Lightroom is built upon a database. Inside this database, commonly referred to as the catalog, is all the data about your photos. This includes all the metadata created by the camera at the time the photo is taken (shutter speed, f-stop, ISO, etc.) as well… Read More »Tutorial: The Purpose of Importing into Lightroom
I know how exciting it is when you first get Lightroom and you can’t wait to start importing photos and putting Lightroom through its paces! If you are like most people you keep the Lightroom catalog in the default location and never look back. Time… Read More »Tutorial: Don’t Let Lightroom Take Over Your Hard Drive
You may hear them referred to as either presets or templates interchangeably and you can find some form of preset/template in every Lightroom module. No matter what you call them they have a single purpose, which is to speed up your workflow by keeping you… Read More »Tutorial: Managing Presets and Templates
Even if you only shoot raw the reality is that we all still have a lot of rendered files on our systems too. What are rendered files? These are the photos rendered in pixels as opposed to the raw capture data produced by our cameras.… Read More »Tutorial: Rendered vs. Raw in Lightroom
Lightroom’s Secondary Display option allows you to make the most efficient use of your screen real estate when you are working with your photos. Ordinarily, when you open Lightroom you are greeted with Lightroom’s primary window. This is where you do all your work on… Read More »Tutorial: Using the Secondary Display in Lightroom 2
Lightroom’s interface is primarily comprised of panels. While they can’t be separated from the interface like the panels within Photoshop there are a number of cool things you can do with them. Knowing how to configure Lightroom’s panels to fit your needs can both speed… Read More »Tutorial: Working with Lightroom 2’s Panels
I’ve been surprised to find that a good number of Lightroom users are unaware of some of the functionality built into the Lightroom interface that is designed to help you get the most from your screen real estate and enhance your ability to work with… Read More »Tutorial: Lightroom Screen Modes and Lights Out
Lightroom is often referred to as a “metadata editor,” meaning that the work you do in Lightroom isn’t applied to the pixels in the source photo, but rather is saved as a set of metadata instructions (inside the catalog file) that are only applied to copies of the source photo during any type of output. Everything you do inside Lightroom, from adding keywords to making tonal adjustments, is recorded into Lightroom’s catalog file.
External drives and Lightroom go hand-in-hand. I have a USB powered (so no extra power cord of its own) 250 GB drive (that is just a little larger than a deck of cards) and it travels with me everywhere. Back home I have several larger… Read More »Folder Structure Tip
Before you run that install you might consider a few precautionary measures to help smooth the transition. Read the ReadMe. Run a backup onyour version 1.0 database with an integrity check. Burn that backup to disk or some other drive for safe keeping. Make sure… Read More »Lightroom 1.1 Upgrade Tips