[Editor’s note: It seemed fitting that my last blog post of the year should be my last column in Photoshop User magazine, which ceased publication with the December issue. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have written my Under the Loupe column for so many years. – Rob]

When you first expand the panel, you’ll see everything is grayed out until you check the box next to Apply, which brings it to life and applies the settings to the selected photo.

By default, it uses AI to create a depth map of the photo and applies the default blur amount of 50. Having a photo with a clearly distinguishable subject will improve the quality of the depth map it creates. With this photo, I was impressed with how well it detected the subjects and even the default settings helped to separate them from the background. This tool is no replacement for in-camera depth of field blur and won’t replace any of my fast lenses, but in this case the photo was shot with the Canon RF600mm f/11 lens, so I couldn’t open the aperture any wider. My goal is to use Lens Blur to help the owl and squirrel stand out more from the busy background, without it looking too fake (obviously in the eye of the beholder).

Let’s get oriented to the panel. The Blur Amount slider does exactly what it says, and if you take it to 100, you’ll see we’re heading into fake looking blur territory. Below that slider are five different bokeh options, and hovering your cursor over each will reveal a pop-up with its name and description. The first is the most normal looking, but definitely worth clicking each one and exploring how each affects the photo. A photo with out of focus light sources will really show the differences between each option. If your photo does contain out of focus light sources (imagine a string of holiday lights in the background), then the Boost slider can be used to adjust the brightness of those light sources (the effect is very subtle on a photo like this).

For some photos, simply adjusting the desired Blur Amount and Bokeh option may be all you need to get the desired effect. If you want to fine tune things further or if the AI generated depth map doesn’t quite work for your photo, you can manually select what is in focus using the Focal Range controls. At the top of the Focal Range pane are icons for the AI generated depth map and a crosshair icon that allows you to click (or click-drag) over the region of the photo you want to be in focus. I think the AI did a good job of finding the desired subject, but there are some areas I want to refine, so I’ll leave the AI depth map and explore how I can modify what is in focus and what is blurred.

To really see how the depth map is working you’ll want to check the Visualize Depth box, which displays a color-coded depth map overlay on the photo. The warmer the color the nearer to the camera while the cooler the color the further away. You can see these are the colors displayed in the Focal Range pane as well. To visualize what exactly is in focus, keep the checkbox checked, then click on the handle within Focal Range. Dragging left or right will change what is in focus and you’ll see the in-focus area of the photo displayed in white. You can also reduce or increase the size of the rectangle to further refine what is in focus and what is blurred.

For this photo, I tried to reduce the size of the in-focus area as much as possible to ensure the owl and squirrel were in focus along with the branch they are on, but there were still some areas of the owl that remain slightly out of focus, and this is where the Focus and Blur brushes at the bottom of the panel come into play. The Focus brush allows for painting in areas that we want to be in focus, while the Blur brush allows for painting in areas that we want more blurred. The Size, Feather, and Flow sliders work just the same as they do for the brush in the Masking panel. There is even an Auto Mask checkbox that works great when brushing over an object with clear edges between it and the adjacent area. In this case, I’ll select the Focus brush, reduce its size (the left and right bracket keys also adjust brush size here) to fit within the area of the owl not fully in focus, and paint over its back and tail to include those areas in focus.

You can paint with the overlay on or off as desired. Use the Amount slider to blend your adjusted area in with the rest of the photo. Zooming into 100% shows some areas along in focus objects that need help along the edges, such as the branch coming up in front of the owl. Switching to the Blur brush, I can fine tune those edges to clean that up and match the blur along the edge to the background’s level of blur. Just as when brushing in Masking, hold the spacebar and click on the image to zoom in/out, or to click and pan around.

When done brushing with either tool, use the Amount slider to fine tune the look to all the areas you brushed and blend with the rest of the photo. If you want to make a new brush adjustment, click the + sign next to the brushes to begin a new adjustment with a different amount setting. In this case I wanted to ease the transition of blur on the bottom branch as it heads into the background below the animals. Now, I know this is not the same as true lens blur done in-camera, but I do like having the ability to make the subjects stand out of a busy background in a subtle way with quite a bit of control. Be sure to use the eye icon on the Lens Blur panel as you go to see the photo without Lens Blur for comparison.

