Author Archive

Lightroom Web resources

I've always been pretty dubious about Lightroom's Web module. The underlying architecture, based on XML, is very elegantly done and intellectually fascinating. But it moves template customization right out of the reach of the mass of users who happily customized their previous cataloguing programs' web galleries. It's a solution for developers, not users. And then …read more

Smart designer

The latest Lightroom podcast is one of the better ones and features the program's database designer Eric Scouten. There's little of the image processing stuff that Adobe finds easiest and much more about managing the pixel mountain from someone who sounds as if he really understands the problems users have in this area. One of …read more

Lightroom exports and preserving folder hierarchies

Lightroom normally exports files into a single target folder, but it's not an unusual to want those exported files to be in date-based folders - that's especially true if your originals were organized in a date-based folder hierarchy. It's not as awkward as you might think. First open the Export dialog and make sure Lightroom …read more

Lightroom 1.1 and the Collection method of creating virtual copies….

When you write a book on version 1.0 of a program, things are very much in flux. Apart from your publisher's deadline. Features change subtly and others are pulled at the last minute, or later, and you're never going to anticipate what might will appear in a dot release just a few months later - …read more

Something changed

William Neill's a photographer whose work I've liked ever since chatting to him on a bridge in Yosemite and then seeing his show down at the Ansel Adams Gallery. He lives in the area but his pictures are so far away from the postcard cliches. It was only a short conversation, but I bought his …read more

Stay free

Until a year a two ago, mySQL seemed to be the open source database to back, but barely a week goes by without SQLite popping up behind the scenes of some program I use - it powers both Aperture and Lightroom. Today's Guardian carries an interview with SQLite's creator: It's very clear to me that …read more

If I could only be sure

Ian Lyons has written a nice tutorial on locating missing files and folders in Lightroom. Most of all he points to a little-known detail - even when the targeted folder isn't missing, you can force the program to display the Locate Missing Folders command. This is invaluable when you use Explorer/Finder to move large numbers …read more

Cigarettes and alcohol

At the Bluefire Blog, Micah Bowers, the designer of Lightroom's Flash galleries, shows a method for adding background sound. Wisely, he adds Sound that automatically plays in websites is appropriate in some circumstances, and terribly annoying in others. This can be particularly true when you don?t offer volume controls or a mute button (which this …read more

Born again

In a long PhotoshopNews post Jeff Schewe describes the new controls available in Adobe Camera Raw 4.1. It's a nice appetizer for what's going to be in Lightroom 1.1. I'm on the fence about the value of the Clarity slider, a wide area sharpening contrast adjustment. Apart from preferring the original name, “Punch”, I suspect …read more

I started something I couldn’t finish

Gunar Penikis has posted a surprisingly-ugly but interesting example of using Flash for a Bridge panel: Once loaded into the Bridge startup scripts folder, the BridgeExportToJPEG extension will demonstrate a Flash UI panel in Bridge that is functional in driving Bridge to create JPEGs and manipulate XMP metadata. All the thumbnails that are created in …read more

The masterplan

PHPture is an interesting plug in for Aperture which, if I understand correctly, uses a web server on your Mac and the PHP language to run a web site which looks like Aperture. It accesses Aperture's database and shows stacks, thumbnails, and a project listing, and makes your image versions available over a network or …read more

You send me

Here's a handy little registry hack which adds a “Send Folder to Lightroom” choice to Windows Explorer's right click menu. Either download and double click my registry file - read it first just to be sure - or copy this code into Notepad and save it as a file with an “reg” extension, then double …read more

If things were perfect

I don't run Aperture seriously, more out of curiosity, but it's frustrating that metadata is stuck inside its library until you export the masters, duplicating your files. That is especially annoying because I often go through new pictures on the laptop while watching TV, like United's annihilation of Roma last night, and the same master …read more

The song remains the same

Lightroom or iView for DAM? It's such a big question, an amorphous one too, and I've not had much spare time recently. But I spent a bit of time giving an answer and thought I'd add it here too. The devil is always in the detail of one's personal needs and right now I am …read more

Achilles last stand

Not sure when he wrote this, other than in the last 6 months, but Robert Edwards looks at Aperture or Lightroom = Neither: I'm not suggesting there isn't a use or market for Aperture and Lightroom. Certainly their sales figures suggest otherwise. What I am stating is neither Aperture or Lightroom is the panacea digital …read more

You’re going to make me lonesome when you go

After being rather too sceptical at first, I’ve been trying LightZone 2 and looking at its touted integration with Lightroom. I was going to make a longer posting but instead there is now a good article at Outback Photo on Lightroom and LightZone in Tandem. While I now think the integration is a little more …read more

But I’m different now

Someone, who knew my opinion on the issue, sent me this spoof on Geek Culture's cartoon about Creative Suite 3's many versions. If Lightroom customers want it, so too do Photoshop users.

She’s lost control

In this post I wrote about using Lightroom's Collections to record virtual copies or versions. My thinking has changed a little since I wrote that piece, though I do still use Collections, and the key point remains that you must mark the virtual copies immediately after they are created and while LR still has them …read more

Why didn’t you call me….

James Duncan Davidson discusses the extension of the Photoshop brand into an online service and then turns on its addition to “Adobe Photoshop Lightroom”: The only people who will be impressed by the Photoshop brand being applied to Lightroom or an online-based photo tool are the very people who don't know what any of it …read more

Round and round

O'Reilly's Lightroom vs Aperture has some interesting articles and even more interesting threads such as this discussion of Aperture's flexibility vs Lightroom's modularity. While I prefer a palette-based interface, as in Aperture, I don't think Lightroom's modular approach slows me down, and one commenter put it really well: I'm still confused as to why modularity …read more