Category Archives: Book module

Adobe Lightroom Classic 8.1 | December 2018

If you’ve been paying attention to the timing of Adobe’s recent update cycle for applications within the Photography Ecosystem you’ll have noticed that the period between updates is roughly every two months. The last updates were in mid October. So, it isn’t surprising that today sees updates and enhancements to Lightroom, Camera Raw, etc. My main focus of attention below relates to Lightroom Classic CC and Lightroom CC for the desktop.

Customise order of Develop module panels

Customisation of Develop Panels has been at the top of customer feature requests for more than decade. As of this release it has now become a reality, albeit not as full fledge as many would wish for. Until now you could only choose visibility of the Develop module panels, now they can also be rearranged. While this enhancement will please some it falls short of the Holy Grail of customisation; i.e ‘floating’ panels, and for this reason some customers might see it as more of a miss than a hit.

  • Right Clicking (Control + Click on macOS) on the header of any panel (in the right-side only) will show a context menu with “Customise Develop Panel…” option as shown below.

  • You can also choose visibility of the panels in the same dialog.
  • Lightroom must be restarted to show the panels in the new order.
  • The KBSC for the panels (CMD/CTRL + #) will also reflect the current custom panel order; e.g. if Transform panel is moved to 2nd position, then the KBSC CMD/CTRL + 2 will expand/collapse Transform panel.

In below example, I have reordered the ‘Detail’ panel so that it’s between the ‘Basic’ and ‘Tone Curve’ panels.

Lightroom Classic 8.1 – Repositioning Develop Panels

Add to Collection during Auto-Import

Another long awaited feature is the ability to automatically add an image to a collection when using Auto-Import. For example, you can setup a Watched Folder on your computer into which images are automatically placed then add the images into a collection.

From File menu choose Auto Import > Auto Import Settings > check ‘Add to Collection’ and specify the collection.

Lightroom Classic 8.1 – Auto-Import to a collection

Snap to Grid in Book Module

After a long period in the doldrums the Book module has seen much needed attention in recent updates. For 8.1 Adobe has added the ability to snap an image to either a Cell or Grid, thus allowing you to easily align images in a Book layout.

From the ‘Guides’ section, select ‘Grid Snap’ choose:

  • “Cells” so that the cells of two images are aligned
  • “Grid” so the image is aligned to the grid guidelines

Lightroom Classic 8.1 – Snap Grid

Presets and Profiles

While the enhancements to develop presets and profiles introduced in version 7.3 (April 2018) were widely welcomed not all customers found the transition trouble free. Fortunately, the engineering team have worked to address many of the issues some customers experienced. With version 8.1 their attention was focused on improving the handling of duplicate presets.

Duplicate Presets

There now have a variety reconciliation options available if you attempt to create a duplicate preset that shares the same name in same group. These include the ability to:

  • ‘Replace’ the existing preset – only the latest preset with the same name will remain in the group.
  • ‘Duplicate’ the preset – choosing this option allows you to have two presets with the same name now listed in the group
  • ‘Rename the preset’ – where a numeric extension is applied to the name by default or you can rename it yourself

Lightroom Classic 8.1 – Reconciliation of Duplicate Presets

Partially Compatible Presets

Some Develop Presets may not appear in the Presets panel because they are incompatible with the selected photo. For example, camera profiles that are not applicable to the current photo or presets that only apply to raw files. These non-compatible presets are shown as faded and in Italics style in the Presets panel in Develop.

You can configure Lightroom Classic to show all presets even if they are not compatible with the current photo by enabling a preference in the Visibility section as demonstrated in below screenshot.

Lightroom Classic 8.1 – Display all presets

Performance Improvements

Improving performance in Lightroom Classic remains a high priority for Adobe, and with this update their focus has been on faster grid scrolling, and switching between the Library and Develop modules. The latter will be most obvious to customers using 4K and 5k monitors.

Full details of what’s new and fixed in Lightroom 8.1 can be found on the application ‘What’s New‘ page.

Camera and Lens Support

Details on Camera and Lens support by Lightroom Classic CC can be found on following pages:

Adobe Lightroom Classic 7.5 | August 2018

 This release of Lightroom Classic CC adds new features and enhancements, support for new cameras and lenses, and bug fixes. Full details of what’s new and fixed in Lightroom 7.5 can be found on the application support page

The new features most likely to attract customer attention are in  the Book module. They include the ability to customise pages plus two new book types (i.e. Blurb Magazine and Trade Books). There is also for importing Presets and Profiles, and HEIC support in Windows.

Book Enhancements

Blurb Book Styles

The new book styles can be accessed from the the Book Settings panel as top right corner of Book module.

New Blurb Book styles – Blurb Magazine and Blurb Trade Book

New Paper Type

By popular request, Adobe have also added Blurb’s Layflat paper.

New Paper Type – Standard Layflat

  1. In the ‘Book Settings’ panel, select Book as ‘Blurb Photo Book’
  2. In the ‘Paper Type’ drop-down list, you can choose from Premium Lustre, Premium Matte, ProLine Uncoated, ProLine Pearl Photo, Standard, and the newly introduced Standard Layflat. When using Standard Layflat, the minimum page count is 33 due to the binding requirements. The minimum page count for all other paper types is 20.

