The Magazine for Photographers

Transcription

1 Pixology The Magazine for Photographers February 2015

2 Pixology The Magazine for Photographers CONTENTS On the Cover: Snowdrifts in Iceland under bright side-lighting produce interesting shapes among the light and shadows. Captured at a focal length of 168mm, with a lens aperture of f/8 and a shutter speed of 1/750th of a second at 100 ISO. 4 Image Sensors: Full-Frame vs. Cropped 15 Round-Trip Workflow 4 24 Step by Step: Split Toning in Lightroom 33 Color Balance in Photoshop Categorizing Folders 56 Archiving from Lightroom 56

3 From the Editor In my experience many photographers dismiss certain techniques or adjustments because the result is too artificial looking. What sometimes seems to be forgotten is that strong adjustments or effects can be toned down. For example, in this issue of Pixology magazine I cover the application of a split toning effect using Lightroom. At first glance the Split Toning adjustment can seem to produce wild or downright odd results. However, with a little subtlety the result can be very nice. If you ve been avoiding a technique (HDR photography comes to mind) or a type of adjustment (such as Split Toning) because the results you ve seen are just too strong, I encourage you to explore a more subtle approach to see if you might like the results. You might be surprised what a little subtlety can do! I hope you enjoy this issue of Pixology magazine. As always I welcome your feedback and thoughts via at tim@timgrey.com. Thank you, Tim Grey Editor 3

4 Image Sensors: Full-Frame vs. Cropped By Tim Grey One of the topics that seems to come up on a somewhat regular basis among photographers relates to the relative merits of image sensors of different sizes. More to the point, many photographers debate whether a fullframe sensor or a cropped sensor is better in terms of image quality. 4

5 Reality Check When we really get down to the reality of image sensors, the term full frame is really a bit of a misnomer. Well, OK, so misnomer isn t exactly the right word (see what I did there?). But my point is that the term full frame seems to suggest that a full frame sensor is automatically better than other sensors, which isn t necessarily true. When you consider some of the many film sizes that are employed by various photographers, the notion of full frame versus a cropped sensor suddenly doesn t seem quite as significant. The term full frame, in the context of how the term is generally used among photographers, is really just shorthand for a digital image sensor where the overall area occupied by the lightsensitive photodiodes has the same dimensions as a single frame of 35mm film. Obviously it is much easier to just say full-frame sensor. 5

6 But by focusing on full-frame versus cropped sensors, we re comparing image sensors that are actually not dramatically different in size, all things considered. For example, a full frame sensor has dimensions of 36mm wide by 24mm tall. A typical APS-C sensor with a cropping factor of 1.6X might have dimensions of 22.4mm wide by 15mm tall. The difference there isn t especially dramatic. By comparison, the image sensor in a high-end medium format digital back measures 53.9mm wide by 40.4mm tall. That represents a more significant difference. It is important to keep in mind that when we re comparing a full frame sensor to a smaller cropped sensor, we re generally not evaluating two sensors that are dramatically different in size. This varies depending on the specific cropped sensor we might be comparing to a full frame sensor, of course, but when you consider the wider range of available image sensor sizes, suddenly this comparison becomes a little more trivial, at least the way the comparison is often discussed. The Wrong Focus Ultimately, when we refer to a comparison of full-frame versus cropped sensors, what we re talking about here are the specific dimensions of the image sensor. The problem is, that single factor doesn t provide a tremendous amount of information for us to evaluate. For example, imagine a camera manufacturer created an image sensor that was exactly the same in every way compared to a full-frame sensor, except that this sensor was literally cropped. All of the electronic components of these two imaginary sensors are precisely the same. The only difference is that the smaller sensor contains fewer pixels. The result would be identical quality if we evaluate the images at the pixel level. To be sure, the sensor with more pixels could record a larger portion of the scene, for example. But my point is that 6

7 When using a smaller sensor you are effectively cropping the field of view that would have otherwise been captured with a larger sensor. The red box here, for example, shows the cropping of an APS-C sensor compared to a full-frame 35mm sensor. sensor dimensions aren t what we should really be focusing on. Instead, the size of the individual pixel sites, the overall quality of the components (including the firmware used to control the sensor), and other factors need to be considered. That said, in the real world there are, of course, differences between the performance of so-called full-frame sensors and smaller cropped sensors. But those differences really relate to factors that go beyond the simple dimensions of the image sensor. So let s consider some of the practical implications individually. Noise Performance I generally describe noise as being the opposite of information. There are a variety factors that contribute to the appearance of noise in a photo, but in many respects the bottom line is a lack of information. And in the context of photography, that information is light, of course. 7

8 One of the key factors related to noise in a digital capture is the size of the individual photo sites on the sensor. Larger individual photo sites are able to capture more light, and so help to reduce the risk of noise. Smaller photo sites (pixels) on a sensor will result in more noise in the capture, all other things being equal. This represents a potential advantage for a full-frame sensor. If we assume a fixed number of pixels for a full frame and a cropped sensor, the individual photo sites on the cropped sensor will naturally have to be smaller. If the overall dimensions of the sensor are smaller but the number of pixels remains the same, the size of the individual pixels must be smaller. Thus, all other things being equal, a larger sensor has an advantage in terms of noise performance. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the size of the individual photo sites is important, but it is not the exclusive factor that determines noise performance. That said, if you are trying to decide between two cameras with different sensors, the one with the larger individual pixel size will generally perform better. 8

9 Again, it is critical to consider the size of the individual photo sites, which is a function of the total number of pixels in the sensor relative to the overall dimensions of the sensor. But when the only difference is the size of the individual photo sites, in terms of image quality bigger photo sites will provide better quality. Dynamic Range The issue of dynamic range is similar in many respects to the issue of noise. Put simply, larger individual photo sites on an image sensor translate into higher potential dynamic range in the photos being captured. The dynamic range of an image represents the range between the brightest highlights and the darkest shadows. The dynamic range of an image sensor represents the range between the brightest and darkest values the sensor can record. In other words, the dynamic range of an image sensor measures the distance between the values for black and white, nominally. In the context of the photo sites on an image sensor, you can think of black as being represented by an empty photo site, or one that has not gathered any light during the exposure. White can be thought of as a full photo site, or one that has gathered light up to the maximum capacity of the light-gathering electronics on the sensor. With this understanding, it is easy to understand that larger photo sites represent greater potential dynamic range. So, once again, you need to consider the size of the individual photo sites, not the overall sensor dimensions or the number of megapixels, when it comes to evaluating a potential advantage in terms of dynamic range for a given sensor. 9

10 Output Size When it comes to determining the maximum potential output size of a photo captured with a given image sensor, there are a surprising number of variables that need to be taken into account to perform a reasonably accurate analysis. Frankly, in many respects it is much easier (and more reliable) to actually produce test output under carefully controlled conditions than to attempt to analyze various sensors based on their technical specifications. At a very basic level, it is reasonable to use the overall resolution of an image sensor to evaluate the potential output size for a photo. The more pixels being captured, the larger a photo can be printed, for example. But that assumes that all other things are equal, which often isn t the case. When we talk about output size, we re not just talking about the size of a print without considering anything else. More to the point, when we say output size in this context we re really referring to maximum output size that maintains acceptable image quality. In concept you can print any photo infinitely large if you have a big enough printer. But the quality of that print will vary tremendously based on the photo you re starting with. Once again, there are many factors that impact overall image quality. For example, minimum noise and maximum dynamic range can certainly benefit the quality of an image. So while resolution in terms of pixel count is arguably the most important consideration when it comes to maximum potential output size, other factors related to image quality must also be considered. What that all translates to is that because larger photo sites provide a potential benefit in terms of image quality, there is an inherent advantage to a full-frame sensor compared to a cropped sensor when it comes to a true analysis of potential output 10

