You’ll need to go there in your web browser and log in with the same Adobe ID and password you use on your computer and mobile device for your subscription. Once logged in, and assuming you’ve imported photos into Lightroom or synced from Lightroom Classic, you’ll see your library.

To test drive this new feature, click a photo you’d like to edit to access the editing tools available in the browser-based version of Lightroom.

This new tool is the first one at the top, with the magic wand looking icon, and its name is Quick Actions. What makes this tool so different is that once you choose it, Quick Actions analyzes your photo and then shows buttons it thinks you might want to use on this photo to make it better. The buttons shown vary somewhat with the contents of the photo selected, but expect to see some presets, some single-click adjustments (like Auton tone), some adaptative presets based on subject, some background blur presets, and maybe the straightening tool (if the photo is crooked, or maybe that’s just mine).

I just used the arrow keys on my keyboard to step through all of the photos in this album to see what adjustment options appeared.

For this raw photo below, I clicked Auto light & color, Pop for subject (using a subject-based mask to apply settings to just what it considered the subject), and the Strong background blur button that I dialed back using the slider that appears under the button you click. The eyeball button at the top of the interface is a quick way to see before and after views of your progress.

Now, would I have normally just used one of the Lightroom (including LrC in that) apps to make those edits manually? Yes. That said, for someone new to editing with Lightroom (or in a hurry to quickly edit and share out to social media or both), having the app analyze the photo and only surface adjustments it thinks you might want in a simplified format (buttons), this could be very useful. It is early access, so it will undoubtedly change before it becomes final (or maybe it will just go away never to be seen again?), but worth taking for a spin if you are curious. Would love to know what others think after trying.

The post Lightroom on the Web Quick Actions appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

What happened is that I didn’t even notice it, and fat-finger hit it when trying to use the Move to command (just below it). As soon as it was tapped, the album I wanted to move just vanished from sight. Fun! Those crazy kids at Adobe wanted me to go on a bit of a goose chase.

So, I thought, let’s tap the Shared icon under My Albums and see if it is there. Hmmm … not seeing it …

Ok, at the top of this section, above My shared albums, which is where I thought it would be, is an option labeled My shared photos, so I tapped that.

Aha! I found it! Right at the top of the list, so I tapped the three dot menu next to that album and found the Show in albums menu and tapped that.

This put it right back where it was when I started this little adventure, and now I was able to do what I originally intended, though now I learned about a menu option I had never heard of or needed. My best guess is that it is for folks who want to share an album, but not have that album appear in the list under My albums on the main screen. I guess if you share a lot of albums with other people that you don’t want cluttering up this view? I just never thought of needing such an option, but now we all know in case you need it or you make the same mistake I did.

The post Only Show in Shared Photos appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

To get there, just point your browser of choice to lightroom.adobe.com and sign in with the same Adobe ID and password you use for your Creative Cloud subscription. If you’ve already synced photos from Lightroom Classic or imported directly into one of the Lightroom apps, you’ll see those photos are already here. From the Home screen you can easily access recently added and edited photos, add new photos through your browser (full resolution photos that will be uploaded to the cloud, synced across Lightroom apps, and count against storage), access folders and albums, explore the Learn and Discover features, and quite a bit more. Along the top of the interface are icons for viewing notifications, checking cloud storage quota, downloading the desktop and mobile apps, accessing help and support, and accessing your account info and Technology Previews.

Technology Previews are a sneak peek into new features that aren’t fully formed but are functional enough for customers to test drive and give feedback to the Lightroom team. At the time of writing this there are two available, Collaborative Proofing and Clean Up. Collaborative Proofing has been around for a few years now as a tech preview. Clean Up is relatively new, and once enabled you’ll find a Clean Up menu item under the All Photos grouping on the left panel. Adobe doesn’t provide any glimpse into what’s under Clean Up’s hood, and simply states that it identifies photos you may want to remove to save space. Looking at the photos it suggested for me I can see it doesn’t like photos that are blurry or poorly exposed, such as these shots from my trail camera.

