Author Archive

Lightroom 13 – if you read anything….

If you read anything about the newly-released Lightroom 13, put aside any of your thoughts about HDR and read this article High Dynamic Range Explained by Adobe’s senior engineer Eric Chan. To me Adobe’s prioritising HDR editing is an educated bet on where we are going to be in the not-too-distant future, it’s Adobe trying to get ahead of the game, and only time will tell – no matter how useless I find it.

Capture Time to EXIF updates

I’ve recently added a couple of new features to my Capture Time to EXIF plugin both requested by users – you can now set much older dates, and when updating multiple images, you can now add various intervals to each image in the batch.

Opinions on Microsoft One Drive?

Adobe have recently said that they’re discontinuing the Creative Cloud Synced files service by February 2024. As the Microsoft 365 account for Office includes 1 TB of free storage, what do you think about it as an alternative?

Linked Photoshop smart objects

Is there an option to create a linked smart object instead of an embedded one when exporting a photo to PS? No, sadly LR cannot directly create a linked smart object, so you have to do something like this: First in LR select the image and do a Save Metadata to File (CmdS on Mac, …read more

Search and Replace 2.2

I’ve just released version 2.2 of my Search and Replace. The main changes are in the Workflow Filters area where I’ve added more fields which can be displayed in Library Filter or smart collections. I’ve also added a command to delete JPEG sidecars for selected raw files, and Caption Builder can now write to title, headline, instructions and to the plugin’s 16 custom fields.

Open Directly 2.1 released

I’ve just released version 2.1 of my plugin Open Directly which allows you to send raw files directly to other programs. I must admit, it should have been released three years ago.

Photoshop’s beta Generative Fill

Like many people I’ve been giving Adobe’s AI-based Firefly and now Photoshop’s beta Generative Fill a good workover and thought I’d share a few words and examples. While there’s a lot of hype – and fear – about Generative AI, I’m still not sure I’ve been able to use it to produce anything that could fool anyone.

Search and Replace 2.1

It’s a pretty good principle that if one person complains or can’t figure something out, there will be many more that I never hear from. Soon after I released Search and Replace 2.0 a few people contacted me with concerns about copying from the four IPTC Location fields, and I had to admit that my …read more

Lightroom 12.3

Lightroom 12.3 came out today and the headline feature is an AI-derived Denoise. I’ll admit that I am ambivalent about it: I’m not so concerned by noise that I’ve bought any of the 3rd party AI-based apps. It’s slow I don’t particularly want an extra (big) DNG in addition to the raw file. Maybe it’s …read more

Search and Replace 2.0

Version 2.0 is released today with a lot of tidying up and polishing, and a few subtle new features. What I hope will be most popular is that you can now launch plugin functions from keyboard shortcuts. While the Mac operating system already lets you set up a keyboard shortcut to run the plugin’s menu …read more

Lightroom to Instagram

How do you post to Instagram from Lightroom on your Mac or PC?

Video Metadata 2.0

I’ve just released version 2.0 of my Video Metadata plugin which reads and writes metadata to video files. The main changes are the introduction of quick access URLs to allow commands to be launched from keyboard shortcuts, and a new Run in Windows/QuickTime command to play videos in the operating system’s default video player.

Lightroom 11.2

Lightroom 11.2 just has a couple of little tweaks to masking and “improved responsiveness in the Library module, especially during multitasking”

Lightroom 11 – Masking

A couple of days ago Adobe posted a sneek peek of a feature coming in the next version of Lightroom – bringing together local adjustments as Masking and adding significant new capabilities. I use local adjustments extensively, mainly the Radial and Linear Gradients, the brush to a lesser extent. For example, I frequently add a …read more

Capture Time to Exif 2.1

I’ve just released version 2.1 of Capture Time to Exif which refines how it handles Exiftool on Mac versions from Catalina and Big Sur. It should no longer be necessary to install Exiftool separately.

Capture Time to Exif 2.0

Today I released version 2 of my plugin Capture Time to Exif. The main changes are a major update of the interface’s layout and better handling of Exiftool on Mac.

Syncomatic 4.0

Syncomatic 4.0 includes performance improvements and extra options

Lightroom 10.0

Lightroom 10.0 has just been released, and you can see the new features listed here. It’s not a radical upgrade and the new features seem barely worth a full version number.

Syncomatic 3.3 (ie 4.0)

Not much has changed in 3.3 – except for performance….

Lightroom 9.3

Not terribly exciting, though the new local Hue slider can help you shift colours in parts of the picture. Use it in conjunction with the range mask.