11 size. If the resolution of the image sensors being evaluated is fixed, the larger format sensor will provide a benefit when it comes to the maximum output size assuming high image quality is part of your criteria. Seeing Wide One of the things that is a little unique about digital SLR cameras with different sensor sizes is that you can often share the same lenses among those different cameras. In most cases when you choose a capture format essentially the sensor size you will be restricted to using lenses designed for that format. With digital SLRs in many cases it is possible to mix-and-match lenses across a variety of sensor sizes. A cropped sensor can represent a significant disadvantage when it comes to the use of wide-angle lenses. Here the red box shows the cropping of an APS-C sensor compared to a full-frame sensor. A given lens has a given field of view (or a range for that field of view, in the case of a zoom lens). That means a given lens is projecting a specific image circle based on the field of view at a specific 11

12 focal length. When you use that lens on a camera with a smaller image sensor, the image circle projected by the lens is effectively cropped. In other words, you re simply capturing a smaller portion of the image circle. In the case of a wide-angle lens, this cropping of the image circle means the final photo will not reflect the full angle of view of the lens that would be achieved using a full-frame sensor. In terms of the potential for capturing a wide view, this is a potentially negative side effect of using a cropped sensor. Of course, you could also argue that this translates into an advantage, by virtue of the cropped sensor capturing the sharpest portion of the image and avoiding most (or all) of any portion of the frame exhibiting a vignette effect. On balance, I would say that a cropped sensor represents a disadvantage at least to some degree when it comes to using wide-angle lenses. There are some wide-angle lenses specifically designed for smaller image sensors, as a way to overcome these issues. But in general, a full-frame sensor provides an advantage to photographers who tend to employ wide-angle lenses in their photography. Extended Reach When your aim is to focus on subjects at a bit of a distance, you re generally looking for as much reach as possible for your lenses. In other words, you would likely favor lenses with longer focal lengths. In this respect, you can think of a cropped image sensor as providing the effect of a longer focal length lens than is actually attached to the camera. This issue is, with very good reason, a bit controversial. Many photographers would point out very accurately that you aren t really getting an extension of the focal length of your lens, but are instead simply cropping the image. That is entirely true. But if the final image represents a narrower field of view, you have essentially achieved the benefit of a longer lens focal length. 12

13 In some respects this is true. However, once again we need to consider many other factors. For example, consider a hypothetical situation where you crop the image from a full-frame sensor to match the cropping you would achieve with a smaller sensor. What if the full-frame sensor was of such high resolution that even after cropping you still had more pixels in the image? And what if we further assume that the full-frame sensor offers clearly better image quality compared to the cropped sensor? Suddenly the supposed advantage of the cropped sensor isn t an advantage at all. When using telephoto lenses a cropped sensor can provide a potential advantage in terms of greater reach for the capture. All other things being equal, if your aim is to focus on images requiring longer focal lengths, a cropped sensor can provide a degree of potential advantage. The important thing is to not fall into the trap of assuming that a cropped sensor provides the advantage of extending the reach of your lenses without any negative consequence in terms of overall image quality. 13

14 And the Winner Is If you consider each of the categories presented here, it might seem that the full-frame sensor is the clear winner. There s no question that fullframe sensors do offer several inherent potential advantages compared to cropped sensors. But my larger point here is that none of the individual specifications can be considered in a vacuum. It is important to consider all of the various factors that impact the quality of the images you can capture with a given camera, along with the various other advantages and disadvantages offered by that camera. There are a great many camera models available, and many factors to consider when evaluating those cameras. That might make it tempting to take shortcuts when comparing different cameras, and to draw sweeping conclusions about a wide range of cameras based on a small number of criteria. In other words, when it comes to evaluating cameras in general and image sensors in particular, it is very important to look at the big picture. v 14

15 Round-Trip Workflow Sending Images from Lightroom to Photoshop and Back (and then Back Again) By Tim Grey With each new release of Lightroom, the range of adjustment options available in the Develop module has expanded to the point that an increasing number of photographers are able to use Lightroom as their exclusive tool for optimizing their photos. However, many other photographers including myself still prefer to employ Photoshop for a variety of purposes as part of a workflow for optimizing photos. 15

16 As a result, there is a common need to be able to send images from Lightroom to Photoshop and back. While many aspects of this workflow are relatively straightforward, there are some issues to be aware of along the way. Initial Adjustments In most cases, I will perform my initial adjustments for any image in Lightroom s Develop module. At a minimum, I will generally apply basic tonal and color adjustments with the controls in the Basic section of the right panel. I will also apply corrective adjustments for noise or chromatic aberrations if either of those are present in the image. And, of course, I may apply a variety of other adjustments as well. The point is that I will typically leverage Lightroom to perform basic adjustments on an image before I consider sending that image to Photoshop (or another external editor). Even if I plan to perform extensive work on an image in Photoshop, I ll generally perform at least a basic set of adjustments on the photo in Lightroom before sending that image to Photoshop But in many cases, I will ultimately decide that I need to send an image to Photoshop for additional 16

17 work after making use of Lightroom s Develop module. Sometimes this is to take advantage of the more advanced image cleanup capabilities of Photoshop, and in other cases to make use of the powerful layer masking features available in Photoshop. The point is, there are situations where I want to send a photo from Lightroom to Photoshop. Editing in Photoshop To send an image from Lightroom to Photoshop, simply go to the menu and choose Photo > Edit In > Edit in Adobe Photoshop. The basic process of sending an image to Photoshop from Lightroom is rather straightforward. After selecting a photo within Lightroom, you can simply choose Photo > Edit In > Edit in Adobe Photoshop from the menu. If the image is a RAW capture, Photoshop will be launched (if it wasn t already running) and the image will simply be opened with the various adjustments from the Develop module having been applied. For other images (such as JPEG captures) you can choose how you want the image to be processed. My recommendation in this case is to use the Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments option. 17

18 Once the image is opened in Photoshop, you can perform any adjustment task you d like from within Photoshop. You can leverage all of the tools available in Photoshop, and even make use of additional plug-ins from within Photoshop. In the Preferences dialog in Lightroom you can configure the settings for what type of file will be created, and with what settings, when you send a photo to Photoshop. At this point in the workflow, you are actually working with a copy of the original image. In the case of a RAW capture being sent to Photoshop, for example, you will now be working with a TIFF or Photoshop PSD file, depending on the settings established in the Preferences for Lightroom. 18

19 Once the image has been opened in Photoshop from Lightroom, you can take advantage of any of the features available in Photoshop to optimize your photo. Save and Close Once you re finished working with the image in Photoshop, you simply need to save the image and close the image. It is important that you use the Save command, not the Save As command. If you use Save As and choose a different folder location and filename, there is a risk of confusion within Lightroom about which derivative image file should be managed within your catalog. So, when you re finished working with the image in Photoshop, simply choose File > Save from the menu to update the image file with all of the changes you ve applied, and then choose File > Close to close the image. At this point you can return to Lightroom, and the image you created as part of this process can be found right alongside the original image. So, for example, you might have a Photoshop PSD file next to the original RAW capture, both sharing the same initial portion of the original filename. By default, 19

