CONTENTS

[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]
2012 • ISSUE 2

THE LIBRARY MODULE

Using Smart Collections

BEHIND THE PRESET

Sports Game Day Presets

THE DEVELOP MODULE

Bending the Tone Curve

BEFORE AND AFTER VIDEO

Outdoor Portraits in
Lightroom and Photoshop
32
DNG CRASH COURSE
Why DNG Is for Me

LIGHTROOM PLUG-INS
Tiffen Dfx for Lightroom

THE BOOK MODULE

Create a Photographic Story
with Photo Books, Part 2 46
TIPS & TRICKS 6
FEATURED PHOTOGRAPHER
Nicole S. Young

Executive Editor, Scott Kelby Production Manager, Dave Damstra

Editor-in-Chief, Matt Kloskowski Senior Premedia Specialist, Dave Korman
Managing Editors, Chris Main,
Mike Mackenzie Publisher, Scott Kelby
Associate Editors, Kim Doty, Executive Publisher, Dave Moser
Cindy Snyder Business Manager, Jean Kendra

Creative Director, Felix Nelson Produced By National Association

Senior Designers, Taffy Clifford, of Photoshop Professionals
Eduardo Lowe, Jessica Maldonado,  333 Douglas Road East
Margie Rosenstein Oldsmar, FL 34677-2922
Phone: 800-201-7323
[email protected]

All contents ©COPYRIGHT 2012 National Association of Photoshop Professionals. All rights reserved. Any use of the contents of this
publication without the written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. Lightroom Magazine is an independent app, not affiliated
in any way with Adobe Systems, Inc. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Lightroom, and Photoshop are registered trademarks or trademarks of
Adobe Systems, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks mentioned belong to their respective owners.
Some of the views expressed by contributors may not be the representative views of the publisher.
 FROM THE
It feels like I just wrote the editor’s note for the first issue
and here we are with Issue #2 already. If you read the is-
sues sequentially, you’ll notice that some of the columns
are natural follow-ups to that column in the previous
issue. For example, in this issue, Scott Kelby continues his
write-up on the art of creating a book using the Book
module. Rob Sylvan helps us stay organized in the Library
module with smart collections. Brian Matiash takes on
the next step in the Develop module by covering the
Tone Curve panel and how to use it. And if you’re a plug-in junkie, then keep
your eye on our plug-in column. This issue, Sean McCormack goes over Tiffen’s
Dfx for Lightroom plug-in, but we plan on covering them all as we go through
the year.

One of the articles I’m really excited about is Rafael “RC” Concepcion’s DNG
article. DNG is a mystery to a lot of people and I always get a ton of questions
on it, so I asked RC to break it down for everyone and show you what it’s all

EDITOR
about and how you can take advantage of it. We also brought back some of

M AT T K L O S K O W S K I
the popular topics, such as the Lightroom “Before and After” video and the
“Behind the Preset” article where I take a look at the making of a Lightroom
preset. What’s great about these presets is that you can either choose to create
your own using the article, or simply download the presets provided for you.

Finally, we feature Nicole S. Young and her photography. Nicole is not only a
gifted photographer, but also a gifted writer and teacher. Her books, blog, and
articles have helped thousands of photographers over the years, so I’m excited
to have her here.

As always, I’d like to say thanks so much for checking out our magazine. If
you like it, I only ask one favor: help us spread the word. Word of mouth is
the best source of getting everyone out there as passionate about Lightroom,
and this new magazine, as we are. Of course, if you have ideas for articles,
writers, tutorials, videos, presets, or anything else you’d like to see here (as
long as it’s Lightroom related), feel free to drop me an email at lightroom@
photoshopuser.com.

Matt Kloskowski
Editor-in-Chief
[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

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[ L I B R A RY M O D U L E ]
THE
LIBRARY
GET ORGANIZED:

MODULE B Y R O B S Y LVA N

USING SMART COLLECTIONS ALLOW

YOU TO HARNESS THE POWER
SMART OF THE DATABASE INSIDE OF

COLLECTIONS LIGHTROOM BY LEVERAGING

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED
IN YOUR PHOTO’S METADATA,
PLUS ANY ADDITIONAL DATA
YOU MAY HAVE ADDED, TO AU-
TOMATE THE PROCESS OF
FINDING, GROUPING, AND OR-
GANIZING YOUR PHOTOS IN
MEANINGFUL WAYS.
 SMART COLLECTIONS ARE JUST ONE OF THREE TYPES OF COLLEC-
TIONS YOU CAN FIND IN THE COLLECTIONS PANEL, SO LET ME SAY A
FEW WORDS ABOUT THE OTHER TWO BEFORE DIGGING DEEPER INTO
SMART COLLECTIONS. IF YOU CLICK THE PLUS SIGN (+) ICON IN THE
HEADER OF THE COLLECTIONS PANEL, YOU CAN ACCESS THE MENU
FOR CREATING EACH TYPE OF COLLECTION. IN ADDITION TO SMART
COLLECTIONS, THERE ARE REGULAR COLLECTIONS, WHICH ARE
USEFUL FOR MANUALLY GROUPING PHOTOS BASED ON A COMMON
THEME OR PURPOSE, AND COLLECTION SETS, WHICH ARE ESSEN-
TIALLY CONTAINERS FOR OTHER COLLECTIONS AND CREATE AN
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE FOR YOUR VARIOUS COLLECTIONS.
FOR EXAMPLE, YOU MIGHT HAVE A COLLECTION SET NAMED FOR A
TRIP OR EVENT, AND THEN WITHIN THAT SET, YOU COULD HAVE A
COMBINATION OF REGULAR COLLECTIONS AND SMART COLLECTIONS
THAT CONTAIN RELEVANT PHOTOS GROUPED TOGETHER BASED ON
SPECIFIC CRITERIA, SUCH AS DATES, NAMES OF PEOPLE, LOCATIONS,
AND SO ON.
[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

