While I was in Las Vegas earlier this month for Photoshop World, I recorded a couple of Lightroom 2 tips for a Peachpit ‘Author Tips’ podcast. This first podcast demonstrates how you can speed up the process of using Lightroom 2 to export a series of images to build a Panorama or Merge to HDR image in Photoshop.

When I first saw you could export edit panoramas directly from Lightroom, I thought ‘wow this is great’, until I discovered there was no option to control the size of the individual panorama images and they would all have to be opened at full size. There is an answer though and credit where credit is due, it was Ian Lyons who first suggested this method of working to me, as he was tech editing my Lightroom 2 book.

Finally, yes I know it says Photoshop CS4 in the title and you are thinking ‘but I don’t have CS4 yet!’ Well, what I describe here works exactly the same if you are using Photoshop CS3.

Here’s a screen shot showing finished panorama image in Photoshop.

Go to podcast page…

George Jardine has just posted a video podcast of photographer, Martin Evening at work in his London studio, using and discussing how Lightroom fits in with his studio workflow. It shows all the steps in a typical fashion shoot from discussing the brief to looking at the finished shots, as well as discussing his upcoming book on Lightroom 2.

“This podcast was recorded on Friday, March 7, and Monday, March 10, 2008 in London. It gives us a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the photo shoot for Martin’s upcoming book on Lightroom 2. In this video, Martin shares his inner thinking on the model selection, lighting, camera angles, along with hair and makeup, and how each plays a part in creating the final look for the book assets.

This video podcast can be downloaded from my iDisk. It can also be viewed by downloading it directly into iTunes (if you are accessing it by subscribing via the Music Store), or by copying it into iTunes on either a Mac or a PC (if you’ve downloaded the iPod version from my iDisk). Once copied into iTunes, the small version can be transferred to a Video iPod or iPhone, and viewed that way as well.

Special thanks to Jeff Schewe for the use of his photos in the video as well.”

Duration: 5:44

Read the complete article and access the download

Earlier last month I carried out a photo shoot at the studio I work from in London, where Jeff Schewe and George Jardine from Adobe came over to document the entire process from discussing the concept, to the model casting and the actual shoot itself (see the Photoshopnews.com London story). The purpose of this photographic shoot was two-fold. Firstly, I wanted to capture some new pictures that could be used in my Lightroom 2.0 book (published by Adobe Press/Peachpit), including a new cover shot, plus Adobe were interested in acquiring new images that could be used to demo Lightroom and Photoshop. I am pretty pleased with the way it turned out. Even though I now notice that I stupidly got the first model, Yuliya’s name wrong. Sorry Yuliya!

“This podcast was recorded on Wednesday March 12, 2008 at Martin’s home in London. It gives us a rare glimpse into the inner thinking of this talented fashion and beauty photographer, as he gives us a shot-by-shot evaluation of a recent session. This video footage was taken during a photo session to create assets both for an upcoming Lightroom book, as well as for demo purposes for Adobe Systems. In it Martin describes his approach to every element of the shoot, from the model selection, the hair, the makeup, the lighting and camera angles, all the way through to the final edit.

This video podcast can be downloaded from my iDisk. It can also be viewed by downloading it directly into iTunes (if you are accessing it by subscribing via the Music Store), or by copying it into iTunes on either a Mac or a PC (if you’ve downloaded the iPod version from my iDisk). Once copied into iTunes, the small version can be transferred to a Video iPod or iPhone, and viewed that way as well.

Special thanks to Jeff Schewe for the use of his photos in the podcast as well.

Duration: 24:23″

Read the full post and download the podcast…

This podcast, which lasts 43:59, was recorded by George at the home of Greg Gorman. It can be downloaded from his iDisk at:

http://idisk.mac.com/george_jardine-Public?view=web

This podcast is labeled “20071120 Podcast – Gerd Ludwig” in the Public directory.

Or, it can be found on iTunes (shortly) by searching under Podcasts for “Lightroom”. The RSS feed is:

http://rss.adobe.com/www/special/light_room.rss

“So much of it is having faith in your work and your vision. If you believe in yourself, and you believe in what you’re doing, and you illustrate your vision, then the money will come, and everything will fall into place.” – Catherine Hall

Amidst all the attention for the new 1.3 update, we forgot to post a link to another new Lightroom video tutorial by George Jardine. This one offers some more great tips on working with the Library module and some of the less well-know aspects of photo synching behavior in Lightroom.

Photograph © 2006 George A. Jardine

“A new tutorial that covers the Sync command, and a few ins-and-outs of working with Lightroom’s selection logic.”

In this tutorial I outline the basics of Lightroom’s Synchronize command. You’ll learn how to apply Develop settings across multiple photos, in both the Library and the Develop modules. I also cover some of the new selection logic in Lightroom that is required to make working with large numbers of files, well…. logical!”

Duration: 11:56

Read full story and download the video tutorial…

The Lightroom Catalog – Part 1, or “Where Are My Pictures?”

How many people really understand the relationship between the Lightroom catalog and the underlying system folder structure? On one level I suppose it does not always have to matter, so long as Lightroom knows where everything is stored. But of course, it is always more reassuring to know how Lightroom is managing everything.

George Jardine has just posted a video podcast “that covers the basics of understanding Lightroom’s catalog model. We cover where Lightroom stores your previews and metadata, how Lightroom links to your source files, and how to use Lightroom with Bridge’s browser-based workflow.”

Read the full story and how to download the video podcast

Duration 22.31

This podcast was recorded on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at Jay Maisel’s studio in NYC.

Duration: 41:48

The podcast can be downloaded from George’s iDisk at:

http://idisk.mac.com/george_jardine-Public?view=web

This podcast is labeled “20071016 Podcast – Maisel Gorman Resnick” in the Public directory.

Or, it can be found on iTunes (within a few days) by searching under Podcasts for “Lightroom”. The RSS feed is:

http://rss.adobe.com/www/special/light_room.rss

Podcast #40 is an interview with Chris Rainier:

“It [being able to ’see and pre-visualize’ in black and white] allowed me to speak of things that were beyond the color spectrum, beyond a certain reality, and go into what I like to call magical realism.” – Chris Rainier

Podcast #41 is with renowned photographer Steve McCurry:

“Some of the great pictures, you just look at them and you marvel at them, for the subject matter and somehow they struck a chord in you. But it’s rarely about the technique. It’s not about the lens, or the film, or the light necessarily. It’s really just some story in that picture. Some emotional element which you connect with.” – Steve McCurry

Check them out by subscribing to the iTunes feed, or download them directly from George’s iDisk

Via John Nack