20 When you are finished working with an image in Photoshop, simply save the result by choosing File > Save from the menu, and then close the image by choosing File > Close from the menu. The updated image will then be reflected in your Lightroom catalog. the derivative image created as part of this workflow will have -Edit appended to the filename, though that structure can be changed in Lightroom s Preferences dialog. Re-Sending to Photoshop So far, things are pretty straightforward in terms of a workflow that makes use of both Lightroom and Photoshop. However, there is the potential for some confusion if you decide you want to send the same derivative image (the PSD or TIFF file) back to Photoshop for some additional work. Let s assume, for example, that the original RAW capture you were working on was a color photograph, and that you sent that image to Photoshop, creating a Photoshop PSD file as part of that process. In Photoshop we ll assume you performed some basic retouching and cleanup on the image. The result was then saved and closed, with this derivative image still being in full color. Then you decide to apply an additional adjustment to make this derivative image a black and white photo. You decide it is easier to apply that adjustment directly within Lightroom s Develop 20

21 module, rather than sending the image back to Photoshop. So you go to the B&W section of the right panel in the Develop module and apply adjustments to optimize the black and white interpretation of the image. At this point you decide you want to return the image to Photoshop to perform some additional cleanup work. This is no problem at all, but it might see like there is a slight problem along the way (and in fact there will be a slight challenge in terms of working with the photo). So, you once again use the Photo > Edit In > Edit in Adobe Photoshop command, but this time having selected the PSD (or TIFF) image you created earlier in your workflow for this photo. You can still apply additional adjustments in Lightroom after creating a derivative image in Photoshop, but it is important to be aware of the workflow limitations of this round-trip workflow. At this point Lightroom will ask whether you want to create an additional copy of the image with the Lightroom adjustments, to create an additional copy of the image without the Lightroom adjustments, or to edit the original photo. 21

22 When you re-send a derivative image to Photoshop from Lightroom, you ll want to choose the Edit Original option when prompted in order to ensure that all layers and other elements added to the image in Photoshop will be retained. It is important to keep in mind that in the context of this question being asked by Lightroom, the term original refers to the derivative PSD or TIFF image you created earlier and that you are now sending back to Photoshop again. The term original here does not refer to the original RAW capture. So, because we want to actually work with the source image that is selected (the PSD or TIFF image), and because we want to preserve any layers or other special features of Photoshop we made use of earlier, it is important to choose the Edit Original option and then click the Edit button to send the image to Photoshop. At this point of your workflow you may be a bit alarmed. In this example we were originally working with a color photo, but then converted that image to black and white in Lightroom. Now that we have re-sent the black and white image to Photoshop, however, it appears once again in color. This issue is simply a matter of Lightroom and Photoshop not being able to communicate completely about the adjustments applied in each application. The adjustments you applied in Lightroom (converting to black and white in this case) will still be reflected in the photo when you return to Lightroom from Photoshop. However, while you are working in Photoshop you will not be able to see the effect of those Lightroom-based adjustments. To be sure, it can be a little challenging in some cases to work in Photoshop when you can t see the effect of any adjustments applied to the derivative image in Lightroom. But other than that challenge, you can continue working normally in Photoshop. When you are finished, simply use the Save command followed by the Close command, and the image will be updated. You can then return to Lightroom, and you will see both the new 22

23 When you re-send a derivative image from Lightroom to Photoshop, the adjustments you applied in Lightroom after initially working in Photoshop will not be visible while you are in Photoshop. However, when you return to Lightroom those adjustments will be visible again. adjustments you applied in Photoshop the second time around, and the adjustments you had applied in Lightroom but that weren t visible in Photoshop. You can continue going back and forth in this manner between Lightroom and Photoshop. While it can be a little disconcerting to have your Lightroom adjustments hidden from view when you are working with the photo in Photoshop, the effect of those adjustments will be visible again once you return to Lightroom. Hoping for an Update I continue to hope that at some point in the future Lightroom and Photoshop will be able to communicate with each other in a more complete way, so that the workflow between the two applications becomes more seamless. In the meantime, using the workflow presented here, with an understanding of the potentially distracting limitations, you can perform a round-trip workflow for your photos between Lightroom and Photoshop. v 23

24 Step by Step: Split Toning in Lightroom By Tim Grey When I create a black and white version of a color photograph, I often like to add a slight color tint to the image. A classic example would be a sepia tone effect, of course, but you can use any color as the tint for a black and white image. In fact, with the Split Toning adjustment in Lightroom you can use two colors as the basis of a colorized black and white interpretation of a photo, using the steps presented here. 24

25 1 original Create a Virtual Copy While this step is optional, I do prefer to use a Virtual Copy in Lightroom whenever I m going to produce a creative interpretation of a photo. That is especially true when I want to retain two versions of the photo. In this case that would translate into the original color version of the image as well as the version with the split toning effect. To create a Virtual Copy, simply right-click on the image you want to work with and choose Create Virtual Copy from the popup menu. You can also select the photo and then choose Photo > Create Virtual Copy from the menu bar. If you prefer keyboard shortcuts you can also select the photo, then hold the Ctrl key on Windows or the Command key on Macintosh and press the apostrophe key ( ) on the keyboard. When you create the Virtual Copy, the thumbnail for that copy of the image will appear alongside the capture. 25

26 Switch to Black and White While it is possible to apply a Split Toning effect to a color image, in most cases I prefer to create such an effect with a black and white version of the photo. To create the initial black and white version of the image, you simply need to enable the black and white mode for the image. You can do so by either choosing Black & White from the Treatment option at the top of the Basic section on the right panel in the Develop module, or by choosing B&W from the HSL / Color / B&W 2section on the right panel. 26

27 3 Adjust Individual Luminance Values When you choose the option to work with a photo in black and white, the B&W section on the right panel in the Develop module will include sliders for Black & White Mix. There are sliders for eight different color values, which control the brightness of pixels in the black and white version of the photo based on the original color value for those pixels in the original color image. You can drag a slider to the right to brighten pixels, or to the left to darken. For example, to adjust the brightness of a blue sky you could drag the Blue slider to the right to brighten or to the left to darken. You can also work directly on the image by enabling the on-image adjustment tool (the target icon) at the top-left of the B&W section on the right panel. After clicking on that icon, you can move the mouse over the image. When you click on an area, the color slider representing the dominant color in that area will activate. You can then drag upward directly in the image to brighten that color value, and drag downward to darken that color value. With either approach you can fine-tune the initial interpretation of the black and white image by adjusting the brightness of various areas based on the colors from the original photo. 27

28 4Establish the Highlight Color With the image processed as a black and white interpretation, you are now ready to start adding color to the image. In the Split Toning section of the right panel in the Develop module you ll first find the controls for the Highlights. Start by increasing the value for Saturation under Highlights, so you can actually see a color effect in the photo. I recommend using a relatively high value initially, so you can better see the color. Then shift the slider value for Hue under Highlights to select a specific color to use for the brightest areas of the photo. Once you ve found a color you like with the Hue slider, you can reduce the value for Saturation to create a more subtle effect. Note that in addition to using the Hue and Saturation sliders you can click the color swatch to the right of the Highlights header to bring up a color picker, where you can select a specific color. 28

29 5Establish the Shadow Color After selecting a color for Highlights, you can use the same basic controls in the Shadows section to choose a color to tint the darkest areas of the photo. Note that if you prefer to use a single color for the overall image, you can simply set the Shadows values to the same settings you used for Highlights. If you want to create a split toning effect that makes use of two colors, however, you will want to establish a unique color for the Shadows option. 29

30 6Shift the Balance After establishing color values for Highlights and Shadows, you can refine the effect by shifting the value for the Balance slider. This control allows you to determine which tonal value should define the split between the Highlights color and the Shadows color. In other words, dragging the Balance slider to the left will cause the Shadows color to appear in more areas of the photo, while dragging the slider to the right will cause the Highlights color to appear in more areas. 30