For a more exaggerated example, I’ll take a photo with a very wide depth of field and give it a strong blur effect to simulate a shallow depth of field. After letting Lightroom create its AI depth map I’ll grab the Point/Area Focus tool to manually click on the car to tighten the area of focus even more.

I’ll turn on Visualize Depth, and further refine the area I want to be in focus around the car.

I’ve got the area dialed in, but due to the car windows we can see into the background, but those areas are still in focus. Grabbing the Blur brush, I can brush over the areas within the windows to match the blur with the background.

With a new Blur brush, using a lower Flow setting to slowly build up the effect, I can paint on the hill behind the car to separate it from the car with a more subtle blur. If you accidentally paint over the wrong area, you can hold the Option (PC: Alt) key to flip the brush to an eraser to erase any errant strokes. By using a lower flow and multiple brush instances, you can build up layers of blur. In an otherworldly image like this, I think the added blur can enhance its look (again, subject to taste), and the Lens Blur tool provides a pretty high degree of control even in its Early Access state. I look forward to seeing how this tool evolves and how it can help us achieve a final look beyond what our cameras and lenses can do alone.

As a final note I’d like to thank Scott Kelby, Chris Main, Kim Doty, Barbara Thompson, Jessica Maldonado, Margie Rosenstien, and Angela Naymick, along with all the rest of the behind-the-scenes team that have made Photoshop User magazine so wonderful for so many years. I’m sorry to see this is the final issue, but it has been an honor and a privilege to have been able to write for it since Lightroom first came on the scene. Thank you to all who have read these issues, and I hope to see you still in the KelbyOne community and LightroomKillerTips.com. – Rob

The post Exploring the New Lens Blur Panel appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Thanks, Terry – Great stuff as always.

How To Back Up and Organize Your Images When Travelling

I did a course on how I backup and organize my images in Lightroom when I travel, and it’s gotten a really great response. Check out the short trailer below:

Have a great weekend, everybody. Go Bucs and #rolltide!

-Scott

The post Great Video On All The New Stuff in Lightroom Classic and “Cloud” appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

STEP ONE: Here’s our original Raw image, and at this size, you don’t see the noise very much, but if you zoom in to 100%, there’s noise a-plenty!

STEP TWO: Scroll down to the Detail panel, and at the bottom of the panel, under Noise Reduction, click on ‘Denoise’ (as shown circled here in red).

STEP THREE: The Enhance Preview window appears (seen above), and Denoise will be selected by default (as seen here). There’s an amount slider so you can increase or decrease the amount of noise reduction you’d like to apply, and it also shows the estimated time it will take to apply this fix (in this case, it estimates 55 seconds).

STEP FOUR: Here’s a zoomed-in before and after so you can see the results. I used Compare mode to show this because when it does its thing, it creates a new separate Raw DNG image, so you have your original and a new file). This is those two side-by-side). You can see it did a pretty nice job removing the noise (better than anything we had built in within Lightroom or Photoshop before.

Above: here’s a zoomed-in look where you can see it did a really nice job of holding the detail.

Next time you have a noise image, give this a try – I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the result. Let me know what you think. Have a great Monday, everybody!

-Scott

P.S. The Lightroom Conference kicks off this afternoon with a special pre-conference session I’m teaching on “Lightroom Classic for Absolute Beginners” – then starting Tuesday, it’s two full days, two full training tracks, amazing instructors, and so much to learn (plus, the entire conference is archived for a full year for you to stream on demand). Don’t miss you – tickets and more info at bit.ly/3BqMWvN – see you online.

The post First Look at Lightroom’s New Built-in AI-Powered Noise Reduction appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Fantastic! Thank you Terry!

I’m off to New York for my Travel Photography Workshop

I know, I know, I just got back from Lisbon last week, but Erik and I wanted to hold our workshop before it gets summer-time hot in New York (which can be a scorcher), so we needed to go now, and thankfully we’re going to have perfect temperatures throughout (we’ll even have to dress in layers if you can believe that).

I have one more workshop coming up this year, in London in September, and if you want early notice when the tickets go on sale (there are only 12 spots total), then head over to my workshop website and get on the early notice mailing list (it’s at the bottom of the page). You’ll get a shot to grab one of the spots before they go up for grabs to the public. Here’s that link again.

