Just how big an image can and should you use as an Identity Plate
I’ve just sat through a presentation by a very well known Lightroom trainer/expert and they were asked what size the ID plate image can be for it to appear (uncropped) in the top left corner of the Lightroom screen. Well they had an answer that “worked for them” but it wasn’t right! Yikes. Noooooo!
Their image was a particular size but, because it was a png file and has transparency they were ignoring the fact that their ID details didn’t fill the image so it “looked” ok in place but, if your image is full of ‘stuff’ from top to bottom with content then their dimensions were out by a whopping 4px!
So, I checked and tested this. I made an image in Photoshop and tested it to the exact pixel – top to bottom and right to left. Here are the proven dimensions:
360 wide x 42 tall
However, be aware, that at 42px tall the bottom pixel of your image sits slap bang on the top of the Lightroom interface so you might want to make it 40 px tall so you leave some breathing room – just saying – but it can go up to 42px before anything gets cut off.
Oh, and the width size needs some explanation too. You can make the width much wider but, if you do, the little disclosure triangle in Lightroom CC2015 appears slap bang on top of the image. So, think of 360 px as a good setting which leaves a few pixels between your ID plate and the disclosure triangle – enough for some breathing space so it all looks neat and tidy.
In the image above and below my document is 360 x 40 which works really well. If you are using a less wide image, make sure to add some space to the left of your logo to give it some breathing room – otherwise if you crop really close to your logo in your png file you’ll jam your logo up against the left side of the screen really unattractively.
Also – my logo was created in Illustrator so when I exported it as a png file I made sure to choose the black matte option so it looks just wonderful on a black background – if you don’t do this it will look just horrible with a white fringe around it. Oh! and I added my text in Photoshop – below was my first try – just saying it looks a lot better above where I smoothed the text and resaved and added it to Lightroom. Don’t say you haven’t been warned!
Know the filename or part of it? Here’s how to find it in Lightroom
When you need to find a file by looking up its name in Lightroom, here’s how to do so:
1 Go to the Library and on the left in the Catalog area, select All Photographs to search all the photos in your collection.
2 Press the Backslash key \ to display the filter bar (you can also select View > Show Filter Bar
3 Select the Text option
4 Type the filename into the box as shown here:
Lightroom will find the image if it exists in the catalog if it exists.
5 If you want to do so, you can type only part of the filename in the box – just make sure to select Contains from the list so you find all files whose names contain that text.
When you are done, select the Custom Filters dropdown and choose Filters Off to return to viewing all your photos.
Create an isolated color or selective color effect in Lightroom
You will have seen this effect in advertising and wedding photography but it is equally as effective for other photos. Here I will show you how to take an image which has a lot of detail which is a single color and make that color pop in the image. You will see how to play down other colors – without necessarily turning the image into a black and white and how to change colors that aren’t quite the right color to make them look better. In this image I will take some orange tones and make them more red, for example.
This is a fun effect and you might be surprised at just how many images in your photo collection it will work with – I didn’t have to look very far at all to find a few images that this will be appropriate to use this effect with.
Perspective problems vary – they include keystoning issues where a building is smaller at the top than at the bottom. There is barrel distortion where the sides of the image bend out and pincushion distortion where they are sucked in. Luckily, for all these distortion and bending lines issues Lightroom has a tool that will fix them for you.
In this video you will learn to use the Upright tool and the manual adjustments for fixing lens distortion and perspective problems in Lightroom.
When you need to find everything you haven’t flagged, here’s two ways of doing it
The long way (using the menus) is to:
1. First click on the Folder containing the photos to check
2. In the Library module, choose Library > Enable Filters (if it is already checked then don’t select it!)
3. Choose Library > Filter by Flag > Unflagged Photos Only to see the unflagged photos.
If you flag any photos with this filter in place, they will immediately disappear from view – because they are no longer umflagged – they won’t match the current filter.
When you are done, click Filters Off to go back to viewing all the photos.
The second way to isolate unflagged photos:
Again, is to click on the Folder containing the photos to check
Now, on the Filter bar, just above the Filmstrip click the middle of the three flag icons. You will see the Unflagged Photos alert appear temporarily to indicate you have selected to view unflagged photos only.
How to stop iPhoto from launching when a camera card is inserted into your Mac
Disclosure: I hate iPhoto like the plague. It isn’t that I just have no need for it but it tends to grab your photos and hide them where you can’t find them and, every time I put a camera card into my Mac it used to insist on grabbing the photos from it.
Now I use Lightroom so I have reason to want iPhoto to do anything at all with my photos. So to save having to close it down each time I put a camera card into the Mac, I stopped it from launching at all. If you’d like to do the same thing, here’s how to put iPhoto in its place:
1. Launch iPhoto
2. Choose iPhoto > Preferences > General
3. From the Connecting Camera Opens dropdown list choose No Application
I recently imported a heap of stock images into Lightroom so I could easily find images I wanted to use for various projects. When I added keywords to the images I ended up removing a lot of the images’ own keywords before replacing them with my own.
The problem I then encountered was that I had a heap of Keywords in my Keyword list with 0 images associated with them. In short my keyword list was bloated with useless keywords.
While you can right click a keyword and click to Delete it – this was an impossible task it would have taken hours. Instead you can clean up the list instantly with one simple command. In the Library in Lightroom click Metadata and choose Purge Unused Keywords – instantly all the keywords that aren’t associated with images are deleted. Simple!
Need to check what you didn’t pick in Lightroom – here’s how!
My workflow for choosing the best of my photos in Lightroom is to go through the photos in a folder and either click the Pick flag, the Reject flag or simply move past the photo onto the next one. Now sometimes I’d like to review the photos that I haven’t picked – they aren’t the best but they aren’t rejects. I will do this just in case there are some good images I have overlooked.
So, how do you display only the unflagged photos? Luckily it’s dead easy to do this.
These icons across the top of the filmstrip are, from right to left: Show Flagged Photos (ie Pick Flag is on), Show Unflagged photos (no flag present) and Show Rejected photos (Reject flag on).
So, click the middle flag to see only those photos that don’t have either the Pick or Reject flags enabled.
Now, if you add a Pick (or Reject) flag to one of the images it will immediately disappear from view – that’s because this filter is a live filter – it only shows the unflagged photos and as soon as a photo has a flag it no longer matches the filter so it is removed from view.
Of course, when you are done, make sure to select Filters Off from the Filters: list (or click the same flag a second time) to return to viewing all your photos.
Learn how to process an image in Lightroom. You will see how to evaluate an image, how to process the entire image and then how to bring out details in the image using the Graduated filter.
See how to add multiple graduated filters to the photo, how to stack them and how to get around the problem where a filter which adjusts the skies also affects areas in the image you don’t want to affect.
Create an Old Time Hand Tint Effect to a Photo in Lightroom
Learn how to apply an old time hand tint effect to a photo in Lightroom. You will see how to convert the image to black and white and then how to color it using the Adjustment Brush. This technique can be applied to a range of images and the effect works well when you want a hand tinted look for your photo.
