Lightroom Day 3: Batch Processing & Specialized Features

Objectives

By the end of the class, students will be able to:

  • Practice different ways to do batch processing
    • Presets (use, create, and import)
    • Copy & Paste
    • Sync edits
  • Understand what smart previews are and how to use them
  • Create panoramas 
  • Understand what HDR photos are
  • Creating watermarks on an image

Practice files: files.learnsoftware.org/lightroom – Download Day 3

Outline

Introduction (2 min)

  • Any questions/experiences since last time?
  • Brief preview of the objectives
  • Paint a scenario for them…
    • You go to a family reunion, a camping trip, a road trip to California, a wedding, all in one summer. You get home from all these adventures with high hopes of editing your photos, making them look super cool, then uploading them to Facebook to show everyone how amazing your summer was!  You start editing…and you realize it’s going to take you longer than you thought…like, daaaays. Then you procrastinate and get busy, and those photos sit there, for weeks.  This is called getting backed up.  Sometimes they go untouched for months.  Sometimes…years.   How many of us have experienced this?

Batch Processing/Editing (15 min)

  • Does anyone know what “batch processing/editing” is? When would this be helpful?
    • It’s editing your photos in batches! So multiple photos get the same edit.
  • Presets
    • Lightroom’s version of “filters” on Instagram. Why do people use presets or filters?
    • As we import, we can choose a preset! Where do you go to import photos?
    • Look at the default presets under File Handling
  • ACTIVITY: Choose an image that has similar lighting to other photos in the album and edit it until you like what you see. Try to use at least three of the tabs within the develop module that we learned previously.
  • Copy & Paste edit onto the other photos
  • Sync edits
    • Select the one with the edits you like, then choose the other ones you want edited like that too.
      Then click sync!
    • Autosync – As you edit any of the photos you’ve selected, all of them will be edited at the same time?
      When might this be helpful?
  • Creating/Importing presets
    • When would you want to create a whole preset instead of just syncing edits?
    • Go to the left-hand side and click the plus button on presets
      • Good idea to turn off white balance, exposure, and transform because those three aspects are unique to every photograph, especially if you’ll be using this preset outside of just this photoshoot or with many different types of photos within the photoshoot
      • Name it so you can keep track of it
      • You will now see it in your presets under User Presets, and you just click on it to apply!
    • Import presets – Lots of talented photographers are really good at making presets for particular things, like portraits, weddings, real estate, etc. You can just use their edits! The best ones you have to pay for, but some are free!
      • https://fixthephoto.com/free-lightroom-presets
    • ACTIVITY: Create a preset or import a preset from this link and apply it to the rest of the dog images in this collection.
  • If you find yourself making the same edits over and over, you can make it into a preset (kind of like a filter on Instagram except you can customize it after you’ve applied the preset)
    • In the Develop module, make all edits you want on a photo
    • Click on the plus button to the right of “Presets”

Smart Previews (5 min)

  • What do you remember about where photos are located in Lightroom?
    • Smart Previews is a really helpful tool for when you don’t have your hard drive or don’t have enough space on your computer. Also good for photographers who edit on-the-go, and don’t always travel with their external drive or SD cards with all their photos on them. 
    • Click on the “Original photo” right under the histogram, have someone read the warning
      • Can you restate that warning in your own words?
  • What are some advantages to Smart Previews?
    • Much smaller than the original photos
    • Continue to work with your Smart Preview files even when the device containing your original photographs is disconnected.  
    • Automatically sync any edits made on Smart Preview files with your original files, as soon as the device is reconnected to your computer.
    • Once created, your Smart Preview files are always up to date. When your storage device is connected, any edits you make to the original file are applied instantly to the Smart Previews as well.
  • You can build smart previews right in when you import if you want! Check the box under File Handling
  • Probably best to have smart previews connected back to the original file when you export to maintain the best quality.

Panoramas / HDR (10 min)

  • What types of pictures do you like to take with panoramas?
  • iPhones make it really easy, but if you want to take a high quality picture with your camera, that’s possible! 
  • Take pictures that cover the entire landscape that you’re trying to make a panorama for
  • Photo > Photo Merge > Panorama
    • Spherical
    • Perspective
    • Cylindrical
  • Different settings with fill edges and constrain crop make the image look perfect!
  • Create stack saves it with the images that you used to make the panorama
  • ACTIVITY: Make another panorama with the other photos!
  • HDR
    • Like panorama but with lighting… just take a bunch of photos with different lighting and it combines all of them to make for a lot of possible edits
    • When might this be helpful?
    • Show example

Watermarks (5 min)

  • Does anyone know what a watermark is?
    • It’s basically just some symbol or your name to show that the art is yours
    • When would watermarks be helpful?
  • Edit > Edit Watermarks (Windows) or Lightroom > Edit Watermarks (Mac)
  • Text or Graphic
    • Use Software Training logo
  • Resize and save changes – option to apply during export

ACTIVITY (10 min): Give time to use all the skills they’ve learned over the past few classes to finish editing some photos that we gave them or to import ones of their own to post on social media with a plug for the Software Training Lab to take this class!

Conclusion (5 min)

  • What is one thing you learned today?
  • Was there anything not covered in this class that you would’ve liked to learn about Lightroom?
  • Thank them for coming, show them Open Badges video and explain that process
  • Encourage them to sign up for other classes– particularly Photoshop, to finish medical school 😉