1. Press G to jump to Grid.
2. Select all the photos you want to have the same aspect ratio.
3. Expand the Quick Develop panel
4. Expand the Saved Preset section if you can’t see the Crop Ratio setting.
5. Click the Crop Ratio drop-down menu and select the aspect ratio or Enter Custom to create your own.

All the selected thumbnails will update to the new aspect ratio. Press R if you want to jump to the Crop tool and tweak the crop composition.

From the course description …

“Are you a new to intermediate Lightroom user who is looking to take your Lightroom experience to the next level? Do you have the basics down, but still want to know more? Does Lightroom drive you crazy sometimes? Would you like to learn how to better integrate Lightroom into other aspects of your digital life? Would you like to avoid common problems and learn from the mistakes of others? Well then this is the course designed for you. After answering questions from thousands of Lightroom users over the last 3 years I created a course that covers the most common things people have been struggling to understand while integrating Lightroom into their photography workflow.”

Continue reading about Lightroomers Guide to Lightroom class over at ppsop.net. The part of this class I am most jazzed about is that it allows for a level of interaction between me and the students you won’t find in most online learning experiences. This class includes lessons, assignments, video tips and lots of Q&A interaction via the classroom message board. You’ll be able to reach me via email, my blog, and twitter too, so it is the next best thing to having me at your side for 4 weeks while you take your Lightroom skills to the next level!

PPSOP was founded by one of my long time photography heroes, Bryan Peterson, who authored (among many others) my all time favorite book on understanding exposure, perfectly named, Understanding Exposure. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to wrap your head around exposure once and for all.

Bryan produced a great video explaining how PPSOP courses work. My class will continue to run throughout the year so if the January 8 start date doesn’t work for you keep checking back for the next session. I look forward working closely with you over those 4 weeks!

If you are brand new to Lightroom and you are looking for a great place to get started then I suggest taking Jon Canfield’s Lightroom From Import to Output first and then take my class next. I’ve designed my class to build on the materials in Jon’s class so your learning continues to the next level!

Here’s one more performance boosting tip for both Lightroom 2 and Lightroom 3 Beta. To speed up the process of applying flags and ratings to photos in the Library module you can turn on the Caps Lock key to automatically move to the next photo after applying a rating or flag. If you hold the Shift key it works the same way. Those are both good tips, but I always forget the Caps Lock is on and start typing, so I prefer another option. Look under the Photo menu and check Auto Advance.

With Auto Advance enabled you can just focus on applying flags, ratings and color labels and Lightroom will automatically advance you to the next photo after any one of those is applied. If you want to apply both a flag and a rating before auto advancing hold the Shift key (or enable Caps Lock) and Lightroom will auto advance after the second item is applied. This combo really helps you cruise through the process.

The four Library module views—Grid, Loupe, Compare and Survey—are accessible from the Library module Toolbar.

Read The Many Views of the Library Module over at peachpit.com.

Here are the alternatives I came up with that could be used once the import is complete.

You could select all (Ctrl/Cmd+A) the newly imported photos and then drag them to an existing collection or press Ctrl/Cmd+N to create a new collection and add the selected photos to that collection at the same time by checking the “include selected photos” box. Those options work in Lightroom 1 as well.

However, the new Target Collection feature in Lightroom 2 presented another alternative. Here’s how to make it work. First, Right-click (Mac: Ctrl-click) an existing collection and choose Set as Target Collection. This means the Target Collection takes the place of the Quick Collection. Then once this is set you can select photos and just press B to add them to the Target Collection. 

You can’t make a Smart Collection the target collection, but others are fair game. This little feature can speed up the process of adding new photos to any collection you choose to target.

The current Target Collection is marked with a + sign after the collection’s name.

It allows you to see what collections that photo has been added to and it allows you to jump over to viewing any one of the collections shown.

Give it a try the next time you want to see how many collections a given photo is included in or when you want to jump to another collection you know that photo happens to be a member of. Note that smart collections are not included in the listing.

First you need to enable Show Image Info Tooltips in the Filmstrip. Just right-click (Ctrl-click) a photo in the Filmstrip and go to View Options  and make sure Show Image Info Tooltips is checked. Once enabled, all you need to do is place your cursor over any photo in the Filmstrip to make the tooltip appear.

The information displayed is the same that is shown in the Info Overlay when you are in Loupe View, which means you can customize what you see in the tooltip. Pretty cool! This works the same in both Lightroom 1 and 2.

Here’s one of those little things that seems to be tripping up a number of Lightroom 1 users who have upgraded to Lightroom 2.

In Lightroom 1, you can expand the Keywording panel and start typing a keyword into the big keyword tag field. As soon as you start typing, Lightroom offers an auto-complete option by displaying any of your other keywords that match the letters you’ve typed so far. This is a handy feature and people have come to rely on it.

However, in Lightroom 2 there is a new field just below that larger field in the Keywording panel. Depite its subtle label that reads “Click here to add keywords,” people who are used to using Lightroom 1 just click into the larger field and start typing. The problem is that the auto-complete function only works with the new entry field.

You can still enter keywords via the larger field, but if you want to use the auto-complete function use the new field expressly designed for that purpose.

It is called Add Parent Folder and what it does is literally add the parent folder to the Folders panel. Why is this helpful? Let me illustrate. Let’s say you have a folder structure by year like this:

Which is fine, but now you need to move all those folders to a new drive because you are running out of room. In this setup you would need to move one year at a time because Lightroom won’t let you select multiple folders for a move operation. However, if the parent folder of all those year folders was added to the Folders panel you could just select the parent folder and move it to the new drive, which would bring along all the subfolders and their contents.

To add that folder, just right-click (ctrl-click on Mac) and choose Add Parent Folder from the contextual menu.

This results in that parent folder appearing in the Folders panel.

This not only makes it easier to move folders but also gives you one more collapsible level of structure in your Folders panel.

Read Making Sense of the Quick Develop Panel over at peachpit.com.