use pick flags (pick, unflagged, rejected) and the Refine Photos command instead of stars. While this could work I’d suggest only trying it after you are thoroughly versed with the process and confident you can edit a complete shoot in a single session. If nothing else it would be difficult to remember which pass you were working on when you next open this shoot, and thus what the pick flag signifies in this pass.
• create a set of Library module filter presets to help you step through the process by hiding photos eliminated by previous passes. You can download mine to use as a starting point and update the criteria to match your environment. Install them by opening your Lightroom presets (preferences) folder and extracting the zip file’s contents into the Filter Presets sub-folder. These new filter presets will be visible after the next Lightroom restart.
• while you are still familiarising yourself with the process why not repurpose the panel end marker as a reminder? I first saw this technique applied by John Beardsworth (here and here) and figured this bulk editing process would be a perfect candidate for its own panel end mark. You can download mine here. Install it by right clicking on the current panel end mark, select Panel End Marks –> Go to Panel End Marks Folder, and extracting the zip file’s contents into the folder. You can then activate the panel end mark by right clicking on the current one, and selecting Panel End Marks –> FlourishCJBulkRate.png.

Photo editing your own work is not only a practical necessity, it is also a great learning tool. It helps you better understand what works for you,  and just as importantly what doesn’t, so you can hone your photographic awareness and take better photos. Critically thinking about your own work isn’t easy but I found this post on Chase Jarvis’s blog helped make the whole process much more approachable. Hopefully you will find my suggestions for adapting the process to Lightroom helpful and like me you’ll be able to tackle that backlog of photos building up on your computer!

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Photo Editing For Mere Mortals

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Those who do backup their systems might not be capturing everything they want to restore in the event of a failure.  Most Lightroom users who do backup would backup their photo files but not all will remember to backup their Lightroom catalogs, which contain all of the develop adjustments they have spent hours making while turning snapshots into masterpieces. Fewer still will remember to backup those templates and presets they have spent time collecting and creating, and the other program settings they have tweaked to their liking and help them efficiently execute their digital workflow.

The recent major update of my TPG LR Backup plugin (formerly Config Backup) can help make the backup of your catalog and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom configuration files painless, so you can work safe in the knowledge that your data is being safeguarded in case disaster strikes.

How I backup Lightroom

To backup my photos and Lightroom I use the following approach.  Your needs and environment may be a little different from mine so please treat this as a guide only and adjust the processes to suit your individual needs.

Pre-requisites

Before backing up Lightroom I use SyncBackSE to copy all image files to a separate system.  I’m not going to detail this aspect of my configuration because you can easily fill a book on this topic (and Peter Krogh already has – the highly recommended The DAM Book).  If you want to learn more about this I’d suggest starting with the Backup section of the dpBestflow.org site Peter contributed to. It not only explains the topic clearly (including videos) but also includes a number of example Backup System Configurations  to get you started.

Lightroom 2 and above includes a catalog backup feature.  I switch this on using the Edit –> Catalog Settings menu item and set it to backup my catalog weekly.  This ensures every time I start up (Lightroom 2) or shutdown (Lightroom 3) Lightroom checks whether it should create a new backup of the current catalog.

Plugin Configuration

Once I’ve enabled Lightroom catalog backups I then use features from my TPG LR Backup plugin to build upon this base level of protection. Installation instructions for the plugin are linked from the plugin’s home page so I won’t repeat them here. Please note the remainder of this post assumes you have registered the plugin to enable the automatic backup functionality.

Open the File –> Plug-In Extras –> Configure Automatic Backups menu item to show the following dialog:

The From folder needs to match the folder where you configured Lightroom to write its catalog backups.  The To folders indicate where you want the configuration and compressed catalog backups to be written. These can point to different locations but I prefer to write both types of backups to a single Lightroom backup folder.

TIP: If you use more than one Lightroom catalog consider using the Edit –> Catalog Settings menu item to configure all of your catalogs to write their backups to the same folder. This will allow the plugin to compress all of your catalog backups regardless of which catalog you have open when you start Lightroom.

I set the configuration to be backed up once per week, and the catalog backups (created by Lightroom’s inbuilt backup feature) to be compressed whenever they are found. The latter is particularly important because catalog backup files can be quite large and can quickly overrun your disk space. Compressing the backup files typically results in an ~90% size reduction so you can afford to keep more backups than you would otherwise.

