General menus
The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book 1.1 update:
General menu items common to all modules
With the release of the 1.1 update, the Lightroom program has undergone a number of fundamental changes. The program’s performance has been tuned to run that little bit faster and more smoothly and the Optimize option can also help improve Lightroom’s efficiency. Elsewhere you will notice quite a number of interface changes, not least in the Lightroom menus. When you first launch Lightroom after upgrading you will see a big change here, so as a service to those of you who are upgrading I have highlighted all the main menu differences. You can use this as a quick guide to some of the new changes.
Let’s start by looking at the File, Edit and Help menus, which are common to all of the Lightroom modules (I have not included the Window menu here because this is the one menu list that hasn’t changed in 1.1).
File Menu
Catalog options
Starting from the top, we have the Catalog options. Catalog is the new term now used to describe what used to be referred to as the Lightroom image library (the file that contains all the information used to manage the images that are displayed in Lightroom). It is argued that this change in terminology from ‘library’ to ‘catalog’ now provides a clearer distinction between it and the Library module. Plus there is now better support for multiple catalogs.
The top three items in the File menu will allow you to create a new catalog (New Catalog…), open an existing catalog (Open Catalog…), or choose: Open Recent and select a recently opened catalog from the fly-out menu. Note that whenever you choose to create a new catalog or you choose to load an existing catalog, you will have to restart Lightroom after you do this in order to launch the program using the new catalog. This is because in Lightroom 1.1 you can only open a single catalog at a time – you won’t be able to open several catalogs at once just yet.
Exporting catalogs
A lot of people may find they will be fine using just the one catalog for all their images. But let’s say you are sharing a computer running Lightroom with other people, each user can maintain their own separate catalog to reference and manage the images they are interested in working with.
It is more likely that photographers will want to use this feature to export images from one copy of Lightroom and then import this catalog to another computer running Lightroom. To do this, you would make a selection of photographs via the Library module or the Filmstrip and choose: Export as Catalog…, which will open the dialog shown below, where you can choose the location to save a catalog to. A catalog export will at a minimum always export the ratings and other metadata information. But if you want to export more than just this basic information, you will want to check the Export negative files and Include available previews options. Note that you can only export to create new catalogs. You can’t export and add to an existing catalog folder.
Exporting with negatives
If you export a catalog with ‘Export negative files’ checked, this will export a copy of the current catalog contents that includes all the master photos. These will be the raw files, JPEGs, TIFFs or PSD image files that are in the catalog. When this option is checked Lightroom will export all of the catalog information along with the original master files. Including the negatives will allow you to copy single folders or an entire catalog from one computer to another with ease. Of course, if you are exporting the master ‘negatives’ as you export a catalog, this could slow the export process by quite a bit and you will see a progress bar indicator in the top panel of the Library window (see below). I should also point out that you will need to have at least 200 MB of free disk space on your computer which Lightroom will use as a temporary directory when creating a new exported catalog.
Exporting without negatives
If you deselect the ‘Export negative files’ option, you can export a catalog from your main computer that is lightweight enough to run from a laptop computer without occupying much disk space. The advantage of this is that you can export a large catalog relatively quickly, use it to markup ratings and add keywords etc. The downside is that there are some limitations as to what you can do in Lightroom when working with a catalog that is missing the master negatives.
Including available previews
If Include available previews is checked, Lightroom will include all the Library grid thumbnails, standard resolution loupe views (in whatever form they are rendered) and 1:1 rendered views (if available) as part of the export (incidentally, if you refer to the appendix section of the printed book you can read in detail about how Lightroom goes through several stages of preview rendering). At a minimum, Lightroom will have thumbnail and standard size previews of each photo in the catalog. How detailed the previews are will depend on whether Lightroom has had a chance to render them fully or not. You should always see good quality thumbnails, but if Lightroom has not had a chance to render proper standard size previews (at the pixel size you have set in the preferences), then the standard size/full screen loupe view previews will sometimes look pixelated because they are nothing more than enlarged thumbnail previews.
The include available previews option is more critical if you are exporting a catalog without including the master negatives. This is because once a catalog has been exported without the original negatives you won’t be able to re-render the previews. Selecting ‘Include available previews’ will include the previews in whatever state they are in. So you may therefore want to consider going to the Library menu in the Library module and running ‘Render Standard-Sized Previews‘ before exporting a catalog. And if you want to include full resolution previews, then you might want to consider running the ‘Render 1:1’ Previews routine.
