The October 2023 issue of Photoshop User is now live on the KelbyOne site and the KelbyOne app for iOS and Android.

In this issue, we continue our annual tradition of bringing you 100 of the hottest tips by 10 of the coolest gurus in the industry, plus we explore ways to improve Lightroom Classic’s performance, experiment with blending textures with live text and using layer styles as dynamic masks, mimicking infrared effects in Photoshop, turning midday lighting into golden-hour lighting, creating designs for packaging, and so much more!

This issue’s cover designed by Jessica Maldonado

Current KelbyOne members can log into their account to access the new issue, or you can visit https://kelbyone.com/magazine to sign up and start reading today.

KelbyOne Pro members have access to more than 120 back issues of Photoshop User magazine all the way back to January 2012, plus all 64 issues of Lightroom Magazine. Not a Pro member yet? Click here for more information.

The post The October 2023 Issue of Photoshop User Is Now Available! appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

In this issue, learn how the three P’s of Lightroom—profiles, presets, and plug-ins—can help you create better images faster, plus we explore the new video capabilities in Lightroom, create skywriting in Photoshop, dive into the ocean in the middle of a city street, etch out an engraving technique, and so much more!

This issue’s cover image by KelbyOne member Michael Mammen

Current KelbyOne members can log into their account to access the new issue, or you can visit https://kelbyone.com/magazine to sign up and start reading today.

KelbyOne Pro & Plus members have access to more than 100 back issues of Photoshop User magazine all the way back to January 2012, plus all 64 issues of Lightroom Magazine. Not a Pro or Plus member yet? Click here for more information.

The post The August 2022 Issue of Photoshop User Is Now Available! appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Update Alert

Before diving into this tutorial, I want to call your attention to a small update that snuck out this week. Updates for Lightroom Classic, Adobe Camera Raw, and all the Lightroom Cloud apps were released. Lightroom Classic is now at version 9.4, Adobe Camera Raw is now 12.4, Lightroom for desktop is 3.4, and Lightroom for iOS and Android is now 5.4. Basically, this update was all about new camera support and new lens support. If you’ve recently purchased a new camera or lens, check those links to see what was added. Ok, on to the main event …

This all started because I’ve been going through old trip albums longingly looking at places I have been and thinking about places I want to go once traveling is a simpler activity again. Let’s begin in Lightroom for desktop.

Setting Album Cover in Lightroom for desktop

This one is also the easiest and most obvious. Launch Lightroom on your Mac or Windows machine, then navigate to the album you want to view. If you are in Grid view, you can press P to pop out the My Photos panel where all albums (and the folders they live in) are found.

Then click on the desired album to see its contents.

Choose the photo you want to be the album cover and right-click (or control-click if lacking a mouse on Mac), and choose Set as Album Cover. I was thinking about Death Valley as it reportedly hit 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 Celsius) there recently! Moving on to iOS where it isn’t as obvious.

Setting Album Cover in Lightroom for iOS

On iOS, you will need to navigate into the album you want to view, then scroll through the thumbnails to find the photo you want to set as the album cover.

Then, tap the desired photo so that it fills the frame.

Here’s where it gets a bit hard to find. Tap the 3-dot menu in the upper-right corner to see a contextual menu of options.

Then, tap Organize to see its options.

And there you will find Set as Album cover.

Setting Album Cover in Lightroom for Android

On Android, the process is similar to iOS, but not quite. First, navigate to the desired album.

Then, scroll to find the photo you want to be the new album cover. Once found, long press the desired photo to select it. A blue bar will appear along the top of the screen and that photo will be highlighted.

Tap the 3-dot menu in the upper-right corner, and in the resulting contextual menu, choose Set as Cover.

And there you go. Now, get all those albums looking just the way you want, and change it over time as needed.

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Typically, when people first install an app from the App Store or Google Play Store, they absently click through welcome screens to just get to the darn app they wanted to use in the first place. However, there is one little checkbox on the last welcome screen (after logging into the app) that can have big implications for what happens next. It is checked by default, and it is labeled Auto add new photos from your Camera Roll.

Clearly, this is simply designed to help you get started with importing your photos from your device’s camera roll so that you can get right to editing and sharing your pre-existing photo library. No harm is intended! That said, my recommendation is to leave that box unchecked, and then you can decide later which photos, or even all, you want to import into the Lightroom app.