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[ L I B R A RY M O D U L E ]
REGULAR I typically use regular collections when I am manually going
through photos and picking specific photos that I want to group
COLLECTIONS together, and I use smart collections when I want to automati-
cally gather up a group of photos that all meet the same criteria.
VS. I organize those various collections in collection sets.

SMART To help illustrate this structure further, Lightroom comes installed

COLLECTIONS with a single collection set called “Smart Collections” that con-
tains six starter smart collections:

• Colored Red: Any photo in your catalog with the red color
label applied.
• Five Stars: Any photo in your catalog with a 5-star rating.
• Past Month: Any photo in your catalog whose capture date
is within the last month.
• Recently Modified: Any photo in your catalog whose edit date
is within the last 2 days.
• Video Files: All video files that have been imported into your catalog.
• Without Keywords: Any photo in your catalog whose keyword
field is empty.

These smart collections are very simple, are intended to give you
a sense of what can be done, and are completely customizable
(and removable). Let’s take a look in the Colored Red collection
and see how it is constructed. Double-click on the collection name
or its smart collection icon to open the Edit Smart Collection dia-
log. In this dialog, you’ll see the name field at the top and the
rules underneath. This collection is based on a single rule being
applied to the entire catalog: Label Color is red. Any photo in the
entire catalog matching that criterion is automatically added to
that collection. Click Cancel to close the dialog without making
any changes. Take a moment to double-click on each of the prein-
stalled smart collections to see the rules they contain. As you can
see, a smart collection is nothing more than a type of saved search
that can be as simple or complex as your needs demand.
 CREATING To create a new smart collection, you can use the Create Smart Col-
lection menu in the panel header, the Library>New Smart Collection
A SMART menu command, or simply Right-click anywhere inside the Collec-
tions panel to access the same Create Smart Collection menu. The
COLLECTION Create Smart Collection dialog is similar to the Edit Smart Collection
dialog, but has the addition of the Placement section that allows
you to add this new smart collection to an existing collection set or
leave it at the top level of the Collections panel.

NOTE: YOU CAN ALWAYS

DRAG-AND-DROP COLLECTIONS
INTO A COLLECTION SET LATER.
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[ L I B R A RY M O D U L E ]
When it comes to creating the rules for a smart collection, you first
need to decide if you want the photos added to this collection to
match any, all, or none of the rules you will define by choosing an
option from the pop-up menu next to Match. Leaving Match set to
All is the most straightforward way to get started.

You can see all of the possible rules at your disposal by clicking on
the rules pop-up menus and scrolling through the lists. For example,
when I am writing books on a specific camera model, I create smart
collections that pull together all of the photos I’ve taken with that
specific camera as the first rule, and then I might add additional rules
for specific camera settings, capture dates, ratings, focal length, and
so on. This automates the process of pulling those photos together
in groups that fit my needs for that project.
 Let’s go through the steps for creating a new smart collection that
you might use when traveling. Imagine you know you will be on a
shooting assignment from February 21–24, 2013. You also know
that you will want to pull together all of the photos you assign a star
rating of 4 or higher, and that you have not yet worked on in the
Develop module. This way, you can be certain that all of your 4 star or
higher photos from this trip get processed before exporting.

STEP Click the plus sign (+) icon in the Collections panel header and
choose Create Collection Set. Give your set a name, and unless
ONE you are putting the set inside another set, leave Top Level selected
for Placement, and then click Create.
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[ L I B R A RY M O D U L E ]
STEP Select the collection set you just created, then click the plus sign
icon again and choose Create Smart Collection. This opens the
TWO Create Smart Collection dialog. Starting with the collection set
selected helps expedite the process of adding the new collection
to the selected collection set, so that when you select Inside a
Collection Set for Placement, your collection set should be used
automatically. Give the smart collection a name.