But there are good reasons not to include previews. If you need to export a catalog that contains just the metadata edits so that you sync these up with a master catalog, then deselecting ‘Include available previews’ will save carrying out this unnecessary step and make the export process a lot quicker.
If you check both this and the ‘Export negative files’ and ‘Include available previews’ options, you will then end up with an exported catalog that looks like the folder shown below, where the catalog folder contains an .lrcat catalog file, a Previews.lrdata file that contains the thumbnails and preview image data and a sub folder that contains the master ‘negatives’.
Importing catalogs
Now let’s imagine you have transferred the exported catalog to another computer. You can then go to the Import from Catalog… menu item, select the exported .lrcat file and open it. You will then see the Import from Catalog dialog shown below, where you can choose to import the images by copying them to a new location and add them to a current Lightroom catalog. Alternatively, you can choose to import the files by referencing them in their present location.
A catalog export and import in action
1. Over the next few steps I am going to show you how to use the Catalog export and import feature to copy a Lightroom catalog from a main computer over to a laptop computer. Here is the computer that holds the master catalog collection of photos, where all the master images are stored on the internal drive.
2. My objective here was to export the entire Lightroom catalog to a removable hard drive so that I could then access it via a secondary computer. To do this, I highlighted All Photographs in the Library panel (to select all the catalog contents), then went to the File menu and chose Export as Catalog… I wanted to export the complete catalog so I deselected the ‘Export Selected photos only’ option. And because I wanted to export a lightweight version of the catalog, I deselected the ‘Export negative files’ option. But I did keep the ‘Include available previews’ option checked, because I wanted to preserve these wherever possible.
3. After I had exported the master catalog, I disconnected the removable drive from the iMac computer and reconnected it to the laptop. On the laptop computer I opened Lightroom, chose: File ➯ Open Catalog…, used the navigation dialog shown here to locate the exported catalog file on the removable hard drive and clicked Open. This opened the warning dialog, also shown here, where I had to click on the Relaunch button to restart Lightroom with Lightroom running from the new catalog.
4. After the new catalog had opened I was able to access the exported iMac catalog via the laptop. Now in this instance, I was accessing the catalog from the removable drive. But I could just as easily copied the catalog to the laptop drive and opened the catalog from there.
5. If you export a catalog without including the negatives (the master photos), there is only so much that you can do with it. I’ll list shortly what you can and can’t do exactly, but basically you will still be able to navigate the catalog and edit the metadata. In this example, I edited various folders in the catalog, adding color labels applying star ratings, as well as editing the keywords and other editable metadata.
6. After I had finished editing the catalog on the laptop I was able to export the edits that have been applied on the laptop by creating a new export catalog. To do this, I highlighted All Photographs in the Library panel (to select all the catalog contents again) and chose: File ➯ Export as Catalog… Because I only wanted to export things like the ratings, color label and keyword metadata edits, I didn’t need to check the ‘Include available previews’ option. After all, as I was about to export back to the main library, there was no need for me to include the previews again.
7. At this point I needed to either quit Lightroom or switch catalogs so that I could disconnect the removable hard drive from the laptop and reconnect it to the iMac computer again. On the iMac I opened Lightroom with it running the original master catalog and chose: File ➯ Import from Catalog… I selected the laptop exported catalog and clicked ‘Choose’. It was important here that in the Import from Catalog dialog I chose to replace the catalog contents using Metadata and Develop settings only.
8. Here is the master catalog on the main computer after merging all the metadata edits from the laptop exported catalog. As you can see, the color labels and ratings have now updated.
Limitations when excluding negatives
As was pointed out in the previous step-by-step example, you will encounter certain limitations when working with a catalog that has been exported without including the negatives. While you can edit most of the informational metadata, export out the edited catalog and reimport the information back into the main computer, that is about all you can really do. The Folders panel will display the catalog folders in red because the links to the master folders will bee broken. The Develop module will be accessible but inoperative. You can see which develop settings have been used but that is all. You can use the Slideshow module to run slideshows (providing the pre-rendered previews are good enough) and you can use the Web module to generate web galleries. However, the Web module will constantly remind you that the ‘best-available previews’ are being used in place of the original masters. Although to be honest this isn’t always likely to be a problem and it may more likely make you long for a similar draft mode option in the normal catalog mode! With the Print module you will be able to make draft mode prints. Again, the print quality will be dependent on the quality of the pre-rendered previews.