Here’s why, many people keep every photo they have ever taken with their mobile device on their device’s camera roll. This allows them to easily look back through them, share them, edit them, and so on. Nothing wrong with any of that. However, we must keep in mind that every photo you import (or capture) into the Lightroom app is uploaded, full resolution, to the Lightroom cloud and counts against your storage limit. That’s the whole purpose and point of the Lightroom cloud ecosystem, which is to have your entire photo library stored in the cloud and accessible from all of your devices.

There’s nothing wrong with that either, but I’d be willing to bet that a good number of people trying out the Lightroom for mobile app for the first time are already subscribing to the Creative Cloud Photography plan, which includes Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and access to all of the Lightroom cloud apps. It is a great plan, but it only comes with 20GB of cloud storage. I often hear from people who finally decide to give the Lightroom for mobile app a try after hearing about it for so long, then they unwittingly import their entire device’s camera roll into the Lightroom cloud and use up all of their storage. Then they are left trying to figure out how to get that situation under control. If that happens to you, be sure to check out my previous post on managing cloud storage and using the Lightroom cloud app for desktop to help you.

It is far simpler to avoid that hassle by unchecking Auto Add on that welcome screen, then just manually add photos at your leisure, by clicking the Add button and choosing your device’s Camera Roll as the source.

Manual Control

After you’ve imported a few photos to get a feel for the app, my preference is to configure one album (collection for Lightroom Classic folks) as my “camera roll” within the Lightroom app. Meaning, this is the place where I will configure to auto add new photos from this point forward (not just everything on the camera roll).

Create a new album (unless you already have one you want to use for this purpose), and tap its associated three-dot menu. Then toggle Auto Add from Camera Roll to the on position. When prompted, tap Enable to complete the process.

From that point forward, any new photo that lands in your Camera Roll will automatically import into Lightroom. You can keep all your old photos in the Camera Roll if you wish, and it will not import those (though you can choose to manually any time).

By default it is only going to auto add new photos, but what about videos and screen captures? I would be cautious about importing video unless you have the plan with 1TB of cloud storage, as video files will eat up your 20GB of cloud storage really fast. I prefer to just directly connect my device to my computer and import video into Lightroom Classic that way. Screen captures though are another story. I take screen captures all the time. I use them for articles like this, and I use them as a way to take notes and save things I want to remember. These small PNG files are just like photos to me, so I like to have them added automatically too. Here’s how you can control what file types are included in auto add.

First, go to Lightroom’s settings screen (tap the gear icon).

Then, tap the Import option.

Now, toggle on the file types you want to be added automatically. Then you can exit out of settings, and get back to making more photos and editing away.

The post Controlling Auto Add in Lightroom for Mobile appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Issue 62 of Lightroom Magazine is now available for KelbyOne members on the KelbyOne site and on the KelbyOne Mags app for iOS and Android.

In this issue, we cover all the new and updated features in the June 2020 release for the Lightroom ecosystem, including a deep dive into the updated Tone Curve panel; we explore the just-announced Nik Collection 3; we take a look at using the same Lightroom Classic catalog on multiple computers; and so much more!

Cover image by Sean McCormack

KelbyOne Pro & Plus members have access to more than 80 back issues of Photoshop User magazine all the way back to January 2012, plus all 62 issues of Lightroom Magazine. Not a Pro member yet? Click here for more information.

The post Issue 62 of Lightroom Magazine Is Now Available! appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Lightroom Classic is all about new camera support, new lens profiles, and bug fixes. However, the cloud-based Lightroom did also get a couple of new features that didn’t make it into the November release, along with the same new camera and lens support, and its own set of bug fixes. Let’s take a look at the newest additions.

Direct Import iOS

Possibly the most welcome and long anticipated addition to the Lightroom mobile experience (iPhone and iPad), is the ability to import photos directly from a memory card into the Lightroom app without having to go through the device’s Camera Roll.

I generally keep my Camera Roll pretty empty because everything I capture on iOS goes directly into Lightroom, up to the cloud, and then down to Lightroom Classic, so I’ve also been eager to skip the middle man and just bring in the photos directly. Saves me the step of having to delete the photos from the device later on. Here’s how it works:

Step One: Use the Camera Connection Kit like a card reader to enable your iOS device to connect to the memory card. You may get prompted about giving Lightroom permission to access (this should only happen the first time).

Step Two: Once permission has been granted, the device will be connected and you can continue.

Step Three: You’ll then see the contents of the memory card and have the ability to select the photos you want to import. This process seems way faster to me than it did before.

