Mosaic

Working On A Couple Of Lightroom Images From The Road

James Maynard — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:09:44 +0000

Sometimes, you will find yourself wanting to make edits to your photos while you are out on the road but you will not have your entire of Lightroom master catalog with you and could not fit the photos on your laptop.

With Lightroom, there is an easy way to create and small catalog from a subset of your master catalog and then merge it back to the master catalog when you are done editing the images.

To do this, make sure you are in the library module of Lightroom. From here, go to your file menu and choose “Export as Catalog.” Then, save that catalog to an external drive.

From there you can edit your photos on a second computer that has the external hard drive plugged in.

After you are done working on the images and are ready to merge the smaller catalog back into the main catalog, select “Import from Another Catalog” on your master Lightroom catalog. Then select the smaller catalog and it will get merged in. Lightroom even keeps track of duplicates!

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How to Zoom in Adobe Lightroom

James Maynard — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:11:13 +0000

Look in the upper left corner, just to the right of the title Navigator in your menu to find four zooming options. The placement of the selection can be steered with the rectangle over the thumbnail.

Adobe Lightroom offers the option of preset zoom levels that you can use when examining your photographs. This is a handy tool to have, as it allows you to quickly move between various levels of magnification and back again with just one click of the mouse.

To use this feature, you will need to be in either your library or develop module. At the top of your left-hand menu, you will see the Navigator menu, and just to the right of that is your quick-zoom menu. You will see four options, which consist of fit, fill, 1:1 and 3:1 with an additional pull-down menu to the right of them. The last option zooms the photo in or out to a specified level (3:1 is the default). Options from 11:1 zoom-in down to 1:16 pull-out are available in the pull-down screen. While you are zoomed in, you can drag the area of the picture that is selected around via a thumbnail in the left-hand menu.

One of the best little hints while using Lightroom is that hitting the space bar zooms out to fit.

It may feel a little strange at first, but once you get the hang of how to use this feature, you’ll love it. This is a really nice feature of Lightroom that you’ll find yourself using all the time.

.RAW – The Format That Isn’t A Format

James Maynard — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:34:10 +0000

If you are serious about your photography, taking photos in the raw format gives you the best quality. But there are many types of raw files. Of the multitude of photo formats available, the raw format is not really a format at all, but a collection of hundreds of different file types, although there are “only” a couple dozen major varieties. Not only do different manufacturers and designers have their own versions of raw image files, but these standards can even change within a producer’s own product lines.

Therefore, devices that function well with one piece of software using raw photo files will not work well, or at all, with other applications. There are around 200 different formats which cameras use to store data that are all called raw files. Additionally, some manufacturers, such as Sony, Nikon and Canon encrypt some of the data produced when their raw files are created, in order to discourage other developers for creating systems which use their files.

Also a lot of people say “RAW” format. Raw is not an acronym so it should not be capitalized to RAW.

The individual pixels in a digital camera can only detect how much light falls onto them during a given period of time – they cannot actually detect color. In order to produce a color image, each element is covered with a filter which allows only one color of light to pass through. Since the human eye is more sensitive to green light than it is red or blue wavelengths, half of these tiny filters are green. When the photo is taken, each individual pixel records how much light is reaching it through its filter. This is what is recorded into a raw file, along with accompanying information, part of which is held in an accompanying sidecar file.

Here’s how the filters are arranged over pixel on your camera’s image sensor. This is called a Bayer pattern. Image by Cburnett, used under the Creative Commons License.

Before raw files can be displayed or shared on external devices, they must first be converted to another format for display purposes, for instance, into .TIFF or .JPG files. This involves a process called demosaicing, where the application performing the conversion will make estimates of the amount of different colors that would have reached each pixel. For instance, the software will decide how much red light may have landed on a green pixel between two reds.

If you don’t take your photos in raw format, for instance by shooting in .JPG format, your camera will do the demosaicing for you, which can usually be better performed manually on a home computer system. This is due to the fact than demosaicing is a processor-intensive activity, and your home computer has several times the power of the chip sitting on-board your camera.

Software programs like Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop do a great job at allowing photographers to open and edit raw photos. Both programs use Adobe Camera Raw to interpret the raw files. Apple’s Aperture is also a very good programe for raw photo viewing and editing.

There is also other information that must be carried along with the picture information, including header info, metadata and more. All these variables mean that there are millions of possible ways to arrange all the information and share it with other systems. Without an industry standard in place, the list of the different versions of raw files quickly became unwieldy. Raw files on a Nikon are .NEF format, Olympus uses .ORF files for the same purpose, while Fuji has their own version, called .RAF.