Note, if the exported catalog excludes the master negatives, then the folders with missing negatives will be displayed in red.
Export and Import summary
You use the File ➯ Open Catalog… command to load individual catalogs and Lightroom can only run one catalog at a time. And the main thing to remember here is that a catalog export is always a one-way process. You can only ever create new catalogs and you can’t get a catalog export to add to an existing catalog, you can only create new ones.
The File ➯ Import from Catalog… command is the mechanism used to import catalog information from one catalog and add new catalog information to an existing catalog. Or you can use it to update the metadata information in the current catalog, as was shown in the steps on the previous pages.
Catalog Settings
Towards the bottom of the File menu we have the Catalog Settings… item. This is a three-part preference dialog which contains several items that were previously located in the Lightroom 1.0 main preferences. I guess this is initially going to cause a little confusion because of the way certain preference items have been syphoned off to now live in this submenu item. But it is one of those changes that once you have learnt where the new settings now live, you will soon become accustomed to the change.
General Catalog settings
The Information section provides some basic information about the current Catalog file and if you click on the Show button this will reveal the location of the current catalog in the Finder/Explorer.
The Backup section has the same catalog/library backup options as before. Personally, I would wish there was an option to backup the catalog after you quit Lightroom, but never mind, maybe next time around… As before, when you come to backup the library you will be provided with the option to run an integrity test on the current catalog. And at the bottom there is the Relaunch and Optimize button. One of the most common problems aired on the forums is “why is Lightroom running so slowly?” There can be many reasons for this and often it can be due to the fact that some people have had high expectations of how many images they can manage on a computer system that is just not powerful enough or does not have enough RAM to allow them to do so efficiently. But the Relaunch and Optimize option can be worth using if you are trying to manage a large catalog of images and have seen a noticeable deterioration in performance.
File Handling settings
The settings shown here have been moved from the File Management preferences in Lightroom 1.0 and are exactly the same. You can adjust the Standard Preview Size to whatever is most appropriate for the size of your screen. If you are running Lightroom on a laptop then there may be no point in generating standard size previews that are any larger than 1024 pixels tall. If on the other hand you are running Lightroom on a large LCD display then it may be more appropriate to choose the 2048 pixels setting. As for the Preview Quality, I don’t see much point in choosing the High setting, since the Medium Quality setting is a good enough setting to and I find there is not enough of a significant difference between the Medium and High settings to justify increasing the size of the Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata file.
Whenever you launch Lightroom, it initially loads all the low-resolution thumbnails, and within 30 seconds or so, starts running checks on the current library contents, checking the thumbnails in order of quality. Lightroom will look to see if any of the standard resolution thumbnails need to be rebuilt first before going on to build the high-resolution, 1:1 previews for these images. At the same time it checks the existing thumbnail previews against their modification dates. If any file has been modified since the last time a preview was built, Lightroom rebuilds a new set of previews, starting with a standard preview, followed by a high-quality 1:1 preview.
Lightroom will, as a matter of course, build 1:1, full-size previews of all images as you point Lightroom at a particular a Folder and Lightroom will do this in the background as and when it can. But you won’t always see every image have a 1:1 preview because the process does take a while to complete and it therefore depends on how long you spend with a particular folder in view. You can however, force Lightroom to generate 1:1 previews by choosing: Library > Previews > Render 1:1 Previews. These large previews are useful because they speed up the time it takes to review images at a 1:1 zoom view, but they can also be costly in terms of taking up room on the hard disk. So the options available here will allow you to Automatically Discard 1:1 Previews after a designated period of time or not at all, if you think you have the drive capacity to handle a Catalog Previews.lrdata file that keeps growing in size.