It is recommended that your configuration and compressed catalog backups be stored on a separate hard drive from your Lightroom catalog and configuration files. Doing so will help increase your chances of recovering from a disaster. If your hard drive fails, backups will do you no good if both they and your Lightroom catalogs are stored on the failed drive.

Once you have configured your automatic backups press OK to save the settings, and it is best to restart Lightroom as soon as possible to test that everything works as expected. If this is the first time you have enabled automatic backups they will also run at next startup (regardless of the selected backup timing) to confirm you have configured your backups correctly.

Plugin Operation

If you are a Lightroom 3 user and have just setup catalog backups then you should see the following dialog when you exit Lightroom.  Make sure the backup folder matches the folder configured for your automatic backups then select the Backup button.  Lightroom will then take a few moments to copy your catalog and add it to the selected folder.

If you’ve used the settings suggested in the previous section then next time Lightroom starts you should see the following appear at the top of your Lightroom workspace. You may need to open the top panel of the Library module to see it.  This progress bar lets you know that TPG LR Backup plugin is executing your backups in the background while you continue working on your images.  Once this step has completed you will have a new zip file in your backup folder for each type of backup that was scheduled to run.

If you ever want to know when your last backup occurred just open up either of the plugin’s menu items and you will be able to see the most recent backup events at the bottom of the dialog.

Feedback

I hope this post has given you some ideas on how to setup your own Lightroom backups. Please let me know via the comments if there is anything other part of my backup regime you would like me to expand upon.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

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Earlier this week Adobe announced to the world the existence of version 5.5 of its Creative Suite product line.  Until now Creative Suite has been released on a 24 month cycle and Adobe has only recently revised this strategy to include a significant mid cycle release.  This will help the product line keep abreast of the latest trends and emerging opportunities in between major releases. For CS 5.5 those three focus areas were:

• Create, deliver and monetize rich content and applications for virtually any screen. The suite now supports Mobile Development for Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS and iOS using technologies such as Flash, AIR and HTML5. It also includes advances in Digital Publishing to produce rich interactive publications, especially for tablet devices. This is intended to complement the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite.
• Integrating tablets into creative workflows. Adobe released the Adobe Photoshop Touch Software Development Kit (SDK) to allow developers to create tablets and phone based applications to interact with Photoshop. Adobe also announced three new iPad applications that demonstrate the creative possibilities of using tablets to drive common Photoshop workflows – Adobe Color Lava for Photoshop, Adobe Eazel for Photoshop and Adobe Nav for Photoshop.
• Adding powerful new video capabilities. The revised Production Premium suite delivers breakthrough performance, workflow improvements, creative innovations and powerful new audio editing capabilities.

This has resulted in changes worth of a version update being made to the following products:

• Adobe InDesign CS5.5
• Adobe Dreamweaver CS5.5
• Adobe Photoshop CS5.1
• Adobe Acrobat X Pro^*
• Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5.5
• Adobe Flash Professional CS5.5^*
• Adobe Flash Builder Premium 4.5^*
• Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5
• Adobe After Effects CS5.5
• Adobe Audition CS5.5^*
• Adobe Device Central 5.5
• Adobe Media Encoder 5.5

* New product or significant product upgrade introduced by Creative Suite 5.5.

Demonstrations of some of these added or changed features can be found on Adobe TV.

Other applications in the Creative Suite may have received updates (for example, Adobe Photoshop) but these were not explicitly tied to the CS 5.5 release. These updates should also be made available to existing CS 5 customers through the standard Adobe Updates feature. And other products might not have received an update at all. Suites and individual products that are tied to the CS 5.5 release will be chargeable upgrades even for existing CS 5 users, though there are some exceptions.

Adobe also introduced a subscription plan as part of this mid-cycle release, something they have been trialling in Australia over the past year and are now rolling out to the rest of their user base.  To give an idea of how this works I’ve taken pricing information from the Australian Adobe Store and calculated the financial outlay required to keep current with the Master Collection suite, or the individual Photoshop Extended product, over an arbitrary 5 year period. These calculations assume the costs on the Adobe store stay relatively consistent over the period and the products of interest receive updates twice per cycle (i.e. both mid cycle and major version updates).

