GETTING STARTED WITH LIGHTROOM
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is a hybrid application—part asset manager, part raw file converter, and part multimedia and print generator. I like to think of Lightroom as having the best features from Photo Mechanic for image editing, Photoshop for camera raw processing, and Expression Media for organizing and cataloging photos. Because using Lightroom is different
from using programs such as Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, we’ll take a tour of Lightroom in this chapter to help ease the transition. We’ll look at how Lightroom is structured, dive into the concept of catalogs, and get started importing photos from your hard drive or memory card.
Mountain biker s, Slickrock Tr ail, Moab, Utah. Olymbus E-3, 35–100mm lens, 1/50 sescond at f2, ISO 320
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How Lightroom
Is Organized
One of the core concepts behind Lightroom’s software design is that you should see and access only those features you need to accomplish the task at hand. Everything
else should be hidden from view. While this simplifies the process of working in
Lightroom, it is a departure from Photoshop and other applications. Initially, this approach may seem a little foreign to you, but it will quickly become familiar the more you work with it.
Lightroom’s tools are organized into five separate sections, or modules, shown in the upper-right corner of the workspace. Each module is designed to help you perform a specific set of tasks in your workflow. Think of the five modules as waypoints for your workflow. The uses for each of Lightroom’s modules are as follows:
■ Library Designed for organizing and arranging the images in your catalogs and for editing and selecting images from your photo shoots.
■ Develop The central location for performing all your image corrections, from adjusting white balance, to tweaking exposure, to increasing contrast.
■ Slideshow The location for tools for creating professional-quality slideshows of your best photos.
■ Print Used for making individual prints as well as contact sheets of an entire shoot.
■ Web Makes it easy to create web photo galleries and publish them to a website using the built-in FTP server.
On either side of the Lightroom workspace are panels containing the tools used in each of the modules in your workflow. For example, the Library module has panels for adding keywords and captions, while the Develop module contains panels adjusting saturation, sharpness, and vibrance.
pointers to your original photos on your hard drive. The best analogy for Lightroom’s catalog is a public library’s catalog. The library catalog is used to search for a specific book, find information about the books on the shelf, and get directions to find the physical book on the shelf. The Lightroom catalog works in a similar
way. It remembers where your photos are stored, gives you information about your photos, and, even better than the library’s catalog, retrieves your photos for you when you need them.
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The panels, along with the contents of the menu along the top of the screen, change depending on the currently active module. For example, you can’t access the panels for building websites when you’re working in the Library module. While this is simple enough to understand, it can take awhile to become accustomed to the menu items changing.
Shown at right are examples of the options available in the Photo menu from the Library and Develop modules.
Fortunately, the menus are sensibly arranged so that you will be able to find an option when you most need it.
Understanding
the Catalog System
Another conceptual difference between Lightroom and other imaging applications is the catalog system used by Lightroom to help you organize and track your photos. A Lightroom catalog contains references and
Lightroom var ies the menu options according to the active module . Differences in the
menu options between the Librar y (left) and
Develop (r ight) modules are highlighted.
This is a departure from other applications such as Apple iPhoto, which stores copies of your photos within a database. Lightroom doesn’t store photos or copies in its database; instead, it references the actual photos on your hard drive. This lets you easily migrate your image library to another application if you decide that Lightroom isn’t to your liking.
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Lightroom doesn’t store your photos; instead it references your photos in their or iginal
location on your hard dr ive .
Note This may sound redundant, but I think it’s worth reinforcing: Lightroom doesn’t store your photos. It merely references the photos stored on your hard drive. The number one Lightroom tech support call is from customers who import photos into a Lightroom catalog and then delete the originals from their hard drive. This is like entering the books into the library’s card catalog and then throwing away the books. Be sure to keep your originals!
Catalog Management
You’ll perform most of your photo file management in the Library module, and you can view the physical locations of your photos in the Folders panel on the left side of the workspace.
The Folders panel displays a list of hard drives that currently house the photos in your Lightroom catalog and lists their total drive size and space available. This makes it easy to see when your drive is beginning to fill up. A green light next to the drive’s name indicates that it is currently connected to the computer.