Metadata settings
As you enter metadata for things such as keywords and other editable metadata fields it can save you time to have the Offer suggestions from recently entered values option checked. This was previously switched on by default in Lightroom 1.0, but in the Catalog Settings you can now choose whether to keep it switched on or not, or you can click on the Clear All Suggestion Lists button to reset the memory to clear all memorized words. Most of the time, auto completion can be a useful thing to have switched on. However, there are times when inputting certain metadata that the auto tool can become a pain. For example when I do a model casting and enter in the names of models in the Title field of the Metadata panel in the Library module, I don’t find auto-completion particularly helpful. Every model’s name is different and sometimes I find it easier to switch this off rather than fight with the suggestions that Lightroom is making on my behalf.
The Write develop settings to XMP for JPG TIFF and PSD is a new option that provides you with an option to distinguish between writing the develop settings metadata to the XMP space for all files including JPEGs, TIFFs and PSDs, or to raw files and DNG files only. This is a preference that pre-determines what gets written to the XMP space when you make an explicit command to save the file metadata out to a file, such as when you choose: Metadata ➯ Save Metadata to File (in the Library module) or Photo ➯ Save Metadata to file (in the Develop module), or use the new shortcut: Command-S (Mac), Control-S (PC). Or, when the Automatically write changes into XMP option is switched on.OK, Let’s take a closer look at what this XMP setting business is all about. The XMP space is the hidden space in a document such as a JPEG, TIFF, PSD or DNG file that is used to write the metadata settings to. In the case of proprietary raw files it would be unsafe for Lightroom to write to the internal file header so .xmp sidecar files are used instead to store the XMP metadata. The XMP metadata includes everything that is applied in Lightroom. It includes the editable metadata information such as the IPTC information applied via a metadata template. It includes keywords, file ratings flags and color labels. And it also includes the develop settings that are applied via Quick Develop and the Develop module.
The ability to save develop settings with the file can be a mixed blessing. If you are sharing images exported from Lightroom as individual images or as an exported catalog with another Lightroom user, you will most definitely want to share the develop settings for all the images that are contained in the catalog. But if you are sharing files from Lightroom with Bridge 2 as part of the Adobe CS3 suite, this can lead to some unexpected file behavior when you open non-raw files via Bridge 2. Basically what will happen is that raw and DNG images that have had their develop settings modified via Lightroom will open via Camera Raw in Bridge exactly as you expect to see them, since Bridge 2 is able to read the settings that were created via Lightroom. However, where you have edited a non-raw file such as a JPEG, TIFF or PSD image using the Develop settings in Lightroom, and the develop settings have been written to the file’s XMP space, Bridge 2 will now consider such files to be raw files and will open them up via Camera Raw rather than open them directly in Photoshop. Which is what I mean by mixed blessings. Because if you want Lightroom to retain the ability to modify the xmp space of non-raw files for data such as file ratings, keywords and labels etc. but exclude storing the develop settings, then you should uncheck the ‘write develop settings to xmp’ option. If you do this, your Lightroom develop settings for non-raw files will only get written to the catalog and they won’t get exported when you choose ‘Save Metadata’. But raw and DNG files will continue to be modified as before. On the plus side you will never be faced with the confusion of seeing your non-raw images such as JPEGs unexpectedly defaulting to open via Camera Raw when you try to open them up in Photoshop CS3. The downside is that if you modify a non-raw image in Lightroom using the Develop settings, these changes will only be seen in Lightroom and not in Bridge.
The Automatically write changes into XMP option is normally unchecked. At first sight it would seem like a good thing to have this switched on all the time so that Lightroom would continually update the XMP metadata as any changes are made via the program. Unfortunately, doing so can really slow down Lightroom’s performance. For this reason it is better to have this option switched off. When this option is disabled all Lightroom metadata edits are stored in the internal catalog file only. If you intend to export images from Lightroom either singly or as an exported catalog, then you can simply use the Save Metadata command: Command-S (Mac), Control-S (PC) to write the metadata directly to the selected files.
Summary of metadata saving behavior
To help explain the settings and how they will affect the way image files will be after they have been modified in Lightroom and then viewed in another program, I have used the following tables to summarize how these options will affect the way these different file formats will be handled.