31 7Fine-Tune the Colors With a basic effect established, you can now work to finalize the specific effect you want to apply to the image. In other words, you can now revisit the Hue and Saturation values for Highlights, the Hue and Saturation values for Shadows, and the Balance setting. You can continue adjusting all of these controls in any order until you are happy with the result. I do find that as I m working it is sometimes helpful to temporarily increase the Saturation slider value significantly, just so the color can more easily be seen in the image. After evaluating the colors, you can of course reduce the Saturation sliders to more modest values. 31

32 8Save a Preset Once you ve defined settings for a split toning effect that you re happy with, you may want to save a preset so you can use the same settings for other images. To create a preset, click the plus icon (+) to the right of the Presets header on the left panel in the Develop module. Then enter a name for the preset that will enable you to select the preset from a list. For example, I will generally use a name that describes the colors used for the split toning effect. You can also choose which folder you want to store the preset in (the default folder is User Presets ). You can then choose which specific adjustments you want included as part of the preset. I prefer to turn on the Auto Black & White Mix checkbox when saving a preset that includes a black and white effect. You ll also want to be sure that the Split Toning checkbox is turned on. You can then turn on the checkbox for any other adjustments you ve applied and that you want included as part of the preset, and turn off the checkbox for all other adjustments. Then click the Create button to save the preset so it is available to use for future images. v 32

33 Color Balance Balance in Photoshop By Tim Grey Achieving optimal color in a photographic image can be critically important to ensure the best final output, but doing so can sometimes be a bit of a challenge. One of the adjustment tools Photoshop offers to improve the overall accuracy (or aesthetic appeal) of colors in your photograph is the Color Balance adjustment. This relatively simple and yet very powerful tool can have a tremendous impact on your photographic images. 33

34 What is Color Balance? The Color Balance adjustment allows you to shift the colors within the photo closer to each of the individual primary colors, using three axes with opposing colors from the additive primary colors (red, green, and blue) and the subtractive primary colors (cyan, magenta, yellow). The sliders available for the Color Balance adjustment will vary based on the color model currently in use for the photo you are working on. For example, here the Color Balance dialog is shown for a photo being adjusted in the Lab color model. The Color Balance adjustment allows you to shift the color values for all of the pixels in your image to achieve a different (and hopefully better) result. You might tend to think of Color Balance as an adjustment focused on the red, green, and blue color values that represent the primary colors for RGB images. However, in different color models the controls will actually be different. For example, if you are working with an image in the Lab color mode rather than the RGB color mode, you will only see two (rather than three) sliders available with the Color Balance adjustment. In other words, the Color Balance adjustment in Photoshop provides a way to shift colors based on the color model currently in use for a photo. Of course, since photographers are generally working in the RGB color mode, the Color Balance adjustment will normally reflect RGB color values. That means there are three sliders available, allowing you to shift the balance for the Red channel (shifting between red and cyan), the Green channel (shifting between green and magenta), and the Blue channel (shifting between blue and yellow). It is important to keep in mind that shifting the slider value for the Cyan/Red slider will affect all pixels in the photo, not just those with a cyan or red color value. When you move a slider for the Color Balance adjustment you are shifting the color appearance of all pixels to have more of one color and less of another color. 34

35 So, for example, when shifting the Cyan/Red slider toward red, a slightly cyan color might become more neutral, while a blue value would become a little more purple. The important thing to keep in mind is that with Color Balance you re shifting the color appearance of the entire photo, not just specific color values within the photo. I recommend using an adjustment layer for all adjustments in Photoshop for which it is possible to use an adjustment layer. In other words, I always recommend applying a Color Balance adjustment using an adjustment layer. To create a new adjustment layer, simply click the Create New Adjustment Layer button (the half-black/ half-white circle icon) at the bottom of the Layers panel. Then choose Color Balance from the popup menu. A new Color Balance adjustment layer will be added for the image, and the Properties panel will present the controls for the Color Balance adjustment. Is Color Balance Obsolete? For maximum flexibility in your workflow it is best to apply a Color Balance adjustment in Photoshop through the use of an adjustment layer. The controls for Color Balance will then appear on the Properties panel. Before going too much further, it probably makes sense to address whether the Color Balance adjustment might actually be obsolete, and therefore unnecessary for optimizing your photos in Photoshop. After all, many photographers are using a RAW capture format in their digital cameras, and therefore likely adjusting the color balance (using the Temperature and Tint sliders in Adobe Camera Raw, for example) during the process of converting the RAW capture at the beginning of their workflow. It is most certainly true that if you have adjusted the settings for the White Balance (or Color Temperature) adjustments during the RAW processing stage of your workflow, you likely won t have a need to apply a very strong adjustment to the balance of colors in your photo. In fact, at least in concept you might not need to apply any further color adjustments after processing the RAW capture. 35

36 In many respects the Color Balance adjustment serves the same purpose as the White Balance adjustments available in Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, and other software tools for processing photos. If you have already applied color adjustments using the White Balance controls in Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, or other software, any adjustment applied with Color Balance in Photoshop is likely to be a relatively minor adjustment. That said, I still find that I frequently want to fine-tune the color in a photo after the initial RAW processing. In some cases that might translate into shifting the color a little beyond what I anticipated was necessary while processing the RAW capture. In other cases, the desire to shift the color balance in a photo may arise from having changed the tonality of the image. For example, if I decide to brighten up the shadow areas of the photo, I may need to shift the balance of colors away from blue due to the additional appearance of cool tones from those shadow areas. The bottom line is that I still consider the Color Balance adjustment to be a critical tool in my photo-optimization workflow. There s no question I now tend to use Color Balance as more of a fine-tuning adjustment rather than a primary color adjustment, but I still make extensive use of the Color Balance adjustment for many of my photos. 36

37 What s the Right Balance? In theory the notion of achieving accurate color balance for a photo seems pretty straightforward. You might even assume there is only one correct color balance adjustment for a given photo. But that assumption is often incorrect. To be sure, in many cases we want to ensure accurate color in our photographic images. However, I would contend that as long as we adjust the color in a photo to fall within a realistic range of color values, what we re really attempting to achieve is pleasing color within the image. In other words, we don t want the colors to look wrong, but we don t necessarily want those colors to be a perfectly neutral reflection of the scene before our camera. For most images there is not a single correct adjustment to be applied with Color Balance. For example, you may choose a cooler rendition (top), a more neutral rendition (middle), or a warmer rendition (bottom) for a given photo. For example, you will often find a strong blue color cast in shaded areas of a scene. That blue color is really there, but you may want to tone it down (or even eliminate it) in the final photo. Similarly, you may want to push the color for a scene to a slightly warmer color tone than was really present. I m not suggesting you should create a false representation of the scene you were photographing, but you can make small shifts in the balance of colors for a photograph and have a significant impact on the result. For most scenes, there isn t a single correct set of adjustment values when using Color Balance. Rather, there is a range of reasonable values based on the subject matter within the scene and the lighting conditions. Within that range you can exercise a bit of creative license to produce a photo you re happy with. 37