The drive’s listing in the Folders panel will be grayed out if the drive is not available, and image thumbnails will show a question mark indicating that the original file is not currently accessible. These may be files stored on a hard drive that isn’t currently connected to your computer, or images that may have
been moved or deleted through your operating system instead of through Lightroom.
How Many Catalogs Should I Make?
With Lightroom 2, you can create as many catalogs as you need. You might, for example, create one large catalog that contains your entire image collection and additional catalogs that you use to organize, edit, and correct a single photo shoot. I recommend beginning with a single catalog, and then branching out into multiple catalogs as needed.
Create a new catalog by choosing File > New Catalog. Name your catalog and specify the location you’d like it saved to. Since Lightroom will work with only one catalog at a time, Lightroom will temporarily close and then relaunch with your newly created catalog.
To return to a previous catalog, simply choose File > Open Recent, or choose File > Open and navigate to the saved Lightroom catalog.
Now that you understand how Lightroom is organized and how catalogs work, it’s time to begin adding images to your own Lightroom catalog.
Downloading Images from Your Memory Card
After returning from a shoot, the first thing you want to do is download the images to your computer to view the fruits of your labor. As part of the process of copying photos from your memory card to your computer,
you’ll want to take advantage of Lightroom’s features for adding a descriptive filename and your copyright information to each photo during the download process.
Lightroom makes it easy to download and import photos directly into your Lightroom catalog. After inserting your memory card into a card reader, Lightroom’s Import Photos
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dialog box should open automatically. If it doesn’t, choose File > Import Photos from Device to open the Import Photos dialog manually.
The Import Photos dialog box allows you to do more than simply copy photos to your
hard drive. Here, you can automatically rename photos,
add descriptive metadata to assist you in finding photos later, embed your copyright notice, and even apply preset image corrections.
All of these features minimize the amount of work required later in the process and save you time processing
every shoot, so it makes sense to explore each of the features and create presets you can use for every subsequent download.
A listing of the number of photos on your camera’s memory card with the dates the photos were taken appears at the top of the Import Photos dialog box. Lightroom reads this information from the time/date stamp embedded in each photo by your camera. If the dates listed are incorrect, you’ll want to update the time/date stamp on your camera. Consult your owner’s manual for specific instruction on how to adjust this feature on your camera.
Under the File Handling pull-down menu are two similar options. Both copy photos from your memory card to your hard drive, but the Copy photos as Digital
Negative (DNG) and add to catalog option adds one important step to the process: instead of simply copying your camera raw files,
this option first converts your raw photos to Adobe Digital Negative (DNG) format, a nonproprietary raw format, and then saves the converted images to your hard drive. If you are shooting raw files, you may want to read the sidebar “DNG: A New Standard?”
before deciding whether DNG is right for you. If you’re shooting JPEG, choose the Copy photos to a new location and add to catalog option.
I typically keep my photos in their native ORF format, so I’ll select Copy photos to a new location and add to catalog from the File Handling pull-down menu.
Next, in the Copy to section of the Import Photos dialog box, specify the location where you’d like the photos saved. By default, Lightroom will save photos to your Pictures folder. Since you’ve already configured your image library as outlined in Chapter 11, I recommend creating a new folder in your image library, giving it a descriptive name to help you remember the contents of the shoot. Click the Choose button in the Copy to section to target your newly created folder.
For a set of images of my friend’s cats, Gorilla and Pumpkin, who live in Salt Lake City, I’m giving my folder the name of the main cat in my photos, Gorilla, along with the year and date the photos were taken. I’ll discuss file and folder naming strategies later this chapter. For now, give the folder a name describing the contents in a single word. Then click Create.
The Organize pull-down menu in the Import Photos dialog box determines the structure in which photos will be saved. Since you’ve already created a unique folder for the shoot, I recommend setting this to Into one folder, leaving the Put In Subfolder option unchecked.
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The Don’t re-import suspected duplicates checkbox is a real benefit for those times you forget to erase your card before
you go back out to shoot. With this option checked, Lightroom will compare the time/ date stamp and camera serial number against the photos that exist in your hard drive and will not import images that are duplicates of images already in the library. I suggest leaving this checked along with Eject card after importing. This allows you to remove the card from the card reader safely after the download is complete.