Before most photographers share their images with the world, they will likely want to edit their artwork. Given a particular combination of camera and software, it may or may not be possible to import the photos as raw files directly into the desired photo editing application.

However, an increasing number of such editors allow the user to import their photographs as .DNG (Digital NeGative) files, which are cross-platform. By using .DNG, you may be able to get a camera and software application to play nicely together, where they would not do so before while trying to import raw files.

Having so many different versions of raw files out on the market today could doom the file type(s) to obsolescence. Unfortunately, this could also mean the loss of millions of photographs, as standards and manufacturers change, and most of these varieties of raw files can no longer be read by the machines and applications of the near-future. It is possible that the camera and photo industry will one day soon come to an agreement on a standard raw file format, and have that standard established by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). There also exists the possibility that Adobe’s .DNG format can play a role in becoming the common format for raw files.

With over 200 different formats making up what is commonly termed “RAW format,” it is obvious that .raw is not really a format at all. But you should still take your digital pictures in raw “format,” bring them into Lightroom or other photo editing software, and then perform demosaicing as you convert them manually. This will not only open up more editing opportunities for you, but will also help your files remain usable for years to come.

Why Do We Mention Apple Blossoms When Talking About Our New Release?

Gerard Murphy — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:24:18 +0000

Hey Everyone,

We are creating something very cool here at Mosaic and I am so very thankful for everyone who is a part of it. Part of this relationship is keeping everyone up to speed about what we have done, will do, and are doing.

As I wrote here, we launched the iOS version of our Lightroom Sync App on 4/20. Since then thousands of Lightroom users have downloaded it. Millions of photos have been uploaded and accessed by users on their iPads and iPhones.

So what does this have to do with apple blossoms? (Stick with me on this.) We are based in New Hampshire, where the apple blossoms are just beginning to bloom. I was out shooting last weekend and thought this was the perfect analogy. The apple trees are currently blooming a beautiful pink flower. But we know this is just the beginning and only a preview of the sweet fruit that is coming our way later this summer and fall.

If you like what we are doing now, just wait. More good stuff is coming soon!

Today we released a new version that fixes some of the most annoying issues seen by our users:

1) Some images in the detail view were very blurry. (This was caused by uploading a smaller version of the Lightroom previews.)

2) The images in the grid mode were blury. (Caused by less than optimized image scaling.)

3) Higher than desired memory and CPU footprint.

We also now support Mac 10.6+ (previously was 10.7+). We also fixed some annoying password and download issues we had on our website.

Please install the new version of the Mosaic Desktop Software to get these enhancements!

We also launched the Mosaic Help Desk where users can find commonly asked questions and vote on new Mosaic features.

Not a bad 3 weeks!

So What’s Next?

So although we are cranking out a bunch of new stuff… we know you still want more (So do we! We use the App too!)

So here is what we are working on….

- Sorting by Lightroom Catalogs, Folders, and Collections in the App.

- Save photos in the App to your local iOS device (Camera Roll).

- Post a picture to Facebook from the App.

here.

Two Way Metadata Sync with Lightroom!

The idea here is to allow you to rate, star, flag, and keyword from the Mosaic app and have it go seamlessly back to Lightroom.

To us, this is fruit that is coming. And although we love the flowers, we are hungry!

Of course we will continue to work on our RAW photo backup solution as well, adding new features and enhancements.

To that end, we are hiring! If you want to be part of the mobile revolution in photo management and backup, please join us.

Thank you for all of your retweets, shares, likes, and App ratings over the past couple weeks. Please refer more of your friends. The more users we have the more features we can build for everyone.

Thanks again. More good stuff is coming your way.

Best,

Gerard

Gerard Murphy
CEO Mosaic

Making and Sharing Presets in Lightroom

James Maynard — Mon, 06 May 2013 12:56:07 +0000

Adobe Lightroom offers a multitude of different effects which you can apply to images, in order to create various outcomes. As you begin to edit your images, however, you may find that you are using many of the same (or similar) combinations of effects over and over. This is especially common when you have shot several images of the same subject. Other times, you may find that you are looking to take a variety of pictures, but add the same effect to each, in order to produce a a series of artistic photographs.

In Photoshop and most other photo-editing applications, you would need to add each effect, and adjust its settings, one by one, picture by picture. Although this can be done, the process is long and tedious, as well as being prone to error. For photographers using Lightroom; however, this task is greatly simplified.

