This year one of my New Year’s resolutions is to edit more of my photos. Last year I shot thousands of photos and only managed to edit some of them. This year I’m using Lightroom’s smart collections to rethink my workflow, stay better organized, and get more photos edited. In this video I demonstrate how I’m using smart collections and show you how to setup your own.

FYI: Click the vimeo logo to make the video larger.

Found a good article by Rob Sylvan on Photofocus about Lightroom called ”Avoiding Problems + Improving Performance = Happy Lightroom User“.

Since I switched to digital five years ago I am shooting more photographs than ever before. Keeping those photos organized, editing the goods ones, and getting rid of the bad ones takes time.It has taken me years to develop my workflow and there is still room for improvement. Developing your own workflow as a photographer is one of the best ways to increase your productivity and turn-around time, cut the time you spend editing, and spend more time shooting.

1. The first thing I do after getting home from a shoot is take a shower and change my clothes. Usually I am pretty dirty after a long day shooting, so this is a good thing. Next I insert my memory card(s) into a USB card reader and import all of my photos into my Lightroom catalog.  I import the photos with the following custom settings…
• File Handling: Move photos to new location and add to catalog
• Organize photos into folders by date (ie. 2009/2009-03-01)
• Rename photos by date with a number sequence (ie.2009-03-01_001.NEF)
• Embed custom metadata which includes my copyright, name, email, and web site. This metadata will be added to every file I import or export, so every JPG I send out can be traced back to me. This is important for helping protect my copyright.
• Finally, I choose to have Lightroom render high resolution previews so I can easily and quickly zoom in and out without having to wait for Lightroom to render a new preview. This makes reviewing my shots much faster.

Lightroom 2.5 and Camera Raw 5.5 are now available as final releases on Adobe.com and through the update mechanisms available in Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2. These updates include camera support for the following models:

• Nikon D300s
• Nikon D3000
• Olympus E-P1
• Panasonic DMC-FZ35**
• Panasonic DMC-GF1

**Note that in Europe and Japan this model is marketed as the DMC-FZ38. Unfortunately, due to a metadata difference between these cameras, files from the DMC-FZ38 will *not* be supported until the next Camera Raw and Lightroom updates.

Release Notes:

• Camera Raw 5.5 and Lightroom 2.5 include a correction to the demosaic algorithms for Bayer sensor cameras with unequal green response. Olympus, Panasonic and Sony are among the more popular camera manufacturers affected by this change. But the demosaic correction provides only a subtle visual improvement to the processing of those raw files.

• Lightroom 2.5 corrects for the following problem in Lightroom 2.4. Lightroom 2.4 on Windows continued to display the import dialog when a memory card was detected regardless of the preference setting “Show import dialog when a memory card is detected.”

These days I use Lightroom for the majority of my editing, only taking photos into Photoshop for things like portrait retouching or more complicated spot fixing. But I’ve underestimated the power of Lightroom’s Clone and Heal tools. Helen Bradley writes: “When you have an image which needs some spot fixing before printing you can often do the work in Lightroom and avoid the necessity of a round trip to Photoshop. Lightroom has both a Clone and a Heal tool available for fixing blemishes and removing problems such as spots caused by dust on your camera’s sensor. Continue reading Fixing Blemishes in Lightroom.

“If you are new to working in Lightroom your first few weeks will be a steep learning curve. Here are my top 5 mistakes to be aware of and avoid when you’re starting out. I hope they’ll save you wasting time, getting frustrated and generally tearing your hair out.” Contine reading Warning: Don’t Make These 5 Mistakes in Lightroom.

via DPS

Adobe has released new updates to their Lightroom and Camera Raw software packages. The updates provide Raw support for the Nikon D3X and Olympus E-30 Digital Cameras and fix some known issues with previous versions.

If you would like to download the updates, please visit adobe.com/downloads/updates

Photo by Ansel Adams

“I recently asked a friend of mine, “Why shoot black and white?” His eyes lit up and voice softened as he responded, “Oh, it’s the beauty, simplicity, passion. Life is so cluttered, and the minimalism of black and white is so compelling—it revitalizes who I am and how I see.” And I agree! There’s something moving, poetic, and profound about a good black-and-white photograph. If you haven’t experimented with black and white or if you’re an old pro, this article will give you the skills to create stunning black-and-white images and we’ll dig into black-and-white conversion with a landscape and a commercial photograph.” Continue reading at Layers magazine to learn how to create amazing black and white photos in Lightroom.

Just like with Photoshop, Adobe’s Lightroom also offers many keyboard shortcuts that make using the program easier and more efficient. You can get a great “cheat sheet” for Lightroom on Greg Newman’s web site. Print it out and post it on the wall by your desk. Once you start using keyboard shortcuts you’ll wonder how you ever lived without them!

This is a good video tutorial put together by Belgium professional photographer Bert Stephani (www.bertstephani.com). In the tutorial he demostrates his retouching techniques using Lightroom and Photoshop.