Creating a Backup Copy
Lightroom offers several ways to create backup copies of your digital photos. The first is
in the Import Photos dialog’s Backup to section. Click Choose and select a folder on a second hard drive in which to copy photos. This backup method is best when you are in the field or on an extended trip and need to
download photos, erase the card, and continue shooting without copying the photos to
your regular backup system. This should not be your primary backup method, however, because the labels and ratings aren’t copied to the second location. Should your primary hard drive crash, you will still have a copy of the photos from your shoot, but the edits, labels, and corrections will be lost.
In the How To at the end of this chapter, you’ll learn about methods for performing a more complete backup that will protect all the work you’ve added to your image library. For now, if you’re working in the field and want
a second copy of the photos as a short-term backup, go ahead and add a check mark to the Backup to checkbox and specify a folder where you’d like the images copied. If you don’t need the option, leave it unchecked.
File Naming
Photographers over the years have spent untold hours designing, testing, and developing an ideal naming structure to help identify and track their photos. A good file naming structure will help you identify and find photos quickly. Fortunately, digital tools have made the job of naming photos much easier.
A filename such as Knoxville_2007
_0125_035.orf is a lot more descriptive than
_W083949572.orf. When I glance at the first name, I know I took this photo in Knoxville, Tennessee, on January 25, 2007. This is
sufficient information to remind me that I took a series of night photos in downtown Knoxville on that trip, and this photo is one of them.
A Preset and a Naming Structure are not the same thing. They differ in subtle ways.
A Preset is a saved setting in Lightroom. In this book we have Presets for file naming, metadata, image corrections, printing, and so forth.
For simplicity, let’s eliminate the word “template” since it doesn’t appear in any of the menu options. A file naming structure can
exist independent of Lightroom and should be referred to separately.
Best of all, creating a simple file naming preset, or template, in Lightroom makes it easy to create, and stick to, a naming convention for all your photos. Your goal is to create a naming structure that can be applied to all of your photos. I’ll demonstrate first how to create the preset, and then, in the sidebar “Developing a File and Folder Naming Convention,” I’ll offer some background on why you should create a naming convention that makes sense to you.
Step 1 In Lightroom’s Import Photos dialog, click the Template pull-down menu and select Edit to open the Filename Template Editor. While Lightroom ships with a number of predefined naming structures, I’ll show you how easy it is to create your own.
Step 2 In the Image Name window below the Example filename, you will see at least one light blue badge displaying one of the elements included in your filename. You can modify, rearrange, or add elements within this window. You can delete any of the elements by clicking to the right of the last badge and pressing delete to remove all the badges currently displayed.
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For my naming structure, I insert a descriptive name for my photos, followed by the year, month, and date the photos were taken, plus a unique sequence number followed by the file extension. For example, photos I shot in Rocky Mountain National Park on June 10, 2008, would be renamed like so: RMNP_20080610_0001.orf. To use this structure as a template in Lightroom, you would add the following elements
to the filename template: Custom Text_ Date(YYYYMMDD)_Sequence(#0001)
Step 3 Add the first badge, Custom Text, by clicking the Insert button to the right of the Custom window. Then click in
the Image Name window to the right of the blue Custom Text badge and type an underscore.
The underscore character helps make your filename easier to read without you needing to add spaces. Spaces in a filename can cause problems on some older operating systems and creates
extra characters in the filename when it’s posted to the Web. For that reason, it is preferable to use a name like RMNP_20080610 instead of one like RMNP 20080610.
Step 4 From the Additional pull-down menu, choose the format used to display the date and click Insert. For my preset, I’m using the Date (YYYYMMDD) format. After inserting the date element to the Image Name window, add another underscore to separate the date element from the next element in the filename.
Alternatively, if you’d prefer to have an underscore separating each part of the date, you can add separate elements for the Year, Month, and Date. Some people find this easier to read in a filename.
