Other images just ask to be taken down different paths. As artists we often try to find the best expression of the moment we captured. But we don’t always know the steps from capture to masterpiece. We try different settings. Apply a preset or two. Dive into the adjustment brush. and so on. And, even though Lightroom preserves an endless stream of history on an image we don’t always remember at which step we saw one of those “looks” we liked. So what do we do?

Before Lightroom we might have saved multiple copies of an image. One for each different look. Now I know that storage is cheaper these days but how many times do you want to multiply a 25Mb file? Enter the snapshot!

Snapshots are one of the ways Lightroom lets us experiment and keep versions along the way. Even better, snapshots are virtual copies of an image that take up no room (or very very little) on the drive. These are literally snapshots of the settings at the time you take them. Great, huh?

Don’t confuse snapshots with Virtual Copies. We’ll talk about those in Part 2. So let’s see how to make these snapshots.

Lightroom is smart. When you import a new image it automatically creates a snapshot of the state of the image upon import. Just take a look in the snapshots panel in the Develop module. (UPDATE: As Thomas notes in the comments below, since version 3 Lightroom no longer takes a snapshot on import. Apparently, many users complained that this was redundant since the import state is the first step in the history so you can get back to that either through the History panel or by pressing the RESET button. Personally, I think this was a mistake since I find it much easier to have a snapshot of the initial import state and found this feature convenient).

The first step of our journey towards a masterpiece may be converting the image to Black & White. Once we do we can see that step in the history panel.

Beautiful! Let’s remember that by taking a snapshot. To do this you can either press Command N (Control N in Windows) or press the + at the top of the snapshots panel. Then give your snapshot a name.

Once you’re done your snapshot will appear in the list.

So, next we apply preset. Wow! Even more beautiful! Let’s save a snapshot of this one too!

Another way to create a snapshot is to right click on the history step you want the snapshot based on.

Choose Create snapshot and Lightroom fills in the history step as the name. You can accept this or change it.

At this point you may notice that Lightroom lists your snapshots in alphabetical order. If you want them listed in order of creation you can rename them and add 01. 02. 03. etc. to the front of the names to order them.

A quick side note—you may have noticed in the menu when we right clicked the history state that the second option was Copy History Step Settings to Before. This let’s you change the before image when you use the before/after view. If you right click on a snapshot there is a similar option to make the snapshot the before image.

Even though snapshots are created in the Develop module, you can access them from the Library module in the same way you can access the develop presets. Right click the image thumbnail and choose Develop Settings. On the subsequent menu you will find the snapshots listed before the presets. Choose one and the thumbnail will change to that snapshot.

Snapshots are extremely useful tools. Their limitation lies in the fact that they are wholly contained within the image and are not really accessible or searchable. All the snapshots are just different views of the same image. Same keywords, same filename, same metadata, same image.

We can’t really see different presentations of our image at the same time with snapshots. That’s where Virtual Copies step in and create more flexibility with no increased storage requirements. But we’ll save that discussion until Part 2. Until then, play with snapshots and see where your ideas take you!

UPDATE: If you use snapshots and want to enhance your workflow then check out the two excellent plugins from Matt’s comment below. The first is Matt’s own Snapshotter Plugin which will make snapshots of all selected images in a single step! Also, Jeffrey Friedl’s Snapshot on Export Plugin which will make a snapshot of each image exported. Thanks Matt!

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Well, you can’t get more offsite that the cloud. But it can be quite confusing getting into a solid cloud storage solution. There are lots of avenues and products. All with different costs and complications. Don’t you just wish someone would just sit you down and explain it to you? Just show you how to get set up and start incorporating this cloud thing into your workflow? Your wish has been granted. Brandon Oelling and X-Equals have released a new eBook called Living in the Cloud—Offsite Storage for Photographers.

Brandon was kind enough to provide me with a copy for review. Here’s what I found. Living in the Cloud—Offsite Storage for Photographers delivers on its promise. Its pages are full of detailed screenshots so you can follow along as you are guided through setup, configuration, and deployment of your cloud based storage solution. I found it very easy to implement the process outlined in the book.

I was disappointed by the discussion of what the cost of this solution is. That section could use more detail and would benefit from a concrete example comparing the cloud solution to another backup method. A link is provided to an online cost calculator but that leaves the reader to discover the cost of cloud storage with nothing to compare it to.

Overall I would recommend this ebook to any professional or serious enthusiast who wants to learn how to set up a cloud based solution. If you’d like to see more before buying, X-Equals offers a free download of the first chapter. It’s definitely worth a look!

