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A Computer Darkroom Feature Preview |
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Installing LightroomLightroom now comes in two version. A perpetual license version and a version for Creative Cloud. The both contain exactly the same feature set. However, we are advised that the perpetual license version of Lightroom will be around for the foreseeable future I think it's important to remind readers that it doesn't provide access to Lightroom mobile or Lightroom web. It's also more difficult to install and remove than previous versions. Why? The answer is - as I mentioned above Lightroom is now a first class citizen of Creative Cloud (CC). This means that Adobe will likely put even greater effort into switching perpetual users over to the Creative Cloud for Photography Plan, especially when Photoshop CC is included in the deal. With each new version we get a new splash screen. In this case the branding in bottom left corner will indicate whether the version installed on the the computer is a perpetual licensed or Creative Cloud version.
Photoshop Lightroom Perpetual and Creative Cloud splash screensFrom an installation perspective the consequence of integrating Lightroom into CC is that everyone (i.e. perpetual license and CC customers) are now be required to sign into an Adobe ID account. If a customer doesn't have an Adobe ID they must create one. This means an active Internet connection is essential whether you intend to continue with the perpetual licence version (Lightroom 6) or have chosen the Lightroom CC route. In the absence of an active Internet connection the application can only be installed in Trial mode, and believe me this is easier said than done.
Adobe Lightroom Sign In dialogAfter signing into their Adobe Account perpetual license users will also need to type in the Lightroom serial number while Creative Cloud customers can simply progress with the installation process. I should also point out that a single Adobe ID means that Lightroom can only be operational on two computers. If you want to run it on a third computer you'll need to deactivate one of the other two first. Upgrading Existing CatalogsLong time Lightroom users will already be familiar with the process of upgrading catalogs each time a new version ships. The good news for those who have not experienced the catalog upgrade process before is that it's fairly straight forward, albeit a bit time consuming. It's also worth mentioning that your existing catalog will not be replaced or even deleted during upgrade. Therefore, if a problem occurs during the upgrade you'll still be able to use the older catalog.
Library Module and Workflow EnhancementsAs mentioned above, the Lightroom UI hasn't seen much in the way of change since Lightroom 1. Sure, we've had new modules, new panels, etc, but the ability for user configuration is still absent. Personally, I don't have a problem with this, but I'm conscious that a lot of Lightroom users do. Anyway, there is no point in dwelling on what hasn't happened, especially when there are new features in Library to discuss.
Library Module Loupe ViewThe Library continues to be at the heart of Lightroom in so far as it's the module that provides most of the tools for managing your photographic assets. Imported photos can be viewed in the Library in various modes or views. These include the now familiar Grid view (G), Loupe view (E), Compare view (C) and Survey view (N). Each of these views is intended for a specific purpose, but users may find one view more useful than others. For example, Grid view allows the user to see large numbers of photos as thumbnails whilst at the same time providing a workspace for applying metadata, labels, ratings, keywords, flags and even quick development adjustments to photos in bulk. As with previous versions of Lightroom, the Loupe view restricts these actions to a single photo. Compare and Survey views are designed to make the tasks of rating and flagging easier. The new kid on the block is People (O). Face TaggingFace tagging has been on the wish list of many Lightroom users since the very first public beta back in 2006. So, I expect some will be jumping for joy that it's finally here. Personally, facial recognition and face tagging holds little interest for me. That's not to say that I haven't spent an inordinate amount of time over recent months try to incorporate face tagging into my Lightroom workflow. Unfortunately, it hasn't been possible to do so because the way it has been implemented means that people keywords/tags are treated separately from conventional keywords. Sure they all appear on the Keyword List, but the workflow for assigning a 'name' to a face in People view is completely separate from assigning traditional keywords used to describe the photos other content. In effect, any user who chooses to adopt face tagging will likely find themselves keywording or tagging each photo twice. The facial recognition algorithm requires Lightroom to build an index of your photos to operate. Indexing will ask to turn on the first time you enter People view for your entire catalog. If catalog-wide indexing is not turned on, then indexing will run just for the selected source (i.e. folder or collection) and only while in People view or loupe view when the Draw Face Region tool is activated.
The time required to index your catalog can be significant. However, if you have Smart Previews or embedded JPEG thumbnails in your raw files (most do by default) then these will help speed up the indexing process. This is because Lightroom doesn't need to read the entire raw file off of disk. If a photo is offline (and no Smart Preview is available) Lightroom will not try to index it. When indexing is turned on for the whole catalog, Lightroom will automatically index offline photos when they come back online. The following screenshot shows where you can enable/disable automatic catalog indexing.
You can access the People view via the button
on the toolbar, or via the View menu. Also, tapping on 'O' key
in Library module will open People view. People view will show all
the detected faces in the currently selected source. If
Lightroom is confident that several faces are in fact the same person,
it will group them together into a stack.