Step 5 Add a sequence number to your photos: select a three- or four-digit number from the Sequence pull-down menu in the Numbering window, and then click Insert. The new element will appear in the Image Name window.
Step 6 Saving this filename structure as a template allows you to apply this naming structure to your photos quickly
in subsequent downloads. Open the Preset pull-down menu and select Save Current Settings as New Preset. Then, in the New Preset dialog, give your preset a descriptive name that is easy to remember. Then click Create.
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Step 7 Click Done to exit the Filename Template Editor and return to the Import Photos dialog. Here, you’ll see your newly created template listed in the Template pull- down menu. At this point, go ahead and enter your descriptive text in the Custom Text field and verify that the Start number is set to 1.
Developing a File and Folder Naming Convention
Photographers take many approaches to naming their photos, and it is essential that you develop a system that works for you. One simple system is to add a descriptive name comprising the primary subject of the photo shoot, followed by the date, and then a sequential number.
The descriptive name can be a person, place, or thing that best describes the contents of the shoot. Most often, I default to the place the photos were taken, but you can use whatever seems appropriate. If you are a flower photographer, for example, it might make sense to include the types of flowers featured in the images instead of the location where the photos were taken. My recommendation is to look at your photos and ask yourself, What is the first word that comes to mind to describe all the images in the shoot? Use that word as your descriptive name.
Some photographers prefer to place the date before the descriptive name. While there is no critical factor to the order, I place the date after the descriptive name because it makes it easier for me to identify images in e-mail attachments and file structures, where the complete filenames are often truncated or obscured.
The important thing is to have some naming system in place—it doesn’t need to be a perfect system, but it should be used consistently.
To learn more about file naming and view alternative approaches to file naming, visit UPDIG’s Naming Files guidelines at www.updig.org/guidelines/ naming.php or Controlled Vocabulary at www
.controlledvocabulary.com/imagedatabases/filename_ limits.html.
Creating a file naming template takes a little time up front, but taking the time to set it up saves you time on every shoot thereafter. The options in the Information to Apply section of the Import Photos
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dialog work the same way. A little work up front saves a lot of time in the long run.
The Develop Settings pull-down menu allows you to select a saved group of image corrections and apply them to all photos during the download process. For example, if you know that you want to convert all
the images in a shoot to black and white, you can select your favorite black and white preset from this menu and Lightroom will automatically correct all your photos using
that preset. We’ll cover the creation and use of develop presets in Chapter 14. For now, leave the Develop Settings pull-down set to None.
Creating a Metadata Preset
Metadata presets allow you to apply your copyright and contact information automatically to all of the photos in
your shoot by selecting a metadata template. This helps to identify you as the creator and
In the New Metadata Preset dialog box, your goal is to create a baseline set of information that can be applied to each of
your photos, regardless of the photo’s content. You’ll have the opportunity to add specific captions and keywords to your photos later, during the editing process. For now, add your information to the IPTC Copyright fields in the dialog box:
■ Copyright
■ Copyright Status
■ Rights Usage Terms (optional)
■ Copyright Info URL (optional)
Then add your information to the IPTC Creator fields:
■ Creator Country
copyright owner of all your photos, which is essential if you enter photo contests, post
photos online, or license your photos to clients. You work hard to create your photos, so it makes sense to add this information to ensure that you are credited and compensated fairly for your efforts.
Like your file naming preset, you need to create a metadata template only once. Then you can select it from the Metadata pull-down menu in the Import Photos dialog to apply it to your photos. To create a custom metadata preset, select New from the Metadata pull- down menu.
■ Creator
■ Creator Address
■ Creator City
■ Creator State / Province
■ Creator Postal Code
■ Creator Phone
■ Creator E-Mail
■ Creator Website
■ Creator Job Title
Tip If you choose not to include your home phone number and address in photos that might be posted to the Web, be sure that you include at least a contact e-mail and website URL to provide a potential photo buyer with a way to contact you.
Finally, enter your name, along with the year, in the Preset Name field. Adding the year provides a reminder to update the template next year to ensure your copyright notice is always up to date. Click Create to create your new metadata template and store it for future access.