In order to create your own custom presets, begin with a photograph that you have edited, which you believe has a series of effects that you may wish to use again.

If you do not want your previous edits to a photo to become part of the new preset, then export your image, and import it back into your library. By doing this, you will make sure that only future changes are included in the custom preset. In this case, perform your preferred edits, and then continue on to the next step.

With the navigator view open, you will be able to preview your selected changes to the photo without applying them to the photo (technically, the photo’s metadata, since Lightroom is non-destructive).

At this point, you should already be in the develop module. If not, enter develop mode, and check to make sure that your changes are still on present on your currently active image.

Here’s where to find your preset menu in the develop module of Lightroom.

In the Lightroom 5.0 (shown) or in previous versions, the dialog box can be found under the Develop Window, labeled “New Preset.” Alternatively, you can also get there by selecting N, or by pressing the “+” sign to the right of the word “Presets” at the top of the left-hand menu.

Lightroom will display a series of checkboxes, asking which effects should be included in the new custom preset. You will also have an opportunity to name your new preset, as well. Since custom presets are so easy to create, you will likely be saving lots of them, so find a unique name which will help you remember the look it provides. Three years from now, you may have little idea what a preset named “Photo setting 16” looked like, but “Portrait – High Contrast with Vignette” can bring back a good idea in your mind of what effects this preset provides to photographs. Finally, press the “Create” button. When you go to the develop module while working on another photo, you will be able to select your new custom preset from the “User Preset” window.

Here is where you save your custom presets in Lightroom. Give it a distinctive name!

Most of the time that you do this, you will find that some adjustments and tweaks are needed to make the image come out the best it can look. However, being able to assign a series of edits in just a few seconds can be a huge time saver. If you find that you want to change the preset after editing an image, simply right-click over the name of the preset on the left side of your screen and select “Update with current Settings.” Your custom preset will be modified to include the additional changes you have made.

Editing your photos from a model shoot can be an especially good time to use custom presets to save time. Because your lighting conditions are (usually somewhat) controlled under these situations, the differences between the editing needed for each shot are usually minimal. This makes portrait photography ideal for the use of custom presets in Lightroom.

Once you develop a few of your custom presets containing editing combinations which you like, you may want to start organizing them into folders. This is easily accomplished in Lightroom 5.0, by selecting the “New Preset Folder” option under the Develop window, or by pressing N.

Naturally, one part of creating your own presets, for most people, will be wanting to share presets with friends and colleagues. This is a simple procedure. One you are happy with a preset, right-click over the preset name in the User Preset menu. Then, select “Export,” and save the file to your local disk. Mail that to a friend. When they receive it, all they have to do is to right-click over the title “User Presets,” choose import, and select the file you sent them. It’s really that easy!

Try your own custom presets and let us know which ones you like best in the comments section below.

Show Lightroom Photos on a Second Monitor

James Maynard — Sun, 05 May 2013 13:56:28 +0000

When you are editing photos, it can be handy to be able to display your images on one monitor while you display what is needed to do your work on another device.

Fortunately, Adobe Lightroom gives you the ability to do that quickly and easily. From within any module of Lightroom, bring your cursor down to the bottom of your screen and left-click on the black background. This will bring up small icons of monitors, labeled #1 and #2. Now select the second screen icon shown. This will pop up a separate window on your screen which can be displayed on its own dedicated monitor, to present your work to clients and friends.

Lightroom was designed from the beginning to offer multi-monitor support, and the flexibility it provides as far as to where individual items are displayed on which monitors is quite versatile.

By following these few simple steps, you will be able to set up your screens so that your viewer can be looking a full-screen image of a chosen photograph on one monitor, while you select the next photograph for them to view on your own screen. This can give a great impression to whomever is viewing your pictures!

Looking Backward for Your Future in Photography

James Maynard — Sat, 04 May 2013 13:03:58 +0000

Photo editing can turn good pictures into great photographs quickly and easily. Software for maximizing the allure of your art are widely available, and can be downloaded for little to know cost. Professionals and serious hobbyists tend to use higher-end, powerful editing applications like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop. But, if you are just beginning in the world of photo editing, you may want to begin with freeware or perform edits online, and see what system works best for your tastes.

If you are not sure where to begin with photo editing, one such free photo editing application is called Irfanview. Make sure to download and install both the program and the “big file” of add-ons.

In whichever application you choose for editing, open your file, and find where the options are listed for editing your image. In Irfanview, they are located in the “Image” window.