Related posts:

1. You Do Have a Backup…Don’t You?

There is one small problem, however. Many new Lightroom users can be confused by Lightroom’s reaction to some of their actions. Some seasoned users even get confused on occasion. Here’s a typical question I get asked; “I select several images and press 4 to add a 4 star rating. Why does this sometimes add the rating to all the images selected and other times only to my active image?”

The answer lies in the difference between how the Grid view and the Loupe view treat these actions. Although they are both part of the Library module they serve very different purposes. You can think of the grid view like a lawn sprinkler, it gets everything wet. Loupe view is more like a water gun, you aim it at something and only it gets wet. (It’s a weak analogy, I know. But hang in there.)

First, let’s talk a little about terms. Take a look at this screenshot from the Library module.

This is the grid view. You can see that the border area around the images appears in different shades of gray. Dark gray indicates that the image is unselected. Light gray means the image is selected. When multiple images are selected then the active image is indicated by the lightest gray border. This same scheme is reflected in the filmstrip at the bottom of the window.

You can switch between grid and loupe by clicking on one of the first two icons on the toolbar. You can also use the keyboard shortcuts of G for grid and E for loupe. When you switch to loupe view it is the active image that will appear.

Back to the original question. So why does pressing 4 sometimes add a 4 star rating to all the selected images and at other times only to the active image? The answer lies in how these two views approach organizational tools. Grid works on the entire group while loupe plays favorites with the active image. This behavior applies to nearly everything you do in the Library module. So if I’m in grid view with several images selected and press 5 they ALL get 5 stars.

But in loupe view only the active image gets the rating.

This behavior is consistent with all of the organizational tools; keywords, color labels, flags, virtual copies, metadata, etc.. If you glance over at the metadata panel while in grid view you can see that Lightroom puts a placeholder in some fields that are different across the images selected.

So, for example, if the Rights Usage Terms are not the same for all the selected images you will see in that field. As soon as you switch to loupe view the panel changes to show only the metadata for the active image (no matter how many are in the selection).

Even the left and right arrow keys respond differently. While in loupe view the left and right arrow keys will cycle through the selected group and make each image in turn the active image. In grid view pressing the right arrow key will jump you to the first image AFTER the selected group.

The big exception to all of this is the develop tools found in the Library module. And this too makes sense since these tools aren’t organizational by nature and are really part of the Develop module. They’re in the Library module as a convenience.

So whether you are in grid or loupe view, increasing exposure will only effect the active image. Likewise, pressing V will only convert the active image to black & white.

Once you get this difference into your head then the confusion will be gone and you can zip through your shoots like an organizational superhero!

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This is not the usual module by module introduction to Lightroom. Rather it is a way to approach the processing of your raw images using Lightroom as your tool. Rob and Lauren were kind enough to give me a copy of the tutorials for review and I have to say I did enjoy them. There are over 5 hours of video tutorials. A small portion of the time is spent covering the Library module and Lightroom’s export features. The majority is spent examining the techniques available to you in the Develop module.

The techniques presented in the videos are sound and can be quite useful when you are faced with how to address an image and what road to take it down from an artistic perspective. If you are struggling with how to process your images or just a bit overwhelmed by all of the options Lightroom affords you, then this tutorial is for you.

The tutorial is reasonably priced at $34.95 and can be downloaded. Rob and Lauren are working on iPad compatible versions of the videos in case you want to view them there. Watching the video on your iPad while following along in Lightroom can reinforce what the video is teaching.

In addition to the videos, Rob and Lauren also include the original raw files used in the videos, 16 presets for you to use and learn from, and a couple of easy reference “cheat” sheets for sliders and shortcuts.

One shortcoming, in my opinion, is that the videos are based in Lightroom 2. A video about the new features of Lightroom 3 is included. The techniques themselves are, for the most part, the same in either version so you can still follow along. There are a few techniques, however, that would benefit from some of the new features in Lightroom 3.

You can read more about the tutorial (and view a sample of the video) at http://www.photographyconcentrate.com/video-tutorial-raw-processing/. Then you can decide if this is right for you. I think it’s definitely worth a look!

Rob and Lauren have graciously offered Lightroom Secrets readers a $5.00 discount. Just use the coupon code LS2010.

Related posts:

1. Spotlight: George Jardine
2. Lightroom, Photomatix, and the Single-shot HDR
3. More Than Just Keywords

George Jardine started as a professional photographer. His work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Better Homes and Gardens, Interior Design magazine, and many other national publications. George first joined Adobe Systems in 1993, and in 2003, he began work on the Lightroom project. George currently teaches workshops, consults for digital photographers, and is a freelance video producer.