Tip To add the copyright symbol on the Mac, press OPTION-G. On Windows (XP and Vista) open the Start menu and choose All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map. Select the copyright symbol “©” from the Character Map, and then copy and paste it into the Copyright field in Lightroom.
After creating your metadata preset, you will automatically return to the Import Photos dialog. Your new preset should be displayed in the Metadata pull-down menu.
In the Keywords field of the Import Photos dialog, you can enter descriptive
keywords that can be used later for finding photos within your image library. We will discuss the creation of a keyword list and how to apply keywords within Lightroom in the next chapter. For now, you can leave the Keywords field blank.
Lightroom provides four different options for generating the initial preview thumbnail that is displayed in the catalog. For most users, the differences among the four are not significant. For that reason, I recommend using the default setting of Minimal for the Initial Previews field. If you are working on
a very large monitor, or you find that you are waiting too long for the thumbnails to generate during your second round of editing, select the 1:1 option.
The final option in Lightroom’s Import Photos dialog is the Show Preview checkbox in the lower-left corner. Clicking this checkbox will display a small thumbnail for each of the photos on the card, allowing you to preview the card’s contents. This can be very helpful if you are applying descriptive keywords to your images in the Import Photos dialog.
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You are now ready to click the Import button to begin importing your photos from the memory card to your hard drive.
Lightroom will automatically rename and add your metadata to each of the photos in your shoot and will safely eject the memory card from the computer when the download is finished.
You can track the progress of the download with the progress bar in the upper- left corner of the Lightroom workspace, which will always display the progress of any currently active tasks.
Step 2 A dialog containing the contents of your computer’s hard drives will appear. Select a folder of images you want to import into the catalog and click Choose.
Importing Photos from Your Collection
Lightroom allows you to import images from your existing folder structure into the Lightroom catalog. Lightroom can either collect the images into one central location or reference the photos in their original location. In this section, we’ll
import photos already on your hard drive into the Lightroom catalog and tell Lightroom to reference the photos in their original location.
Step 1 Begin by launching the Import dialog: Choose File > Import Photos from Disk or click the Import button in the lower-left corner of the Catalog panel.
Note for Windows Users Navigate to the folder of images you want to import, click the folder, and then click Import All to import the contents of the selected folder.
This brings up the Import Photos dialog box, which is virtually identical to the Import Photos dialog box used to download photos from your memory card.
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(Note that in the examples that follow, I’ve unchecked the Show Preview option to save space and focus attention on the import options.)
In the File Handling pull-down menu, you can choose from among several options: Add photos to catalog without moving, Copy photos to a new location and add to catalog, or Copy photos to a new location and add to catalog. Since you’ve already organized the photos on your hard drive, you’ll want to choose the first option and import the photos from the current location. Since you are not changing the location of the files, you are not able to rename photos during the import process, but you can rename photos after they have been imported into the catalog.
Step 3 In the Information to Apply section, leave the Develop Settings setting at None, select the metadata template
you created earlier, and leave your Initial Previews set to Standard.
Step 4 Click Import to add your photos to the catalog.
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Organizing Photos in Lightroom
After your photos are imported into Lightroom, they can be searched, sorted, and organized in many different ways according to the task you are trying to accomplish.
For example, you could sort images by a colored label to select the best images in your
portfolio, by descriptive keyword to create a web gallery of similar images, or by folder to edit and correct photos from your most recent shoot.
All of these tasks are accomplished in Lightroom’s Library module.
A Progress bar
B Navigator panel
C Catalog panel
D Folder s panel
E Collections panel
F Impor t and Expor t buttons
G Pr imar y and secondar y monitor control
H Tool str ip
I Filmstr ip
J Sor t by
K Gr id view (or Loupe view: Hidden)
L Libr ar y Filter bar
M Histogr am panel
N Quick Develop panel
O Keywording panel
P Metadata panel
In this section, we explore the features available in Lightroom’s Library module in the order you are likely to encounter them during the photo-editing process.
You can monitor every task in Lightroom in the progress bar at the top-left corner of the workspace. If Lightroom is sluggish, check the progress bar to see if Lightroom is busy performing another task. While you don’t
have to wait for Lightroom to finish importing images from your card to begin editing the shoot, it may be a bit slow in generating thumbnails when you’re trying to complete two tasks at once.