Example 1. If a photo in Lightroom is modified using the settings shown here with the ‘Automatically write changes into XMP’ and Write develop settings to XMP for JPG, TIFF and PSD’ switched on, then all adjustments made to a photo in Lightroom will automatically be saved to the Lightroom catalog and they will also be saved back to the original image file. In the case of proprietary raw files, the XMP metadata will be written to an XMP sidecar file and when opened via Bridge 2, will (as you would expect) open via the Camera Raw dialog with the same develop settings as were applied in Lightroom. In the case of DNG files, the XMP metadata will be written internally to the file and these too will open in Camera Raw.
In the case of JPEG, TIFF and PSD files, the XMP data will be saved inside the file header itself. However, because you are also saving the Lightroom develop settings too, these files will default to opening in Bridge 2 (as part of the CS3 suite) always using the Adobe Camera Raw dialog.
Example 2. If the ‘Automatically write changes into XMP’ option is disabled, the same rules will apply as before, except now the metadata edits will only get saved to the Lightroom catalog. If you want the metadata edits to be saved to the files’ XMP metadata space then you have the option to manually do so using the Save Metadata command. And because in this example the Write develop settings to XMP for JPG, TIFF and PSD is switched on, when you do so you will also be saving the Lightroom develop settings to the files’ metadata space.
Now if you were to open a JPEG, TIFF or PSD image that had been edited in Lightroom without using the Save Metadata command, such files will open from Bridge 2 directly into Photoshop and will not open via the Camera Raw dialog, but at the same time, the image ratings, metadata keywords and any other information that had been entered in Lightroom will also not be visible in Bridge 2 (or any other program outside of Lightroom). If you were to use the Save Metadata command before inspecting these photos in Bridge, then all the metadata will get saved to the XMP space and we are back to the same scenario in step 1 again where the non-raw files will default to open via Camera Raw, which is perhaps not what the customer wanted!
Example 3. Now let’s look at what happens when the ‘Write develop settings to XMP for JPEG, TIFF and PSD’ is disabled.
In this example, if you use the Save Metadata command (or if the Automatically write changes into XMP’ is switched on) then anything that is done to edit the metadata of a non-raw photo in Lightroom, except for the develop settings, will get saved to the files’ XMP metadata space. The develop settings will get saved to the Lightroom catalog of course, but they won’t get written to the file’s XMP space.
In this scenario, JPEG, TIFF and PSD files that have been edited in Lightroom will open from Bridge 2 directly into Photoshop without going via the Camera Raw dialog and all the other metadata that has been edited in Lightroom will be preserved and remain accessible in other programs. All except for the develop settings. So overall this is a useful configuration for preserving the informational metadata in non-raw files that have been modified via Lightroom. But the develop settings won’t be transferred and hence the appearance of such images will not always match between how they look in Lightroom, and how they look in other programs.
Because this setting only applies to non-raw files, all proprietary raw and DNG files that have been edited in Lightroom will preserve their informational metadata and their appearance when viewed in Bridge 2 and will open as expected via the Bridge Camera Raw dialog.
Lightroom 1.1 and Camera Raw 4.1
As you are probably aware, the Lightroom 1.1 update has followed on straight after the Adobe Camera Raw 4.1 update for Photoshop CS3 and both share the same Camera Raw processing engine. This means that any development adjustments that are applied in one program can be recognized and read by the other. However, there are a few things you need to bear in mind here.
Viewing Lightroom edits in Camera Raw
We have just looked at saving metadata in Lightroom, so the first point is to remember to always save the metadata edits out to the files’ XMP space if you want Camera Raw to read the develop adjustments made in Lightroom. If you don’t save the metadata to the files’ XMP space, the edit changes you make will not be read by Camera Raw. But the second and more important point is that only Camera Raw 4.1 will be able to read all the develop adjustments that are applied in Lightroom 1.1. Any version of Camera Raw prior to 4.1 will not be able to make full sense of the new develop adjustment settings. Older versions of Camera Raw will still be capable of reading the develop settings it understands such as white balance and exposure. It is just the new things like the sharpening controls that won’t be fully interpreted. So all that subtle work tweaking the Amount, Radius, Detail and Masking sliders in the Detail panel will get reduced to the Amount setting only being read by an earlier version of Camera Raw. The situation isn’t so bad that you won’t be able to read anything in older versions of Camera Raw, but for an interactive workflow where you need to maintain compatibility between Lightroom and Photoshop, you are going to have to make sure that you are using Photoshop CS3 with the very latest version of Camera Raw.