38 Preserve Luminosity One of the controls for Color Balance that sometimes leads to confusion is the Preserve Luminosity checkbox. When this checkbox is turned on, the Color Balance adjustment will make subtle alterations to the overall balance of colors while you re working, in order to preserve the perceived luminosity (brightness) of the image. For example, let s assume you re applying a shift for the Cyan/Red slider. You might reasonably assume that doing so is only impacting the information on the Red channel. However, as you shift the value for the Cyan/Red slider, Photoshop will also adjust the values for the Green and Blue channels to maintain the overall brightness for the image as you shift the balance of colors. The basic idea here is that different colors have different perceived luminance values (think of the difference between yellow and blue, for example), and the Color Balance adjustment will work to maintain the overall perceived luminance for the photo if you have the Preserve Luminosity checkbox turned on. The Preserve Luminosity checkbox for the Color Balance adjustment helps ensure that the color shifts you apply won t alter the overall perceived brightness for the image. At this point, you may be wondering why you would ever want to turn off the Preserve Luminosity checkbox, since you presumably want to maintain the established luminance for a photo while you re adjusting the color. Generally speaking, I do indeed recommend keeping the Preserve Luminosity checkbox turned on. The only exception is when you need to achieve a perfectly neutral gray value (or some other precise color value) for the image. To achieve a neutral gray, for example, you might need to shift each of the sliders for the Red, Green, and Blue channels until all three channels reflect the exact same value for a given pixel. That, in turn, translates to a perfectly neutral gray pixel. However, with the Preserve Luminosity checkbox turned on, it can be difficulty if not impossible to achieve a perfectly neutral color 38

39 value. As you shift the value for the Red channel, for example, Photoshop is adjusting the values for the Green and Blue channels. Switching back and forth between the three sliders, you may grow increasingly frustrated as you struggle to achieve a neutral value. In that type of situation, simply turn off the Preserve Luminosity checkbox and you will be able to adjust each channel individually to achieve a specific color value for a given pixel. Frankly, it isn t too critical in most cases to choose one value or the other for the Preserve Luminosity checkbox. Instead, it is important to choose an option for the current image and then leave the checkbox set that way. If you apply an adjustment with Color Balance and then turn off (or on) the Preserve Luminosity checkbox, you may introduce a problematic shift in overall brightness for the photo. Working with the Sliders In general concept, working with the individual sliders for the Color Balance adjustment in Photoshop is pretty straightforward. However, there are a few tips that can make it easier to work with Color Balance. To begin with, of course, it is helpful to understand the basic color shift caused by each individual slider. This is pretty straightforward, since the sliders indicate the shift they will produce. The Cyan/Red slider, for example, will shift the color in the image to a more cyan value if you move the slider to the left, and to a more red value if you move the slider to the right. While the sliders for Color Balance are presented in the standard RGB order of Red, then Green, then Blue, I recommend starting with the slider that represents what you believe to be the biggest need within the image. So, for example, if the image had a bit of a magenta color cast, I would start with the Magenta/Green slider first, dragging that slider toward Green. 39

40 When working with the Color Balance adjustment, I generally recommend starting with the slider that represents the biggest color issue in the image. For example, if the image exhibits a magenta color cast, you would start with the Magenta/Green slider to shift the balance for the image closer to green. You may have heard the advice that you should only ever change the value for two out of the three sliders when using the Color Balance adjustment. In my experience, this advice is generally given by photographers who have worked in the color wet darkroom, where it is most certainly advisable to only shift two of the three color values. However, when adjusting an image with Color Balance you don t need to restrict yourself in this way. In fact, I strongly encourage that you work with all three of the sliders in order to help ensure you re exploring all possibilities for the photo and producing the best overall color. If you re having a difficult time finding the right value for a given slider, or if you just feel that you don t have a good eye for color, it can be very helpful to make extreme adjustments for each slider. For example, if you can t decide which value is best for the Yellow/Blue slider, drag that slider all the way to the extreme left (to Yellow) and then all the way to the extreme right (to Blue). Drag back and forth between these extremes while observing the change in the photo. Then gradually start to 40

41 reduce the extent of the swings of the slider. This process can help you zero in on the best position for each slider, while at the same time helping you develop your eye for color. When it comes to making fine-tuning adjustments for each slider, I recommend employing the keyboard rather than the mouse. After establishing a value for a given slider that seems to be pretty close to perfect, click the mouse pointer inside the numeric value for that slider (to the right of the slider) to activate the text box. You can then use the up and down arrow keys on the keyboard to increase or decrease the value for that individual slider, respectively. You can also hold the Shift key while pressing the up or down arrow key to increase or decrease by a factor of ten. I recommend checking all three of the sliders for the Color Balance adjustment to make sure you are getting the best color possible for an image. So, for example, you might click in the numeric value text box for the Cyan/Red slider, and then hold the Shift key and press the up arrow key on the keyboard to shift in large increments toward red, or the down arrow key to shift toward cyan. I would then release the Shift key and use the up and down arrow keys to fine-tune the value for the slider. Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights By default, the Color Balance adjustment has the Tone popup set to Midtones, which means the adjustments you re applying will be emphasized for the middle tone values in the photo, rather than the highlights or shadows. However, that s not to say that the highlights or shadows won t be affected. Rather, the effect will simply be emphasized for the middle tone values. Generally speaking, of course, a photographic image will contain more information in the middle tone values than it does for the bright highlights or the dark shadows. Therefore, using the Midtones setting for the Tone option in Color Balance is usually the best approach 41

42 A popup at the top of the Properties panel for the Color Balance adjustment allows you to choose whether the current sliders will emphasize the effect on the highlight, midtone, or shadow areas of the photo. However, generally the effect for each will still impact the overall image. to optimizing the basic balance of color in a photograph. For overall color, I recommend starting with the Midtones value, and then evaluating whether additional fine-tuning might be necessary for the highlights or shadows. To focus a separate color adjustment on the brightest or darkest areas of a photo, you can choose Highlights or Shadows from the Tone popup. Keep in mind, however, that using one of these options will only focus the adjustment on the brightest or darkest values in the image. Even when you select the Highlights option, for example, there will still be a degree of change in the middle tone and to a lesser extent shadow areas of the image. Most of the impact will be seen in the brightest areas when you apply an adjustment with the Tone option set to Highlights, but the adjustment won t exclusively impact those bright areas. Because the Tone option does not cause your adjustments to be restricted to specific tonal ranges in the image as much as you might like, and 42

43 because you re not able to change the specific tonal range affected by each option on the Tone popup, the ability to change the focus of your adjustment in Color Balance has limited utility. Evaluating Before and After By clicking on the eye icon to the left of the Color Balance adjustment on the Layers panel, you can disable the effect to see the before version of the photo (top). You can then click in the same position to enable the adjustment again to see the after version of the photo (bottom). It can be helpful to evaluate the before version of your photo to see how the image looked before applying the Color Balance adjustment compared to how the image looks after applying the adjustment. I find this to be helpful for when I think I m finished with the adjustment, as well as along the way while I m initially working with the adjustment. You can turn off the effect of the Color Balance adjustment layer by turning off the visibility for that layer. To do so, you can simply click the 43

44 eye icon to the left of the thumbnail for the Color Balance adjustment layer on the Layers panel. The same icon can be found at the bottom of the Properties panel, providing two places for you to disable the adjustment temporarily. To reveal the effect of the Color Balance adjustment again, simply click in the same place. In the case of the Layers panel, the eye icon will change to an empty box when the layer is hidden. Clicking on that empty box will enable the adjustment again, and cause the eye icon to return. The eye button at the bottom of the Properties panel is also a toggle, but the display shows a darkened button when the adjustment is enabled and a brighter display when the adjustment is disabled. By toggling the visibility of the Color Balance adjustment layer off and on, you are able to easily see a before and after display of the image. By viewing the image without the effect of the Color Balance adjustment layer and then immediately switching to a view that includes the effect of the adjustment, you can very easily evaluate the effect. You can then fine-tune the sliders for the adjustment as needed to finalize the change in color for the photo. Going a Step Further While the Color Balance adjustment is relatively straightforward, there are additional options that allow you to apply more sophisticated adjustments. This includes the ability to use a layer mask in conjunction with the Color Balance adjustment layer, as well as the option to use a different adjustment altogether. When you add a Color Balance adjustment layer, that layer will include a layer mask automatically, with that mask filled with white. This causes the adjustment to affect the entire image, because on a layer mask white areas cause the effect to be revealed while black causes the effect to be blocked. Shades of gray cause the effect to be partially visible. 44