Whenever you add images to a Lightroom catalog, they can be immediately accessed under the Previous Import heading in the Catalog panel. This makes it easy to distinguish the photos you’ve just downloaded from your memory card from the rest of the images in your image library. To preview photos from the current import only, click Previous Import and the rest of the images in the catalog will immediately be hidden from view.
Choose All Photographs to display the contents of your catalog in the Library module. This is the first of several different
methods used to control the display of photos in your Lightroom catalogs. We’ll explore these different methods throughout the editing process.
Lightroom’s organizational systems will become even easier to understand once you begin using them to edit your images and perform image corrections. Now that you’ve begun adding your photos to your Lightroom catalog, it’s time to graduate to the next step in the workflow process: editing.
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H OW T O : B ACKING U P Y OUR L IGHTROOM C A T ALOGS
Now that you’ve begun adding photos to your Lightroom catalog, you should protect your work by designing a strategy for copying your image library and Lightroom catalog to a backup hard drive. While Lightroom contains an automated backup system, it copies only the catalog, not your original photos, making it an inadequate solution for a true backup system.
Fortunately, you can create an effective and hassle-free backup routine with relative ease. To follow the steps in this How To, you’ll need file synchronization software. Dozens of capable file synchronization applications are on the market. Two of my favorites are Synchronize! Pro X for Mac (www.qdea.com) and SyncBackSE for Windows (www.2brightsparks.com).
Most of the heavy lifting for the backup process happens at the beginning. First, you need to ensure that the photos in your image library are all stored on a single hard drive and housed in a hierarchical folder structure, as recommended in Chapter 11. Having all your photos in one place makes the backup process go much smoother.
your active photo library, containing all the photos, catalog files, and settings. The second is a mirror image of the first that serves as your backup. This image library lives on a backup drive that you would access only in the event of an emergency—that is, if your hard drive dies. I recommend purchasing a separate, external hard drive to serve this purpose so that you can take the hard drive offsite and store it at another location, and because it’s just silly to keep your backup hard drive on the same system as your primary hard drive.
Two important elements of your image library need to be backed up on a regular basis: your photographs and your Lightroom catalog that contains image corrections and organizational elements such
as keywords, captions, and collections. While your Lightroom catalog is replaceable, it would take a lot of time to redo all this work. For that reason, it’s worth making sure that it is backed up regularly.
To back up your Lightroom image and catalog files, you will create two parallel image libraries: The first is
To back up your image libr ar y and Lightroom catalog, you’ll need to create two par allel systems: the fir st is a wor king libr ar y and the second is a backup copy.
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Step 1
Deselect all photos by pressing CMD-D (Mac) or CTRL- D (Windows). This ensures that you’ll back up the full contents of your image library.
Step 2
Create your backup image library by exporting your current image library as a new catalog: choose File > Export as Catalog.
number of photos to your Lightroom catalog, this will take a long time to complete.
Once your backup image library has been established, your file synchronization software will apply changes you make to your original Lightroom images
or catalog to the corresponding elements in the backup hard drive.
Step 3
Assign a location for your backup library on your backup hard drive. Save this backup catalog with the name
LR_BackupCatalog to ensure that you don’t accidentally begin working off this backup copy in the future.
Lightroom will make a copy of your images along with the Lightroom catalog. If you’ve already added a large
Once your backup libr ar y is created, your file
synchronization progr am will copy your changes from your wor king image libr ar y to your backup, ensur ing that your backup is always up-to-date .
Most file synchronization applications can be preset to run at a specific time of day or day of the week, making backups automatic and painless.
For the greatest protection, I strongly recommend storing this backup copy in a physical location separate from where your original image library is stored. This affords you greater protection in case your computer equipment is stolen or damaged by fire, flood, or other disaster. While I hope that you never need to put your backup system to the test, knowing you have a backup system in place helps you sleep a little better at night: whatever happens, your photos and the rest of your work will be safe.
PERFECT DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY
CHAPTER 13