Viewing Camera Raw edits in Lightroom
If you want your Camera Raw edits to be visible in Lightroom then you also need to make sure that the image adjustments applied in Camera Raw are saved to the file’s XMP space. To do this, launch Bridge, go to the Bridge CS3 menu and choose: Camera Raw Preferences… This will open the dialog shown below where you will need to go to the Save image settings in menu and select: Sidecar “.xmp files”. This will ensure that the Camera Raw settings are always saved to the XMP space by default.
Keeping the Lightroom edits in sync
Lightroom should display a metadata status conflict warning in the grid cells with an upward arrow whenever it appears that the metadata has been edited externally. You can click on this arrow to pop the dialog shown on page 374. If there is no warning, but you think the metadata has been updated, then you can choose Metadata ➯ Read Metadata from files in the Library module or Photo ➯ Read Metadata from file in the Develop module. Or choose: Library ➯ Synchronize Folder. This will also allow you to run a quick check to make sure everything is in sync.
Synchronizing Lightroom and Camera Raw 4.1
1. Let’s show here a simple illustration of how to keep a set of photos viewed in Lightroom 1.1 and Camera Raw 4.1 in sync. In this first screen shot you can see a folder view of some photographs that have been processed in color.
2. Over in Camera Raw 4.1 I opened the same selection of photos, converted one of the pictures to grayscale and synchronized this setting change across all of the selected images.
3. When I returned to Lightroom the ‘out-of-sync’ photos should now display a metadata status change warning icon with an upward arrow, indicating that the metadata has been changed externally. A click on the warning icon followed by a click on the Import Settings from Disk button in the dialog shown here, imported all the Bridge adjusted settings into Lightroom.
4. The externally adjusted settings now appeared updated in Lightroom.
Metadata Browser categories
If you check the Metadata Browser panel in the Library module you will notice that there are now four new add categories: Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO Speed Rating and Label. These additions are pretty self-evident in that they provide extra ways to filter the images that are displayed in the content area. Although in the case of ‘Label’ this is exactly the same as clicking on a color label swatch in the Filters section of the Filmstrip. In order to make the Metadata Browser panel more manageable you can use the Catalog Settings to customize which items are visible in this panel.
Importing
I have already covered Import from Catalog, which leaves the other import options that are now divided into: Import Photos from Disk… and Import Photos from Device… This means that you can choose via the File menu whether to import photos from a disk location or from a camera card mounted on the desktop.
But note that if you have a card mounted on the computer and you click on the Import button in the Library module, this will still offer you a choice of whether to import from a card or from the disk.
And if you are importing from a camera card there is a new option to Eject card after importing, which will do just that after an import has been successful. The advantage of this is that you won’t have to manually eject the card via the Finder/Explorer. You can just unplug the disk after the import has been completed. Some people prefer to delete the camera files first before ejecting and then reformat the card in the camera before shooting more images. That’s how I like to do things because often on a busy shoot it can get confusing to put a card back into the camera and if you see there are still images on it, not always know if it is safe to reformat or not. As you can see, the redesigned Import dialog is more compact and the Don’t re-import suspected duplicates option is actually a rewording of the previous ‘Ignore suspected duplicates’ option. The new wording is now clearer I think.
Exporting and keyword hierarchy
Over in the Export dialog there has been a minor addition to the dialog box options.
The Minimize Embedded Metadata option will allow you to export without including custom informational metadata such as keywords, has been moved to a new Metadata section of the Export dialog. And alongside it is a new Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy option. This is checked by default and will ensure that keywords are always written to a file’s XMP space such that the keyword hierarchy is preserved when the keyword metadata is previewed on another computer running Lightroom where perhaps the keywords used are unknown or do not share the same hierarchy.
For example, let’s say you have two computers that share the same controlled vocabulary, i.e. they both share the same keyword hierarchy structure. If you were to export a photo from one computer and reimport it into the other, then the ‘Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy’ option won’t make any difference really because the keyword hierarchy for the individual keywords will be recognized anyway. Please note that I am talking about a normal export and import here and not about the new export/import catalog command. But if this option is unchecked and the second computer does not share the same information about how the keywords are structured in the hierarchy you are using, the keywords will otherwise be output as a flat View list without a Lightroom recognized hierarchy.