STEP Click on the pop-up menu on the left for the first rule and choose
Capture Date. Set the condition to Is in the Range, and enter the
THREE start and end dates of the range you want to target. I used 2013-
02-21 to 2013-02-24 for this example.
 STEP Click the plus sign icon at the end of the first rule to add a second
rule. Rating appears by default, since it is at the top of the list, so
FOUR let’s use it here. Leave Is Greater Than or Equal To set, and click the
number of stars you want defined for your rule. Note: Now that
you have more than one rule, a minus sign also appears at the end
TIP: PRESS-AND-HOLD THE of each rule, which allows you to delete a rule.

OPTION (PC: ALT) KEY AND THE PLUS

SIGNS ALL CHANGE TO POUND
SIGNS (#). CLICK A POUND SIGN
AND YOU CAN ADD ADVANCED
CONDITIONS TO YOUR SET OF RULES
FOR THAT SMART COLLECTION.

STEP Click the plus sign at the end of the second rule to add the third.
Click the first rule pop-up menu and choose Has Adjustments.
FIVE Change the condition to Is False, so that only photos without any
Develop settings will be added.

STEP SIX As soon as Create is clicked, the dialog closes, the smart collec-
tion is added to the set, and photos matching the criteria will
CLICK CREATE automatically appear in the collection. In this case, we used a set
of dates that may not be true for you, so don’t be surprised when
no photos appear. Feel free to take the concepts and modify the
criteria to fit your needs (double-click on the smart collection to
open the Edit Smart Collection dialog and change the criteria).

REMOVING The only way photos can be removed from a smart collection is
when a particular photo no longer matches the defined criteria.
A PHOTO So, in our example, as soon as any photo gets adjusted in any
way, it will no longer match the rules and will automatically van-
ish from that smart collection. Similarly, if I change my mind on a
star rating and reduce a photo to 3 stars, it too would be auto-
matically removed.
[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

There are so many ways smart collections can leverage the power
of your Lightroom catalog and make your life simpler. Experiment
and have fun! ■

ALL PHOTOS BY ROB SYLVAN

14
 I WENT TO THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLOR-
IDA, SO WHEN I GOT A CHANCE TO SHOOT
A HOME GAME FOR THEM, I JUMPED AT IT.
THE PHOTOS I DELIVERED TO USF DIDN’T
HAVE QUITE AS MUCH “PUNCH” TO THEM
AS THIS PRESET DOES BECAUSE THE MEDIA

SPORTS

THE
IS GENERALLY LOOKING FOR PHOTOS THAT

GAME DAY DON’T HAVE A LOT OF POSTPRODUCTION

WORK DONE TO THEM: SHARPENING, SOME
PRESETS QUICK WHITE BALANCE, AND HIGHLIGHT OR
B Y M AT T K L O S K O W S K I SHADOW ADJUSTMENTS ARE ABOUT ALL

BEHIND
PRESETS I’D DO FOR THOSE PHOTOS. BUT, I LEARNED
SOMETHING LAST YEAR WHILE SHOOTING
MY SON’S POP WARNER FOOTBALL GAMES.
WHILE NEWS AND WIRE SERVICES DON’T
WANT A LOT OF PHOTOSHOP WORK DONE
TO THE PHOTOS, THE REST OF THE WORLD
LOVES THE EDGY/GRITTY STUFF. EVERY
PHOTO I GAVE TO A PARENT FROM MY SON’S
[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

TEAM HAD THIS EFFECT ON IT AND THEY

LOVED IT. SO, LET’S TAKE A LOOK BEHIND
THE SCENES OF THIS PRESET.

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[ BEHIND THE PRESETS ]

CONTRAST
The first thing I did here was increase the
Contrast. Overall, this takes a flat-looking photo
and boosts the feel it has. I didn’t increase it too
much—around 10–15 works really well.

HIGHLIGHTS
AND SHADOWS
Next, I increased the Highlights. I really
wanted the whites in the photo to pop out.
Again, I didn’t increase it by much. I also
increased the Shadows to open up any really
dark areas, so there’s just a hint of detail.

CLARITY
Perhaps one of the biggest settings for this
effect is Clarity. I always advise against using
Clarity on photos with people in them, but
whenever I advise against it, I follow up by
saying that Clarity works great on edgy por-
traits or sports photos where you want that
extra “grit” and detail added to the photo.
So, I think Clarity works great here. In fact,
you can get away with a lot of Clarity for this
type of photo, so feel free to crank it up.
 VIBRANCE
I also believe that edgy effects should be
slightly desaturated. The colors shouldn’t be
the thing that pops because we really want
the detail and edginess of the photo to be
what stands out. So, I decrease the
Vibrance to about –20 to –25.

SHARPENING
AND VIGNETTE
Now, for some sharpening. We want all of
the gritty detail in the uniforms, field, sky,
grass, and whatever else the photo has in it
to be really sharp. For most photos, I find an
Amount between 70–80 works best (I also
increased the Detail and Masking just a bit).

