Here’s why: when you have 20 or 30 photos in one print like this, even though those images are really small (maybe just 2″ wide or less each), all 20 or 30 high-resolution images first have to download fully into your printer before the print makes its way out of your printer. That’s why it takes so long for them to print.

But when you go to the Print Job panel in Lightroom Classic and turn on “Draft Mode Printing” (shown above) now it sends a low-res preview version of each image to the printer instead of making you wait for each high-resolution image to render, so the print comes out MUCH faster, but the quality is still great because the size of each image is so small (and yes – you still have plenty of resolution for those small image sizes).

Give this “Draft Mode Printing” feature a try next time you’re doing a multi-photo layout, and you’ll be amazed at how great those images look even though they’re just the low-resolution preview versions (in fact, I doubt you’ll be able to tell the difference from the full high-res originals).

Now, that being said: don’t be seduced by this draft mode printing — it’s just for use in these multi-photo layouts where you have a lot of small-sized images. I’ve talked to people who love draft mode printing so much, they use it for most everything because it’s so fast, but you will notice a difference if you’re printing just one or two images per sheet because now the images are large enough to where you’ll see that difference

Hope you find that helpful, and let me know what you think of draft mode once you get a chance to try it.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

-Scott

P.S. Are you going to the “Photography Gear Conference” next month? Get the scoop here.

The post When to Use Lightroom’s Awesome “Draft Mode” Printing (and when not to) appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

HEADS UP: Tomorrow is the kickoff of Adobe’s annual Max Conference, and historically Adobe releases big updates to Lightroom during their opening keynote. Now, if that were to happen, and it was something really big, I would probably have a full length course all ready to go for release tomorrow to get KelbyOne members up to speed fast, and lots of coverage here on all the new Lightroom features from Rob Sylvan, but of course, that’s only if Adobe releases something really earth shattering, and of course, who knows if that will happen, but if it did, well…we would be ready. Just sayin…

OK, on to today’s tutorial:

It seems like edge effects are making somewhat of a comeback (these things go in cycles), so I thought I cover how to use them inside of Lightroom Classic (this one requires Classic’s Print Module, even though you might not be making a Print, but you can use it anyway).

This is super easy to do (even if you’re new to Photoshop). Here we go:

STEP ONE: First, you’ll need an edge. You can download free edges from the Web (there are a ton of them out there for free download and use) or you can find loads of them on inexpensive stock sites. What we need to do is make the center of the edge image (that white area) transparent. So, to do that start by duplicating the background layer (press Command-J on Mac, or Ctrl-J on a Windows PC). Then get the Magic Wand tool from the toolbar (as shown here) and click it once in the center of the image to select that entire white center area inside the edge (as seen here where the inside center white area of the edge is selected).

STEP TWO: Once that white center area is selected, hide the background layer from view by clicking on the little “eye” icon to the left of its name over in the Layers panel. Now hit the Delete key and it deletes that white area you selected on the top layer. The gray and white checkerboard shows you which parts of the image are transparent, so as you can see, the entire area that was white, is now fully transparent. While you’re there, get the Crop tool and crop it fairly tight like you see here. Now, you can click and drag that original background layer (named Layer 1) into the trash can at the bottom of the Layers panel to delete it.

STEP THREE: To keep that transparency intact when we go over to Lightroom, all we have to do is the save the Photoshop file as a PNG, so head over to Save As and when the Save As window opens, from the Format pop-up menu choose “PNG” as shown here. A PNG format options window will appear. Just choose, “Large Size” and will and click OK.

STEP FOUR: Now to go Lightroom Classic and click on the Print module. Choose a template from the Template picker in the left side panels (I chose the Maximum Size template). Go to the Image Settings panel and turn on the Zoom to Fill checkbox (so your image fills the cell), then go to the Layout panel and use the Margin and Cell size sliders (as shown here) to get your image to the size and position on the page where you want it.

STEP FIVE: Go to the Page panel and turn on the checkbox for Identity Plate. This is the feature we’re going to use to bring that transparent center edge image into Lightroom. Once you’ve turned the checkbox on, click anywhere inside that gray checkerboard area and a pop-up menu appears. Choose ‘Edit’ (as shown above).