Other Book enhancements include:

  • Select where page numbers are printed on a book, including on only left or right pages, or all pages.
  • Customise cells within a page.
  • Add Photo Border.
  • Add multiple cells on a page, move specific cells to the front or back and drag the cell exactly where you want it.

Photo Border

Upload Presets and Profiles in bulk

You can now import multiple presets or profiles in a zip file into Lightroom Classic. Do the following:

  1. Navigate to the Develop module.
  2. From the menu bar, choose File > Import Develop Profiles and Presets.
  3. In the Presets panel, click the plus (+) icon at the upper-right corner and choose Import Presets from the menu.
  4. In the Basic panel, click the ( page7image1765312) Show Profile Browser icon in the Profile area.
  5. In Profile Browser, click the plus (+) icon at the upper-left corner and choose Import Profiles from the menu.

Import Presets

Camera and Lens Support

Details on Camera and Lens support by Lightroom Classic can be found on following pages

More details of this release along with upcoming releases for mobile devices can be read here.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Released

 Adobe has just released the shipping version of Lightroom 5. If you’re a frequent visitor to this site then you will likely already have read my Beta Preview in which I summarised many of the new features. Whilst no additional features have been included in this GM version I’ve updated the earlier preview to review status. You can read it here.

A summary of the key features included in Lightroom 5 are as follows:

Smart Previews

  • Lightweight images that can be used in place of the original files throughout the application, including the Develop Module.
  • Reside in the same folder as the catalog and are contained in an lrdata file folder structure (Smart Previews.lrdata) that is located alongside the catalog. This is similar to the existing Preview file structure.
  • Smart Previews will be used in the absence of an original file (e.g. file is offline).  Changes are saved to the Lightroom catalog and will be visible on both the Smart Preview and original image. When original file is reconnected the application will automatically apply any metadata or develop adjustments to the original.
  • Smart Previews are Lossy DNG files and are 2540 pixels on the long side.
  • Smart Preview information is communicated to user in a new status bar between the Histogram and toolbar.

Smart Preview Status

Upright

  • Upright is a technology that straightens pictures automatically. Common use cases include fixing horizons (to avoid “tilted” pictures) and straightening buildings (to avoid the “keystone” effect).
  • Upright’s main advantage over previous methods (e.g. straighten and crop tools, Horizontal and Vertical sliders) is ease of use because it automatically finds the desired correction by analysing the image content. 

Upright controls in Lens Corrections panel

Advanced Healing Brush

  • Two types of spots available:
    • Circlular spots – the pre existing functionality within Lightroom
    • Brush spots – can be used for arbitrary shapes (e.g. removal of power-lines).

Radial Filter

  • Radial Filter appears in the Histogram Toolbar between the Graduated Filter and the Adjustment Brush.  The Radial Filter allows users to apply existing local adjustment attributes to a mask with a feathered falloff.  Users can now create off-center vignettes, among other effects.

PNG Support

  • Lightroom can now import PNGs
  • Edit-in Photoshop workflow is supported. The PNG will be converted either to a TIFF or PSD, based on the preferences that you have set.

Full Screen Mode

  • A true full screen mode, available via a single keyboard shortcut (“F”).
  • Legacy “F” keyboard shortcut behavior is available using Shift+F.

Behance Publish Service

  • A new Publish Service to publish your images directly to Behance (http://www.behance.net/).  In order to use the service, you must first create a Behance account.

Book – Improved Text Creation

  • Transparent Buttons for “Page Text” and if a photo exists on the page, “Photo Text”.  These are linked to the existing Page Text and Photo Text controls and are designed to help make the text experience in Lightroom easier to use.
  • All the text tools available in Lr4 can still be used, this is a simpler way for customers to interact with the text technology.

Videos in Slideshow

  • Add video clips to your Slideshows
  • Improved synchronization of slides with soundtrack duration.

More information on Lightroom 5 features can be found at Adobe.com. Pricing remains unchanged from Lightroom 4 (i.e. full version $149.99/£106.48 or upgrade $79/£60.57). Lightroom 5 will also be available as part of Creative Cloud.

Adobe Lightroom 4.1 & Camera Raw 7.1 Now Available

Adobe has just released the final release version of Lightroom 4.1. The software is available directly from Adobe.Com and through the update mechanism in Lightroom 4.  The goal of this release is to provide additional camera raw support, lens profile support and address bugs that were introduced in previous releases of Lightroom. In addition, Lightroom 4.1 introduces the following new features:

The ability to process HDR TIFF files.  (16, 24 or 32-bit TIFF files)  This can be useful if you have merged multiple exposures into a single 32-bit image using Photoshop’s HDR Pro.  Using the new basic panel controls can be a very effective and straightforward method of achieving an overall balance across the tonal range.

  • Additional Colour Fringing corrections to help address chromatic aberration.  Click here to learn more
  • Save photobooks created in the Book Module as JPEG files
  • Publishing photos to Adobe Revel is now accessible via a Publish plugin.

Also, released is Adobe Camera Raw 7.1 and DNG Converter 7.1. As with Lightroom 4.1, Camera Raw now includes support for the editing HDR TIFF files and colour fringing corrections.  Camera Raw and DNG Converter 7.1 can be downloaded from:

A full list of cameras supported by Lightroom 4.1 and Camera Raw 7.1 can be seen at Adobe.Com