45 So, for example, if you want to apply a Color Balance adjustment that only affects the sky without affecting the foreground in the image, you could alter the layer mask so that it is white for the sky portion of the photo and black for the rest of the image. You might, for example, paint with black on the layer mask for the lower portion of the image, or use the Gradient tool to draw a white-to-black gradient that transitions across the horizon line from the sky to the foreground. You can use a layer mask in conjunction with a Color Balance adjustment layer to adjust the color for a specific area of the photo. For example, in this image a gradient is being used on the layer mask so the Color Balance adjustment impacts the sky but not the foreground of the photo. In general if I am going to apply a targeted Color Balance adjustment that will only affect a certain portion of the image, I will do so by adding a second Color Balance adjustment layer. In other words, I will have used one Color Balance adjustment layer to correct the color for the overall image, and then will add an additional Color Balance adjustment layer that I will use to apply a targeted adjustment. If you want to focus a Color Balance adjustment on the brightest or darkest areas of a photo, you could certainly make use of the Highlights or 45

46 Shadows option from the Tone popup for Color Balance. However, you can often get better results by using a Curves adjustment layer to exercise greater control over the color adjustment. You can apply very sophisticated color balance adjustments using the Curves adjustment. Here, for example, the curve for the Blue channel is shifting the shadow areas (at the left end of the curve) toward yellow, while shifting the highlight areas (at the right end of the curve) toward blue. To get started with this approach, you ll want to add a Curves adjustment layer. You can then choose one of the individual color channels (Red, Green, or Blue) from the popup on the Properties panel. This popup doesn t have a label, but you can identify this popup based on its default value of RGB. The Red channel allows you to shift the color between red and cyan, Green allows you to shift between green and magenta, and Blue allows you to shift between blue and yellow. More importantly, because the Curves adjustment allows you to use anchor points to define which tonal values you want to focus an adjustment on, you can use Curves to apply very sophisticated color adjustments to an image. If you want to produce an effect that is very similar to what you could achieve with the Color Balance adjustment, you can simply click at the center of the curve for one of the individual color channels and drag straight up or down. For example, dragging the Red curve upward will shift the color toward red, while dragging that curve downward will shift the color toward cyan. To focus the color shift on the brightest areas of the photo, you can use an anchor point toward the right side of the curve area. And to focus the 46

47 color shift on the darkest areas of the photo, you can use an anchor point toward the left side of the curve area. In addition, you can add multiple anchor points to fine-tune the range of tonal values in the image that are impacted by the adjustment. By adjusting the curve for each of the individual color channels for a photo, you can apply some very sophisticated color balance adjustments using Curves. For example, if you want to warm up the shadow areas without impacting other areas of the photo, you could add two anchor points for the Blue curve. The first anchor point would be placed toward the left end of the curve, and would be dragged downward to shift the shadows toward yellow. Another anchor point could then be added to the right of the first anchor point, closer to the middle tone values. By dragging that second anchor point upward to normalize the shape of the rest of the curve, the color adjustment would be isolated to only the shadow areas of the photo. You can even apply different color adjustments to different tonal ranges within the photo with a slightly complex curve shape. For example, you might shift the shadows more toward magenta by dragging an anchor point downward toward the left end of the Green curve, but shift the highlights more toward green by dragging an anchor point upward toward the right end of the curve. Taken to an extreme, you could even produce something of a split-toning effect with this type of adjustment. 47

48 Optimizing Color Accurate color can be critically important for many photographic images. In most cases, the Color Balance adjustment in Photoshop provides all the power you need to fine-tune the color in your photos. Understanding the details of how to work with the Color Balance adjustment will help ensure you are able to accomplish your goals for a photo quickly and easily. And, in situations where you need a little more control, additional options are always available in Photoshop. v 48

49 Categorizing Folders Extending the Organizational Benefits of the Folder Structure for your Photos 1 By Tim Grey In many respects I tend to use folders almost as much as the individual photos when it comes to managing my images or at least I try to use folders to this extent. Unfortunately, we aren t able to add extensive metadata to our folders the way we can add metadata to images. For example, I think it would be tremendously helpful if I could assign star ratings to folders, or add keywords to folders. This ability would add an extra layer of organizational flexibility when searching for specific images. But unfortunately this option isn t available with the software tools most of us are using to manage our digital photos. 49

50 Hopefully we will have this degree of control for organizing our folders in the future, but in the meantime I have adopted an approach that helps me remove a bit of clutter and add a layer of organization for the folders I use to contain my photos. Of course, at a very basic level I organize my folders by using a standard approach to naming each folder. My recommendation is to name the folder that contains a given set of photos based on how you think about those photos. For example, because I tend to travel a lot, very often I think about my photos in the context of the location where I captured the images. Therefore, the location name is most often what I use as the first part of a folder name. You might use the location name, the name of the people you were photographing, the name of the company you were capturing images for, the date the images were captured, or some other method of choosing a name for each folder used to store specific photos. However, I also like to take things a step further when it comes to naming my folders, especially since I m not able to assign other metadata to the folders themselves. There are two basic approaches I use here, which include using subfolders to consolidate groups of folders, and naming folders to isolate them from the rest of my folders. Using Subfolders While we can apply star ratings to individual photos with a wide variety of software tools for managing images, the same type of metadata updates generally can t be applied to the folders containing photos. In most cases I use a very flat folder structure, where my photos are stored in an individual folder on the hard drive that contains all of my images. So, for example, the folder from a visit «««««50

51 to Paris in October 2010 might be called Paris France I would not normally create any folders within that Paris folder, because I generally prefer to have all of the photos from one trip contained in a single folder. However, in some cases my approach to naming folders can create a bit of unnecessary clutter on my list of folder names. For example, if I visit the same location multiple times, there will be a series of folders with very similar names. In that type of situation I might create a parent folder for each of the folders from individual trips. So, after creating folders for each individual trip to Austria, for example, I eventually had about ten folders that started out with Austria followed by an indication of the date of the trip. To streamline the presentation of my folders, I can create a single Austria folder to use as the parent folder, and then move each of the individual folders for each trip to Austria into that parent folder. The parent folder can then be collapsed so that I only see the single folder when scrolling through the list, but can always expand the list to see the subfolders for each individual trip. When you have a series of folders with similar names, such as photos for multiple trips to the same location, it can be helpful to organize those individual folders under a new parent folder that defines the contents of the sub-folders. This is just one example of how you might use subfolders to help streamline the presentation of the folders containing your photos. There are other approaches you might use based on how you prefer to organize your photos. At a very fundamental level, if you prefer to organize your folders by date, you would have a built-in folder structure that organizes photos by year, month, and possibly even day. Of course, this approach tends to require that you are able to identify the date of capture (at least generally) for the specific photos you re looking for. 51