STEP SIX: Clicking ‘Edit’ brings up the Identity Plate Editor you see above. Since we’re going to use that edge graphic we edited in Photoshop, you’ll need to click the ‘Use a graphical identity plate’ button up top, and then click the ‘Locate File’ button (as shown here). This brings up a standard ‘Open” window, so navigate to wherever you saved that edge graphic and click the ‘Choose’ button.

STEP SEVEN: This brings the edge image into Lightroom, and you can see the center of it is transparent because by default it appears over your image (as seen here), but of course, it probably won’t be the exact right size so in the next step we’ll resize it to fit your image.

STEP EIGHT: You can use the corner handle that appear around your graphic to scale the edge down to size, and you can click and drag anywhere inside that border to reposition the edge so it fits your image. It only allows you to scale proportionally (so you can’t drag just drag one side or the other to move just that size), so you’ll want to make sure, back in Photoshop, that the center of the edge is the proper size to fit a digital image (Oh, now he tells me). Luckily, most edges you download will already be perfectly sized to fit a standard image.

STEP NINE: When click off that border, the border handles are hidden from view and you see your final image (as seen above). To save this image as a JPEG, go to the Print Job panel (bottom of the right side panels), and from the ‘Print to’ pop-up menu choose “JPEG File.” That’s all there is to it.

NOTE: You might be thinking, “Scott, I see in the Identity Plate area of the Page panel, there’s a checkbox for ‘Render behind image.’ Why can’t we skip the whole Photoshop transparency part and just bring in the edge and put it behind our image?” It’s because, while that sounds easier, it’s actually not. You’ll spend a lot of time futzing around with the margin sliders and cell sliders to get your image to fit properly (I’ve tried), and so this is actually a much faster, easier way. Plus, once you’ve saved that file with a transparent center, now you can skip the Photoshop part going forward and just pop this edge in anytime you want.

OK, that’s a lot of steps for something so easy. It is, but again, part of it (the first three steps) you won’t have to do again – you’ve created a transparent center graphic you can use anytime without going to Photoshop again.

Where will you be next week…

…when some of the most talented portrait photographers on the planet take the stage to share their favorite portrait photography tips, tricks, and trusted techniques. The Portrait Photographer’s Conference kicks off next Monday with an orientation and then a pre-conference workshop on “What Makes a Great Portrait” and then Tuesday and Wednesday we’re diving in with both feet in two simultaneous training tracks. This is going to be so helpful, so if you’ve ever wanted to start taking portraits, or you (or someone you know) is already making portraits and you want to take your work to a whole new level, this is for you. Here’s the link for more details and to get your ticket now (and save a bunch).

Here’s to a totally kick-butt Monday!

-Scott

The post Adding Edge Effects To Your Image in Lightroom Classic appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

That’s why this trick is so helpful. Yes, it’s a workaround, but it works.

STEP ONE: Leave Lightroom and go to the text editing program of your choice (here I’m going to use the free Text Edit app on my Mac — a pretty bare bones text editing app, but you can even use Photoshop for this), and I’m going to format my text there. I can control the spacing between letters, I can center or left or right justify it; have multiple lines of text, leading control between lines, and so on — all the things you’d expect in even those most basic text editors.

STEP TWO: Once your text is formatted the way you want it; highlight the text and copy it (the standard ‘ol Command-C on Mac, Ctrl-C on Windows).

STEP THREE: Go to the Print Module; open the Identity Plate editor; click in the text field and Paste (Command-V on Mac: Ctrl-V on Windows).

STEP FOUR: Hit OK, and boom. Done. Your text maintains the text formatting and editing you did in your text app (as seen above). That’s a lot of work for something that should be built into Lightroom The Print module has only been there now what, 12 years? And, the biggest slap in the face is that one module away, in the Book module, is a type panel that works great, with all the type features you want — it’s right there already in Lightroom, but for some unknown reason Adobe won’t add it to the Print Module (where it’s so badly needed). So, so frustrating! Well, at least you know how to get around this limitation — go use another program to do you need, and then paste the results in Lightroom. Ugh.

