Tips for Optimizing your Photography and Workflow
In my latest presentation as part of the GreyLearning Webinar Series, I shared my top tips for helping ensure you don’t end up with missing photos and folders, a chaotic organizational structure, and other challenges that can make it difficult (or impossible) to find the photos you need in Adobe Lightroom Classic.
You can view a recording of the full presentation on “Avoiding a Mess in Lightroom Classic” on my Tim Grey TV channel on YouTube here:
Today marks 18 years since I sent out the first Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, though it went by the name “Digital Darkroom Questions” way back then.
Since that first email, I’ve been answering questions from photographers for 18 years now, which works out to a total of 4,058 editions of the newsletter, including today’s anniversary edition.
To celebrate this milestone, we’ve added a significant bonus to my “Lightroom Cleanup One-on-One” bundle. If you order this bundle today, in addition to the great content and support that is already included, you’ll also receive a one-hour call directly with me. During that call you can share your screen so I can evaluate your workflow and help you restore order to your Lightroom Classic catalog.
You can get all the details by visiting the GreyLearning website here:
https://www.greylearning.com/bundles/cleanup-one-on-one
And thank you for being an Ask Tim Grey reader!
When I import new photos into my Lightroom Classic catalog, I assign a red color label to every single image. This key step in my workflow takes no effort at all, because I use a metadata preset to add the color label to all photos being imported. But this simple step greatly improves the effectiveness of my workflow for managing photos.
The reason for assigning a red color label to every photo I import into my Lightroom Classic catalog is very simple. I use that red color label to identify images I have not yet reviewed yet.
Every photo I import needs to be reviewed, so they all get a red color label. Once I have reviewed a batch of photos, I remove the red color label, leaving behind star ratings to define my favorite photos.
With this workflow, I always know which photos I haven’t yet had a chance to review. This happens quite often when I’m traveling, with long days and lots of photography, so the red color labels help make sure I don’t miss out on reviewing photos from one of my trips.
You can learn more about the workflow I use to manage my photos in Adobe Lightroom Classic, including the use of red color labels as a key part of my workflow, in my “Real-World Organizational Workflow” course that you can find on the GreyLearning website here:
I recently made some changes to my organizational workflow that revolves around Adobe Lightroom Classic, focused on helping ensure I always review every photo after a trip or outing. As a result, I’ve produced a completely updated video course that outlines my overall workflow.
In “Real-World Organizational Workflow” you’ll be able to take a virtual look over my shoulder as I go step-by-step through my workflow. You may decide you want to use the same workflow, or you may want to make some changes that suit your specific needs. Either way, this course will help you streamline and optimize your workflow for managing photos in Lightroom Classic.
For all of the details about this new video course, please visit the GreyLearning website here:
https://www.greylearning.com/courses/real
I get a lot of questions from photographers, especially via my Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter (http://timgrey.me/greylists). Lately, many of those questions have focused on Adobe Lightroom Classic, and so in my latest presentation as part of the GreyLearning webinar series I focused on those questions.
You can view a recording of the full webinar presentation on “Questions and Answers on Adobe Lightroom Classic” on my Tim Grey TV channel on YouTube here:
Today’s presentation as part of the GreyLearning Webinar Series focused on what I consider to be the top critical tips for working with Adobe Lightroom Classic. In effect, these tips represented the information I wish all photographers understood before they started using Lightroom as the foundation of their workflow for organizing and optimizing their photos.
You can view a recording of the entire presentation on my Tim Grey TV channel on YouTube here:
Adobe temporarily changed the pricing plans displayed by default on the Adobe.com website, causing many photographers to worry that the price for the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan was about to double. Fortunately, at least for now, there is nothing to worry about, and the $9.99 price can still be found here:
https://timgrey.me/photoplan10
As you can see in the image below, the Photography Plan was showing a price of $19.99 per month rather than $9.99 per month. However, that doesn’t actually represent a doubling of the price for the Photography Plan. Rather, the $19.99 price includes the upgrade to 1TB of cloud-based storage, rather than the 20GB that is included with the $9.99 subscription rate.