In above screenshot you'll see that I have already named one group of
like faces (Seth Resnick) with the result that Lightroom has moved this
group (stack) to the Named People section. I'm also in the process of naming another
group (Jeff Schewe). Also, a quick scan of the grid (click the screenshot for
a larger view) will also show that some of the faces found by the
facial recognition algorithm are not actually faces. These can be
quickly removed by clicking on the X button that appears on
bottom left corner when the mouse is floated over the thumbnail. This
removes the face region mask. However, it's important to note that
deleting the face region mask means that there is no way to name a real
face in future. I'll speak to this below.
Above screenshot also includes a lot of faces for people I photographed
on a visit to Nepal in 2012. I don't know the name of any of these
people. Therefore, my preference is to give them all the common name
'Unidentified Person'. Doing, so means that Lightroom will retain the
face region mask within the catalog. I also find this approach useful
when I've forgotten a persons name, as it allows me to add it later. At this point it's worth
noting that the default sort order in People view is Suggested Name.
This will sort the unnamed people alphabetically by suggested name
first, and by stack size second. The other sort orders are:
Filmstrip Order, Stack Size and Popular Names. When you name a face, or a stack
of faces, the faces move from the Unnamed People section of the
grid to the Named People section of the grid. This next screenshot highlights some of face
recognition's more quirky behaviour. For example, notice how many pairs
of identical faces that the algorithm has failed to group as the same
person. Also, notice how many faces for people I've already named that
the algorithms still hasn't even suggested a name for (i.e. Seth and
Jeff). You may be asking why this should be so. Is it that they're
wearing spectacles, have facial hair are wearing a hat? I don't have an
answer and to date not be able to get one from Adobe.
Other functionality that can
be used to help speed up the process of naming faces includes:
dragging and dropping faces from Unnamed to Named stacks,
selecting multiple face thumbnails and naming the selected faces at the same time, and when
typing names in People view, auto-complete will suggest and filter
other person keywords as you type. In this next screenshot I've
already entered Find Similar Faces view by first selecting the
thumbnail for Seth Resnick in the named people section then double
clicking. Lightroom displays only those faces that the facial
recognition algorithm believes to be the same person. In this example,
two of the thumbnails are of Seth, and I can click the checkmark on the
bottom right corner to accept the suggestion. The other is actually
Jeff Schewe. Is there a common facial feature here that I can't see or
is Lightroom confused?
This last last example and
associated screenshot demonstrates how we identify faces that the
facial recognition algorithm fails to find. Finding such faces manually isn't
particularly easy, but you'll need to establish your own approach to
overcoming this particular issue as space and time prevent me from
describing my own. Once the missing faces are found you
can click on the Draw Face Region button on the toolbar then simply
drag the mouse across the face are on the photo as shown below. You can
then type the appropriate name into name box at the top of the region
boundary. This particular photo is of Elmer Long of
Bottle Tree Ranch fame. The photo was taken during my
Route 66 road trip in 2013. Again, I have to wonder why Lightroom
didn't find this or any other photo I have of Elmer.
I've listed some tips below
for using this particular tool. The Draw Face Region tool
is only available in Loupe view. The Draw Face Region tool
is automatically selected whenever entering loupe from People view,
though it can be manually selected in Loupe view at any time by
clicking on it on the toolbar. When you double click on a
face in People view, it takes you to loupe view with the Draw Face
Region tool active (and face regions visible). Double clicking in
loupe view will then take you back to people view. The face regions are
displayed or hidden in loupe view depending on whether or not the
Draw Face tool is selected. When a single face is
selected in the Unnamed section, you can activate the text field
under it with the Shift+O keys 'O' toggles the People
view. Confirm the suggested name
by using Shift + Enter When you press the
Option/Alt key and scroll the mouse over a face stack, Lightroom
shows a preview of all the faces in the stack. Delete key in People view
will delete the selected Face region. In People view, the Find
Similar Faces context/right-click menu item takes you to Single
Person view with that face as the search face. Right-clicking on a face in
People view gives you context menu items which will take you to the
Folder or Collection which contains the photo. The 'S' key
expands or collapses a selected stack in People view. You can also
click on the stack badge to expand and contract the stack. You can right-click on
existing keywords and choose Convert Keywords to Person Keywords.
This will convert them from traditional keywords to Person keywords.
Unfortunately, Lightroom makes their use more complex than it should
be. If you convert the parent
keyword in a hierarchical structure, all the child keywords will also
be converted to Person keywords. If you apply an existing
keyword to a face in People view, the keyword will be automatically
converted to a person keyword. You can also right-click on
a keyword and select Put New Person Keywords Inside This Keyword
to set it as the default parent keyword for all new Person keywords.
Typically, you would do this when you've already got a well
structured Keywording system in place and want Lightroom to place new
Person keywords into it. The last feature I want to
draw attention to is one that I suspect many users will not notice. In the screenshot shown below you'll see that there is a new
toggle button on the top right corner of the Keywording panel. Clicking
on this button opens a new tab bar on which you'll find 3 filters
All | People | Others These filters can be used to pare down the
keyword list from all keywords to either People or Others. These
filters are probably more useful to those who choose to work with a
flat keyword list and much less so to those who use a hierarchical
list.