Finally, every photo that has this effect on

it needs a vignette; it helps viewers focus on
what’s really happening in the photo and takes
focus away from the edges. Aside from Clarity,
it’s one of the key adjustments for this preset.
Don’t be shy on this one—the stronger the
vignette, the edgier the photo will look (you
can see my settings here).
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[ BEHIND THE PRESETS ]

SAVE THE PRESET
When you’re done, go over to the Presets panel on the left and click on the Create New
Preset icon (+) to save all of your settings as a preset. You can see here that I’ve only turned
on the settings that I used to create the overall effect. If I had changed things like White
Balance and Exposure, I’d leave them turned off in the preset because I probably wouldn’t
want to use the same White Balance and Exposure settings for every photo I take.

One more thing: I created different versions of this preset—Light, Medium, and Strong.
Sometimes, you’ll find a Clarity setting of 10 will work on one photo, and on others, you’ll
find you can use a higher setting. I typically find that one group of settings doesn’t work for
every single photo. So, instead of manually changing the sliders each time, I create several
versions of the preset with various settings so I can pick which one works best for that
particular photo. In fact, sometimes I don’t want the photo desaturated and sometimes
I do. That’s another great time to create multiple versions, so you can use different Vibrance
settings on each. You’ll see I’ve included several options in the download that cover a wide
range of effects and levels of intensity for different photos. n

Before

After: With Sports

Game Day Desaturated
(Strong) applied
 [ MATT’S SPORTS GAME DAY PRESETS ] YO U M AY D O W N L O A D T H E S E P R E S E T S AT
P H O T O S H O P U S E R . C O M / L I G H T R O O M -A P P - S U P P O R T

Sports Game Day (Light) Sports Game Day Desaturated (Light)

Sports Game Day (Medium) Sports Game Day Desaturated (Medium)

Sports Game Day (Strong) Sports Game Day Desaturated (Strong)

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[ DEVELOP MODULE ]
THE
DEVELOP
PICTURE PERFECT:

MODULE B Y B R I A N M AT I A S H

BENDING HOW MANY OF YOU SPEND TIME

USING THE TOOLS FOUND IN THE
THE TONE TONE CURVE PANEL IN THE DEVELOP

CURVE MODULE? BUELLER? BUELLER?

 FINE It’s okay. I’ve been there, too. You know, when you casually
avoid eye contact as you hastily move from the Basic panel
ADJUSTMENTS down to the HSL (Hue/Saturation/Luminance) panel. For the
longest time, the Tone Curve panel was nothing more to me
than a diagonal line cutting a square into two triangles with
some sliders underneath. I never really had a need for it, be­­
cause I was able to accomplish all of my edits by using a combi­
nation of the tools found in the Basic and HSL panels. It wasn’t
until I did some research that I learned just how effective the
Tone Curve can be with helping you finely adjust highlight, mid­­
tone, and shadow details as they relate to contrast. In other
words, you can control exactly how much or how little contrast
you wish to apply to your image. You can even make color curve
adjustments, opening the door for all sorts of funky split tones.
Now do I have your attention? Cool! So, let’s take a closer look.

Before we begin bending our tone curve to do our bidding,

one thing you’ll want to understand is that Tone Curve adjust­
ments typically take place after you make your white balance
and Basic panel adjustments. These are the tools that will do
most of the heavy lifting. The Tone Curve is a refinement tool
used to manip­­ulate the tones in your image even further
[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

to taste.

Let’s start with a basic use of the Tone Curve on this shot
taken at Little Zigzag Falls in Oregon. The first steps were
getting a custom white balance (I metered off of the gray in
the water) and making some adjustments in the Basic panel
to get my image ready. Now it’s time to refine the contrast
using the Tone Curve panel. As you hover over the curve,

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[ DEVELOP MODULE ]
you’ll see that it’s broken down into four distinct zones:
Shadows, Darks, Lights, and Highlights. Dragging a point
up or down in any of these four areas will adjust the tone in
that respective part of your image. To make using the Tone
Curve easier for us Lightroom users, Adobe has also thought­
fully included sliders that will mirror the same effect as if you
dragged up or down on the curve. In fact, as you drag up
or down, you’ll see the respective sliders move left and right
accordingly, as shown here.

For this image, I really want to emphasize the winding water

path by boosting the contrast. The reason I love using the Tone
Curve to do this, as opposed to the Contrast slider in the Basic
panel, is because I can control how much punch I apply to each
section of the curve. By tugging the Highlights and Lights up

and the Shadows and Darks down, I was able to add some
serious drama to the scene. This particular method of adjusting
the Tone Curve is referred to as an “S-curve” because of the
characteristic shape that it assumes. I also intentionally blew out
the highlights at the curve in the water to draw the eye through
the frame over there.
 STYLISTIC Next, let’s move on and use the Tone Curve panel to add a
cool, stylistic split-tone effect that was inspired by all of my
SPLIT-TONE time spent playing with Instagram. Here, I’ve started working
on this portrait taken at the Russian Market in Phnom Penh,
EFFECT Cambodia. I adjusted the sliders in the Basic panel to bring
the image to a good starting point. From there, I added an
S-curve to add a strong dose of contrast.
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[ DEVELOP MODULE ]
POINT CURVE Now it’s time to apply some split-toning color adjustments.
To start, activate the Point Curve editor by clicking on the
EDITOR little Point Curve icon on the lower-right corner of the Tone
Curve panel (circled here in green). Your sliders will disappear
and be replaced with a Channel pop-up menu. The Point
Curve editor behaves like the traditional Curves adjustment
in Photoshop. More importantly, you now have access to
control specific color adjustments in the Red, Green, and
Blue channels.

