Lessons
Getting Started: Folder Strategy & Workflow in Lightroom
09:27 2Import New Photos
24:47 3Ratings, Labels & Reviewing Photos
05:03 4Add Keywords
06:39 5Tips for Optimizing Workflow
04:07 6Use Develop Presets & Basic Adjustments
15:59 7Add Impact with Clarity and Vibrance
03:31 8Tips for Finding Your Photos
09:55Lesson Info
Ratings, Labels & Reviewing Photos
So once we've gotten the images into light room, we're ready to start identifying our favorites. This would be the select all five star rating, right? Except we want to be a little more particular here to make sure that eventually we confined our favorite images easily. So I take a lot of pictures, and so I need to be able to filter down to really, which ones are my absolute favorites. We have three options, essentially in light room for identifying our favorite versus not so favorite images. We have the pick versus reject flags. That's basically yes or no decision. I'm not so good with the yes and no, so I don't generally use pick flags. Also, pick flags are, you might say, proprietary toe light room. It's a light room specific feature, and so it will not be respected or understood by other software. Not even Adobe Bridge, for example, is going to see, pick and reject flags that you assign in light room. I prefer to use um, or open standard when I'm using this. These types of metadata...
values. We also have color labels. Color labels can be interesting. We can assign a red, yellow green blue purple color label to an image. The problem with color labels is they don't really have an inherent meaning in concept. Their priority red is very important, so in theory, that's your best image. But I don't like using color labels because they don't have as much of inherent meaning. So instead I'll define my own special meaning for certain colors. So I use the yellow color label for images that should be grouped together in some way, like individual exposures for an HDR or for a composite panorama, things like that. I use the green color label for images. I want to show someone else. So I'm out on a trip. Maybe I'm photographing with somebody else and I get a picture of them taking a picture, and I want to send it to them later. Just market with the green labels that later I can filter those images and finding. But when it comes to identifying my favorites, what I'm using first and foremost this star ratings and it's very, very simple. I like to go into the loop you so we can work in the grid view to see thumbnails or the lube you to see the full image. But of course we have the film strip down below that we can scroll through. So there's my thumbnails. So, generally speaking, I'll just use the filmstrip combined with loop you. If you do want to switch between, we have buttons down here below the preview area. I have a grid view button on the left, and to the right of it is the loop view button or I like keyboard shortcuts. And so I just press the letter G on the keyboard for Grid View and E on the keyboard for Luke View, which is so easy to remember because loop ends in an E. That's what I try to tell myself somehow. Eventually, it just becomes second nature. So I could go g for Grid E for Loop E and then start going through my images. And here the process is really pretty simple. So 1 to 5 stars. I actually take a variation on the approach, but I won't confuse you with that. For now, you can define your own approach to using star ratings, but you could identify a range of values of five stars. You're really best image three stars, a pretty good image. Maybe one star is not so great. I do recommend maybe being a little bit slow to assign a five star rating. If you think it's a five, maybe you give it a three or four and wait until you've optimized the image a little bit or shared it on Facebook. Gotten some feedback. Whatever the case might be, however, you like to get feedback from other people about your photos. But then the process is very simple. And I love using keyboard shortcuts for this because I want to work quickly. I want to get this process over with so I can get back out there and take some more pictures. And so I'm gonna go through the photos and just use the arrow keys to navigate. So left arrow and right arrow right over to go to the next image left there to go to the previous image and then the numbers on the keyboard. You'll never guess which numbers will use for one through five stars. Yes, you are correct. The one key on the keyboard for one star and two for two and three and four and five and then, if you want to remove the star reading altogether just the number zero on the keyboard to essentially assign a zero star rating orders to remove the stars. And so then you can go through the image. And, you know, maybe this is like a Well, let's say 3 to 5 is gonna be my keepers, for example. Maybe that gets a three and pastel kind of interesting 30 that's blue Light. I mean, that's just amazing. We're gonna give that five star rating. Uh, this one not so much. I might just skip it over altogether. I personally like to assign star ratings on Lee to the images that I think unlikely to use Ferris Wheel Blue Sky Gotta love that Night and the sort of didn't do what I thought they were going to do. I like that one. Maybe that's a four star etcetera, but I just go through all of my images and try to identify which ones are my favorites. Because remember star ratings, they're going to give me one other opportunity to filter down my images. We'll talk about that a little bit more when we come to actually finding our photos. And then now that we've identified our favorites notice. We're getting more and more organized with each step, so I have to find a folder structure. I go to my Seattle photos really easily, and then I've defined my favorite photos from amongst those Seattle images based on a star rating.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Pamela Richardson
I enjoyed Tim's friendly and professional style of presentation. I appreciated that he was methodical in his approach, and was very clear in his explanations of every step that he was taking. It is quite clear that he has extensive experience in teaching. He presented at a good pace so that I was able to make notes and absorb the information. I have used Photoshop since August 2015, but I have steered clear of Lightroom. I had been afraid to use Lightroom because I was confused about the process of switching back and forth among Bridge, Lightroom and Photoshop. I have been doing extensive photo editing using other software since 2002, but am new to the Adobe products. After watching Tim's class, I have gained enough confidence to start using Lightroom, because I now understand that it is very powerful, can be used to process raw files, and has excellent tools for creating both panoramas and HDR photos (that are still raw which is great!), and more. I learned a great deal from this course, and would highly recommend it! I am very grateful to Creative Live for providing Photoshop Week 2016, and also grateful to the many amazingly talented and knowledgeable presenters for graciously sharing their knowledge and experience.
Brenda
This is a great class to help get you started. Tim is a great presenter. Would love Creative Live to have Tim back to teach.
user-58ff4e
Thank you so much for your straight forward and comprehensive lessons. I am new to LR and have been waiting to import my photos until I watched this lesson. Now, I feel like I can move ahead with confidence.