As can be seen below users that intend to stay current with the latest release can really benefit from subscription plans, particularly when they are using individual products rather than the whole suite. Please keep in mind that not every individual product will receive a significant mid-cycle release (more on that later) so depending on the product chosen the subscription versus outright purchase expenditure crossover point may be earlier than indicated below.

**All prices in Australian Dollars, from Adobe Store – Australia, as at 15 April 2011

*** Upgrading from the last released equivalent version. e.g. from Master Collection CS5 to Master Collection CS5.5

**** Subscriptions types refer to the length of commitment to the subscription. All subscriptions are charged monthly.

To further illustrate this point we’ll consider two scenarios to see how regular upgrades might play out in future.

Creative Suite 5.5 and the traditional photographer

The traditional photographer, and by that I mean a photographer who is solely interested in creating and publishing still images, may require only the Adobe Photoshop product from the Creative Suite. They would make limited use of other products included in the suite offerings so the individual product should prove sufficient for their purposes.

If they aren’t currently a Photoshop user, or are using an earlier version of Photoshop (e.g. CS4), then the tablet features, subscription plan or even the many headline features included in the previous CS5 release might be sufficient to encourage them to purchase or upgrade now   If they are already using Photoshop CS5 it is highly unlikely they will upgrade at this point in time.

The Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 version supplied with CS 5.5 is effectively the same as the upcoming 12.0.4 Photoshop version, except for the addition of the subscription plan facility. Both will support the new Adobe Photoshop Touch SDK and iPad applications being released in May.  Both will support the Camera Raw 6 plugin updates that will be made available through the remainder of the CS 5 release cycle. As such there is no real reason for an Adobe Photoshop CS5 user to upgrade to CS 5.5 unless they wish to do so as part of a cross-grade to one of the suite offerings.

This skews the version cost comparison chart above and dilutes the financial component of the business case for using a subscription plan on an individual product purchase.  It also demonstrates an ongoing challenge Adobe will have – managing the pressure to keep subscription plan users happy by releasing new major or mid-cycle versions of every product, every year.

Creative Suite 5.5 and the contemporary photographer

By contrast a contemporary photographer, and by that I mean a photographer who is interested not only in still images but video and/or publishing as well, is much more likely to be interested in purchasing one of the suite offerings instead of individual Adobe Creative Suite products.

A number of well known photographers such as Chase Jarvis and David duChemin have chosen to expand beyond the traditional photographer paradigm to build their brands and business. Whether they are writing books, producing mobile apps, self publishing ebooks, or using video to provide educational offerings, the contemporary photographer is finding it necessary to cross skill into design and/or video production areas they wouldn’t have thought necessary even 5 years ago.  This makes the Design Premium, Production Premium or even Master Collection suites more attractive as they only need to buy one box to get all of the tools they need to take on these opportunities.

While the Photoshop application itself did not receive a CS5.5 level update this time around, some products in each of the suites did and can be expected to be updated during every Creative Suite release. Design Premium received updates to Acrobat, InDesign, Dreamweaver and Flash products.  Production Premium received updates to Flash, After Effects, Premiere Pro and Audition products. These updates make significant improvements to the ability to target multiple output devices with published content, and the performance and results when processing video. These should make CS5.5 a worthy upgrade for anyone who spends significant time in these products even it they are already using CS5.

Should you subscribe or purchase outright?

So once you have decided to invest in Creative Suite should you subscribe or purchase outright?

On paper the financial cutover point where a subscription plan becomes more expensive than an outright purchase is typically between 3 and 4 years. Whether you are willing to invest up front and continually upgrade for that long to save money in the long term is a question only you can answer.

What that calculation ignores is subscriptions make access to the more sophisticated Creative Suite offerings approachable and justifiable for those who can’t afford the hefty outlay required to purchase a suite outright.

Those who work with Creative Suite for a living might find a subscription plan preferable for tax reasons, so you might want to check with your accountant before making your next upgrade. If nothing else we now have a valuation of the cost of maintaining our tools and this can be factored into our thinking when developing our standard price lists or quoting for the next assignment.

A more subjective reason for considering a subscription is it will remove the “do I upgrade or not” decision when the next major or mid-cycle release comes along. Instead of debating whether the features of the latest version provide sufficient value or whether you should skip an update, your ongoing subscription will entitle you to the  upgrade and in fact you should immediately upgrade to get maximum value from your investment.