As far as I’m concerned, the key to creating a cool-looking

image using the Point Curve editor is to have fun and experi-
ment. A lot of us are familiar with Instagram and the variety
of fun visual effects it provides. To simulate one of the effects
on this image, I first went back to the Basic panel, desaturat­­ed
the image a bit, and boosted the Vibrance. Next, I experi-
mented with applying four points along the Blue curve and
adjusted them until I reached a place where I was happy. Then,
 I applied a more traditional S-curve on the red curve using
only two points. The combination of these two color adjust-
ments allowed me to create an effect that pays tribute to
those found in Instagram.

EXPERIMENTATION By experimenting more with different points across all three

colors, I can easily come up with a huge bundle of effects
PAYS OFF that I can save as presets and apply and share with other
Lightroom 4 users.

So, there you have it. While the Tone Curve panel can be seen
as a daunting inclusion in the Develop module, it doesn’t have
to be. By paying attention to how each move on the curve
affects your image, you can refine your image to suit your style
and taste even more than before! n
[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

ALL PHOTOS BY BRIAN MATIASH

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 BEFORE
B Y M AT T K L O S K O W S K I

OUTDOOR
PORTRAITS IN
LIGHTROOM
AND
PHOTOSHOP

AFTER
AS YOU PROBABLY KNOW, LIGHTROOM CAN
DO A LOT OF GREAT THINGS WHEN IT COMES
TO EDITING OUR PHOTOS, BUT THERE ARE
TIMES WHEN WE NEED PHOTOSHOP TO HELP
FINISH THE PHOTO. THAT’S WHY THIS SERIES
WAS BORN: TO HELP SHOW YOU THE ENTIRE
PROCESS OF WHAT WE DO IN LIGHTROOM,
AS WELL AS WHAT WE DO IN PHOTOSHOP.
IN THE LAST ISSUE, THE BEFORE AND AFTER
VIDEO USED A LANDSCAPE PHOTO. THIS TIME,
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WE’LL SWITCH GEARS AND USE A PORTRAIT

INSTEAD. ALTHOUGH THE SETTINGS ALL
WORK THE SAME, YOU’LL SEE THAT WE TEND
TO USE THEM A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENTLY FOR
PORTRAITS VERSUS LANDSCAPES.

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[ B E FO R E & A F T E R V I D EO T U TO R I A L ]

ALL PHOTOS BY MATT KLOSKOWSKI

R
 ALL PHOTOS BY RAFAEL “RC” CONCEPCION

DNG Crash Course:

R A FA E L “ R C ” C O N C E P C I O N

WHEN WORKING IN DIGITAL IMAGING, PHOTOGRAPHERS HAVE TO MAKE A DECISION

AS TO HOW THEY WANT TO SAVE THE IMAGES COMING OUT OF THEIR CAMERA:

JPEG OR RAW. JPEG SHOOTING ALLOWS THE CAMERA TO MAKE DETERMINATIONS

AS TO THE COLOR OF THE SCENE AND THE SHARPNESS OF THE ENVIRONMENT,

AND LEVERAGES THE COMPUTING POWER OF THE CAMERA TO PRODUCE A SERIES

OF PIXELS THAT MAKE UP YOUR IMAGE. MORE AND MORE, HOWEVER, PHOTOG-

RAPHERS DESIRE MORE CONTROL OVER THE MAKEUP OF THE IMAGE AND MOVE

TO RAW FORMAT. RAW FORMAT CAPTURES THE INFORMATION OF THE SCENE, BUT
[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

DOESN’T REALLY LEVERAGE THE CAMERA’S ABILITY TO PROCESS THE IMAGE. THIS
RAW DATA IS STORED IN A FILE FOR YOU TO PROCESS LATER USING PHOTOSHOP OR

LIGHTROOM. WHEN WORKING WITH RAW FILES, YOU’LL NOW BE PRESENTED WITH

A THIRD OPTION: DNG. LET ME GIVE YOU FIVE REASONS WHY DNG IS THE FORMAT

I GO WITH FOR MY RAW IMAGES.

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[ L I B R A RY M O D U L E ]
20% OFF OR MORE?
SIGN ME UP!
When taking a picture of a scene, the camera
captures all the information and packages it
into a single RAW file. That file takes up a spe-
cific amount of space on your computer. Now
imagine if a company comes along (Adobe)
and devises a new way for you to repackage all
of that information that you have into a much
smaller space. What’s that space-saving pack-
age? The DNG file format, which is about 20%
smaller than an average RAW file. A RAW file
from the 36-megapixel Nikon D800 weighs in
at 43 MB. The DNG version of this file is about
33 MB. While the savings in file size could seem
small at first, consider the fact that you’ll be
shooting a lot of RAW files in a session. Bigger
files means more storage, and more storage
means purchasing more hard drives. So, the
smaller I can get the RAW file, the better.