Step Four: Select the photos you want to include and tap the Import button to bring them in.

The photos will then begin being copied to Lightroom. Once the copying process has been completed you’ll be given the green light to disconnect the memory card from your device.

You’re now free to edit and share to your hearts content while the originals are uploaded to the cloud in the background.

It may be fair to say this has been a long time coming, but I am very glad it is finally here.

On the topic of iOS, I mentioned back in my post on the November update that the advanced export options were coming to iOS in the future, well, the future has arrived for that new feature too. After tapping the Share icon, choose Export As from the list of options.

You now (finally) have the ability to choose file type, pixel dimensions (based on the long side), color space, file name, and more.

Enhanced Shared Album Experience

We’ve been able to share galleries/albums with other people for a long time, and back in May 2019 Adobe added in the ability to invite other people to contribute to that shared album via the web. In this latest update if the people you’ve invited to contribute to your shared album they’ll see the shared album within their Lightroom apps.

If you click/tap on the Sharing icon (two people icon), you’ll see a new Shared with You section, and under that heading will appear any albums that you’ve been invited to contribute to by another Lightroom user.

This should make contributing to shared albums much more seamless and much more fun among fellow Lightroom users.

Well, that’s the important stuff for this update. Android users do now have the ability to view the author profile pages of people who have contributed tutorials to the Learn section of the app (this was already possible on iOS), so if you are exploring the great many tutorials (more added all the time) in the Learn section of the Lightroom apps, just click/tap on an author’s name to see all of the tutorials they’ve contributed to date. Enjoy!

The post December Lightroom Update appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

• Exposure
• Contrast
• Highlights
• Shadows
• Whites
• Blacks
• Vibrance
• Saturation

Within the cloud-based Lightroom apps there is an easily accessible Auto button and the desktop Lightroom app even has a shortcut, Shift+A, to make it even easier. And while it is possible to create presets in all of the cloud-based Lightroom apps, there is no way to include the Auto function in a preset within those apps (at least none that I’ve found so far).

However, this is where Lightroom Classic can come in handy. Lightroom Classic has the same Auto button in the Basic panel, and has a keyboard shortcut, CMD/Ctrl+U, it also has a specific Auto option in the New Develop Preset dialog box that makes it possible to preserve the Auto functionality in a preset.

So, first create the preset in Lightroom Classic, then import the preset into the desktop Lightroom app. Once the preset is imported into the desktop Lightroom app it will be synced across all of the other cloud-based Lightroom apps you are using. Here’s how to do that.

Step One: Open Lightroom Classic, move to Develop, and click the + sign at the top of the Presets panel, and choose Create Preset.

Step Two: In the New Develop Preset dialog box, check the box for Auto (and any other settings you want to include), give the preset a meaningful name, place it in a preset group, and click Create.

Step Three: To make it easier to find this preset for importing into Lightroom cloud, right-click the newly created preset and choose Show in Finder/Explorer to open a file browser window to its location. Place a copy of the preset on your desktop to make it easy to find. Grab copies of any other presets you want to bring to the cloud too.

Step Four: Open the desktop Lightroom app.

Step Five: Go to File > Import Profiles & Presets, then navigate to the desktop (or wherever you placed the copy of the preset), select it, and click Import to bring it in.

Once the preset(s) have time to sync you will see them appear in the other cloud-based Lightroom apps. I’ve found it handy to also include other settings like enabling a lens profile, turning on removal of chromatic aberration, preferred sharpening settings, or a preferred camera profile. Bundling key settings into a preset just makes it easier and faster to get to a preferred starting point no matter which of the Lightroom apps I am using at the time.

Side note, I’m super excited to have the opportunity to teach at Adobe MAX next week. I’m teaching four labs on using profiles and presets in the cloud-based Lightroom. I’m also excited to see what new things will be released, to learn from other instructors, and see so many of my friends. Please stop me and say hello if you are there!

The post Creating an Auto Preset for use in the Cloud-based Lightroom appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Some of the features found in the camera module will depend on the mobile device you are using at the time. Be sure to check out the minimum requirements and FAQ to ensure your mobile device is compatible (note, my screen captures were made on an iPhone 7+ with dual lenses, so this may differ from what you see on your device).

One: Shoot in Raw Mode (DNG)

Sure, you can shoot in the standard JPG file format, but why not shoot in raw mode and take full advantage of the editing power inside the app? Keep in mind that photos captured in the app are not saved to the local camera roll (well, they are stored in a temporary cache until they can be uploaded to the cloud and then removed from the device), so these won’t clog up your device’s local storage (for long).