Have a great weekend, everybody, and I’ll be seeing 12 of you up in New York this coming week!

-Scott

The post Terry’s Favorite New Lightroom Features appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

While there are no amazing new features in this update, there are always bug fixes, support for new cameras (like the Canon EOS R8 and R50), and support for new lenses, so I recommend keeping your software up to date. I am not aware of any new issues created by this update.

What’s New?

In Lightroom Classic, we’ve always had the ability to export a .txt file containing our keywords in a tab delimited list, but with this update we can now export our keyword list into a .csv file that also contains info about they keywords.

Additionally, in the Map module there is now a checkbox in the Toolbar to Show More Labels, like you would see if you were looking at a Google Map online or in an app. Uncheck the box if you find the labels distracting for the work you are doing.

Additionally, tethering for supported cameras should now be working on Mac’s Ventura OS. Here’s Adobe’s updated list of what’s new in LrC for more detail.

A very welcome update in Lr for iOS and Android is that fact that we don’t have to tap Done after every single healing action. The healing brush is only available to those with the paid Lr subscription.

For Lr on Android, support for adaptive presets containing Portrait masks has been added. Check out Adobe’s update list of what’s new in Lr for more.

The post February Update for Lightroom Classic, Lightroom, and Camera Raw appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Open Directly in Camera Raw

The most obvious way to do this is simply open a raw photo from Bridge into Camera Raw or use the File > Open menu in Photoshop to do the same. However, as a Lightroom Classic user you may not be used to navigating through Bridge or your operating system’s file browser to find where a given photo is stored to open it into ACR. Additionally, you may have made some edits in LrC that you want to keep and bring into ACR, and once the edits are done you probably want all of the edits back in LrC. So here’s a bit of a non-typical workflow that will keep your LrC edits with the source raw photo, allow you to play with Curves in Masking in ACR, and then have all new edits show up in LrC when you are done.

Starting and Ending in LrC

OK, let’s say we have a raw photo in a collection in LrC (which can make it harder to know where it is stored on drive), and we’ve done some basic edits, flag state and other metadata in LrC that we want to retain.

Step One: Select the photo in the Library module and go to Metadata > Save Metadata to File. You can also press CMD+S (PC: Ctrl+S) to do the same. You may see a warning prompt designed to inform you about what will happen and allow you to cancel if you did it by accident. Click Continue to well, continue.

All that is happening is LrC is writing all the data it stored in the catalog about that photo to the XMP metadata of the selected photo. Now, not everything stored in a catalog can be written to XMP, such as virtual copies, so you need to have the source photo selected (not a virtual copy) to make this work. The purpose of this step is to be able to see any LrC edits previously applied when we open in ACR.

Step Two: Press CMD+R (PC: Ctrl+R) to open your operating system’s file browser (Finder or Explorer) with that photo already selected. This is just a fast way to find that photo so it can be opened directly into ACR.

Step Three: Double-click the photo (assuming Photoshop is the default program for raw photos) to open it into Photoshop via ACR. Alternatively, right-click the photo and use the Open in contextual menu to open it in Photoshop. When you open a raw photo into Photoshop it goes right into ACR.

Because we wrote from LrC to the photos metadata, any edits you made in LrC should be visible and editable in ACR.

Step Four: Click the Masking icon to open into masking and use whatever tools you desire to make your mask so that you can make adjustments to that mask using Curves. In this example, I’ll start with Select Sky to make my first mask and expand the Curves panel.

One of the obvious uses of Curves is to adjust contrast and tonality, so let’s darken the sky down a little while increasing contrast.

But we can also use the RGB curves to adjust individual color channels. Let’s pump up the sunrise colors a little bit more by using the Blue curve to add more yellow to the highlights.

Then use the Green curve to add a little magenta into the sky as well.

Using the existing Sky Mask, I’ll click the three-dot menu next to it in the Masks panel and choose Duplicate and Invert Mask so I can work on the foreground separately from the sky.

First, I’ll use the parametric curve to brighten up the overall foreground.

Then I’ll use the Green curve to add magenta into the highlights while boosting the darker green tones of the grasses.

OK, those are some quick edits just to explore what curves can do for a photo. Now, let’s bring it back to LrC.

Step Five: To finish in ACR without opening in Photoshop, click the Done button. This will write all edits to the photos XMP metadata and close ACR.