DNG also allows for a new way to store informa-

tion with the option for lossy compression. If
you convert your RAW file to a DNG with lossy
compression, that 43-MB file is reduced down
to 13 MB. Many argue that the loss of data is
imperceptible and I would cautiously agree to
that. Ultimately, that’s a decision that you’ll have
Top: DNG with lossy compression to make for yourself. The savings, however, are
Bottom: DNG without lossy compression plentiful here for RAW support.

Why DNG Is for Me

 THE XMP SIDECAR FILE
When you work with a RAW file, your camera captures the “ingredients” that
make up the picture. These ingredients need to be mixed in postprocessing
programs, such as Lightroom or Photoshop, in a manner known as parametric
editing. The RAW file is never touched. Instead, instructions are saved as meta-
data, instructing how to process the image, much like a recipe. This “recipe”
is known as the XMP sidecar file. By separating the recipe from the ingredi-
ents, it offers an opportunity to protect the integrity of the camera data.

While parametric editing is a good thing, the one thing I don’t like about the
[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

RAW format is that it creates two files for every image: the XMP sidecar file
and the RAW file. Move or delete the XMP file and all of the changes that
you’ve made to the image are lost. The DNG file format marries both the XMP
information to process the file and the camera data into one file, making it
much easier to access. This also allows you to embed much more robust meta-
data information (ownership, ICC, tags, and such) right into one file, as well,
making for great documentation and housekeeping.

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[ L I B R A RY M O D U L E ]
 DNG TILING AND
FA S T L O A D D ATA
Most of the computers that you can buy today have
multicore processors built into them. Think of each core
as a little brain inside of the computer that’s focused on
working on a specific task. The DNG file format takes a
RAW file and splits it into smaller segments, a process
called “tiling.” By splitting the DNG file, it can assign
parts of the file to more cores. So, instead of one brain
working on one file, seven brains work on one file. The
result? Faster processing of images and more efficient
computer usage.

THE DNG FORMAT ALSO INCLUDES

AN OPTION CALLED EMBED FAST

LOAD DATA. THIS EMBEDS A MINI-RAW

PREVIEW INTO THE DNG FILE ITSELF

TO SPEED UP MOVING AROUND IN

PLACES LIKE THE DEVELOP MODULE.

WHEN THIS WAS ANNOUNCED, ADOBE

TOUTED AS MUCH AS AN 8X FASTER

SPEED IN MOVING FROM FILE TO

O P E N F O R M AT
FILE IN LIGHTROOM. PERFORMANCE
FOR THE FUTURE
BOOSTS AREN’T SOMETHING THAT The DNG file format was developed by Adobe, but their plan
from the get-go has been to create an open public archival
format. To that end, Adobe has worked on making sure that
WOULD INITIALLY WOW SOMEONE, BUT
the DNG format is documented, open, and available to any-
one who would want to adopt it as a RAW standard. Adobe
THEY ARE IMPORTANT. THE FASTER is also noted for working with the International Organization
for Standardization in making the DNG a standard. Instead
YOU CAN MOVE AROUND YOUR COM- of having multiple camera manufacturers produce NEF, CRW,
RAF, or multitudes of other formats, we could all be assured
PUTER, THE FASTER YOU CAN GET that one singular format would be around. I believe DNG has
that kind of shot, and am very happy that Adobe has done the
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO DONE. work they have to get it this far. n
[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

ALL PHOTOS BY RAFAEL “RC” CONCEPCION

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[ L I G H T RO O M P LU G - I N S ]
LIGHTROOM
MAXIMUM WORKFLOW:

PLUG-INS BY SEAN MCCORMACK

TIFFEN DFX TIFFEN IS BEST KNOWN FOR THEIR HARD-

WARE FILTERS. FORTUNATELY, THEIR EX-
FOR LIGHTROOM PERTISE ALSO EXTENDS INTO SOFTWARE
FILTERS. WITH VERSION 3 OF THEIR EXPAN-
SIVE FILTER PLUG-IN, DFX, THEY OFFER AN
IMPRESSIVE RANGE OF FILTERS AND EXCEL-
LENT MASKING ABILITY FOR THEM. BEING SO
EXPANSIVE, IT’S HARD TO COVER INTIMATE
DETAILS IN A SHORT ARTICLE, BUT WE CAN
LOOK AT HOW TO GET AROUND THE PLUG-IN
AND LOOK AT SOME OF THE FILTERS, ALONG
WITH THE EZ MASK.
 Dfx for Lightroom needs to be set up as an external editor in
Lightroom. Open the Lightroom Preferences (from the Lightroom
menu on a Mac or Edit menu on a PC) and click on the Exter-
nal Editing tab. In the Additional External Editor section, click
Choose, navigate to the Dfx folder, and select the Dfx Lightroom
app. Here, I’ve set up for 8-bit TIFF in sRGB, but you can select
other options if you prefer. Save this as a preset for future use.
You can now send an image to Dfx via Photo>Edit In>Edit in Dfx
Lightroom or by Right-clicking on an image and choosing Edit
In>Edit in Dfx Lightroom.