While subscriptions for individual products look more attractive than those for suites at the outset, their value can be diluted by those skipped mid-cycle releases that we have seen during the release of CS5.5. The pricing of the subscription plans for the suites may have an earlier cutover point but you can pretty much guarantee that a number of products in the suite will be upgraded every year so they may prove a better deal in the long run.

Subscription plans look pretty tempting for those who are preparing to buy into the Creative Suite products now. If you already have made an investment in a previous version their business case begins to dilute because you already have the sunken cost of the original version and you would probably be better off paying for upgrades rather than a subscription. 

Regardless of whether you choose to take advantage of a subscription plan I think their introduction will ultimately benefit all users. They have encouraged the adoption of a mid-cycle release, removing some of the shackles that impacted Adobe’s time to market with new features in the past. This will help spur on competition in the market and that surely must be a good thing!

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Adobe Creative Suite 5.5, subscription plans and the contemporary photographer

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Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 (LR3) is finally out of beta!

The Lightroom team’s official blog announced earlier this week that Lightroom 3 is Now Available.  They also shared a list of Lightroom 3 Resources to get people started with the release and the Lightroom 3 Help is also available online including the downloadable PDF version for offline use.

To discover what the new release has to offer I’d suggest checking out:

• Ian’s Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.0 Feature Review over at the Computer Darkroom
• What’s new in Lightroom 3 from Victoria Bampton

Needless to say I found the release compelling enough to have already upgraded from Lightroom 2!

Victoria will also be releasing her Adobe Lightroom 3 – The Missing FAQ book and eBook soon so its worthwhile keeping an eye out for that.  Some excerpts from the book are available on her site now.

A few others have shared Lightroom 3 resource lists as well:

• Lightroomblog’s resource list
• Heninger’s The Mother of all Lightroom Tuesdays!

There are others but most include limited content beyond that mentioned in these lists.

Lightroom 3 Educational Resources

A number of the Lightroom educators have been working overtime to prepare material to coincide with the product launch: 

• Lightroom Blog
• The Lightroom Lab
• Lightroom 3 Learning Center from the CameraDojo

Of course there is plenty of (semi) official content available as well:

• NAPP’s Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Learning Centre
• Julianne Kost over at AdobeTV

Lightroom 3 Plugins

The new Lightroom release has also attracted the attention of the plugin development community:

• Jeffrey Friedl, the king of Lightroom plugin development, has shared the status of his plugin development activities in his Lightroom 3 Plug-in Information post.  This includes details of his new Flickr Publish Service.
• I’ve release Snapshotter plugin – my first Lightroom 3 specific plugin
• The Lightroom 3 SDK is now publicly available to developers.

The SDK has added many new capabilities that will keep developers busy for months to come.  More on that in a later post.

Getting Lightroom 3

If you are interested in giving the product a try a fully functional 30 day trial is available for download here.  Some tips if you want to continue to use the product after the trial period is over:

• If you qualify for the educational version of Lightroom 3 there are significant savings to be had – as much as 80% off the full price
• Non-US residents should compare prices with other online stores before purchasing at the Adobe online store.  Some regions have been reporting that Adobe’s online store pricing is inflated compared to that readily available elsewhere.  Australia used to be one of those locations but a quick check confirmed the Adobe store pricing is on par with or slightly cheaper than that available elsewhere online.
• If you have a decent broadband connection and don’t need the physical packaging consider using Adobe’s download delivery method to save a little extra off the asking price.  If you used the trial version mentioned above you don’t even need to redownload the software.  The registration key will convert it from a trial to full version.
• Support the Lightroom community!  If you make use of Lightroom blogs, vodcasts, podcasts or plugins then please consider purchasing via their affiliates.  The net cost to you might only be a few extra minutes during the purchase process but it will help support those that produce the content you value!  I have included my links below but if these aren’t suitable consider heading over to the Lightroom Blog, The Lightroom Lab or CameraDojo and supporting them instead.

I hope you found these resources useful and enjoy using the latest release of Lightroom as much as I do!

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 has been Released!

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The Lightroom 3 beta is taking a step in the right direction with its new Publish Services.  The included Flickr plugin will synchronise ratings and comments back to your catalog but only time will tell if this capability will support retrieval of individual client selections from Publish Services.  In the meantime Lightroom 2 users can make use of web galleries to achieve a similar outcome.