52 You could also organize your photos into general categories or subject matter. This can be a little tricky, because using folders based on categories can get complicated and may require considerable time and effort to implement and maintain. However, in some cases this approach might be very straightforward. For example, let s assume your photographic work involves both wedding photography and travel photography. You could use a folder structure that keeps the folders containing your images isolated based on their category. You might, for example, create top-level folders called Weddings and Travel Photography, and then place the individual folders containing your photos into the appropriate top-level folder. Alternatively, you might simply keep the folders containing your travel photos from each trip in a top-level folder with your normal structure, and only use a separate top-level folder for your wedding photography. In this way you would have a normal list of folders for your travel photography (and any other photography you do) with only the folders for your wedding photography separated into a top-level folder that can be collapsed. For some photographers it might make sense to create folders based on various categories of photos they capture. For example, you might create a primary folder called Wedding Photo Shoots that will contain folders for each of the weddings you photograph. The point is that you can use a folder structure to help reduce clutter for your list of folders, to make key folders (and therefore photos) easier to find, and to enable the folders containing your photos to be separated based on categories that make sense to you. The challenge, perhaps, is to make sure such a folder structure is helping to streamline your workflow rather than simply adding complexity. 52

53 Isolating by Folder Name Another simple method you can use to help isolate and perhaps prioritize specific folders is to change the naming structure you use for certain folders. For example, you can add a prefix to the name for certain folders to make sure that folder appears at the top or bottom of your folder list. In virtually all cases, the list of folders containing your photos will be presented in alphabetical order. Therefore, one easy way to implement an additional layer of organization for your folders is to alter the names of some folders to make sure they appear at the top or bottom of the folder list. To ensure that a folder will appear at the top of the list, you could add an underscore character (_) at the beginning of the filename. So, for example, if wedding photography is your primary business, but you also capture photos for a variety of other purposes, your wedding photos might be a priority. You could create a parent folder to contain all of the other folders for the weddings you ve photographed. While you might normally name that parent folder Weddings, you could add an underscore to make the folder name _Weddings so that the folder will appear at the top of the list when you browse your folders. You can use a character such as an underscore (_) at the beginning of a folder name to ensure a folder will sort to the top of the list in cases where the folders are listed alphabetically. At the other end of the spectrum, so to speak, would be folders that are of a lower priority and that you therefore don t need to view all that often. To me it makes sense that those folders should appear at the bottom of the list when you are browsing all of the folders containing your photos. To have folders appear at the end of the list of all folders, again you need to think about the standard alphabetical sorting of folder names. You could, for example, 53

54 add ZZ- to the beginning of a folder name as a way to ensure the folder will sort to the end of the list. For folders that you would like to have appear at the end of the list of folders containing photos, you can add text (such as ZZ_ at the beginning of the folder name. This approach will cause the folder to be sorted at the end of the list of folders when those folders are listed alphabetically. Let s assume, for example, that you keep photos from family vacations in your Lightroom catalog. You want to have easy access to those images in case they work well for a particular project, but chances are you won t need to access those images too often. By naming the folder something like ZZ-Family Vacations you will ensure the images in subfolders contained in that parent folder will be available when you need them, but that the folder will appear at the end of your list of folders containing the photos you access more frequently. To be sure, you could accomplish a similar organizational goal by dividing your photos up among multiple Lightroom catalogs based on whatever criterion makes sense for you. However, my preference is to manage all of my photos in a single catalog, so that I don t have to think about which catalog to open when I m looking for a particular photo. By having a single catalog for all images, I know every photo I might be looking for can be found somewhere in that catalog. A Temporary Fix I consider the approach of refining my folder structure and especially the approach of renaming folders to represent a temporary way to overcome some of the limitations of the software currently available for managing photographic images. My hope is that before too long we will have the ability to assign star ratings and keywords, for example, to folders (not just images) in Lightroom and other applications. 54

55 When there are more options for organizing the folders that are part of the organizational workflow employed by most photographers, using workarounds such as those presented here will no longer be necessary. At that point, I can very easily transition to using those additional options, perhaps changing my folder names back to their original values. It is also worth keeping in mind that Lightroom s ability to create Collections, which serve as virtual folders, essentially, can be tremendously helpful for keeping your photos organized. But at a very basic level, refining the structure and naming conventions you use for your folders can add additional organizational elements to your existing workflow. v 55

56 Archiving from Lightroom By Tim Grey I typically advocate for the use of a single catalog in Lightroom that contains all of your photographic images. In large part, I advocate this approach because it is my personal preference. I very much like the idea that every photo I ve captured and therefore every photo I might ever need is being managed within the same catalog. 56

57 That said, there are certainly a variety of valid arguments in favor of using multiple catalogs. More to the point of this article, I ve had conversations with a number of photographers who wanted to know how they could archive images, meaning to remove certain images from their primary Lightroom catalog without losing any of the information they ve added to their images or the adjustments they ve applied. There are, of course, a variety of benefits to archiving out of your primary Lightroom catalog the photos you aren t likely to need anytime soon. To begin with, removing photos you don t think you ll need to access in the near future can reduce the amount of clutter in your Lightroom catalog. For example, having fewer folders to navigate among and fewer total photos to filter can make it easier and more pleasant to work with the photos that remain in your primary Lightroom catalog. In addition, reducing the number of photos being managed in your primary Lightroom catalog can have a potentially dramatic impact on overall performance. With fewer photos to manage your catalog file will be smaller, there will be fewer previews to manage, you may free up additional hard drive space (depending on where you store the exported images), among other potential benefits in terms of overall performance in Lightroom. Fortunately, it is relatively easy to export a portion of the images from your Lightroom catalog, and then remove those images from your existing catalog. The key is to be careful to use a procedure that will ensure you are getting the benefit of archiving photos out of your primary Lightroom catalog without risking the loss of any of your images or the information about those images. 57

58 Organizing for the Archive The first step in archiving photos from your primary Lightroom catalog is to actually identify those photos. There are a number of ways you might go about this task, but the key is to use a careful approach that will ensure not only that you are able to export the selected images from your catalog, but also that you are then able to remove the images from the catalog after a successful export. In order to be able to actually remove the photos later, it is necessary to mark the images to be archived in a unique way. For example, if you never use pick flags to identify favorite and rejected images, you could mark the photos to be exported with the Reject flag. Or if you never use color labels, you could assign a red color label to the images to be archived. Another approach would be to add a unique keyword to the images you will export. The point is that you want to have a way to filter the images so they can easily be removed from the primary Lightroom catalog after export. For our purposes, let s assume the Reject flag will be used for purposes of identifying the images that will be exported. Just to be safe, however, it is a good idea to choose All Photographs from the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module, and then set a filter based on the criterion you will use to identify archived images, just to make sure you have not assigned that criterion to other images already. The next step is to actually identify the images that will be archived. I recommend performing this task in two steps. First, you can add all images you intend to archive to the Quick Collection. Before you begin, make sure that the Quick Collection does not contain any images. If there are images included in the Quick Collection and you re 58

59 The Quick Collection in Lightroom provides a helpful method of organizing photos you may want to archive out of your primary Lightroom catalog. finished working with those images, you can quickly clear the Quick Collection by rightclicking on the Quick Collection in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module and then choosing Clear Quick Collection from the popup menu that appears. Let s assume you want to archive all of the images in a given folder. You can navigate to that folder, and then be sure to switch to the Grid view. You can choose the Grid view by pressing the letter G on the keyboard, or by clicking the button for the Grid view on the toolbar below the image preview area. You can then choose Edit > Select All from the menu to select all of the images in the current folder. Next, add all of the selected images to the Quick Collection by pressing the letter B on the keyboard. Note that you must be in the Grid view (not the Loupe view) to update attributes for multiple images in this way. You can then continue to add other images to the Quick Collection that you want to archive. This can be done in any number of ways, 59