Photo MergeUntil this release photographers wanting to create HDR or Panoramic images in Lightroom needed to send their photos into Photoshop. Not any more. By multi-selecting a set of bracketed or panoramic still photos in the Lightroom Library grid then choosing Photo > Photo Merge followed by the appropriate option it is possible to create Panorama or HDR images within Lightroom itself. Alternately, the Merge tool can be accessed by right-clicking on one of a group of selected photos and selecting Photo Merge from the context menu (this can also be done from the Filmstrip in the Develop Module.) After a preview of the merge is generated, select the desired options in the merge preview dialog and click the Merge button to start a full-size merge. The full-size merge is performed in the background so you can continue to edit other photos or start other merges while you wait. Once the full-size merge is complete, the resulting DNG file will be added to the Lightroom Catalog and will be available for further editing. When merging raw files, the merge is performed on the raw image data so that the result is virtually the same as demosaiced raw file (and has all the editing flexibility that comes with raw). The merged file is 16-bit floating point, which is particularly important when working with HDR. Keyboard shortcuts:
the option to merge photos in headless mode runs the merge process immediately, in the background, based on the last used merge settings, and bypassing the Merge preview window. To run Merge in Headless Mode, hold down Shift while selecting the merge menu option Keyboard Shortcuts
Panorama MergeWhen merging panoramas you will see a warning if Lightroom was unable to automatically locate a lens profile for the selected images. In this case, you can manually apply a lens profile to the selected images and Lightroom will use that when merging the images. Lens corrections are always applied before merging.
Selecting photos to be used for panorama (click for larger view)When merging panoramas you will see a warning if Lightroom was unable to automatically locate a lens profile for the selected images. In this case, you can manually apply a lens profile to the selected images and Lightroom will use that when merging the images. Lens corrections are always applied before merging. The panorama merge dialog is resizable, and the preview within can be panned and zoomed. Note that, because preview generation for panorama merge is very intensive, the preview size is limited to 2048 pixels across the long edge on retina displays (max of 1024 pixels on non-retina), and zooming or resizing will not increase the maximum preview size. The projection options supported by Merge to Panorama are:
Panorama Merge panelThe Auto Crop option is only available when merging panoramas. You can reset or change the crop on the full size result using the Crop tool. Changes to any merge settings will trigger a new preview merge, cancelling any previous preview generation that is in progress. The Cancel button aborts the merge session. The Merge button performs the final merge using full resolution versions of the selected images. You cannot initiate a merge using Smart Previews. Once the final merge is complete, the merged result (in DNG format) will be added to the catalog. The naming convention use to denote Merged Panorama files is: Panorama: <base name of the active photo>-Pano<-optional sequence number if there is duplicate name conflict>.DNG HDR MergeThe procedure to merge is virtually identical to that used for panoramas. First select the photos you wish to merge as an HDR image then choose Photo > Photo Merge followed by the appropriate HDR images
HDR panel (click for larger view)As with Panorama merges, changes to any merge settings will trigger a new preview merge, cancelling any previous preview generation that is in progress. Again, the Cancel button aborts the merge session and the Merge button performs the final merge using full resolution versions of the selected images. Aligned HDR results are always automatically cropped. You can reset or change the crop on the full size result using the Crop tool.
HDR Merge panelThe options available with the HDR panel are:
Once the final merge is complete, the merged result (in DNG format) will be added to the catalog. The naming convention use to denote Merged Panorama files is: HDR: <base name of the active photo>-HDR<-optional sequence number if there is duplicate name conflict>.DNG Activity CentreAdobe have added an Activity Center to Lightroom. This is accessible by clicking on the ID plate. The Activity Center shows the progress of background operations. The operations currently shown in the Activity Center include Lightroom mobile sync, Indexing for Face Tagging, and Address Lookup.
Activity CenterWhile it looks relatively simple Activity Center adds some much needed control and monitoring of background processes. For example, Activity Center allows you to:
When you first activate a feature viewable in the Activity Center, the Activity Center will pop open and show a bit of explanatory text. By default, the only background task that shows up in the ID plate area is sync progress. The other background tasks still show in the Activity Center itself. A right-click in the ID plate area lets you control which background tasks show in the ID plate area. Keyword PainterThe Keyword Painter can now be loaded up with keywords from any of your saved keyword sets. With the 'Keyword Painter' tool active, press shift to bring up the Keyword Set UI. In screenshot shown below you can see the Keyword Set panel anchored to the toolbar.
Keyword Set panelIt is possible to add an entire keyword set at once to the keyword eyedropper by using the Select All button. All currently selected keywords can be removed at once with the Clear button. To open the Keyword Set panel at a specific location within the grid area you'll need to first place you mouse pointer at that location then hold down the Shift key (see below screenshot) |
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Contents on this site: Ian Lyons © 1999 - 2023. All Rights Reserved |
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