First, let’s look at the Dfx interface. At the top left (selected in red),
are file options: Done (and return to Lightroom), Cancel, Reset All,
and Add Mask. Below these options (selected in orange), is the
layer stack, which shows our processing and allows us to turn on/
off filters and masks by layer. The tools at the top of the window
(selected in yellow) are the viewing tools for zooming and pan-

THE INTERFACE ning, comparing, showing masks, turning on the histogram, as

well as creating and viewing snapshots of our progress. The filter
bar (selected in pink) is where we gain access to the filters that
are the heart of Dfx. Below the filter bar (selected in cyan) are the
filters for the selected category. Finally, on the right, we have the
Presets (selected in green), which are a collection of looks based
on the selected filter.

At the bottom of the Presets panel, there’s also a Param-

eters tab, which gives more advanced access to the filter
controls, allowing you to create your own looks. You
can even save your own presets by clicking on the icon
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to the right of the preset name at the top of the Param-

eters panel. In the Presets panel, you can tag the currently
selected preset as a Favorite by clicking the star icon at the
top right of the panel.

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[ L I G H T RO O M P LU G - I N S ]
THE FILTERS Enough of that, now let’s play. Here, we’re in the Film Lab filter
category, and I have the Film Stocks filter selected. Peeking down
through the presets, I click on Fuji Velvia 100F to apply it to the
image in my layers. I don’t think the film looks are meant to be
accurate, but they make good starting points if you like the look.

I think the look is a little dark, but there are options. First, we
can reduce the opacity of the layer to reduce the strength of the
filter. Dfx also has Photoshop-style blending modes, so we could
select a mode like Lighten to reduce the contrast from our filter,
or we could do a combination of both. I’ve opted for just the
Lighten mode, here. You can view a side-by-side comparison
to see how the work is progressing by clicking on the Side-by-
Side Comparison icon (it looks like a pause button) at the top
of the window. The current look is on the left, here.
 To add to the look, click on the Add Layer icon at the
top right of the Effect panel, which creates a flattened
version of the previous layers to work on. I’m a fan of
textures with images, so click on the Special Effects filter category
and select the Texture filter. There are 117 Texture presets, giving
loads of scope. In addition, by going to the Parameters panel, you
can adjust the Amount (like opacity for the texture), the Complex-
ity, or even Randomize the texture. In the DVE section, you can also
scale, crop, and rotate the texture. Here, I’m using Texture 90,
with Amount set to 53, Complexity set to 14.1, and Randomize set
to 31.7. I love the gritty feel the texture adds. To bring the final image
back into Lightroom, click the Done icon at the top left.

EZ MASK Now that we’ve got the basic idea on using Dfx, let’s look at a
really neat and powerful feature: the EZ Mask. While there are
standard masking options, like Gradient, Spot, Path, and Paint,
EZ Mask does all the hard work, and it gets us 98% of the way
there. Here’s a shot of Alex in a feather headdress. While the
background is relatively simple here, EZ Mask can deal with far
more complex ones.
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[ L I G H T RO O M P LU G - I N S ]
I want to project a skyline onto the
background, so I choose Skyline
2-77306 from the Gobo filters in
the Light category. This overlays the
whole image. To create a mask,
click on the Add Mask icon at the
top left of the window and choose
EZ Mask.

The mask options will appear

near the top of the window,
but we’ll only be using some
of them (they’re selected here).
To let EZ Mask know where our edges are, we’ll use the tools
selected in pink—Paint Foreground, Paint Background, Paint
Unknown, Paint Missing, Eraser, and Fill. Fill toggles all the previ-
ous tools.

Using the Paint Foreground tool, I’ve drawn inside the edge of
our subject. You don’t need to draw exactly along the edge, nor
do you need to draw in one go at it.

Click on the Fill icon and then click inside the green edge selec-
tion to fill in the foreground (as shown here). Repeat this with
the Paint Background tool. You can also select areas that you
think might give you trouble, like I have here.
 To generate the mask, click the Generate Mask icon at the right
end of the mask options (which is selected in red in the mask
toolbar we saw earlier). Because we’ve masked the subject,
though, the skyline appears on her. Oops! To fix this, simply click
on the Invert Mask icon (selected in blue in the mask toolbar).

I find that the masks generated here are really good

and generate faster than with Refine Edge in Photo-
shop, for example. If you find there are areas where
the mask needs cleaning up, click on the mask in
the layer stack and paint in more foreground or
background as required, and then regenerate the
mask. Sometimes, as with this photo, the Gobo filter
is really bright along an edge and glows. Redraw-
ing along the arm didn’t help, as the mask edge is
slightly soft. I could add another mask and manually
paint, but instead, I just went into the Parameters
panel, to the DVE section, and scaled the filter until
the arm was in shadow.