Tap the blue camera icon to open the camera.

You can change file format between JPG and DNG (raw) by tapping the file format icon in the top-center of the interface. This opens file format selector, where another tap will switch you DNG (if not there already).

Two: Shoot in Professional Mode

When you first open the camera, it will probably be set to Auto mode, which lets the camera control shutter speed, ISO, focus, and white balance automatically. That’s fine for snapshots or when you are in a hurry but try taking back a little more control by switching over to Professional mode. Tap Auto to expand the mode menu and tap Professional.

In PRO mode you have the option of controlling the following settings (or leave them in auto mode):

• Exp: This is the control for exposure compensation, which allows you to override the camera’s meter and increase or decrease the exposure value to better match the scene.
• Sec: Control shutter speed if you are trying to stop motion or play with creative blur.
• ISO: Manually control ISO setting to avoid noise or work in low light.
• WB: Choose the right white balance setting for the scene you are in.
• [+]: This is the control for switching from auto focus to manual focus. Note the green highlight appearing along in-focus edges is called focus peaking. The area highlighted in green is in focus.
• Reset: One tap sets all of the above back to automatic modes.

Tap the icon representing the aspect you want to change to access its options (usually represented by a simple slider, except in the case of white balance).

Three: Shoot-through Presets

If you like to visualize creative effects while shooting, then tap the shoot-through presets icon in the lower-right. There are five built-in presets (in addition to none) to choose from; High Contrast, Flat, Warm Shadows, High Contrast B&W, and Flat B&W. For example, to help you visualize the scene in B&W choose either of the B&W presets and the live scene changes to match. These presets are completely non-destructive, so you can change them or completely reset them later when editing.

Four: Helpful Overlays

There are a number of overlays that you can invoke to help compose the photo and avoid over exposing the highlights. Tap the three-dot menu in the upper-right to expand the options. From left to right, they are:

• Aspect ratio: This will show the default aspect ratio for your device at first, but you can switch between 16:9, 3:2, 4:3, and 1:1. You’ll get a live preview of the aspect ratio you choose for taking the photo, but you can always revert back to the full image in the crop tool by choosing Original.
• Timer: Set a 2, 5, or 10 second timer before the shutter trips. We’ll cover this more in the next section.
• Grid & Level: You can switch between three different grid overlays to help with composition and even enable an electronic level indicator to help you avoid crooked horizons.
• Highlight clipping: Enable this option to easily see any area of the photo that the highlights are being over exposed. Any highlights in danger of being clipped will show a series of diagonal lines called zebra stripes. Use that exposure compensation mentioned in the previous section to recover those highlights before taking the photo.
• Settings: The gear icon contains controls for maximizing screen brightness to help you see in bright daylight conditions, to enable/disable geotagging photos, and if your camera supports HDR mode (covered later in this chapter) you can have the app save the normal unprocessed photo in addition to the HDR version.

Five: Remote Trigger, Burst Mode, and Silent Shutter

Aside from the big shutter button within the app interface you can also trigger the shutter by pressing the volume control on the side of your device. Note, on Android, you’ll need to first click that settings gear I mentioned previously and enable capture from the Volume Keys Function menu. This is very handy when you hold the device in landscape orientation.

You can also leverage that volume control trigger by turning your headphones (with volume control) into a remote camera shutter. This can be useful for slow shutter scenes when your device is on a stable platform (like a tripod). There are even Bluetooth enabled volume control buttons that you can buy for a true hands-free remote shutter trigger. On the iPhone (and hopefully coming to Android), you can fire the shutter in burst mode by pressing and holding the volume control button, which is very useful for capturing fast action scenes. One final tip, switch your phone to silent mode to disable all sounds including the fake camera shutter sound. Enjoy!

Side note, I had the opportunity to do a guest post over on Scott’s blog last week. I pulled together a bunch of my favorite Lightroom Classic tips, so be sure to check it out.

The post Five Useful Things in the Cloud-based Lightroom Mobile Camera App appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Before and After

For those of us coming from the Lightroom Classic world we are used to buttons and the experience of using a cursor that when hovered over said buttons will pop up a tooltip giving the name of the button (and possibly other information). Here in the world of touch interfaces things don’t work the same way. Displaying the before and after view is a good example of this. The After view is the view you see while you are making edits. To quickly toggle to the Before view, simply long press (press and hold) the photo until you see it switch to the Before view, then release and you are right back to the After view.