Matt at The Turning Gate has developed a number of web galleries, including TTG Client Response Gallery, TTG Highslide Gallery and TTG Highslide Gallery Pro, that can help Lightroom publish self-contained web sites that automatically email a client’s selects.  Articles and tutorials regarding web gallery usage are available on Matt’s site so I won’t repeat that information here.  These galleries cover part of the workflow gap – allowing clients to inform you of selects – and my TTG Client script addresses the remainder by converting the response emails into Smart Collections ready for import into Lightroom.

New TTG Client Script features

I first published this script as part of my Working with a Wedding Client’s Photo Selects in Lightroom 2 post last year.  This revision provides the following functionality improvements over the original version.  Usage of the script remains unchanged and is described on the TTG Client script homepage.

Support for TTG Highslide Galleries

Over the past year Matt has released new Highslide galleries that can email client selects to the photographer.  The TTG Client script now supports client select emails from these galleries.

Workaround for Lightroom 2 (LR2) bug when hyphens (-) are used in filenames

LR2 has a minor bug that means it quietly renames files to replace hyphens (-) with underscores (_) when producing web galleries.  While the gallery itself will work fine it makes it difficult to match the client selects back to the original file names in your Lightroom catalog.  The Turning Gate recommends file naming conventions to avoid this issue but this could require renaming of files imported before you started using these galleries.  This new release of TTG Client script allows you to continue with your current file naming scheme and instead treats every underscore as a search wild card so the Smart Collections can locate the selects.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Capturing your Client’s Selections in Lightroom

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A little over a week ago Tom Hogarty – Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom – announced the Lightroom 3 public beta (download here).  Its been more than a year since the last version of Lightroom was released so I was keen to see what improvements had been m2de to my favourite photography program.  So keen in fact that I didn’t wait till I got home from my holidays and started using it immediately to import and organise photos taken on the trip!

For those of you new to Lightroom the Import feature is how you load photos into your catalog so the program can find and work with them.  The Import feature has obviously received a lot of attention from the Lightroom team this time around.  There are three major changes that have been made, and a number of usability improvements.  Major changes:

1. “Import from Disk” and “Import from Device” dialogs have been merged into a single Import dialog
2. UI has been completely overhauled aesthetically
3. UI now has Compact and Expanded modes that give you control over all aspects of the import task on a single screen

There have also been a number of usability improvements including:

• Import presets have been added to store and access your common import settings
• Expanded mode has added Grid and Loupe views for selecting photos to import
• Import’s backup will now store files using your renamed rather than camera created file names
• If you shoot using your camera’s RAW + JPEG  mode, both photos are now imported even though the RAW (or DNG) will be the only photo to show in the Library
• New “Shoot Name” field available for file renaming templates
• Additional folder naming presets

This is a beta so don’t expect perfection just yet.  The dialog can get a little sluggish under certain circumstances and I’ve logged a bug report about one specific case (Copy as DNG when source and destination are on the same drive) that can stall the import entirely.  But all in all I found it was reliable enough for my import workflow and I’m liking the new UI more and more every day. 

One of the great things about this being a beta is it will only get better over time.  I’m personally crossing my finders and hoping these three usability improvements make it into the final release:

1. Extending folder renaming to use a template-based mechanism similar to to file renaming, including access to the new “Shoot Name” field
2. Backups to be stored using the same folder structure, not just file names, as the imported files
3. Allow resizing of the dialog and the side bars within it.

I will get to the other new and improved Lightroom 3 beta features over time but wanted to share my observations after working with one of the first features most users will be encounter.  If there are any other features you are keen to hear about now  Tom has posted links to other beta related articles and resources.  And if you plan to test LR3 yourself then I’d recommend reviewing Victoria Bampton’s LR3 Beta – Popular Bugs and Forum Threads post to find out its most frequently noted limitations.

Detailed Look at Import UI

Compact Import dialog

When you first try to Import Lightroom defaults to the Compact dialog and launches over the dimmed main UI. 