If you are looking for a great set of tutorials to get you up and running in Lightroom look no further than George’s new Lightroom 3 tutorials. These 15 tutorials focus on catalog management and workflow.

This set of 15 all-new video tutorials gives you over 4-1/2 hours of the very best online education available. It covers the Adobe Lightroom Library and your digital photo library management from top to bottom. We start from the ground up, and guide any serious photographer—professional or passionate amateur—through the process of building an easy-to-use, but incredibly effective digital photo library. Then we dive deeper, tutorial-by-tutorial, through nearly every Lightroom Library feature, gently leading you to a solid and complete understanding of the entire professional workflow. Watch this online series anytime, day or night, and you will find thousands of tips and techniques that help you master your photo library and the new Lightroom 3 workflow. The complete series is only $29.95.

You can view a sample tutorial here. George’s attention to detail and easy manner make these tutorials well worth the $29.95 price tag.

George has also been writing for Digital Photo Pro. Check out his two part series on managin your digital archive: Managing Your Photographic Legacy: Part I and Managing Your Photographic Legacy: Part II. He will have an article on merging Lightroom catalogs coming in the fall.

Lastly, if you haven’t already added George’s blog to your reading list you are missing out on some great information! Check it out at http://mulita.com/blog/

Related posts:

1. Raw Processing Tutorial Worth a Look
2. Watermarks for Web Gallery Images
3. Lightroom, Photomatix, and the Single-shot HDR

However, if you have moved on to Lightroom 3 you can take advantage of one of its great new features—Publish Services. (Thanks to John Beardsworth whose comment on the previous article motivated me to get this article out of draft sooner rather than later!)

A lot of the attention Publish Services has gotten revolves around the link between Lightroom and online services such as Flickr, Zenfolio, SmugMug, etc.. But the other side of this feature is the ability to create links between Lightroom and your drives. And it is this aspect we will exploit here.

Start in the Library module in the left panels. Go to the Publish Services section. There you will see a service entry for your hard drive. Press the Set Up… button to create a new service for your drive.

This will open the Lightroom Publishing Manager where you can set up the service to house your iPad Albums.

In the Publish Service section enter a description of your service. Then choose an export location. In this example I’ve used my home folder. Be particularly careful choosing this as you cannot change it once the service is created. Work your way through the dialog. The values here are from Matt’s preset.

Now the Service has the description you gave it and shows the directory you chose. While you can put images in this directory to publish I usually use this as a reminder of where the images are. I prefer (and recommend) that you take advantage of folders and folder sets to organize the images into the different albums you want on your iPad. So click the + sign next to Publish services and in the section for your service choose Create Published Folder Set…

Give the folder set a name. In this case I’ve named it after the service—iPad Albums.

This will create our main folder into which we will place our albums. Click the + again and this time choose Create Published Folder…

Give each of your albums a name and make to select the set you created earlier. If you have images selected when you create the folder you can also check the Include selected photos box. Otherwise you can drag and drop images into your folders later.

Once you have your folders set up you can drag and drop images into the appropriate albums (i.e. folders). New images dropped into the folder will need to be published. click on the folder in the Publish Services section and press the Publish button.

Once the task is completed you will see that the images move from the New Photos to Publish section of the folder to the Published Photos section.

Why should we go through all of this trouble? Won’t the first method work just as well? The real payoff is once the service and folders are set up then Lightroom will keep all our changes in sync. You can easily remove images from an album. And you can see from the service what state any of the images are in (to be published, modified and ready to publish, delete and ready to be removed, etc.) It’s just another (and easy) way to manage your albums.

If you look at your drive you can see the correlation between the folder set and folders and the drive.

Now just point iTunes at the folder created by the folder set and everything works as in the previous article. Except now you have a better way to manage the contents of your albums.

Related posts:

1. Creating iPad Albums With Lightroom
2. Publish Services Gets Some Attention in Beta 2
3. Publish to the Cloud

Before we look at how to export your images and create iPad albums I suggest you go read Matt Kloskowski’s recent post Presets—Lightroom iPad Export Settings. Matt describes how to prepare your images and offers two very useful export presets. Download these and then return here. Don’t worry. I’ll wait.

Welcome back! Now that you have Matt’s presets installed we can proceed. This is a fairly straight forward workflow that will make organizing your images on your iPad easy (and iPhoto free).

To start, create a directory somewhere to house your albums. In this example I called it iPad Collections. Choose the images for your album and click the Export button.