OK, let’s brush all that frustration off (especially since we learned a handy workaround), and let’s make this an awesome week! Let’s go!

-Scott

The post The Secret Lightroom Text Formatting Trick appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

STEP ONE: We have start over in Photoshop. Open a new document, and then use the Place command (under the File menu) to bring in your logo, so it appears on its own layer above the background layer (as shown here).

STEP TWO: Now, go to the Layers panel and drag the Background layer into the trash can at the bottom of the Layers panel. That leaves your logo sitting on a transparent background (as seen here).

If you do this, and you still see a white background behind your logo, that means your logo has a white background embedded into the logo image itself, and you’ll have to remove it manually. In many cases, that’s as simple as clicking the Magic Wand tool on a white area of the background to select most, if not all, of the white areas. To make sure you get them all, go under the Select Menu and choose Similar to select all the white areas in your entire layer, then hit the Delete (Windows: Backspace) key, and now, if all goes well, your logo will be on a transparent background like the one you see above.

NOTE: If you want to have your logo appear reversed in white (so you can place it over any color background), press Command-I (Windows: Ctrl-I) to invert the image. If that didn’t do the trick, try this — put a rectangular selection around your entire logo. Hold the Command-key (Windows: Ctrl-key) and hit the up-arrow key once on your keyboard, and then hit the down arrow key once. You’ll see selection perfectly snap-to your logo. Now, press the letter “d” on your keyboard to set your Foreground/Background colors to their defaults. Now press “x” to make white your foreground color. Now, while your logo is still selected, press Option-Delete (Windows: Alt-Backspace) to fill your logo with solid white. Didn’t except to be learning so much Photoshop today now, did ya?

STEP THREE: The key to keeping the transparency in your file, as it comes into Lightroom, is to save it in the right format. Go to Save As, and when the Save As window appears, down at the bottom where you choose the file format, choose PNG (as shown here), then click Save.

STEP FOUR: Go to any of the Identity Plate editors (in the Print Module, Slideshow, etc.) and when the Editor appears, click on “Use a graphical identity plate” (as seen above). A locate file button will appear in the lower left. Click on it and find the logo you just saved in PNG format. Then click OK.

STEP FIVE: Now when you choose that logo you imported as your Identity Plate, it appears with a transparent background behind it (as seen here, where I brought in my logo, and placed it over a black background. I did that “reverse white logo” trick so it would appear in white over any background color I chose).

Well, that’s really quite a few steps, but that’s it — a transparent logo in Lightroom. By the way, when you’re in that Identity Plate Editor window, don’t forget to click on the “Custom” pop-up menu lower left side and save your logo in Lightroom, so you don’t have to go through this process again — you can just choose it from the Identity Plate pop-up menu.

OK, that one should keep your busy for the weekend. Hope you have a good one.

-Scott

The post Bringing Your Logo into Lightroom (with a transparent background behind it) appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

However, during the conference my #1 most-asked question was:

“Where are these features in Lightroom [cloud]?”

I had to give them the bad news — there is no print module in Lightroom ‘cloud’ and the only way to make a print there is to email the photo you want printed to a photo lab. There’s not even a print command in Lightroom ‘cloud’ (try pressing Command-P and nothing happens. Not even the Operating System’s print dialog appears. It’s disabled). If you want to print, it’s either Photoshop or Lightroom Classic (but again, it wouldn’t recommend Photoshop, and I explained why in my session).

Do I think a similar Print feature is coming to Lightroom ‘cloud?’

No, I don’t, and here’s why: While anyone photographer can choose either one they want, Lightroom Classic and Lightroom ‘cloud’ were designed for two different types of customers.

Lightroom Classic, the original, was designed from the ground up for serious and professional photographers. It was designed to be heavy on Metadata features, and things like Tethering in the studio, and advanced printing, and things like that right from the start. It still has lots of features Lightroom cloud doesn’t have — big ones and little ones, including some I don’t think will ever make their way to ‘cloud.’

Lightroom ‘cloud’ was designed for the consumer photographer who shoots on their mobile phone, and doesn’t have heavy metadata needs, or heavy storage needs, and they don’t really make prints and they don’t need tethering or other pro-level features.

