Second Thoughts on Lightroom 3 Beta

I have now spent a few more intense sessions editing with Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta (called LR3B from here forward).  In my first comments on it, I praised it for a couple of the really obvious things that I noticed.  Since then, I have continued to push LR3B and am still quite impressed with the results.  In fact, I’m so impressed that I have now started to import and edit my catalogues from LR2.  I’m happy to say that the only time that I’ve opened LR2 in the last few days has been to double check settings or quite simply by accident.  LR3B is, quite simply, that good of a product; the results are noticeable and the improved features are intuitive and easy to use.

In this entry I would like to discuss one of the most anticipated features:  Watermarks.  Yes, Adobe has finally heard us users and after 2.5 official versions, it looks like the ability to Watermark your photos is now available in LR3B.  From my testing so far, you can watermark in three places:  file export, print, and web modules. 

Setting up watermarks is quite easy to do as there is a “Edit watermarks…” menu item underneath the “Identity plate” setup on the Lightroom menu item.  The module itself is quite straight forward and is easy to follow.  Here you can setup a text watermark or you can choose a picture watermark that you have created in Photoshop or another source.  The next step is selecting where you would like the watermark to appear by default.  Simply save it as a preset and you are good to go.  If you would like you watermark to be applied in different positions, all you have to do is to save multiple presets.  At export, just select which watermark preset you’d prefer and that’s all there is to it.

This one single feature, is letting me spend more time centralized inside of Lightroom without having to edit in other programs like Photoshop.  Granted, Photoshop will always play an important place in my daily workflow, but once I have the watermark file created, I no longer have to worry about that one detail.  

The point here is that Adobe, is has taken the correct action here, and through features like this, is answering those people who have been questioning why they would even use Lightroom in their workflow when they have Photoshop.  The power of Lightroom for me is a combination of centralization  of  organization, and the tools that I need to perform the majority of  my editing.

Thanks Adobe, and thank you for reading!

Photechography

Photechography….. huh? It’s not even a word, and you are a weird, geeky man Mr. Radarland.ca. That may be what shot through your head when you saw the title of this entry. Let’s start off by clearing up a couple of things. One, my name is Jared and two I know that I’m not Shakespeare. What I did accomplish is getting you to the end of the first paragraph, now onto the second…

By using the word “photechography” what do I mean? Well, I would describe it as all the tech that is involved surrounding your photography. In other words, all the devices and services that you may use that help you in your photographic experience. Over the next couple of posts, I will be exploring some of the devices that I use in my day to day workflow. If you would like me to cover specific topics, please feel free to leave your suggestions as a comment or send me a message from the contact page on the website.

Some of the items coming up will be:

• External storage: Is an external usb/firewire hard drive enough or even required?
• My Network: Does it even matter?
• Adobe Lightroom & Bridge: Things they do better than Explorer or Finder when it comes to your pictures.

Thanks for visiting.

onOne Plug-in Software

Over the last couple of months I have been using the Plug-In Suite 4.5 from onOne Software.  At first I wasn’t sure how I would use some of the tools, or if I’d use them effectively at all.  A couple months in, and upgrading the tools to the latest release, I have to say that I’ve been extremely impressed by each of the tools in different ways. The tools that I have used most consistantly have been PhotoTools 2 and FocalPoint 1.1.  Both tools are fantastic, easy to use and provide great looking results while speeding up workflow. 

It wasn’t until I started to work on a picture of a flower girl from a wedding I shot last fall that I saw the power of Mask Pro 4.1.  The problem was that I needed to put the flower girl on on her own layer so that I could adjust her separately from the background.  The issue came when I went to create the layer mask, as zooming in on her hair made me realize that the procedure would be very difficult.  I thought this would be a good test for Mask Pro 4.1 and I wasn’t disapointed.  By working with Mask Pro’s easy to use tools and tutorials, I was able to create the layer that I didn’t would be possible.

Overall, if I had to pick one word to describe onOne’s Software it would be “inspiring.”  I would recommend these plug-in tools highly, and would encourage you to download the demo to try them out for yourself.

Thanks for reading.