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Lesson Info

A Tour of Lightroom Classic

1 At this point, 2 we need to give you a tour of Lightroom Classic. 3 And for those of you who are brand new to Lightroom, 4 a lot of this stuff will be eyeopening and new 5 and you don't know what's going on. 6 But a lot of you 7 who are seasoned veterans in Lightroom Classic, 8 you may already know some of this stuff, 9 but I'm gonna go through as quickly as possible 10 and just give everybody the lay of the land 11 so everybody knows where everything is. 12 You might get a couple tips in here, 13 but this is strictly a tour of Lightroom Classic. 14 When you start up Lightroom Classic, 15 you're gonna notice that there's a panel 16 over here on the left. 17 There is a panel down at the bottom, 18 which we call the filmstrip. 19 There's a panel on the right. 20 And then there's a panel up on the top. 21 And then there's always gonna be something in the middle, 22 whether it's a grid or whether it's one image 23 or whether you're in the Develop module, 24 there're always gonna be som...

ething larger in the center. 25 That is the basic construct of Lightroom Classic. 26 Now, top right-hand corner 27 is where we get what we call modules. 28 So there's the Library module, 29 the Develop, the Map, the Book, 30 the Slideshow module, and the Print module. 31 And I can right click this 32 and I can add the Web module as well. 33 So that's all of the modules. 34 But I don't ever use the Web module. 35 I'm not even gonna teach you anything about the Web module 36 because it's pretty worthless at this point, 37 And so I'm going to turn it off. 38 'Cause there's a lot better web capabilities 39 just in Lightroom's sharing to the cloud function 40 that we'll talk about later on in this workshop, 41 so it almost makes no sense to look at the Web module. 42 It makes no sense. 43 Not almost. 44 Okay, so these are all the modules up here, 45 and we'll go through these as this workshop progresses. 46 Although we'll spend a lot more time in the library, 47 in the Develop module, 48 because this course is all about Lightroom 49 editing and organizing. 50 And so it's not as much about making a book 51 or making a slideshow, or making prints. 52 On the top left-hand side 53 is basically the Lightroom Classic logo, 54 and then it says your name. 55 And in my case, it says Jared Platt. 56 If I click on that, I can turn on a few things. 57 I can turn on and off face detection 58 and I can turn on and off address lookup. 59 Also, I forgot to mention, 60 on the right-hand side is this little cloud icon. 61 This cloud icon is really important 62 because it is the connection to the cloud. 63 And Lightroom does connect to the cloud, 64 but you have to actually tell it to connect to the cloud. 65 So this little cloud icon, when you click it, 66 it gives you a dropdown. 67 And then in that dropdown, 68 you'll you see how much cloud storage you have, 69 you'll see the activity that's going on in the cloud. 70 And then in my case, I see pause syncing. 71 If I were to pause the syncing, 72 I would see resume syncing. 73 If you've never turned on the cloud, 74 if you've never actually used the cloud, 75 that will actually not say either of those things. 76 It'll say start, or I think it says connect to the cloud 77 or start cloud or something like that. 78 So it's, you either start the cloud, you resume the cloud, 79 or you pause the syncing with the cloud. 80 So that button is always there, 81 it just changes based on what activity 82 you're currently doing. 83 And then there's a little gearbox, 84 and that gearbox allows you to then get into the details 85 of this cloud activity. 86 And we'll go over that in a lot more detail later, 87 But that is the cloud button. 88 Over on the left-hand side is the basic organization panel. 89 Up the top, you see a navigation area, 90 then you see catalog section. 91 The catalog panel is all about 92 the specific things that you've... 93 Like, this is all photographs, 94 this is all the synced photographs, 95 the last or the previous export of catalog 96 or added previous export, updated photos, previous import. 97 So it's just, these kind of change 98 based on what you've done recently. 99 But it's important to know 100 that you can always go to all of your photographs here, 101 which you can see I have 400,000 in the actual catalog. 102 And then all the synced photographs, 103 everything that I have on the cloud, is 98,000. 104 So you can see that I have quite a few images 105 in the catalog, quite a few images in the cloud, 106 but these things will change based on what I've been doing 107 with this catalog. 108 Okay, below the catalog panel is the folders panel. 109 Lightroom is a catalog that looks at folders. 110 It's not a file browser, 111 so it doesn't just look at folders that you look into, 112 and then when you close them, it forgets about them. 113 You have to import the images, 114 but you're not bringing the images into Lightroom. 115 You're having Lightroom read the images and reference them, 116 and then they're in these folders. 117 So the folder panel is real locations 118 on your computer's hard drive 119 or on external hard drives that are connected 120 that have real locations of files with actual folders 121 and photos inside of those files. 