So if you happen to use a keyword hierarchy that uses: California > USA > Places, that hierarchy will be preserved so long as either the computer you importing the photo to already knows this hierarchy relationship or the ‘Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy’ option is checked. If it is not checked, the keywords will be exported as a flat list: California, USA, Places.
You will also notice in the Export dialog shown here that the DNG export settings are different. These new options are discussed in the Lightroom 1.1 preferences feature story.
Filters
The File > Filters submenu duplicates those items already listed in the Library module Library menu. The reason for having it appear twice here is so that the Filtering can always be accessible via the File menu, when working in any of the other modules.
In the example shown here you can see how the Filters submenu allows you to filter by Rating, Flag, Color label or Copy Status (which is a new filtering option found in 1.1). But notice how the options provided here in the Filters menu are identical to the Filters section found in the Filmstrip. For example, you could filter the images displayed in the content area to show the Virtual Copies by choosing File > Filters > Filter by Copy Status > Virtual Copies. Or instead, you could more simply click on the Virtual Copies filter button in the Filmstrip panel.
Edit menu
The Edit menu now contains a series of Select by submenu items. These provide a mechanism for making filtered selections while keeping all the images in a current filtered view (either filtered by folder or whatever other means) visible. Here is how it works.
Step 1. Select a folder of images to work on and then go to the Edit menu and choose a Select by submenu item. In this example, I chose: Edit > Select by Rating > one star.
Step 2. Here you can see that all the one star images have now been selected. I then went to the Edit menu again and chose Select by Color Label > Add to Selection > Yellow.
Step 3. And as you can see, by using Add to Selection I was able to add all the yellow color label images to the one star rated images. Of course, some of the yellow label images were already selected by the one star rating. But if I had wanted to I could have used the Select by menu to add the yellow label images to a red yellow selection and then used the Intersect with Selection menu to select just the one star rated photos that had a red or yellow label. The Edit > Select by menus can be used in this way to create any number of selection rules. This can be very useful when managing large folders of photos.
Help menu
And lastly, the Help menu which has two new additions. Select Library Help and this will take you to the off-line Lightroom 1.1 user guide where you can browse the help guide options for the current module (see below).
And if you select the Go to Lightroom Presets folder, this will take you directly to the system Lightroom folder in the Application support submenu. This will make it easier for you to access the various Lightroom preset folders. Advanced users will find this useful for accessing the folders where the saved template settings live.
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If you have found this extract useful and would like to read more then you will be pleased to know that Martin Evening, author of The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book, has also written a free Lightroom 1.1 PDF supplement update for readers of his book. The PDF is a compilation of all the Lightroom 1.1 update Lightroom-news stories, is 177 pages long and will soon be available for download via the Peachpit website (registration required). This is not a book revision, but a supplement to the original book in which Martin Evening desribes in detail all of the new features found in Lightroom 1.1. Martin writes: “I wanted to provide a free update for Lightroom 1.1 that would satisfy readers who had already bought the book as well as all those who hadn’t bought it yet but wanted to make sure they were up to speed on all the new program features”.
How to download the PDF supplement
The PDF update supplement will soon be available free for everyone to download. All you will have to do is visit the peachpit website at: www.peachpit.com/register. There you will need to create a new account by providing your email address, full name and a password to access the site. Once you have confirmed your account details proceed to the register page and enter the 10-digit ISBN number of the book. Please note that this PDF is not limited to those who are buying the book. Everyone will be welcome to register and download the PDF. Just copy and paste the following ISBN number: 0321385438 as shown below.
You will then be ready to download the PDF supplement after it is published. Watch out for further announcements on Lightroom-news for when the PDF is ready to download.
The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book by Martin Evening is available from Peachpit, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and all usual bookstore outlets.
Martin Evening has worked on the development of Adobe Photoshop as an alpha tester from the program’s earliest beginnings. The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book describes all of Lightroom’s features in detail, with photographers in mind. Photographers who routinely work with raw (and even jpg & tiff) images will find Lightroom–and The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book–an indispensable tool in their digital darkroom.
Lightroom-news has a free PDF download of Chapter 1. (click here to download-4.6MB PDF).