You can go through the photos it gathers arranged in added date and select photos that can either be flagged as rejected or just outright deleted. You can use CMD+A (PC: Ctrl+A) to select all and mark them all at once, but I wouldn’t recommend that without going through them all first, as it doesn’t like intentional blurring such as panning or slow shutter shots and really hates screen captures. Housekeeping is important, and tools like this can be helpful, but you still want to be in the driver’s seat. If you use it, be sure to click the Feedback button and let Adobe know what you think.

Grouped along with Clean Up you’ll find access to your Deleted photos (you’ve got 60 days to restore before they are automatically removed for good), Sync Issues (which groups photos having any sync related issues, which can help you identify where a problem may exist, such as in my case I had shut down Lightroom on my laptop before syncing had completed), Gallery (learn how to set up a Gallery), and Connections (these are also found in the Mac/Win version of Lightroom and allow you to send photos to online print services).

When working with your photos, you can add and remove them from albums, create new albums and folders, add and remove photos from storage, share them with others, and most amazingly edit them with much of the same functionality we have in the other Lightroom apps. To see your options, select an album, then select a few photos within it to activate the blue bar above the thumbnails. Here you’ll find the options for setting the cover photo, removing photos from the album, deleting them from the cloud, adding to another album, moving to another album, adding them to a connection, sharing them with others, downloading them, or applying keywords. In this case, I’m going to click Remove to remove these duplicates from the album.

Clicking on a single photo will switch to showing that one photo in a loupe view, where you can apply flags, ratings, keywords, title, and caption (click the i icon to access title and caption fields as well as see more information about the photo). From this view you can also access the suite of editing tools along the right panel and download and share icons along the top. Clicking the X button returns you to the Grid view. The editing tools available here are limited compared to the full apps, but still plenty powerful for something you access in a web browser.

The icon at the top will take you into all the presets that ship with Lightroom, your own custom presets, as well as presets recommended by Lightroom’s AI from the larger community. These can be a great way to explore looks and start from a different place.

Whether you apply a preset or not, the next icon down will take you into the editing suite where you can customize things to your taste. You’ll find the Light, Color, Detail, Effects, Optics, and Geometry panels waiting for you to adjust and get real-time updates as you go. These edits are then synced across all other Lightroom apps. If cropping is desired, click the Crop tool icon and fine tune your composition. When finished, click the X at the top to keep your edits and return to Grid view.

The Masking tools have been updated here as well, though not as full featured as you may be used to in other Lightroom apps. With a photo in Loupe view, click the Masking icon to edit existing masks or create new ones. The mask types are currently limited to Subject, Sky, Background, Radial Gradient, and Linear Gradient, though Adobe says more options will be coming in the future. When adjusting a mask’s settings, we’re limited to Light, Color, Effects, and Detail.

If you’re wanting to experiment with different looks and styles you can even take advantage of the Versions feature here on the web. Versions are like snapshots in Lightroom Classic in that they are only visible when you are in the Versions screen, where you can add, delete, and rename versions as desired. To create a new look while saving the original, go into the Named tab and click Create Version, where you’ll be prompted to give it a meaningful name and click Create. This saves the current look as a version. Now you’re ready to experiment. Click the Edit icon and make your changes for the new look. Go back into Versions, click Create Version, and give this new look a name. The thumbnail of the photo will reflect the currently selected version. To switch to a different version, you’ll need to select that photo, go back into Versions, and then select the thumbnail representing the desired look you want to see.

There’s a lot of cool features hidden away in Lightroom web, and the best part of it is that allows you to access your cloud-based library (which includes smart previews synced from Lightroom Classic) from anywhere you have Internet and a web browser. Give it a try and spend a few minutes exploring the Learn and Discover sections to further improve your experience with Lightroom.

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It is a simple and inexpensive trail camera (one of the many cheap ones you can find online) that uses a single SD card and operates 24/7 in all weather. My workflow is to grab my iPhone, a Lightning to SD Card reader dongle, and walk out to the camera. I’ve found it easiest to do the import out by the camera as opposed to walking out to grab the memory card, bringing it back to my computer, then taking the card back out again.