Key elements of the Compact dialog:

• Source: In addition to displaying the currently selected source, clicking it allows you to change the source and access and manage the Recent Paths list.
• Import Type: Select between Copy as DNG, Copy, Move and Add import types.  All types other than Add allow renaming of files and folders during import.  Copy as DNG converts RAW files to Adobe’s DNG file format during import, but leaves the image’s backup copy (if enabled) in the original file format.
• Destination: In addition to displaying the destination folder, clicking it allows you to change the destination and access and manage the Recent Paths list.  The Folder settings provided below will be used to create folders within this location.
• Mode: Switch between the “Quick Settings” (default depicted here) and “Summary” modes (displays a summary of all Import settings in the Import Settings area) using these buttons.   The “Summary” mode is depicted in the screenshot below.
• Import Settings: Select a Metadata preset and Keywords to be applied to all imported files.  When required by the file naming scheme, “Shoot Name” and other fields also display in this area.
• Folder: Choose between “By original folders”, “By date” and “Into one folder” folder naming schemes.  “By date” allows you to choose between 13 predefined folder naming templates.  All options also allow a subfolder to be included within this folder naming scheme.
• Source Status: Upon selecting a source Lightroom immediately scans the folder (and subfolders, if configured) for images and displays the status of that scan in this area.  The arrow here toggles between the Compact and Expanded dialogs.
• Presets: Displays the active Import preset, and allows you to choose or create presets using the arrow to the right.  Presets store most detailed settings that can be configured in the Compact and Expanded dialogs.
• Buttons: Initiate or cancel the import.

If you are familiar with Lightroom 2 you will have noticed that the file renaming, Develop Presets and Preview size features are not available via the Compact dialog.  To configure these you must use the Expanded dialog, though once set you can always create a new Import preset that captures these details and can be chosen from the Compact dialog.

Additional screenshots of the Compact dialog’s “Quick Setting” and “Summary” modes (respectively) can be found below.

Expanded Import dialog

Clicking the arrow button at the bottom left corner of the Compact dialog opens the Expanded dialog.  The description below refers only to elements that differ from the Compact dialog.  

Key elements of the Expanded dialog:

• Source panel: In addition to the source section available in the Compact dialog, you also have access to detailed device and folder information via the left hand side of the Expanded dialog.  Devices and Drives are listed separately.  Drives allow you to drill down through the folder hierarchy, while Devices do not give you this option.
• Display area: Displays either thumbnails or a single photo depending upon whether Grid or Loupe view has been selected (respectively).  Import status for a photo can be changed using its checkbox, right clicking on it the change the Import Photo state, or using the P (Pick) or U (Unpick) keys to modify the currently selected photo.  At this point in time there is no way to change the import status for multiple (but not all) photos at once, so arrow keys and the keyboard shortcuts are the quickest way to work around this limitation.
• Toolbar: Controls the display area view, sort order, and allows bulk modification of import state.  Thumbnail size is also configured here but is not depicted as it was not visible on my netbook’s small screen.
• Import settings: Fine grained import settings are managed to the right hand side of the Expanded dialog.  These are controlled through four panels, only two of which are available in the Add import type:
  • File Handling: Sets the preview size, whether duplicates will be imported, and whether a second (aka backup) copy of the files is created during import.  The second copy option copies the original files directly into the nominated directory using the naming scheme assigned in the “File Renaming” panel.  This option is disabled when using the Add import type.
  • File Renaming*: Sets whether files will be renamed and which (if any) template will be used to configure that process.  Renaming uses the same custom and EXIF field formatting approach available in Lightroom 2, with the addition of the “Shoot Name” field mentioned earlier.  If included in the file naming template you will be able to specify the values of the “Custom Text”, “Shoot Name” and/or “Starting Number” fields here.
  • Apply During Import: Sets the Develop preset, Metadata preset and multiple Keywords that will be add to your files.
  • Destination*: Provides the same folder creation options available in the Compact dialog.  In addition you can browse the destination folder structure to locate and set the import destination.

* Not available for Add import type

All four import types (Add, Copy, Copy as DNG and Move, respectively) are depicted below, including at least one example of each of the Import settings panels.

I hope you’ve found this trip through the improved Import UI useful, and good luck with your Lightroom beta testing!

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Import Improvements in the Lightroom 3 Beta

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Unless you are a full time photographer the answer is likely no.  I’m an amateur photographer and find that Photoshop’s cutdown version – Photoshop Elements – meets all of my needs and there is no compelling reason to move to the full version.  But there is one compelling reason to choose Photoshop Elements over Photoshop.  The price.

