LRB Dragan presets

My LRB Dragan presets are now up on Lightroom Exchange. These free presets give a very stylised look and were originally posted to Inside Lightroom as individual presets. I've packaged them here as a set, as much to have them together as anything, but just to see how many people download them :).

My favourite is the cross processed version. A tweaked version of the preset won me the SWPP International Family Portraiture and Groups Photographer of the Year 2008 award. Enjoy

Take it to a vote: new feature ideas for LRB Portfolio.

Folks,
If you are an LRB Portfolio user, you may know that I've a ton of new features in the current beta version. It's looking pretty good, if I say so myself.

So while I'm changing things, I want feedback on some potential features:


I'm thinking of tying the height of the about, contact and home pages to the image+border height. This is happening by default, but if I do this, I can add a scrolling control to the page allowing you to add a lot more text, which can be scrolled through.

Add an avatar image to the About page to allow you to add a photo of yourself. I'd simply have a logo called ava.jpg that you replace your image with.

Add a single blank page with the same features of About, so you can choose the image, the name of the page etc.

Change the Menu Font-Variant to a list and leave it on normal by default. I'm seeing too many galleries with this left set!

I'm also considering a new section to the site: A featured website page. I've been peeking at a few sites to see what you're up to, so I wonder if other users would like to see them too!



Finally, before you start jamming up the comments with other requests, here's the so far list on LRB Portfolio 1.2beta

1.2 Changed charset to UTF-16 to allow for further languages
Fixed Content Area font size issues by adding a Content Font Size control
Added images choice to Menu: You can now use an image instead of text in the menu
Added provisional code to allow Google Analytics code to be pasted:WARNING, each gallery loading will open the Google Analytics code in a browser window. This is how Lightroom deals with external resources and cannot be prevented. If you don't like this, then leave the Insert Analytics Code box unticked.
Added IE8 conditional code (this is Google beta code and I may drop this)
Added an image choice to the mail page
Change the Page title on the mail page to whatever is in the Page Title
Addition of the Dynamic Drive scroll script and making the internal script options available in the Output Settings panel.
Added the ability to name the gallery1.html page to anything you like (as long as it ends in .html or .htm). The engine will automatically generate the page with the new name and find it correctly (go me, I didn't think this could be done).

It's pretty feature laden.... almost a 2.0 feature laden release. But if I do jump a version, it'll still be the same link for current users when it becomes available.

Lightroom 2.3 available as Release Candidate

Lightroom 2.3 is now available as a Release Candidate on Adobe Labs. It fixes the memory leak issue, CD burning on Windows issues, and a few others. In addition this version now has additional languages available: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, Italian, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish and Swedish.

To coincide a new version of Camera Raw is available. Both Lightroom 2.3 and Camera Raw 5.3 add support for the Nikon D3X and the Olympus E-30.

More information can be had at the link pages and from Lightroom Journal.

Speedlinks and News Clips

I've an interview with Iron Maiden photograper John McMurtrie, over at Lightroom News

I've also done as promised in an earlier post and put a bunch of my videos on one page: Lightroom Blog Videos!

The set of Dragan presets that I've had on Inside Lightroom are now somewhere in the Adobe Exchange approval process. Hopefully they'll be up soon. I'm delight that Richard has hosted them so long, but I'd love to be able to see how they go on the exchange. If you can't wait for these free presets, then get them at Inside Lightroom

Speaking of free presets, Matt Kloskowski has a Max Payne style preset pack for edgy portraits. Go over to Lightroom Killer Tips to check it out.

After not understanding people have an issue with content font sizes in LRB Portfolio, I found that I had in fact set a small font size in the code unknowingly. Er.. Apologies. I've added a font control for this, along with the ability of use images in the menu instead of text. I'm still looking into other feature additions before sending this out to testers.

I've had to edit the voice over on the new Spotting video for Lightroom News, so that'll will be up shortly.

Get Back

One thing that annoys me from time to time in Lightroom, is that when you import, the current view jumps to the import. I know it's going to happen when I hit Import, but still I'd rather it stayed where I was working. Importing in the background would suit me better when I'm already working on images.

Now that my rant is over, getting back to where I was is not really an issue. It's literally a simple click away. If the Filmstrip isn't open, I can click the grey arrow at the bottom of the screen, or press the F6 key. The 4th and 5th icons on the left of the Filmstrip are the Previous and Next arrows, highlighted in red in our screen capture below.

Clicking the Previous arrow will go back to whatever I was before the import began. Easy, isn't it? Using the Previous and Next arrows (or Go Back and Go Forward in the tool tips) I can navigate through places I've been working recently. Alternatively I can click on the downward pointing arrow at the end of the text (in the above image, it appears after the letters JPG). This will open a list of recent folders as per the screen capture below.