122 And so the folder area is where your actual photos are kept. 123 So that's important to know 124 because there's a difference between folders 125 and the next panel, which is collections. 126 Collections are virtual folders. 127 They don't actually exist. 128 They can contain the same image 129 in multiple different collections. 130 They are just references to the actual folders 131 or the actual files, sorry. 132 The actual files. 133 And so when you put a file or a picture into a collection, 134 it is just referencing that image. 135 That image still exists in the folder, 136 but now it can exist also in multiple collections, 137 which are virtual locations. 138 They're just references. 139 And so we can create as many collections as we like. 140 We can actually organize those collections 141 into what we call a collection set. 142 So this is a collection set, 143 and then there are collections 144 inside of that collection set. 145 We can make smart collections. 146 If I go all the way down to the bottom of my collections, 147 you can see that I you're gonna have book collections. 148 So they're collections based on created books 149 that I've made in the Book module. 150 So, these are all virtual locations, 151 and they are called collections. 152 If you are familiar with Lightroom desktop 153 or Lightroom mobile, we call those albums. 154 And they are also virtual locations. 155 So albums and collections. 156 Albums in the new version of Lightroom, 157 collections in the classic version of Lightroom 158 are the same thing. 159 So these collections are virtual locations. 160 Below collections, 161 you will see that there's a place called Published Services. 162 Published Services are also virtual locations 163 that are essentially collections. 164 So as I go into, say, my SmugMug Published Service, 165 you can see that it looks almost exactly the same 166 as a collection because it pretty much is. 167 So you see clients. 168 Inside clients, there are additional folders 169 that have different people's names on them. 170 And inside those, you see that there are a whole bunch 171 of different collections. 172 The difference is, is that these collections 173 are serving files up to some kind of a cloud service. 174 So in this case, it's SmugMug, 175 there's ShootProof, there's Google Drive. 176 There's all sorts of different published collections 177 that simply take a set of images 178 and collect them in a virtual location as a collection, 179 and then share those out to some cloud service, 180 printing web service, 181 which is another reason why the Web module makes no sense 182 because we now have web services 183 through published collections 184 that are really very good web services 185 as opposed to the lame ones 186 that are inside of Lightroom's Web module. 187 Okay, so that is the left-hand side of Lightroom, 188 the left-hand panel. 189 And at the very bottom, of course, 190 there's import and export, 191 and we'll go through those 192 as we go through kind of a workflow inside of Lightroom. 193 Now, let's go over to the right-hand panel. 194 And in the right-hand panel, 195 you will see that there's a histogram at the very top, 196 which is very important. 197 But also below that histogram, 198 you're gonna see that there are, 199 there's information about the camera settings. 200 So there's the ISO, there's the focal length, 201 there's the aperture, and there's the shutter speed, 202 as well as information about what kind of file 203 you're looking at. 204 So in this case, I'm looking at an original photo. 205 It would tell me if it's a smart preview. 206 It would tell me if the smart preview is missing. 207 It would tell me if the file is missing. 208 It's gonna just give you information 209 about that file that you're working on. 210 If I happen to click on multiple images, 211 it's gonna tell me about all of those images. 212 And in this case, 213 all five of them originals without smart previews. 214 If they had smart previews here and originals, 215 then this would show up as a number. 216 If they were just smart previews, 217 this would show up as a number. 218 And if they were missing, it would show up as numbers here. 219 So that's just information about the file itself. 220 And then of course you see below that, 221 there is a Quick Develop area. 222 The Quick Develop area just allows you to adjust images 223 in the grid all at the same time or one at a time 224 with just very specific clicks of a button. 225 And you can click small clicks or large clicks, 226 and we'll go over this in more detail later. 227 But you can adjust the images. 228 The difference between this, 229 the Quick Develop and the Develop area 230 is that the Quick Develop is not exact numbers. 231 When you're in the Develop module, there are sliders. 232 And if you adjust the exposure knob to one, 233 it's going to take every image to one. 234 It's a very specific location on the slider. 235 Whereas in the Quick Develop, 236 these are relative adjustments. 237 And so if you have two images 238 and one is that exposure of zero 239 and one is at exposure of one, 240 and you push the exposure up button, 241 it's going to move both of them up by the same amount 242 but at different rates 243 or at different actual physical numbers. 