Of course, it is altogether possible that at some point the $9.99 subscription option (with 20GB of cloud-based storage) will be removed, so that only the $19.99 option (with 1TB of storage) will be available. But so far that is not the case, and photographers can still get the Creative Cloud Photography Plan for $9.99 per month here:
I recently made a change to my workflow for reviewing photos, which in turn will help ensure I’m always able to find my favorite photos when I need them. I shared this change in the context of my full workflow for managing photos in my “Finding Favorites” Workflow presentation as part of the GreyLearning Webinar Series.
You can view a recording of the entire presentation on the Tim Grey TV channel on YouTube here:
Today Adobe has announced the October 2018 release of Lightroom Classic CC (version 8.0). There are a handful of technology improvements in this update that many photographers will find helpful. The updates include:
It is now possible to refine a targeted adjustment in Lightroom based on distance ranges within the scene. The Range Mask feature for targeted adjustments has now been updated to include support for depth maps embedded in certain image formats.
At the moment this feature applies to HEIC photos. In other words, for now this is a feature for photos captured with the iPhone or other smartphones running the new Android Pio operating system. It is reasonable to expect, however, that other cameras will offer similar support in the future.
An HEIC capture can include an embedded depth map, which effectively maps out the distances from the lens for all areas of the scene being photographed. That depth information can then be used to refine the mask for a targeted adjustment, such as with the Gradient Filter, the Radial Filter, or the Adjustment Brush.
For photographers familiar with the Focus Area feature in Photoshop CC that enables you to create selections based on areas of a photo that are in focus, the concept of masking based on a depth map is somewhat similar. The key difference is that the Focus Area selection evaluates an image and attempts to determine which areas are in focus, while the new Depth Map feature in Lightroom actually uses depth information embedded in a supported photo.
With this feature you can apply adjustments to areas of a photo based on a range of distances. This can be incredibly helpful for applying adjustments only to foreground areas versus background areas of a photo, for example.
For more than three years (since April 2015) Lightroom has supported the ability to merge multiple captures into an HDR (high dynamic range) image, or to a composite panorama. With the new October 2018 release of Lightroom Classic, you can now merge captures into an HDR panorama with a single process.
Previously, to create an HDR panorama in Lightroom, two steps would be required. You would first need to assemble all of the bracketed exposures into individual HDR image, and then assemble the HDR images into a composite panorama. With the new update, you can simply select all of the captures that represent bracketed frames of the full panorama, and then merge all of the images into an HDR panorama with a single process.
While there aren’t any new features for tethered capture in the October 2018 update to Lightroom Classic CC, there have been improvements to tethered capture with Canon cameras. With tethered capture you are able to connect your camera to a computer running Lightroom Classic CC, control the captures within Lightroom, and have the tethered captures added automatically to your Lightroom catalog.
The improvements for tethered capture primarily relate to greater stability and faster performance when using Canon cameras for tethered capture. In addition, support has been added for a couple of additional Canon camera models (the Rebel T7 and the M50).
The October 2018 release of Lightroom Classic CC includes new Process Version 5. While a new process version has typically involved the addition of significant new features in the Develop module, with this release the updates are a bit more modest.
Noise reduction has been improved to help reduce the appearance of a purple color cast in photos captured at high ISO settings. In addition, the Dehaze adjustment has been improved to help reduce noise when you use a negative value for Dehaze.
The HEVC video format is essentially the video version of the HEIC (or HEIF) capture formats for still images. With the October 2018 release, Lightroom Classic CC now supports HEVC video captures, so you can import videos created in this format. At the moment, this update primarily relates to videos captured with an iPhone using the latest operating system update.
As with perhaps every other update to Lightroom, the October 2018 release also adds support for additional cameras and lenses. This translates to support for additional proprietary raw capture formats, as well as automatic Lens Corrections adjustments for photos captured with newer lenses.
New lenses supported in the October 2018 release are:
New cameras supported in the October 2018 release are:
While the new version 7.2 update to Adobe Lightroom Classic CC might technically count as a “minor” update, there are a few new features that I think can add a major benefit to your workflow.
You can check out the top new features of the Lightroom 7.2 update in the latest episode of Tim Grey TV here:
Don’t forget to subscribe to the Tim Grey TV channel on YouTube to ensure you see all of the latest updates!