Its large enough in the US, but internationally the price difference between Photoshop Elements and Photoshop is remarkable. At the Adobe Store Photoshop CS4 costs* $699 USD or $1415 AUD ($1180 USD) and Photoshop CS4 Extended $999 USD or $2019 AUD ($1690 USD). Photoshop Elements costs $99.99 USD or $165 AUD ($140 USD).  This means Photoshop Elements costs Australian consumers a little more than 1/10th of the price of the most basic Photoshop CS4 version. Its no wondering the Photoshop Elements community is growing so quickly outside of the US!

Photoshop vs Photoshop Elements

A recent post at Lightroom Secrets compared the features of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements to help users understand the incremental benefit of buying the full version.  The essence of that comparison (and my own research) is Photoshop provides:

• Customisation – Photoshop allows customisation of the UI via keyboard shortcuts, menus, workspaces, presets, actions, and (official) support for scripting
• Enhanced 16-bit – Additional Photoshop fliters supports 16-bit images
• Enhanced Colour – Photoshop supports CMYK and Lab colour modes, and custom curves
• Enhanced Layers – Photoshop includes layer masks, additional adjustment layers, and full support for smart objects
• Enhanced Selection – Photoshop includes paths, pen tools and quick masks
• Additional Tools – Photoshop includes additional features such as HDR and content aware scaling
• Enhanced Tools – Photoshop includes more advanced versions of some tools such as Camera Raw and Camera Distortion

The importance of many of these features diminishes when you are using Lightroom as your primary editor and only dipping into Photoshop every now and then.  Other features (e.g. Content Aware Scaling) would be nice to have, but as an amateur photographer I don’t think they are worth the additional $1250 AUD I’d have to spend to “upsize” from Photoshop Elements 7 to Photoshop CS4.

Bottom line?  Most photographers using Lightroom won’t miss the features they lose by choosing Photoshop Elements over Photoshop.  But the money they save could go a long way towards a new lens or flash that could make a significant difference to their photography.

Improved Photoshop Elements Integration With Lightroom

Another benefit of Photoshop is the level of integration it enjoys with Lightroom.  Photoshop Elements is added as an external editor, while Photoshop has a number of menu items dedicated to improving workflow when it is combined with Lightroom.  To close this functionality gap I’ve created an Elemental plugin for Lightroom which provides Photoshop Elements users roughly the same level of integration Photoshop users get "out of the box".

The Elemental plugin adds 5 new menu items to the File –> Plug-in Extras and Library –> Plug-In Extras menus, emulating the integration available to Photoshop users.  This includes letting the user select photos and launch them directly into the Photomerge dialog, or open them as Smart Objects (a feature Adobe doesn’t advertise as available in Photoshop Elements).  It even adds some new options for good measure, namely Remove Lens Distortion and the ability to directly Open in PSE.  And it does this all while avoiding the Camera Raw dialog which should be redundant as Lightroom’s Develop module contains a superset of the options available in PSE’s version of Camera Raw.  The only feature that can’t be reproduced is Merge to HDR in Photoshop because Photoshop Elements does not include this feature.  As many Photoshop users utilise an external HDR tool rather than the one supplied with Photoshop this hopefully won’t prove too much of an issue.

Where Do I Sign?

If you are ready to take the plunge and add Photoshop Elements to your workflow, Adobe sells the products online and may have specials running so please try the Special Offers page before using one of the direct purchase links has a number of specials running at any given time that can (North America only) specials running till August 10.  Links are included below for your convenience and by purchasing through these you will be helping support the ongoing development of my Elemental plugin.

Find all current special offers on Adobe products.
Photoshop Elements 7. Extraordinary photos. Amazing stories.
Photoshop Elements 7 + Premiere Elements 7 – Complete photo and video editing made easy.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for Macs

UK readers can use the following links to support my plugin development while purchasing the products but unfortunately no discounts or coupons are currently available: Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 & Adobe Premiere Elements 7 – Full, Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 – Full and Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for Macintosh – Full.

If you aren’t quite convinced why not download a trial copy of either the Windows or Mac version and find out firsthand whether it suits your workflow?  I’m sure you’ll find, like me, that Photoshop Elements covers all of your main “pixel pushing” requirements without doing too much damage to your bank account!

* Note: All prices were converted using Google’s current exchange rates on August 3, 2009.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Why Lightroom Users Should Seriously Consider Adding Photoshop Elements To Their Workflow

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