244 So the one that's at zero will be one, 245 and the one that's at one will be two. 246 So they're relative. 247 So this is a relative adjustment setting, 248 as opposed to in the Develop module, 249 you would get a specific number 250 and it's going to take you to exposure number one, 251 exposure two, exposure three, et cetera. 252 Okay, so that's the difference between this Quick Develop 253 and the Develop module itself. 254 Below Quick Develop, 255 you'll find that there's a keywording are. 256 And that keywording allows you to find your files 257 if you enter in keywords 258 that are specific to the image you're looking at. 259 Then later on, when you're looking for it, 260 it's easy to find it just by typing in a few keywords. 261 There's also, if you right click this panel, 262 you can choose to add and subtract some of these panels. 263 And one of those panels 264 that I've chosen to leave off is the keyword list. 265 If I click that on and I go down to keyword list, 266 you'll see that there is an enormous list of keywords 267 that are available inside of this catalog. 268 That is like 20 years almost of keywording. 269 So there are so many keywords in there. 270 So it gets annoying to look at this list. 271 Sometimes it's useful to find a keyword 272 and edit it and change it and stuff like that. 273 But most of the time, it's just a waste of time having it. 274 So I turn it off until I need it. 275 Now, the next one is metadata. 276 Metadata can be all sorts of information. 277 At its very least, the default is basically the file name, 278 the copyright holder, 279 information about the file itself and how big it is, 280 the common settings in the camera, 281 whether the flash fired, GPS data, headlines, 282 websites, instructions, et cetera. 283 That's the basic default. 284 But you can also go to the EXIF and IPTC setting, 285 which gives you a list of a lot of things 286 that are available inside of the metadata, 287 including things like the model name and the camera make 288 and the model and these lens. 289 And you can type in all sorts information about these photos 290 that may not be there automatically, like this stuff is. 291 And so metadata can be as complicated as you like, 292 or it can just remain there 293 so that you can find stuff if you need it. 294 You don't necessarily have to enter in all that stuff. 295 But it's important to know that if you're in the grid 296 and you highlight an entire set of photos, 297 say, an entire trip or an entire photo shoot, 298 you can go in and add the information 299 on all of these at the same time. 300 So if you wanted to add your copyright information 301 or if wanted to add the location for the photos, 302 you can do that all at the same time. 303 And you just do it once. 304 And put it in the metadata, 305 and it'll put it on all of the photos at the same time 306 because they're all highlighted in the grid. 307 Now, below your metadata panel is a comments panel. 308 And we'll talk more about this later, 309 but the comments become available 310 when you synchronize the images to the cloud. 311 When you do that, 312 then you have the ability to share those images, 313 and people can go onto a website 314 that's automatically created by the Creative Cloud 315 through this sharing with the cloud function that you have 316 inside of Lightroom Classic 317 and all the other versions of Lightroom. 318 And when you share it with cloud, 319 when you share it with someone, 320 they can comment on the photos, 321 and those comments will come back to you 322 right here inside of this comments area. 323 So that's what that's all about. 324 And then at the very bottom, 325 there's the Auto Sync button and the Sync Settings button. 326 This Sync button has to do 327 with the synchronization of information inside the metadata. 328 So if I have information in this file, 329 but not in any of the others, 330 I can click on this file 331 and I can Shift + Click to another set of files. 332 And then if I hit the Sync button, 333 I can go in and type in whatever information I want 334 into this panel, 335 and I can synchronize that 336 and I can check mark the things I want to synchronize 337 so that I'm only synchronizing certain things. 338 And then I can hit Synchronize, 339 and it will synchronize that specific metadata 340 to all the other files 341 from the file that is the primary selection, 342 which would be this one. 343 So that's what that Sync button does. 344 The Sync Settings button 345 allows you to copy develop settings. 346 So adjustments to the photo, 347 and you can choose which ones you want to sync, 348 and then you'll synchronize all of those across 349 to all of these other images. 350 So there is a Sync and a Sync Settings. 351 Settings is all about the adjustments on the photo 352 and Sync is just about the metadata itself. 353 And, of course, if you turn this little button here on, 354 you can click on Auto Sync. 355 So you can change the Sync button to Auto Sync. 356 And when you do that, 357 it's gonna automatically synchronize 358 any of the adjustments that you make. 359 However, inside the grid, 360 it always syncs anything that you have selected. 361 So if I highlight an image 362 and Shift + Click to another set of images here, 363 anything I do in the keywording, 364 anything I do in the metadata, 365 is gonna happen to all the files. 