Lightroom ‘cloud’ is super popular with iPhone and Android cell phone photographers, and I would have to imagine Adobe signs up more people to their Lightroom ‘cloud’ plan via Apple’s App Store or Google Play than any other method, and that’s makes sense when you think about who it was designed for.

This answers another question/comment I got a lot…

Another thing I heard was people complaining that certain features had one name in Lightroom Classic and a totally different name in Lightroom ‘cloud’ and that they felt it was really confusing. I believe the reason for this is two fold, but there’s a unfortunate wrench in the first one:

(1) These are two different products for two different types of customers. You’re supposed to use one or the other (Adobe doesn’t even recommend using both), and so you wouldn’t be bopping back and forth between the two, so if you’re just working in one (whether its Classic or cloud) it shouldn’t matter that a different program you don’t use has different terms for different features. Of course this all breaks down if you’re a Lightroom Classic user syncing to Lightroom mobile, where sure enough — the names of certain features are different. That’s the wrench. Ugh.

(2) The ‘cloud’ version uses naming conventions that are more consumer-like because that’s the audience it’s designed for. For example, Classic’s “Collections” and “Collection Sets” are called something different in Lightroom cloud. They use the more consumer-friendly names “Albums” and “Folders.”

The bottomline is: these are two different products for two different types of photographers. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all world, so having a choice between the two — where we can choose the one that suits our needs, and has the features that do what we need it to do, is a great thing. Hope that helps.

Have a great week everybody!

-Scott

The post Why Lightroom ‘cloud’ Doesn’t Have Printing appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Have a good one!

-Scott

The post People Are Really Struggling With This in Photoshop appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Here’s why: when you have 20 or 30 photos in one print like this, even though those images are really small (maybe just 2″ wide or less each), all 20 or 30 high-resolution images first have to download fully into your printer before the print makes its way out of your printer. That’s why it takes so long for them to print.

But when you go to the Print Job panel in Lightroom Classic and turn on “Draft Mode Printing” (shown above) now it sends a low-res preview version of each image to the printer, instead of making you wait for each high-resolution image to render, so the print comes out MUCH faster, but the quality is still great because the size of each image is so small (and yes – you still have plenty of resolution for those small image sizes).

Give this “Draft Mode Printing” feature a try next time you’re doing a multi-photo layout and you’ll be amazed at how great those images look even though they’re just the low resolution preview versions (in fact, I doubt you’ll be able to tell the difference from the full high-res originals).

Now, that being said: don’t be seduced by this draft mode printing — it’s just for use in these multi-photo layouts where you have a lot of small-sized images. I’ve talked to people who love draft mode printing so much, they use it for most everything because it’s so fast, but you will notice a difference if you’re printing just one or two images per sheet, because now the images are large enough to where you’ll see that difference

Hope you find that helpful, and let me know what you think of draft mode once you get a chance to try it.

We Could Possibly See Some New Lightroom Features Released Tomorrow

Hey, it’s possible, because tomorrow morning is the opening keynote for Adobe’s MAX conference, and historically they’ve announced new Lightroom and Photoshop updates during the keynote. So, since this is historically the case, Rob will be posting here tomorrow (instead of his usual Wednesday) just in case they do release new Lightroom features.

Catch My “Maybe There Will Be New Lightroom & Photoshop Features” Webcast tomorrow

At 11:00 am tomorrow ET, I’m doing a Webcast for KelbyOne members just in case Adobe does indeed announce new features. If they do, I’ll be showing them, if, ya know, they are announced. So, stop by tomorrow to see if history is on our side, and then if you’re a KelbyOne member, drop in and see what, if anything, is up.

-Scott

P.S. Are you going to ‘The Flash Conference?” It’s going to be awesome. Get the scoop here.

The post When to Use Lightroom’s Awesome “Draft Mode” Printing appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

One of the sessions I did was called “It’s all about the print” and the focus was on how to print from Lightroom Classic, either to your own desktop printer or to set-up and prep your image in Lightroom and then send it to an online lab, like BayPhoto or MPIX. I had a number of questions during the conference that I thought I’d also address here today for folks that didn’t get to attend. Here we go:

Q. If I’m saving my layout as a JPEG to send to the lab, which color profile should I apply?

A. Some major print labs will tell you to use sRGB as your color mode, but to make sure your lab is cool with sRGB, just drop their customer service dept. an email and ask them which profile they prefer (again, my guess is it will be sRGB, but better safe than sorry).

