The October 2021 issue of Photoshop User is now live on the KelbyOne site and KelbyOne Mags for iOS and Android.

It’s October, which means it’s time for our annual tradition of giving you 100 of the hottest Photoshop & Lightroom tips by 10 of the coolest people we could find! Plus, using virtual copies, snapshots, and the History panel in Lightroom Classic; editing and organizing camera-scanned negatives and slides; using the Blend If sliders in Photoshop; adding text inside shapes; and so much more!

This issue’s cover designed by Jessica Maldonado

KelbyOne Pro & Plus members have access to 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 October 2021 Issue of Photoshop User Is Now Available! appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

View Options

The secret to configuring what is displayed in that little Tooltips can be found by going to View > View Options, and then clicking the Loupe View tab.

Yes, the Loupe View info overlay is what appears in that Tooltip. Not super obvious, but bear with me. The default settings include potentially useful information, but what is useful to me may not be to you. What if you didn’t want any information to display at all? Let’s explore some options.

Starting with Loupe Info 1, for each drop down menu, choose a data point that you would find useful either here in Loupe view or in a tooltip when hovering your cursor over a photo. For example, when looking in large collections or smart collections I’ve often found it useful to know the file type, folder where the photo is stored, and what camera it came from in that tooltip, so those are the options I configured for Info 1.

For Info 2, I have found it helpful to know information about camera settings used and pixel dimensions, so I configured that display as shown here.

If I leave the Show Info Overlay box checked at the top set to Info 1, then close that dialog box, I can place my cursor over photos in the Filmstrip or thumbs in Grid view and see that information displayed.

Pretty cool, no?

If I want or need to swap that info for what is configured in Info 2 I can press the I key (I for Info), then move my cursor off the photo, and then move it back again to see the Info 2 configuration displayed.

Definitely one of the less discoverable features I’ve come across in here, but now you know.

No Tooltip?

What if you didn’t want any tooltip to appear when you moved your cursor over a photo? Could be true for some of us some of the time. I found that if you set each option to None in either of the Info Overlays, when you cycle to the one set to None, you don’t see any tooltip at all.

If you’ve ever found that Tooltip to be annoying, now you know how to disable it until you need it.

The post Customizing the Tooltip Info Displayed appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Change Size of Filmstrip

The height of the Filmstrip that appears along the bottom of the interface in Lightroom Classic can be resized to a limited degree, but it isn’t necessarily intuitive.

Just place your cursor over the line separating the top of the Filmstrip from the rest of the interface above (the cursor will change to a double-headed arrow), then click and drag upward until you reach your desired size or you hit the upper limit (which isn’t very far).

Missing Tool From Toolbar

Just above the Filmstrip in Lightroom Classic is the Toolbar. The first thing you have to remember is that the tools that appear on the Toolbar change depending on the module you are in and what view or tool you are using. For example, within the Library module the contents of the Toolbar changes when switching between Grid and Loupe views.

Assuming you are in the right module and view for the tool you need, and you still don’t see it, then click that disclosure triangle at the far-right end of the Toolbar and click on the tool you want to be visible on the Toolbar.

If the entire Toolbar is missing press the T key to show it (or hide it).

Adding Multiple Graduated Filters

Next, switch over to the Develop module and selecting the Graduated Filter (pressing M while in Library will switch you to Develop with this tool active). You may not often have the need to add more than one Graduated Filter, but if you do, then all you need to do is press Enter/Return after adding the first filter to switch into New mode for adding an additional filter. Alternatively, clicking the New button at the top of the editing panel will do the same thing.

Adding Filenames to a Slideshow

Adding photo specific information to each slide in a slideshow isn’t terribly obvious. Once you switch to the Slideshow module you should see an ABC button in the middle of the Toolbar (remember, press T if the Toolbar is missing).

Clicking that ABC button engages the Custom Text field for input, and a reasonable person would think that is the place to add the text they want to show for the active/selected photo. However, what you are really doing is adding that custom text to every slide in the slideshow.

Instead of enter text in the Custom Text field, click the associated drop-down menu and choose the desired text template from the menu (for example, Filename in this case).

This will add the chosen text template to the slideshow. Text templates can pull filenames, captions, titles, and more from each photo as it appears in the show. Note, if you choose a metadata-based template (like caption or title) then you need to add that information to each photo via the Metadata panel in the Library module in order for it to appear. You can also edit and customize text templates to fit your needs.

The post Lightroom Help Desk Roundup appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Filmstrip Filter

All of these filters can also be accessed right from the Filmstrip while you are in any of the other modules. Way over on the top-right side of the Filmstrip is the Filter section. Click the word Filter to expand the options (a second click will collapse them). The drop-down menu there gives you access to all the same filter presets as up in the Library Filter. The little light switch at the end turns the filters on or off. Don’t forget you can even change sources from the Filmstrip by clicking the path displaying the current source.

Locked and Unlocked

There are times when I want to apply the same filter to more than one source when I am gathering up photos for a project. The little lock icon at the end of the Filter bar will lock the current filter as you change sources when the lock is closed. When the lock is open you have to manually enable the filter if you change sources.

Did you know it is possible to lock a unique filter to different sources? It may be kind of an edge-use case, but it is there if you ever have the need. Let’s say you wanted to filter one folder on all photos that are 4 star and above, and another folder for all photos with a pick flag so that you could switch back and forth between sources without having to change the filter each time. Here’s how:

Step One: Select the first source and set the 4 star and above Attribute filter, then click the Lock icon.