Once there, I can pop out the card, plug it into the SD reader attached to my phone, and then import the files using the Apple Photos app. Wait, isn’t this a post about Lightroom Killer Tips? Well, the problem is that the Lightroom (Lr) app won’t import videos from an SD card on iOS (as it does on Android). Don’t ask me why, but it is a known issue for years now. So, the simplest solution I’ve found is to just import all files into the Photos app, then bring them into Lr. I configured one album in Lr to Auto Add from Camera Roll, so any video, photo, or screenshot that hits my device’s Camera Roll is automatically brought into Lr. I just have to open Lr after the import to my device is done to trigger the import.

As I walk back to the house, I can leave Lr open and allow the files to start uploading to the cloud. All photos and videos I import into Lr end up back in Lightroom Classic via syncing, so I just need to leave Lr open long enough for all the files to finish uploading.

As they download into Lightroom Classic they are placed in date-based folders using the capture date of each photo/video. Normally, as I’ve written about before, I keep the date and rename the folder adding in some meaningful context for its contents. However, for my trail cam photos I just move them all into a single folder for the year. I find it more interesting to see them all together in one place.

This involves selecting the downloaded files in their assorted folders and drag/dropping them into the one folder for all trail cam photos that year. Then I delete any leftover empty folders.

That’s the same basic workflow I use to import photos from my camera when on the road using Lr as a front end to Lightroom Classic.

The post My Trail Cam Workflow appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

STEP ONE: BEFORE you import your image, go to Lightroom ‘cloud’s’ preferences, click on ‘Import’ in the list of preferences on the left side (seen beow), and under Raw Defaults choose Preset and then a pop-up list of your installed presets will appear (as shown below).

Choose whichever preset you’d like and then click the ‘Done’ button. In this case, I chose a B&W High Contrast preset (as seen above).

STEP TWO: Now click the “Add Photos” button in the top left and choose the images you want to import, and when they are imported they appear with the preset you choose already applied (as seen here, where all the images have already been converted to B&W. Now, here comes the part that is very different than what happens in LR Classic, and might well freak you out. Let’s say you change your mind, and you want to undo the black and white preset you applied (after all, this shot doesn’t look awesome with that preset applied), so you press Command-R (PC: Ctrl-R) which is the shortcut for “Reset Edits” and guess what? Nothing happens. It doesn’t reset the image to the original image. You can see that sliders have been moved (you can see them right there in the right side panels), but it doesn’t reset them. If you move a slider, any slider, and then press Command-R to reset, it just resets that slider you just moved – it’s still got that B&W preset applied. It’s like it’s stuck there permanently (it’s not, but it sure feels like it.

STEP THREE: One way to get around this is to simply go the Profile menu at the top left of the Edit panel and choose a color profile from the pop-up menu (Here I chose “Adobe Portrait” which is a color profile and now the image has returned to the original color I shot it in). The downside of this method is that leaves us still with two problems: (1) While that did bring the color back, the other sliders that were moved when I applied that import preset have still been moved, and (2) How to I get the other imported images set back to color, because copying and pasting from that color image to a bunch of selected image only change the first selected image – not all the selected ones. We’ll tackle #2 first:

STEP FOUR: After you Command-C (PC: Ctrl-C) copy the settings from the color image; select all the other images you want to be color, then instead of just pressing the standard ol’ ‘Command-V’ (PC: Ctrl-V) to paste those settings, you have to press SHIFT-Command-V (PC: SHIFT-Ctrl-V), and then it will apply the color profile to all the selected photo.

OK, what about all the sliders? Well, before you do that whole copy and paste routine I just outlined, to reset all the other sliders, and even return the image to its original color all in one swoop, you can do this:

STEP FIVE: Click the Presets button (top left of the Light panel), and when the presets appear, click on “yours” and then look inside the Basic set, and then under Defaults click on “Adobe Default.” That sets everything back to its original unedited stage – color, sliders, the whole nine yards.

Now, is there an easier way to do all this? Probably. Do I know it? I do not, so that’s how I do it.

OK, want some super handy travel photography tips?

Last night to celebrate the launch of my latest book, ‘The Travel Photography Book’ I did a live Webcast packed with travel photography tips, along with a deal from my publisher that is truly mind-blowing – 50% off on the print edition of the book (that makes it only $15 for a brand new book, which is just crazy – and they are honoring that deal until Midnight tonight Pacific time. Here’s the link to order your copy). 

