Making Lightroom Faster
Sure, as software developers we always make improvements and talk in terms of seconds, milliseconds and even X times faster. And we mean well.
Sometimes, it depends on a myriad of factors beyond our control. Have a slow drive? An old computer? Lacking reasonable Ram (and whatever you have, its probably not reasonable enough). Take good care of your computer?
Well, there are lots of
things you can do, and the guys over at shootsmarter.com have a nice article by Michael Clark
on tips to speed up Lightrooom (you may need to
sign up to view the article).
Link-O-Rama
1. The Inside Lightroom blog has a great tip for how to speed up your editing process in Lightroom - and this is one that I inadvertently discovered recently - and now use all the time.
2. Strobist has a set of DVDs now
available - everyone is talking about this. Great
idea. $140 isn't a bad price for what you get.
3. Zack Arias (a blog I've been
pretty into lately) also has a lighting DVD for
sale. Looks good as well - not priced yet though.
4. Scott Kelby has an interesting
proposal for Lightroom and Photoshop development.
And now for something
complete different...
1. DIYBike. I'm building one.
Yeah, with all my spare time. Ugh.
2. Weezer has a new single from an upcoming album.
Its been on a "one song" rotation all afternoon.
Pork and Beans. Sweet. Man, I
love Weezer. Geek Rock, uh, Rocks.
3. I'm getting old. I missed an internet thing. I
finally learned what a Rickroll is - someone inserts
this into an email link or
other public event. Funny! Love the dancing in the
prision-chique denim Rick. I wonder if he knows
about this phenomenon. Yes, I just Rick Rolled
you, but in a very obvious and non-threatening
way. Baaaaam!
As an aside, its been an interesting week. I've
gotten the flu and wasted a whole sunny Memorial Day,
my 8 year old nephew was diagnosed
with Leukemia and I finally managed to get out on
the road bike for a 63 mile jaunt up to Snoqualmie Pass and
back in less than 4 hours. It was cooooooold up
there in the fog and it took awhile to get feeling
back in my toes. And I flat with less than 5
minutes to home. Ugh.
I'll leave you with a picture...
Cheers!
Lightroom Round-Up
- L7Foto has a short video tutorial that talks the basic Pick/Reject/Rating editing task. This is something that every photographer needs to hone - and it takes years.
- Bridge/ACR/Photoshop or Lightroom? Scott Kelby covers this in his blog post on The Photoshop Insider. I worked on Bridge/ACR and then moved to the Lightroom team a year ago. There was a reason why I jumped ship - Lightroom is a much more focused, organized, efficient tool for 90% of the raw processing task. Period.
- Peachpit Press has revamped their Lightroom Resource Center. You can even get access to Martin Evening's LR 2 book before it is printed.
- Matt Kloskowski has revealed some of his deepest, darkets confessions in "Confessions of a Lightroom Addict"
Hangin' with Da Kost
We'd met before, but I've never spent much time with her until today. The booth was booming - lots of questions about Lightroom and one thing that people asked was where they could get a bit more information on how to warm up to Lightroom's way of working. I've always recommended the NAPP tutorials and the stuff that George Jardine (our pro photog evangelist) does on his podcast. Well, I should have probably put 2 and 2 together knowing what Julianne does, but she has a plethora of great resources on her website as well.
She has some great
tutorials for "quick starting" with lightroom,
quick editing and a host of
individual tutorials on specific features. If you
are looking for more great Lightroom resources,
please browse to her site and get some popcorn.
There are also some short PDFs that cover even
more.
I'd also recomend checking out her portfolio of images.
Thanks Julieanne.
So far WPPI is going great. We have a nice booth and
I was non-stop Mr. Answer for almost 5 hours. I
really enjoy booth duty, and while its exhausting,
its a lot of fun to chat up working photographers who
live and die on your software.
So thanks to you guys too. Lightroom is a great
product because you help us build it. Go team!
@ WPPI
A few things from around
the web:
- Your Camera Matters - Michael Reichmann's take on the old adage "Its the photographer, not the camera".
- Photoshop Disasters - Image editing faux-pas or "how not to use Photoshop"
- LRG's Complete - LRG's gallery of galleries web template (how many times can I put Gallery in this sentence)
Shooting Tethered
A
few weeks ago, I ran across a blog by Joe McNally
that showed his setup for shooting tethered...
http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/2008/01/28/the-mcnally-tripod-rig/
I've been doing some tethered shooting recently, and
this setup makes it so much easier to see what is
going on. I'm pretty excited about this and hope to
employ it at the studio soon. The small LCD on the
back of the camera isn't big enough for the client
(especially picky ones, like dancers) to see the end
result.
Sweet.
I had to reshave Liam's mohawk Sunday. Here are some
pictures from a few weeks back...
BTW, I'm in San Jose this week (again). More work for the next version of Lightroom.
Further Lightroom Tutorials
Steve Paxton's Digital Image Processing Tutorials
I'll be looking over his workflow stuff on the plane
ride home from Prague, and will give an update when i
get back, but in the meantime, check it out and leave
a comments if you have some thoughts...
As to training, thanks to all those who have
contacted me about the Lightroom Bootcamp training
sessions that I offer for photographers. I've
booked several sessions as a result of a post on
Seth Godin's blog and hope to
be sharing some insights as I progress.
Just a note: the pricing for the
sessions is currently at $150 for the first two
hours. This introductory pricing will last only until
January 31, so be quick if you want to score a super
deal.
Also, please check out my series of pictures from
Prague (Set 1) (Set 2) pictures...