Step Two: Go to File > Library Filters, and check Remember Each Source’s Filters Separately.

Step Three: Switch to the second source and set the pick flag only Attribute filter.

Step Four: Switch back and forth between sources and you should see a unique filter applied to each one.

Clicking the lock icon again to unlock the filter will disable the unique filters when you are done with the project. File that away for the future.

Filter Within Panels?

Have you ever noticed the little search field at the top of the Folders, Collections, and Keyword List panels? They are easy to ignore and overlook, but each is wonderful tool for filtering the contents of each panel respectively. I have hundreds of folders, nearly as many collections, and thousands of keywords. Instead of clicking and scrolling through each of those panels to find what I am looking for I can just type a few letters and the contents of each panel is filtered in real time! This is a huge time saver.

Here’s a simple example of how I use the filter in the Folders panel. Back in the Lightroom 7.4 update we gained the ability to assign a color label to folders. I decided I would assign all folders for the current year the color red. I did this because I work from the internal drive when photos are first imported, and then I use Lightroom to move the folders to an external drive later to preserve the space on my internal drive. This particular catalog has folders going back to 2001, and I usually don’t want or need to see the older folders. Now that my current year folders are red I can click the drop-down arrow on the magnifying glass in the Folders panel and choose Labeled Folders from the list to only display folders with a color. In other words, now I only see the current year of folders on both drives, which makes it just that much easier for me to move back and forth between them. It would be nice to filter per color, so hopefully that will be added in the future and make color labels even more useful.

That little drop-down menu in each of the panels holds the real goodies so be sure to try each one. Did you know you can filter the Collections panel to only display synced collections? You can! And the Keyword List panel can be filtered to just show People keywords if you use face recognition. Filtering data is one of the most useful things you can do in a database (catalog), so get out there and try all these little gems to see how they can help make your workflow more efficient.

The post A Look at Filtering: Part 3 appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Head over to View>View Options, and click the Loupe View tab (notice that if you were in Grid view, Lightroom switches to Loupe view when you click that tab so you can see the overlay).

There are actually two Info Overlays that you can configure to show different groups of information. Beyond the image info tooltip that appears when you place your cursor over a thumbnail in Grid view or the Filmstrip, the Info Overlay appears in the upper-left corner of your photo when you’re in either Loupe (E) or Compare views (C) in the Library module, or when you’re in Develop. You can easily show/hide the overlay and cycle through the two Info Overlay displays by pressing the I key. You can toggle the overlay on/off by pressing Command-I (PC: Ctrl-I).

The information you choose to include will depend on how you plan to use the overlays. For example, I find it helpful to include the File Name when using Compare view to easily distinguish between similar and multiple versions (RAW, TIF, JPEG) of the same photo, and I find Cropped Dimensions helpful when using the Crop tool to see the final pixel dimensions that result from a particular crop. If you’re prone to using the Filmstrip to navigate through photos while in Loupe view, you might find it helpful to check the Show Briefly when Photo Changes box under your preferred Info Overlay (you first have to uncheck Show Info Overlay to enable the Show Briefly option). This way, each time you select a new photo, you’ll see that selection of data appear briefly in the upper-left corner of the photo. You can still use the I key to override this option and cycle through each state or keep the overlay on for good.

If you only care about what data shows in the tooltip and don’t want to always see it in Loupe view or Develop, configure the info you want to include in either Info Overlay 1 or 2, then select either Info 1 or Info 2 in the drop-down menu. Exit the Library View Options dialog, and press Command-I (PC: Ctrl-I) to hide the overlay in Loupe. Now, you should only see it in the tooltips, and when you want to see it again in Loupe, press that same shortcut again to bring it back.

The post Configuring Info Overlay and Tooltips appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Here’s a short video that shows the problem (it’s actually a feature), and how to turn that feature off, it you don’t want those filmstrip badges clickable.

https://youtu.be/QSMcqZ1PqKM

The post How To Stop Accidentally Clicking on Badges In The Filmstrip appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Above: This first part is a mini-tip unto itself because not everybody knows that if you click on any of the text just to the right of the gray arrows at the top left of the Filmstrip, a pop-up menu will appear, and under Recent Sources a list of your most recently visited Collections and/or Folders will appear in a pop-up menu. Want to get back to one of those quickly? Just choose it from the list. Pretty handy, but that’s not the tip.

If you look just above the Recent Sources in that pop-up menu you’ll see Favorite Sources and I think this one is much more useful, because this is where you can put collections or folders that you find yourself working in on a regular basis (maybe it’s a Smart Collection, or a folder of your finals, etc.). Now, you can add those to the list and they’ll be there every time (whether you’ve used them recently or not).

Above: To add your currently selected Collection or Folder to your Favorite Sources list: just click that text at the top left of the Filmstrip to bring up that same pop-up menu, and choose “Add to Favorites” at the bottom of the pop-up menu (as shown here).

Above: Now that Collection (in this case, a saved book collection) will appear from now on under Favorite Sources (as seen here).

How’s that for a quick little Monday get-yer-week-goin’ tip?

Hope you have a great week!

-Scott

The post Workflow Tip: Save Time By Setting Up Favorites appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.