You will also want to look for something called “Color Correction,” or an option with a similar name. In Irfanview, the color correction editor can be accessed by using G. Experiment with your various options, which will usually include the ability to make adjustments to the saturation, gamma contrast and brightness, among other qualities. Play around with these until you get the best-looking original photograph you can, and save either the newly-improved photo, or its new settings, depending on what software you are using. Only then should you go into editing. Many of the effects that are popular today really harken back to earlier times – from styles popular in the Renaissance to the mid-1990′s, it seems everything old is new again. Here are some common effects that can lead to uncommon results.

Try Instagram – The big success story of the last few years for photographic effects for the amateur photographer were Instagrams. This system allowed users with mobile devices to take photos, edit them online by adding filters (pre-set effects) and share them with friends and family. The effect, for anyone who has not yet seen it, is like a photo from a SX-70 camera from the 1970′s, combined with the bright technicolor hues of 1960′s TV. Instagram is free on the web at www.Instagram.com.

Don’t be afraid to go back to black and white – The advances in photography since the days of black and white film-driven cameras have been extensive and highly useful. However, once in a while, a picture looks better in black and white than it does in color. This is especially true of snow, mountains, and wide landscapes. Don’t be afraid to channel your inner Ansel Adams, and try editing your color photographs with a stark black and white look.

In this photo of the Alps by Magnus Rosendah, we can see how much more dramatic the image looks in black and white than in color. Public domain image.

Lower the color depth – Today’s digital images have between 16 and 32 million colors on computer and handheld screens. But, when the internet was first becoming popular in the mid 90′s, online photographs only had 16 colors available to them. Although this did not produce the sort of quality that you would want for a really nice photo, it really did work for some images. Try decreasing the color depth to 16 colors in order to give your photograph a retro-internet look.

Try just two colors – When you lower the color depth on an image, you will often be given the choice of creating a two-color version. This is usually a disaster. But, sometimes, it works.

Give and old-time western look with sepia – Nearly all photo editing programs have an option for sepia images. This gives your picture a look like a photograph from the Wild West. This look can be perfect for a portrait setting where the subject is dressed in western gear, or set in a western landscape or desert.

In this desert scene, we can see how the rendering of the photo into sepia lends a much heavier “Lawrence of Arabia” look to this photo, by Jon Sullivan. Public domain photo.

Even go back before photography to oil paints – Most editors, including Irfanview, allow a user to render their photograph in the style of an oil painting. The effect can be quite dramatic, however, so try to adjust your oil painting settings to allow a more-balanced effect.

No matter which application you use to create effects on your photographs, it can’t hurt to experiment, as long as you take care to not overwrite your original photos. Prevent this by using non-destructive software like Lightroom or by saving your originals on a separate drive or on the cloud.

After you add effects, make sure to do back and correct your colors again. You will likely find that your photo requires a different color balance after the effects than before.

As with so much in photography, it will work to your best advantage for you to experiment, play and have fun. Try different applications, and different edits to see what works best for a given photograph. An effect that doesn’t not work at all for one photo may be just perfect for another.

A Super-Fast Way to Create a Temporary Collection in Lightroom

James Maynard — Fri, 03 May 2013 12:00:12 +0000

A collection in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, much light a photo album, is a way to group various photographs together by date, subject, person being photographed, whatever you can imagine.

As you create collections, there are some you will want to group permanently together (Nassau Vacation 2013) and others you will want to only keep grouped together temporarily, such as for work projects. Creating temporary collections also helps in editing. By being able to easily group some of the photos during editing – say headshots versus full-body shots – you are better able to use your time, without having to constantly change what you are doing.

Within the Lightroom framework, there is a way to quickly create temporary collections. Here is how it is done.

Within the library, select the images you wish to include in your new collection. Once you have each of your selected photos chosen, hit the “B” button. This will add them to a temporary collection. On the left-hand side of your screen under Catalog, you will see the phrase “Quick Collection.” Select this to see just the photos in your new grouping.

These can be saved as permanent collections if you wish.

The Raw Truth About DNG

James Maynard — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:04:38 +0000

The latest of the great arguments among photographers is the choice of whether to begin the digital editing process in raw or .DNG format. Of course, we are here at Mosaic try to bring you all the information we can about the subject at hand (which we love photography)

Although much discussion is made of .RAW files, there is no such thing as a single “.RAW” file format. Raw is a bucket term for several different types of formats like .cr2, .nef, r3d., and dozens of others. A file that is a perfectly good “raw file” for products from one manufacturer may be gibberish on other camera’s systems. This is entirely unlike .PNG or .JPG files, which are readable across various platform.