Step Six: Switch back over to LrC, and make sure the original photo is still selected (if not, select it). Go to Metadata > Read Metadata from File. You will see another prompt informing you of what you are doing. Click Read to continue. This tells LrC to update the info in its catalog with the info from the photo’s XMP metadata, and since we started this by writing from LrC to the metadata we won’t lose anything in the process. In fact, we gain all the edits we made in ACR. Once the process is done you should see the preview update in LrC (if not, switch to Develop and it should update there).

Even though we cannot edit the Curves adjustments in the masks made in ACR we can see them in LrC, and we can adjust other settings in the masks if we wish.

So, go and play around with this new feature and when it comes to LrC you’ll be able to edit those Curves adjustments without jumping through all these hoops. Enjoy!

The post Using Curves in Camera Raw Masking from LrC appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Intersect added to Masking

If you use Lightroom Classic then you may already be familiar with the Intersect function that was added when Masking got its major overhaul last October. Intersect is a powerful function and was added to support the previous functionality for using what was called a Range Mask within a Radial Filter, Graduated Filter, or Adjustment Brush adjustment. I’ve written about Intersect Mask before when using Lightroom Classic, and in that article I demonstrated a workaround to gain that same functionality in Lightroom. With the introduction of Lightroom 5.2 (back in Feb) we gained the same Intersect function here in Lightroom to keep it on par with Lightroom Classic.

So, let’s say you have a photo you want to select just the skin tones, so you brush over the subject’s face in broad strokes first using the Brush in Masking.

Then, in the Masks panel, click the three-dot menu next to the mask you created and choose Intersect with Mask using … and choose Color Range in this case, but use what makes the most sense for your photo.

Then using the Color Range selector tool, choose the desired color range in the photo and refine to just have the areas of skin selected. Subtract with the brush as needed to clean up around the edges.

Export Versions

If you are a fan of using Versions in Lightroom you’ll be glad to learn of additional functionality for exporting copies of a given version’s state or exporting all named versions as JPGs in one move. Click the Versions button at the bottom of the Editing panel to open the Versions panel.

From there, if you have named versions and want to export JPG copies of them all at once, click the three-dot menu at the top of the panel and choose what size JPG you would like to export. Lightroom will then export a JPG copy using the name given to the version for the file name.

You can export a single version by clicking the three-dot menu next to the desired version and choosing Export with these settings to open it in the Export window where you can choose desired export settings (note, Short side is now an option for resizing exported copies too).

While not huge features, sometimes it is the little things that help us in our workflow and serve as a good reminder to keep our applications up to date.

The post New Features in Lightroom for Desktop appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Pretty incredible, right? For more info, check out the Adobe Camera Raw team’s blog post right there.

Big, big, biggety big stuff!!! Whoo hoo!!!

-Scott

P.S. Whoo hoo!!!!

The post BREAKING NEWS: Adobe releases Sneak Peek Video of New Lightroom Masking Feature appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

New to Lightroom Classic and Lightroom desktop 

There are a few features that have been added to both of these programs (and Camera Raw too), so let’s address those first.

Super Resolution

While not a feature I use every day, I am pleased to see that Super Resolution has been added to both Lightroom products on the Mac and Windows platforms. It works the same as it does in Camera Raw when it was released back in March, except that now we can access it right inside of either Lightroom Classic or Lightroom (desktop only, not mobile). To use the new Enhance Super Resolution feature, just right-click the photo and choose Enhance (or use Photo > Enhance). When the Enhance Preview dialog appears, check the box for Super Resolution, then click the Enhance button to initiate the process of creating the larger copy.

One small difference in the Lightroom Classic version of this feature is the Create Stack checkbox, which stacks the enhanced version with the original.

Native Support for Apple Silicon

With this update, Lightroom Classic joins Lightroom and Photoshop in being able to run natively on Apple computers with the new M1 chip. Note, there is a slight caveat when it comes to the tethering function on an Apple Silicon device, which I’ll cover shortly.

New Preset Packs

This release has added 7 new groups of premium presets covering a variety of skin tones, styles, and travel. Adobe says that more of these premium presets will be added over time. What makes them premium is that they are only available to owners of paid subscription plans, as one more incentive to people using the free mobile apps to upgrade. These presets do seem to have been given a lot of thought by their creators and are worth exploring.