Q. If I’m sending my image to a lab for printing, should I let them do any color correction, or should I turn that option off?

A. When I send to images to a lab, I always leave that option turned on, because their monitors are perfectly calibrated (many labs calibrate their monitors to their printers daily), and I’ve been in the room at MPIX where they proof images and the folks that are doing it are incredibly talented at nailing their color. If they see something obviously wrong with the color in my end once it’s on their end, I want them to fix it. I’ve never had a problem or had them fix something that didn’t need fixing.

Q. Scott, how do you control the quality of prints when sending your photos to a photo book app (e.g. Picaboo, Mac Books, etc.)

A. Well, ya kinda don’t. With Photo Books, you just prepare the images like you would if you were going to print them yourself; cross your fingers and hope for the best. I’ve had great success with printing photo books from right within Lightroom Classic’s Book Module, so I’m totally comfortable with it.

The most likely thing that might happen (in a bad way) is that your prints print darker than you expect. If you’re concerned about that, make virtual copies of the images you want in your photo book; Select All and increase the Exposure by around +0.25 and that will probably compensate for darkening. If it still comes out too dark, you’ll have to try +0.50 (it all depends on the brightness of your monitor to how much you’ll need). It might take a try or two to nail the brightness amount, but you’ll get it. Remember, you can try a small book, with the minimum number of pages, as a test print before you commit to printing a big, full-sized, 100 page book.

Q. If you are using a paper from a different manufacturer than the printer, how do you handle the profile?

A. If you’re printing to (say for example) a Canon imagePROGRAF Pro-1000 printer but you’re printing on say Hahnemühle Platinum Rag paper, you need to go to Hahnemühle’s website and download their free Platinum color profile for the Canon Pro 100 printer (at the Hahnemühle Website, under Digital Fine Art, choose ICC profiles, and then ‘Download Center.’ It will ask you which brand of printer you have, and then which model of printer. Lastly, it askes which of their papers you’re printing to, and then it brings up a download link to the free profile.

Q. Do you take images you finished in PS back into LR to print?

A. Absolutely — I only print from Lightroom. I stopped printing from Photoshop about 11 years ago.

Q. [In a layout inside the Print Module]: Can you control what portion of the picture will be displayed in the cell?

A. You can: just click and drag inside the cell to reposition the image. Depending on the image and the layout, you’ll probably only be able to drag left/right or up/down — not both.

Q. What is the name of the rolled print stretcher that you mentioned his print session?

A. That’s Bay Photo Lab’s XPoser exhibition system. It’s really brilliant, and when we have our gallery openings, everybody’s always asking about them —  they love the way they stand off the wall; and just the sheer quality of the prints. It’s not glossy or matte; it’s more like a satin finish and it’s very flattering to photographic images. Here’s a video I did at Bay Photo’s booth at Photoshop World that shows the whole process. Worth watching:

Hope you found that helpful. Thanks again to everybody who make the conference such a success. It was an honor to share the virtual stage with such a great team of instructors, and with the wonderful group of photographers we got to spend the last two or three days with.

Have a great weekend. Stay healthy and happy, and I hope to see you here again next week.

-Scott

The post Lightroom Printing Q&A appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

The Print module in Lightroom Classic lets you create these really cool multi-photo layouts, and best of all —  you don’t have to just print them — you can save these layouts as JPEGs and share them on social, email them, whatever. Check out the video below (you’ll be surprised at how easy this is).

Hope you found that helpful (and if you have any questions about these multi-photo layouts, drop them in the comments section below).

This is going to be a great week — let’s make the most of it!

-Scott

The post How To Make Multi-Photo Layouts in Lightroom appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

I know that this video was a little late going up today, but it’s only because I’m a lame-o. Hey, at least I know it.

Stay safe, stay sane, and come back tomorrow for some Rockin’ Rob!

-Scott

The post Lightroom in 60-Seconds: How to Add Text to Your Prints appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.