Anyway, the live Webcast was a ton of fun, and I shared lots of travel photography tips; you can watch it right here (below). 

Hope you find those tips helpful (and I would love it if you would spread the word about this incredible 1-day only deal from Rockynook (my book’s publisher). Here’s that link again, ya know…just in case.  

Have a great weekend, everybody!  

-Scott

The post How To Apply a Preset on Import in Lightroom ‘cloud’ (and the hidden trick to undo it) appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

[Editor’s note, this article previously appeared in the March 2022 issue of Photoshop User magazine.]

I also stated that “the editing capabilities have nearly reached feature parity” and it is this point that I want to delve deeper into in this issue. For some photographers, a single feature or the implementation of a single feature may be the deciding factor for which program works best for their needs. For the longest time, the lack of a Range Mask type feature in Lr was a real limitation for many people. Adobe rectified that gap in a recent update that completely revamped the local adjustment/selection tools across all Lightroom apps under the new heading of Masking. However, Lr still lacks the tethering feature found in LrC, which may be a showstopper for some. That said, I’m not trying to compare all features, just the ones that fall under editing. On that note, what gaps remain? Let’s dive in.

What’s the Same?

Before looking at what the differences are in editing capabilities I wanted to establish the key aspects that are the same across not only LrC and Lr but also the Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) plug-in for Photoshop. All these programs have the same engine, so to speak, under the hood, which means that any edits you make to a raw photo in any one of these three programs will be displayed correctly and allow for re-adjusting in any of the others.

For example, I could start in LrC, edit a raw photo in the Develop module, and export a copy as a DNG, which produces a raw copy in DNG format along with all LrC edits. I could open that DNG copy into ACR and it would look exactly the same as it did in LrC’s Develop module and I could continue editing or reset it back to defaults. Likewise, I could import that DNG into Lr and it would upload a full resolution copy of the DNG to the cloud along with all edits, and it would look just the same and be fully editable. This shared ability to render edits the exact same way across these programs has always been a strength of using Adobe software, and it even works when one of the three programs doesn’t yet support the ability to adjust certain features. Meaning that if I had used Range Mask in my edit in LrC before the recent Masking update the photo would still display correctly in the Lr apps even though those apps couldn’t edit the Range Mask at the time.

This is something else they all have in common, which is that they are continually undergoing development to gain new features and improve existing features, so any differences I highlight now may not be true months or years from now. With all that in mind, let’s see what is different between LrC and Lr when it comes to editing. I am only going to compare the Develop module in LrC to editing in the Mac/Windows version of Lr as it is a more apples to apples comparison. The mobile versions (iOS, Android, and ChromeOS) of Lr tend to have all the same editing features as the Mac/Win version, though some features may take longer to appear on mobile.

With the similarities in mind, we’ll come back next week to delve into what’s different between the two.

The post Editing in Lightroom Classic vs. Lightroom appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

It starts LIVE at 11:00 AM (it’s free and open to everybody), but after that you can watch the replay here as well. Great stuff!

Terry is the best!

Have a great weekend, everybody – hope yours is totally in sync.

-Scott

The post How to Keep All Your Lightroom’s in Sync appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Obviously, you’d need to be running the cloud-based version of Lightroom and have that installed on your computer. From there, click the + sign next to Connections to open the connections manager (for lack of a better name.

From here you can choose among the available online options for creating prints online. I’ve used both Printique and WHCC and have been happy with the results. For a recent project I wanted to print a photo of my son on wood and give it to my wife for her birthday. He’s gotten into wood working lately and she loved a recent photo of him, so it seemed like a perfect idea.

To create the connection, click the aptly named Add Connection button next to the service you want to use. I do recommend visiting the service’s website ahead of time and creating a free account so it is all set up when you connect. Once you’ve added the connection you can close the connection manager, and you’ll see a welcome and get started screen for that service.

Lightroom literally handholds you through the process of creating your first project. My recommendation is to have already created an album containing the photo(s) you want to print to make it easy to select them in the next step. After clicking the Get Started button a little blue dot guides you through each step.

In my case I had already edited the photo and cropped it to a square aspect ratio, so it was ready to be sent off to be printed. I’d recommend doing the same before proceeding.