Gesture Shortcuts

You might rightfully wonder how you would learn about those sorts of gesture shortcuts if you hadn’t read about it somewhere, well, let me tell you. Tap the settings icon (top-right) to open the Settings panel, then tap Gesture Shortcuts to see what’s available.

Learning More

Likely due to both the relative newness of the cloud-based Lightroom and rapid pace of its development there currently aren’t as many third-party learning resources (i.e. books) for it as there are for Lightroom Classic. However, the cloud-based Lightroom has something that Lightroom Classic does not, which is built-in tutorials.

The recently added Home (iOS phone and tablet / Android phone only last I checked) screen provides quick access to your most recently added photos as well as two new ways to learn how to edit in the app.

The first option you’ll encounter as you scroll down the page are the Interactive Tutorials. These tutorials have been created by leading educators in the industry. What’s so unique about these is that they literally walk you through an entire edit, prompting you with guidance for each step as you go.

You can’t help but be exposed to the various tools and functions within the app, and all the while you get to look over the shoulder of an expert as they edit. Very cool.

Scrolling down past the Interactive Tutorials are the Inspiring Edits waiting to be discovered. With these, you can sit back and watch the edits happen as the photo is processed, and if you want to see exactly what is being done, just swipe up from the bottom and manually scroll through each editing step.

To learn even more, tap back on that Settings icon we visited earlier (top-right) and then on the Settings panel, tap Help & Support. Here you’ll have access to FAQs, the Adobe support forum, and Adobe Customer Care. There is a ton of information packed into the FAQs and the Adobe forum is a great place to go if you are having problems with the app or your account. Take a few minutes to explore some of those interactive and inspiring tutorials to help you get the most out of this quickly evolving family of apps.

The post Lesser Known Things About Lightroom for Mobile appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Auto Import

The first setting I use is located within the Lightroom for mobile app. I’m using it on an iPhone, but this works on both mobile platforms. Within the Lightroom for mobile app I designated one album (collection on Lightroom Classic) to be my “camera roll” that collects all of the photos I take with other camera apps on my mobile device. The goal for me in this situation is to configure this album to automatically add any new photo that hits my device’s camera roll to Lightroom for mobile.

This way all photos taken on my mobile device eventually, and automatically, make their way back to my Lightroom Classic catalog (and the computer running Classic).

The key to setting this up is to enable Auto Add from Camera Roll on that album. To do that, simply tap the 3-dot menu next to that album and toggle the switch to the on position.

From that point forward, any newly added photos to my device’s camera roll will automatically appear in the Lightroom for mobile app.

Lightroom Sync Preferences

Going hand in hand with that option is a preference setting back in Lightroom Classic. Head over to Lightroom > Preferences > Lightroom Sync (Edit > Preferences on Windows).

Then head down to the Location section and configure the location on your system where you want photos synced from the Lightroom ecosystem to be stored locally. Because any full resolution photos you import into Lightroom for mobile are uploaded to the cloud and then downloaded through Lightroom Classic, it helps to be in the driver’s seat for where you want them to go.

In my case, while I store the bulk of my photo library on an external drive, I designate a folder on my internal drive for these synced photos because my external drive is not always connected. Then I periodically use Lightroom Classic to move the newly synced photos to my external drive, which both moves them and retains the connection between the photos and the catalog.

Filter Synced Collections

The last tip is about finding all of the collections (albums in Lightroom for mobile) that are currently being synced from Lightroom Classic. Because collection sets (folders in Lightroom for mobile) are not synced, it is easy to end up with synced collections spread out amongst your various collection sets, and just looking at the parent collection set doesn’t indicate if it contains synced collections.

Luckily there is a simple filter that will reveal all of your synced collections regardless of what collection set they may be located within. You just have to find that filter, and it is well hidden.

If you look closely at the Filter Collections field at the top of the Collections panel you may notice there is a magnifying glass icon hiding in there (you may need a magnifying glass to see the icon). If you click that magnifying glass icon it will reveal two options: All and Synced Collections.

All is checked by default, which means all of your collections and collection sets are visible. If you click Synced Collections you will reveal all of the collections that are marked to sync, which can make it much easier for you to manage them over time.

Happy syncing!

The post Tips for Syncing Lightroom Classic with Lightroom for Mobile appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.