Still, I'd like an Import in background preference!

Why LR changes the settings of raw pics on import.

It's probably time to jump in on some of the suggestions you've been posting in the Skribit box. This one is an easy one to explain, but I'm not sure how satisfied people will be with the answer.

When you first view a Raw file in Lightroom, you are looking a camera rendered preview of the file, embedded in the file. This embedded Jpeg is what you see on the camera LCD as you shoot. Because it's a rendered Jpeg, it has all the camera settings like saturation, contrast, picture style/mode, etc applied to it.

The Raw file itself however has no inherent settings and is actually a pretty dull and lifeless looking file. So when you import a Raw, the preview goes from this rendered Jpeg to a preview based on whatever Develop settings you've chosen in the Import Dialog. Quite a lot of people choose the default rendering, which adds a small bit of brightness and contrast, but little else. This has the apparent effect of going from a pretty file to a dull file as the preview is created. Lightroom isn't actually throwing away settings, but it's hard to shake that feeling.

Fortunately there is a way around this. First and foremost, Lightroom 2.2 added the new Camera Profiles to the installer, meaning you can choose a setting to emulate your camera picture style/mode. Go to Develop and then click on the last panel on the right. This is the Camera Calibration panel. The first section is the Profile section.

From here look through the options, like Camera Landscape or Camera Vivid and find one that suits your photo style. Next add contrast and saturation using Basic or Tone Curve. Finally, hold down the Alt Key (Option key on Mac). The Reset Button on the bottom right of the right panel will change to Set Default... Click this button and then in the following dialog choose 'Update to Current Settings'. As you can see in the dialog this creates a settings for the camera that the shot was captured with. Repeat to get your preferred default for all your cameras.


If you feel the settings aren't working out, you can use the other option in the menu to restore the Adobe default settings, then start from scratch.

Once you've customised the settings in this way, they will be applied on Import for that camera, until you change or reset them.

Blogging the oldies.

One problem with a blog is that it's very much a linear thing based entirely on chronology, which makes it a little one dimensional. I've been endeavouring to add more dimension to it using Labels, but I think it's time to start making reference pages. There's quite a lot of material in the blog going right back to the original Beta. So I think the first thing to do is to make a reference page for Video Tutorials from the past. Obviously (to me anyway) it makes more sense to have the newest ones on top, although a lot of the material can still be relevant despite being from a previous version. Being the start of 2009, it makes sense to try and gather the resources together.

I've created a little shop page at http://lightroom-blog.com/shop, which I'll use as the template for this. Basically I'll have a short description and clickable thumnbnail. I'll also include videos I've done for Lightroom News too, perhaps in their own section.

Happy New Year

It's been a interesting year on Lightroom Blog, not to mention for me personally in regards to Lightroom. I've published a commercial set of presets, along with a Lightroom Web Engine. I've tech edited a Lightroom 2 How-Tos for Chris Orwig (happy new year Chris!), and his Photoshop CS4 book! My own book is in the hands of the publisher (a commissioned book). I have ideas for a book I want to write, actually the first idea for a book I had all along. We'll see if 2009 can make that happen!

I've spent a lot of time being a Moderator for Adobe Lightroom Help, and for Lightroom Forums (where I lend a hand when I can).

I've also been working on various aspects of brushing up my coding, to create more web engines. I'm currently studying Javascript, with a PHP book sitting in the wings on my tech reading list. I do have a rather large pile of 'to read' books! Currently it's Real World Color Management by Fraser, Murphy and Bunting. I have a good understanding of colour management, but I felt the need to read this, to flesh out what I know, and be able to say I read it! On that list are Seth Resnick and Jamie Spritzer 'The Photoshop Lightroom Workbook', and 'Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2' by David Huss.

The credit crunch is affording me more time off as venues are only running weekends gigs, so I've more reading and shooting time.
For 2009 I'll continue to do videos and tips here, and on Lightroom News. Relating to video, it's funny that when I'm recording, I'm running very close to clipping the audio input, yet I get a complaint that I'm too quiet. I guess there is no winning. Maybe it's time for a hard limiter so my voice is louder than your CD ;). As always suggestions for topics are welcome via the Skribit bar on the right. Yes I do look at them and I do plan on using them for future tips.
I plan on continuing the interviews for Lightroom News, I've enjoyed them, and would love to do a few more (I'm putting together another one soon).
Anyhow, thanks for dropping by in 2008, and I look forward to seeing you again throughout 2009!