60 including navigating among folders, filtering images using various criteria, and otherwise locating the images you want to archive out of your primary Lightroom catalog. Marking the Photos With all of the photos you want to archive out of your primary Lightroom catalog added to the Quick Collection, the next step is to mark those photos so you ll know exactly which images were exported and therefore which photos can be deleted from your primary catalog. As mentioned previously, you can use any criterion for this purpose provided that criterion is unique to the images you are archiving. In this case we ll assume the Reject flag attribute has not been used for any other images in your catalog, and so the images to be archived can be marked using the Reject flag. You can use an attribute you don t normally use for your photos (in my case the Reject flag works well for this purpose) to identify the images you want to archive out of a Lightroom catalog. To mark all of the images you will be archiving, first go to the Quick Collection by clicking on this option in the Catalog section of the left panel 60

61 in the Library module. Then select all of those photos by choosing Edit > Select All from the menu. Make sure you are in the Grid view (not the Loupe view) so you can update attributes for all of the selected photos at once. Finally, add the attribute you ve chosen to represent the photos to be exported. In the example presented here, you could press the letter X on the keyboard to add a Reject flag to all of the selected images. But again, any unique criterion can be used to identify the selected photos. Exporting the Photos With the images you want to archive filtered (by virtue of using the Quick Collection) and marked (so they can be easily deleted after confirming the archive was successful), you are ready to actually create an archival copy of the photos. The Export as Catalog command allows you to copy the original photos you want to archive out of a Lightroom catalog, and create a new catalog for those exported images in the process. Because you have already selected the photos in the Quick Collection with an attribute to identify them as the photos to be archived, you can simply initiate the export process for those selected photos. To do so, select File > Export as Catalog from the menu. It is critically important that you use the Export as Catalog command, not simply the Export command, so that all of the information about your photos will be exported along with the image files. When you choose Export as Catalog from the File menu, the Export as Catalog dialog will appear. First, navigate to the location where you want to export the photos. For example, to truly archive the images so they are not stored in the same location as the photos that will remain in your 61

62 primary Lightroom catalog, you might export to a separate external hard drive. After navigating to that location, enter a name in the Save As field to use for the catalog that is being created as part of this process. For example, you might use a name such as Photo Archive 2014 to indicate that this catalog includes photos from 2014 that you have archived from your primary catalog. One of the most important steps is to make sure you turn on the Export negative files checkbox. This will cause the original image files to be copied along with the new catalog that is being created as part of this process. You can also enable the options to Build/Include Smart Previews and Include available previews if you want Lightroom s previews to be included along with the exported images. After configuring the settings in the Export as Catalog dialog, click the Export Catalog button to begin the actual export process. The selected images will be copied to the location you ve specified, in a folder structure based on the original structure in your primary Lightroom catalog. In addition, a new catalog will be created for the photos you are exporting, with all of the information for the photos included with that catalog. Testing the Archive Catalog After the Export as Catalog process is complete, you ll want to test the newly exported catalog to make sure everything is in order before you remove the photos from your primary catalog. To do so, start by choosing File > Open Catalog from the menu. Navigate to the location where you exported the catalog, and choose the actual catalog file (the catalog file will have a filename extension of lrcat ). Then click the Open button to actually open that catalog. You can then check the images and folders contained in this new catalog to make sure everything appears to be in order. For example, 62

63 After successfully exporting the images to be archived from your Lightroom catalog, you can filter based on the attribute you initially used to identify the images to be archived so that attribute can be removed in the archive catalog. it is a good idea to check the list of folders in the Folders section of the left panel in the Library module to make sure all of the folders you exported are present. Once you re satisfied that all of the images were exported properly, you ll likely want to remove the criterion you used for identifying these images. In this case, for example, I was using the Reject flag as the method of marking the photos to be exported. Since that was only intended as a temporary means of identifying the photos to be archived, that Reject flag (or whatever criterion you may have used) can be removed from the photos in the archival catalog. To remove the attribute for the archived photos, choose All Photographs from the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module. Then choose Edit > Select All from the menu so all images in the catalog are selected. Be sure you are in the Grid view (not the Loupe view), and then use the applicable keyboard shortcut or menu command to remove the criterion you used from the archived photos. 63

64 Deleting the Archived Images At this point, having exported the photos to be archived and confirming those images were exported correctly, you re ready to remove those photos from your primary Lightroom catalog. To get started, re-open your primary catalog. You should find that catalog listed on the submenu when you choose File > Open Recent. If not, you can also choose File > Open and navigate to the location where your primary catalog is stored and choose that catalog. Once back in your primary catalog, you can delete the photos that have already been exported. Note that you may want to delay this step until after you ve created an additional backup of the exported photos. Presumably, however, you still have a backup of your primary photo storage as well. Once you have confirmed the images to be archived were exported successfully, and that the images in the source catalog are filtered based on those that were exported, you can delete the photos from your original catalog. To delete the archived photos from your primary catalog, first choose All Photographs from the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module. You can then use the Library Filter bar to apply a filter based on the criterion you used to identify the images to be archived. If the Library Filter bar is not visible at the top of the image preview area, you can press the backslash key (\) on the keyboard to enable it. Then set a filter based on the criterion you used to identify the images to be archived, such as the Reject flag I used in my example. 64

65 With the images filtered, it is a good idea to review those photos to be sure they are indeed those that had been archived. Then, choose Edit > Select All from the menu to select all of the images. You can then choose Photo > Remove Photos from the menu to initiate the process of deleting the selected photos. A confirmation dialog will appear, asking what you actually want to do with the selected photos. Since the images have already been exported to a different location, and are already contained in a different Lightroom catalog, you can simply choose the Delete from Disk option so the photos will be deleted. It is important to keep in mind that with the approach presented here, it is possible that after deleting the images you exported from your primary Lightroom catalog there will be some empty folders left behind. It is therefore a good idea to scan the list of folders in the Folders section of the left panel in the Library module to look for any folders that show a 0 to the right of the folder name, indicating there are no images within that folder. Be sure to check for subfolders within any of the folders that indicate no images are contained within them. Then you can remove any empty folders by right-clicking on the folder and choosing Remove from the popup menu that appears. Divide and Conquer Using the approach presented here, you can archive images from your primary Lightroom catalog to a separate catalog. This can be useful for a variety of purposes, for photographers who prefer not to keep every single photo they ever capture in a single Lightroom catalog. v 65

66 Pixology The Magazine for Photographers Pixology magazine is published electronically on a monthly basis. For more information, visit: Copyright 2015 by Tim Grey. All Rights Reserved. To contact the publisher: Tim Grey 243 5th Ave #131 New York, NY tim@timgrey.com About Tim Grey Tim has authored more than a dozen books and hundreds of magazine articles on digital imaging for photographers, and has produced dozens of video training titles on a wide variety of subjects. He publishes the Ask Tim Grey newsletter in addition to Pixology magazine, and publishes video training through GreyLearning. Tim teaches through workshops, seminars, and appearances at events around the world. For more information: Every attempt has been made throughout this magazine to distinguish proprietary trademarks from descriptive terms by following the capitalization style used by the manufacturer and marking those marks as either a trademark or registered trademark. All trademarks and registered trademarks included in this book are the property of their respective owners. The publisher has made best efforts to prepare this magazine, but makes no representation or warranties of any kind with regard to the completeness or accuracy of the contents herein and accept no liability of any kind including but not limited to performance, merchantability, fitness for any particular purpose, or any losses or damages of any kind caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly from this magazine.

67 Parting Shot A church steeple creates a stark scene with a bright overcast sky, near Ogden, Utah. Captured at a lens focal length of 184mm with an aperture of f/8 and a shutter speed of 1/3,000th of a second at ISO 400.