February 2008

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If you’re not making heavy use of Collections in Lightroom, I strongly recommend you start. Collections are one of the most important aspects of an efficient Lightroom workflow.

Simply, Collections in Lightroom are virtual groups. A single image can be a member of any number of Collections. This means you can arrange your images in an infinite number of ways, without making additional copies of the actual files on your hard disk.

Collections only contain what you put in them. And you can put a single image in multiple Collections, depending on their theme, purpose… anything. I have Collections that I use for Web galleries, emails to clients, etc. These collections often contain images from a variety of different Folders. Rather than move or copy the actual file, the Collections within Lightroom reference all the files in their original locations.

I have many Collections, including some for

Abstracts
Nature
Personal
Exhibition Entries
Clients
Stock Submission
Email to Joyce

etc.

This allows me to keep my folder structure and file location independent from the final usage(s) of a given photograph.

Also, I often use Collections as the last stage of editing a shoot. After I’ve gone through all the images from a particular outing, and assigned Pick Flags, Stars, etc. I take all the highest rated/flagged images and put them in a Collection named for the subject or location.

You might ask, “why not just use the Folders source”?

Again, because I want to separate the content from its source. This is the main benefit of Metadata editing, or “instruction-based editing”. It doesn’t matter where the file resides, I can edit and distribute it in myriad ways easily from within Lightroom.

So take a closer look at Collections! You’ll find all kinds of ways to use them.

Matt Kloskowski has a video with an introduction to Collections here:

http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2007/video-real-world-collections/

Today Adobe released a beta version of the next major upgrade to Lightroom…. Lightroom 2.0 Beta is being released to the public for testing and feedback.

According to Adobe this is essentially the upgraded feature set we can expect when the final public release happens. And there are a lot of exciting additions, including:

- Improved Filter Bar to search and refine images
- 10k pixel size limit raised to 30k pixels
- Four flexible modes for an alternate window:  Grid, Loupe, Compare, Survey  (Check out the Live Loupe mode!)
- Open files in Photoshop as a Smart Object
- Select multiple images to merge as a Panorama
- Merge multiple exposures into a single Photoshop HDR image
- Load multiple files or virtual copies into Photoshop as separate layers in a single document.
- Auto-add exported images to the Lightroom catalog
- Auto Output Sharpening for images on export
- Non-Destructive Localized Correction for dodging and burning specific areas of an image
- Post Crop Vignette
- Enhanced Print Sharpening based on PhotoKit Sharpener algorithms
- 16-bit Printing for Mac OS X 10.5

Here is the link to the Adobe Labs site, where you can download the Beta:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/

Here are two helpful writeups of some of the major improvements:
http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/
http://lightroom-news.com/2008/04/02/ian-lyons-overview-of-lightroom-20-beta/

And here’s a link to the Release Notes for this Beta version:
http://www.prophotoworkflow.com/distribution/lightroom2_b1_releasenotes.pdf

I’d recommend that — if Lightroom is an important part of your digital photography workflow — you stay tuned to these developments.

As Always:
- maintain current backups of your image files and Lightroom database
- in Beta software don’t do anything important that you can’t reproduce later if needed
- consider providing feedback to the development community

In my opinion this is great news and something to be excited about. Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions, problems with links etc. or just want to chat about Lightroom.

Press Relsease: SAN JOSE, Calif. – April 2, 2008 – Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 beta, a public preview of new and improved functionality to be delivered in the next major release. Lightroom is the professional photographer’s essential toolbox, providing one application for managing, adjusting, presenting large volumes of digital photographs. Lightroom 2.0 beta will feature enhancements such as dual-monitor support, localized dodge and burn correction and will be the first Adobe application to support 64-bit for Mac OS X 10.5 Intel Macs and Microsoft Vista 64-bit operating systems. Read more…