The blue dot will guide you to click on All Photos to select the photos you want to send to the service. Instead, go to the album you created, select the photo(s) you want to send, then go click All Photos. This way the photo you want is already selected when All Photos opens. Now, you don’t need to do that every time after this. This is only the first time it guides you through the process.

With my photo selected, I clicked Continue in the blue box. From there, the blue dot guides you up to the Share button.

Click the Share button and you’ll see the service you added at the bottom of the list.

Give the project a name and click Continue to have the photo handed off to the service where you can choose your desired print media and so on. You should get prompted to sign in as part of the handoff, and then you’re in. From here the options will vary based on the service you are using. This is just what it looks like at WHCC right now.

I chose the 10×10 wood block print. It took about 4-5 days before it shipped and then a few more to arrive. I think it may have been about 10 days from when I ordered to arrival, but days seem to blend together anymore. I’m very happy with the results and I hope my wife will be too. Give Connections a try and let me know what you think!

The post Making Connections in Lightroom appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Where to begin

To find the Remix feature you’ll need to be using Lr on your Mac or Win computer. I don’t know if it will expand to the other Lr apps, but for now, that’s where you start. Once you have Lr open, click Discover to enter the Lightroom Community.

I’ve written about Discover before, as well as how to share an edit, and for those reasons alone it is worth a look from time to time. Along the top of the content area you’ll see buttons labelled, For You, Featured, New, Following, and now, Remixes. You don’t have to share any of your own work to start exploring this feature. Click Remixes and see what’s featured, which photos have recently been remixed, as well as access to all photos made available for remixing.

Roll your cursor over thumbnails to see a quick before and after. Click into any of the available photos to check out the edits already applied to the original. Click the Play button that appears on the photo to see a playback of the edits being applied from the start. On the right-side panel you’ll find an option to Save as a Preset (if enabled by the creator), as well as the Remix button, which puts you in the driver’s seat for flexing your own editing skills on the selected photo. Give it a go and see what you think!

Sharing Your Own Remix

To make one of your own photos available to be remixed you’ll first have to apply your own edits, then click the Share icon to be able to choose Share to Discover.

From there, fill out the required fields, decide if you want to allow other community members to save your settings as a preset, and then flip the switch to Allow Remixing before clicking the Share button to pass it on to the in-app community.

Once shared, go to your profile page to see it along with any other edits you’ve shared.

Go to the Remixes tab to access the one’s you’ve marked to allow for remixing. The three-dot menu that appears when you move your cursor over the photo will give you access to a link for sharing your remix on social media (feel free to remix my photo to your heart’s content). That’s all there is to getting started with Remix. I’ve been enjoying exploring it so far, and am remaining open to learning new things from seeing other people’s approach to editing. Check it out and let me know what you think.

The post Remix Anyone? appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

This works with both full resolution photos imported into Lightroom and smart previews synced from Lightroom Classic (so Lightroom Classic users can only try this if they sync to Lr cloud). Start by selecting the photo you want to see a recommended preset for and switch to Edit view (press E in Lr for desktop).

Then click the Preset icon to open the Presets panel and click the Recommended tab.

Lightroom’s AI will analyze your photo (comparing against photos in the Lightroom community with similar subjects and histograms) and then suggest a variety of presets to explore.

You can move your cursor over a preset thumbnail to preview how it looks on your photo, and a benefit of doing this in Lr desktop is that you’ll also see the settings included in the preset displayed in the respective panels so you can understand what is driving the visible change.

Across the top of the Recommended Presets tab is a carousel of filters to help you home in on a subset of presets that may more closely align with your own editing taste. As you move your cursor over preset thumbnails you’ll also see a More like this button, which will filter the presets down further.

If you find a preset you like, you can click it to apply the included settings to your photo. Additionally, if you click the three-dot menu it opens a popup with the options to save the settings to your presets, save the settings as a Version for the active photo, as well as info on the fellow Lr user behind the preset being used.

Like any preset, this can be used as a new starting point, a point of inspiration, or a learning tool. After applying, you are free to further refine any settings to your hearts content. The next time you find yourself stuck on how to proceed or curious to see editing options you may not have considered, give the Recommended Presets a try.

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