366 That Auto Sync only comes into play 367 when I'm in what we call the Survey Mode, 368 which is this button here, or the End key. 369 If I click on that, it's a pretty version to look at, 370 but if I don't have the Auto Sync on, 371 it won't synchronize any metadata that I'm putting into it. 372 If I turn the Auto Sync off, then if I give this... 373 Let's say if I give this image a two star rating, 374 it only gives two stars to this one image. 375 But if I have the Auto Sync on, 376 then when I click on this image 377 and give it a five star rating, 378 all of these image get a five star rating 379 because I am Auto Syncing the metadata 380 across all the images in the Survey Mode. 381 In the grid, if I highlight those same files 382 and I have the autos sync off 383 and I hit five stars with the five key, 384 all of them get the five stars 385 because the grid is always syncing. 386 It syncs everything, and that's important to recognize. 387 So I'm gonna undo that, 388 and we're gonna talk about the top and the bottom panel. 389 So in the bottom panel, we have the filmstrip, 390 which just an easy way for us to go and click around 391 and see different images. 392 If I have multiple things selected, 393 and I click on the image itself, 394 I just change the primary selection. 395 But if I click on the frame of the image, 396 it deselects all of the other images 397 and only selects the one. 398 That's true up here in the grid as well, by the way. 399 You click on here, and if I click on just the frame, 400 it deselects all of the others. 401 So this is called the filmstrip. 402 Above the filmstrip, you'll see you have a filter. 403 And if you don't see this filter, 404 so this is a filter that I can choose to see 405 only my picked images 406 or only images that have been adjusted or not adjusted, 407 stars, color ratings, stuff like that. 408 If you don't see any of these, 409 it's because you haven't ever filtered your images before. 410 And you've gotta click 411 on this dropdown menu here for filters 412 and choose a filter like, say, flagged. 413 And then from then on out, this flagged filter will show up. 414 So you just have to do this once, 415 and then the filter will appear here forever. 416 Over on the left-hand side of this, 417 right above the filmstrip, 418 is the dual monitor function. 419 So, monitor one is always going. 420 And monitor two, you can turn it on and off 421 based on what you need it to do. 422 So, if I click on that two, 423 it's gonna show me a second monitor. 424 Right now, because we're only looking at one screen, 425 it shows it on this screen. 426 But I can then have a second monitor 427 either show as the grid, I can have it show as a loop, 428 I can have it show as compare, 429 or I can show as a survey. 430 So I have a lot of options as to what I want to show 431 on that extra monitor. 432 Most of the time, I leave it at loop, 433 and then I make sure that this whole thing is on grid 434 so that when I click on an image here. 435 See how it changes on my second monitor? 436 So I can see a big full image over on the second monitor. 437 That way, we don't have to zoom into it. 438 I can just look over, glance at it, 439 yeah, it looks sharp, done. 440 So, the second monitor is very useful, 441 and you turn that on and off 442 by clicking on this little second monitor button. 443 Above the filmstrip view is what we call the toolbar. 444 The toolbar is simply turned on and off 445 by clicking on the T key for toolbar. 446 So we just hit T and it opens and closes the toolbar. 447 The toolbar has the different types of views that we have. 448 There's grid, there's loop, there is compare, survey, 449 and then facial recognition mode. 450 And then of course right here, 451 there is how you sort the images, 452 and then there's also something called a spray can tool, 453 which we'll talk more about in a little while, 454 as well as our flags, our stars, and our colors. 455 That's how we add flag stars and colors to the image 456 if we don't use a keystroke. 457 And then you can, over on the right-hand side, 458 change how big or small the thumbnails are. 459 On the top panel, 460 of course, the very top we've already talked about, 461 which is just the modules, 462 the name plate over here, and the cloud button. 463 But below that, 464 you'll see that you have a library filter. 465 Just like this filter down here right above the filmstrip, 466 there is a library filter up here, 467 but it is much more robust. 468 So, we can search by text, we can search by attributes, 469 which would be flags, stars, edits, things like that. 470 We can search by metadata, 471 which gives us columns of information. 472 So I can choose to search by camera, I can search by lens, 473 I can click on the top of these columns 474 and choose any type of thing I want to search by. 475 So I can search by focal length, 476 I can search by map location, by creator, by job. 477 There's so many different things I can search by. 478 Mostly I'm searching by date or I'm searching by file type, 479 or maybe I'm searching by camera information. 480 And then of course I can tell it to search by none, 481 and that clears the search 482 so that I get all of my images back. 483 This little Make Public button we'll talk about much later. 