Choose one of Matt’s preset depending on whether you want to fill the iPad screen or maintain the aspect ratio of your images. In the Export Location section choose Specific Folder for the Export To value. Click the Choose button and find the folder you created above. Now check the Put In Subfolder checkbox and enter the name for your album in the field.

In the File Naming section set up any filename parameters you like. Leave the remainder of the settings in the preset as they are. Press the Export button.

Each album will assume the name of the folder you export the images to.

Don’t worry about the iPod Photo Cache folder. This is created by iTunes when you upload your albums.

Open iTunes and click on your iPad in the list on the left. Go to the Photos tab and choose the original folder you created to house your albums. If you want all of your albums uploaded to your iPad then choose the All folders radio button.

If, however, you want to select which albums get uploaded then choose the Selected folders radio button and in the list that appears below check the albums to upload.

Sync your iPad and you will now see your images sorted into the albums you created via Lightroom

Now it’s easier than even to show off your work and make full use of your iPad as a portfolio display tool!

Related posts:

1. iPad Albums Via Publish Services

Presetpond is a new online community for photographers enabling them to share preset-files for and Lightroom. There are also presets available for Aperture.

By registering at the site photographers can upload preset-files to the site along with a set of preview images showing the preset in action. These files can then be downloaded and rated/commented on by the public.

Apart from the sharing capabilities the website is also a valuable tool for photographers looking to brand themselves. The profile page of each registered user allows for links to a personal website along with a link to a Twitter and Flickr profile.

Presetpond aims to become the go to resource for photographers looking to share and download preset-files for Lightroom and Aperture.

Go to the website at http://presetpond.com

Behind the site
Presetpond was created by Danish web designer and amateur photographer Thomas Fals. Frustrated with the lack of a real community driven website for both Lightroom and Aperture users, he set out to create Presetpond.

Any questions regarding Presetpond can be directed to info [at] presetpond [dot] com

Related posts:

1. Some Lightroom Resources
2. Stealing Presets

If you buy only one Lightroom book then Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 — The Missing FAQ should be it. Unlike other Lightroom books, this one takes the approach of answering users’ questions. Chances are, if you have a question, someone has already asked it and Victoria has answered it. I keep the PDF always ready on my Mac. If history is any indicator then version 3 will become as indispensable as versions 1 and 2 have been! If you haven’t upgraded to Lightroom 3 yet I’d still recommend you get the book that matches your version.

Because of the question and answer format Victoria has chosen, reading the book is like having a conversation. You immediately fall into the role of the user asking these questions and Victoria’s straight-forward answers get right to the point instead of overwhelming you with an unending stream of prose and pontification. It’s relaxed, educational, and great fun to read!

The book is available as a color PDF and a B&W paperback. Take a look at just a few of the topics covered and I think you’ll agree that this is the book to have.

• Can I use Lightroom on JPEG files as well as raw files?
• If I can use all of Lightroom’s controls on JPEG files, why would I want to shoot in my camera’s raw file format?
• If I shoot raw, can Lightroom understand the camera settings?
• Why do the folders keep jumping around and what is Docking?
• Can I use the operating system dialog to navigate to a folder instead of using Lightroom’s Source panel?
• Can I save favorite folders?
• Should I convert to DNG?
• Do I lose quality when converting to DNG?
• If I convert to DNG, can I convert back to the proprietary raw file format again?
• How are Collections different from Folders?
• How do I organize my collections into collection sets?
• How do I add photos to a collection?
• Why do my raw photos change color? When the first preview appears, it looks just like it did on the camera—how do I stop it changing?
• I set my camera to black & white. Why is Lightroom changing them back to color?
• How do other programs like iView, PhotoMechanic, Apple’s Preview, Windows Explorer, Breezebrowser, etc., get it right?

If you are still skeptical don’t take my word for it. Victoria has tons of excerpts from the book available on her site. Click here to check them out and see for yourself how great this book is!

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A.J. Wood at Media Cats is posting some great video tutorials for Lightroom 3 at http://media-cats.com/learning/. Worth a look!

The National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) has an excellent Lightroom 3 learning center available at http://www.photoshopuser.com/lightroom3 and you don’t need to be a member to access it (although I heartily recommend you join!).

Adobe has quite a few resources available as well:

• Lightroom 3 Help: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/3.0/Using/index.html
• Lightroom Help and Support: http://www.adobe.com/support/photoshoplightroom/
• Lightroom Getting Started: http://www.adobe.com/support/photoshoplightroom/gettingstarted/index.html
• Learn Lightroom 3 on Adobe TV: http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-lightroom-3/

And don’t forget to check out the resources in the Interesting Sites over in the sidebar of this site!

Related posts:

1. Refresh Yourself at Presetpond