Most professional photographers and serious amateurs shoot in the raw format, giving their files all the information needed for the best possible editing. But, there is an option within Lightroom to convert your raw formated pictures into digital negatives, or .DNG files. In order to decide if that is the right move, let’s learn a little bit about each file format.

When you shoot in raw format, you are recording the unadulterated, complete file with all the original data intact, which makes it such a great choice for editing. Since you did not “throw away” any information when you were taking the photograph, you have a great deal of flexibility when it comes to editing your photographs afterward.

Not all raw files are created the same – cameras from different manufacturers can have incompatible ways of organizing that information, so don’t be surprised if software that worked with the raw files of one camera will not work with a different device. This use of proprietary versions of raw format may be the undoing of the standard over time.

This is why raw converting tools are not created equally… although software packages like Google Picasa can “support raw files” how they interpret the camera sensor data varies greatly and can lead to very different final product images.

This is the same .NEF raw photo converted by Adobe Lightroom 5 and Google Picasa. See the histogram to notice more “pop” in Lightroom and better detail level

The .DNG format solves this problem by taking the raw image and converting it to a digital negative which is recognized by a wide variety of software applications. Just as film negatives were/are compatible with any enlarger, the .DNG format is compatible with many software applications, including Adobe Lightroom.

You can think of it as the .PDF of the digital photo world. The compatibility rate for .DNG files is actually higher than it is for raw format, so a wide number of applications will be able to import photos into your library in .DNG format. This is partly because of the fact that when Adobe developed this standard in 2004, they released the converter and the exploitation rights for free to developers.

Since you will still be shooting in raw format, and only converting to .DNG on import, the files on your memory card will remain unchanged. The .DNG format, while retaining all the original image data, does dispose of some of the metadata that accompanies raw files, but does not affect image quality, such as camera settings and focus points. That means that a .DNG file will be about 15% smaller than an identical raw file. However, the image quality of the photographs themselves are identical. This helps improve the one big drawback of shooting in raw – the larger file size of these formats compared to .JPG or .TIFF.

Part of this data is contained in another file which accompanies raw files, called a .XMP file. This folder contains information about editing performed on the photograph. Occasionally, they can become dislodged from their partner files, leading to trouble. This processing information is stored within .DNG files, eliminating the need for a separate .XMP.

Another advantage of importing as .DNG files is that they contain a checksum safety feature that easily and quickly identifies a corrupted file. This is called embedded file verification. However, the actual importing times may be not be as sped up as you might think by the reduction in file size – because the original raw files need to be converted to .DNG, there will be some lag added by that process.

Within the library module of Lightroom 5, simply select “Copy as .DNG” to begin. Another option, also within the library module, is to convert images already in your library to digital negatives with “Convert Photos to .DNG.” From there, you can perform editing as needed in the develop module. Then, export when needed to more mainstream formats.

The decision by Adobe to release the development rights to .DNG for free may pay off in adaptability; the format is expected by many to remain a common standard for longer than raw.

In the last year or more, Adobe has been making serious strides in helping to speed up workflows using digital negatives. This has included small, raw preview images called “Fast-load data” for Lightroom’s develop module and “Tilted” DNG’s that are reduced to pieces for faster multi-core processing.

However, a lot of older applications that run raw files are unable to handle the newer .DNG format.

Whether you decide to begin your photo processing in raw or .DNG format, you will be shooting them in raw, so there is no harm in trying an import as .DNG and seeing what happens. No matter which photo editor you are using, tell us below about your experiences using .DNG.

Personalizing Lightroom With Your Studio’s Identity Plate

James Maynard — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:12:51 +0000

This is the menu for customizing your identity plate in Lightroom (Version 5.0 shown).

With the professional-looking results you can achieve with Lightroom, it is not surprising that the photo editing software from Adobe is a leading choice among small businesses. If you are a small business owner working with Lightroom, and you go to meet with a potential or current client, it will look more professional if the software you are using in your presentation is customized with your studio’s logo or company name. That is possible within Lightroom, and doing it is easier than you think.

Photographers love to have gear customized for the tastes and style, and this is another advantage to this feature. By customizing your software with your name or favorite photo, you are branding it as your own, which is cool just as it stands!

To do this, look at your top menu bar. In versions of Lightroom before five, all the way to the left, you will find the “Lightroom” menu. From here, select “Identity Plate Setup.” In Lightroom 5, you will find it included in the Edit menu. On the box which pops up, you can enter in text or add an image to make it look like you have your own brand of software!