484 And that is the library mode version 485 or the Library module version of Lightroom Classic. 486 Now, quickly, I'm gonna go through all of the other modules 487 so that you can see that they all look pretty much the same. 488 So if I go to the Develop module, 489 the filters are dropped out. 490 So I don't have those anymore. 491 I still have the toolbar down below, 492 I still have my filmstrip. 493 And over on the left-hand side, 494 I have a new set of things called presets, 495 I've got snapshots, I've got history, 496 and then I have collections. 497 So the collections are always gonna be ever present 498 on every panel on the left-hand side, 499 all the way across all of the modules. 500 So, you can always look for the collections, 501 so you can move back and forth between them 502 without having to go back to the Library module. 503 But over on the left-hand side, 504 you still have the navigator here. 505 Up above the navigator, you have your zoom levels, 506 just like you do in the Library module. 507 You have presets, snapshots, 508 all of that stuff is available on the left-hand side. 509 And then below that, you have copy and paste. 510 That's for copying and pasting adjustment settings. 511 Now, on the right-hand side, 512 this is where you still have a histogram, 513 but now you have things like masking 514 and you have retouching tools, you have cropping tools, 515 and you have all of the adjustment tools. 516 And we're gonna go into these in a lot of detail later, 517 but that's where those are. 518 And below that, you have a Reset button 519 that allows you to take an image 520 from whatever you've done to it back to square one. 521 So you never have to worry about messing up an image. 522 It's not like in Photoshop 523 where after a certain number of iterations, 524 you can't go back to the beginning. 525 In this case, you can always go back to the beginning. 526 Just hit Reset, you're back to the beginning. 527 And this button is a synchronization button 528 that allows you to either steal image adjustments 529 from the previous image, 530 or if you have multiples selected, 531 it allows you to either auto sync or sync. 532 And we'll talk about this button in depth later as well, 533 but that is your synchronization button 534 for adjustments of your images. 535 This is what makes things go really fast 536 in Lightroom Classic. 537 In the Map module, 538 you're going to find that you, 539 again, have a right panel that has all the information. 540 This is basically a metadata panel 541 basically stolen from the Library module, 542 so it's exactly the same metadata panel. 543 And on the left-hand side, 544 you'll see you have saved locations 545 and you have all of your collections again. 546 We'll talk about the Map module a little bit 547 in our organizational discussion. 548 And then in the Book module, 549 you have collections on the left-hand side here. 550 And on the right-hand side, you have all the settings 551 that have to do with the book itself 552 and adjusting where the photos are and how big they are 553 and all that kind of stuff. 554 So it's kind of like a develop module for books. 555 And then the Slideshow module, 556 you'll see that you again have the collections 557 on the left-hand side, 558 you have some templates right above the collections. 559 And on the right-hand side, 560 you have everything to do with adjusting 561 the way the slideshow looks. 562 Are we seeing a pattern here? 563 And then in the Print module, 564 we have the collections on the left-hand side again, 565 we also have a template browser up here, 566 we have the printed page in the middle. 567 And on the right-hand side, we have all of the adjustments 568 that help us change the way the printed page looks. 569 So, all of the modules are pretty much the same, 570 they have pretty much the same information 571 or they kind of organize everything the same. 572 So once you get used to one module, 573 all of the other ones will make sense. 574 So that is a brief introduction 575 to the entire Lightroom Classic program. 576 For those of you who are brand new to Lightroom, 577 that was probably a lot of information. 578 Don't worry. 579 We're gonna be going over most, 580 all of it in very fine detail, 581 starting with the Library module, 582 and then moving into the Develop module 583 as we start editing our images. 584 And then we'll kind of hit the other modules a little bit, 585 especially the Map module. 586 But the important thing is that you know 587 that that was just to give you an overview. 588 Don't panic. 589 We won't go that fast throughout the entire workshop. 590 And for those of you who are seasoned veterans in Lightroom, 591 and you listen to that and you're like, 592 "I didn't learn anything new," 593 of course not, that was just an overview. 594 As we get into the Develop module 595 and into the Library module, 596 you're gonna learn some things that are really cool, 597 new things, old things that you didn't know, 598 great ways to organize your images, 599 great ways to adjust your images, 600 and especially great ways to make better images faster. 601 So, we are going to be going through all of that soon, 602 but I just needed to give you that overview first.