New to Lightroom Classic Only

There are a few additional performance improvements, such as faster metadata management in the Metadata panel when working on multiple photos, an update to how Lightroom Classic handles video files, and improved VRAM utilization.

Nikon Tethering Live View

For supported Nikon cameras, we now have the ability (well, the feature was previously a beta release) to enable Live View within the Lightroom Classic Tether Bar and get a real time view of what we are shooting. Once the tether capture has been established, click the Live button on the Tether bar to begin. Note, for my D850 I also needed to press the LV button on the back of the camera to allow for the camera’s shutter button to be used for taking the photo.

Tethering on Apple Silicon Devices

I mentioned the caveat to Apple Silicon support, and here it is, to tether you’ll need to run in Rosetta Emulation mode. By default, on an Apple Silicon device you’ll be running in native mode, which in my experience has been great so far. However, if you try to start a tethering session in this mode you’ll be prompted to relaunch in Rosetta.

Clicking Relaunch will exit you out of Lightroom Classic and then relaunch (be patient) in Rosetta. Once re-opened, you will have to go start the tethering process from the start (it doesn’t relaunch into tethering), and away you go (see first tethering figure above). Once your tethering session is complete, just exit Lightroom Classic, and the next time you launch it will default back to running natively.

If you know you are going to be shooting tethered, you can launch Lightroom Classic into the Intel version from the Creative Cloud Application Manager directly into Rosetta mode, and then just get on with tethering.

New to Lightroom Only

Switching to the cloud-based Lightroom family of apps, there are a few additional features to note.

Collaborative Editing

We’ve long had the ability to share albums with others, and we even gained the ability to allow other people to contribute photos to your shared album. The latest iteration on this functionality is to allow other people to edit the photos in the shared album. You enable this in the same manner of sharing an album from before, except you’ll see a new privilege added to the Share & Invite screen. Enter the person’s email address, then select the third icon and click Invite to send the email invitation to them.

As the owner of the shared album, you can of course remove their access or change it to just being able to view or contribute after the fact.

This could be very useful to anyone collaborating on a project or even among family members. Edits are tracked in the Versions panel under Auto.

Custom Crop Ratios

This seems like one of those things that should have been in here all along, but well, its here now. This makes it possible to create and save up to 5 custom aspect ratios that are different from the ones already included. Just like in Lightroom Classic, the oldest custom aspect ratio is pushed off the list when a sixth one is created.

Side note, in Lightroom on Mac/Win the location of the Presets button has moved up to the top of the Edit panels, right above the Profile drop-down menu. Once clicked, the preset panel appears in the same location as before.

Color Grading Support in Learn

I’ve written about the Learn and Discover sections of Lightroom in the past, and I want to mention that Color Grading is now supported in those tutorials. I’m especially honored that I was able to collaborate with the Lightroom Education Team to create some of these tutorials (thanks, Katrin). Go check them out!

All of these apps also gained new camera support and new lens profiles, which is always welcome news to those with new cameras and lenses. Enjoy!

The post June Update for Lightroom Classic, Lightroom, and Camera Raw appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

An easy way to add white space around our image

In Photoshop, this is literally a couple of clicks in the Canvas Size dialog box (shown above). I can add a 1″ border, or 2″ (as seen above) or 10″ to any side or all sides in just a couple of clicks. Why can’t we have something like that in Lightroom?

Now, if you have Lightroom Classic, and you understand how to use the Print Module pretty well, you could technically do this, but you’d have to either: (a) create a custom paper size if you want the white border to extend outside your image without shrinking the physical dimensions of your photo down, or (b) you’d have to make your image smaller than it’s original size to reveal a white border, and anyway you look at it — it’s not as simple and easy as what you can do in Photoshop in just a couple of clicks.

Here’s hoping this is something the Lightroom team might consider adding.

My Canon EOS R6 “err 70” issue

If you caught my post about my camera problem during last week’s airshow shoot with my new camera and lens, I think I may have found a solution (at least, I’m hoping this is it). Here’s the link to my post about it.

Have a great weekend everybody!

-Scott

P.S. Let me know if in the comments if this “adding canvas size” feature is something you’d like to see added to Lightroom.

The post Dear Adobe: Please Add This To Lightroom appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.