Another great thing is you can copy the mask to

other layers in the stack (just click-and-drag them),
so you can add as many masked filters as you like
from one mask, as well as invert them to affect the
subject only.

This short look at both how the filters work and how
the masking works forms the basis of how Dfx
works. The number of filters can seem daunting at
first, but by getting in and playing, you’ll quickly get
comfortable with this powerful and useful Light-
room plug-in. n
[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

ALL PHOTOS BY SEAN MCCORMACK

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[ BOOK MODULE ]
THE
CREATIVE OUTPUT:

BOOK
MODULE BY SCOTT KELBY

CREATE A ONE OF THE BENEFITS OF BEING THE

MAGAZINE’S PUBLISHER (AND TRUST ME,
PHOTOGRAPHIC THERE ARE FEW) IS THAT AT LEAST I GET

STORY WITH THE FIRST CRACK AT CHOOSING WHICH

COLUMN I WANT TO WRITE, AND THAT’S
PHOTO BOOKS WHY I WAS ABLE TO SNAG THIS COLUMN

PART 2 ON THE BOOK MODULE AND CREATING

PHOTO BOOKS IN LIGHTROOM.
 WELCOME TO Welcome to Part 2 of my series on creating custom photo books
in Lightroom 4. As I mentioned in Part 1 (which you can down-
PART 2 load for free, by the way, from right within this app), creating
these custom photo books can be one of the most rewarding
parts of your entire photographic process because it gives you
another “leg” to your photography experience. When you hold
your first printed pro-quality photo book in your hands (and
Lightroom lets you easily create just that), you will be totally
hooked and you’ll be making them from here on out.

Last issue, I talked about putting the images you want in your
photo book into a collection and finishing them off (in the Devel­op
module). Then, heading to the Book module to choose your
book’s final size, paper quality, and stuff like that, and then
using Auto Layout to at least get your images into the book.
Now, we’re going to learn how to tweak those layouts.
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[ BOOK MODULE ]
SEEING YOUR There are actually three different views for your book, and
you’ll need to know these for layout purposes, so let’s cover
BOOK LAYOUTS them first. What you see below is Multi-Page View, and you
choose the different layouts either by going to the left end of
the Toolbar and clicking on the different icons (shown circled
in red), or using the keyboard shortcuts—the shortcut for
Multi-Page View is Command-E (PC: Ctrl-E).

The next layout view (and the one you’ll probably wind up
working in the most) is Spread View, which shows you a full
two-page spread as large as possible (it’s keyboard shortcut
is Command-R [PC: Ctrl-R]). Since people viewing your photo
book will see it in two-page spreads, this view is particularly
important because the images on these two pages have to
Spread View look good together.

Finally, here’s Single Page View, and although you probably

won’t work in this particular view all that often, if you need to
add text to your book pages, this view is the one you’ll want
(so you can clearly see the text as you’re entering and format-
ting it. Its keyboard shortcut is Command-T [PC: Ctrl-T]).

Tip: Those keyboard shortcuts are easy to remember

If you’re working on a standard U.S. keyboard (a QWERTY key-
board), you’ll notice that these shortcuts are right in a row—
Command-E, -R, -T—and all right next to each other in a line
across the top row, so you can toggle them, and remember
Single Page View them, really quickly.

What you see here is Multi-Page View, and you choose the different layouts by
going to the left end of the Toolbar and clicking on the different icons
 CHANGING A In the bottom-right corner of each page is the Change Page
Layout icon (shown circled in red below), and when you click on
PAGE’S LAYOUT it, a pop-up menu of Lightroom’s built-in templates appears (and
thankfully, there are a bunch of them!).

To change the current layout of your page, first you choose how
many photos you want on it (let’s just stay with one for now,
since that’s all we have on the page). To choose a new layout,
just find the layout template you want and click on it, and the
page updates automatically. Here, I switched to the full-bleed
layout, so the image fills the entire page edge-to-edge.
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[ BOOK MODULE ]
WORKING WITH When you add an image to a page, it actually appears inside a cell,
and to change the size and position of your image, you change the
PAGE ZOOM position of your cell guides (if you’re used to working in either the
Slideshow or Print modules, you’re already familiar with the whole
cell concept). Well, by default, your image is set to fill the entire cell,
and when you choose a full-page edge-to-edge layout like you did
a moment ago, your image zooms in a bit, so it fills the entire page.
If you don’t want it to fill (you’ll have gaps at the top and/or bottom
of the page), you can zoom out. Just click on the image and a Zoom
slider appears at the top of the cell (as seen here). If you drag the
slider all the way to the left, it reveals more of the photo (returning it
to its original aspect ratio), but it also leaves a gap(s).
 THIS IS Doing this on a full-bleed page template like this is not a bad thing because now you can
just click-and-drag the image up/down the page to exactly where you want it, without
NOT SUCH trying to find a page template that places the photo where you want it (as shown here,
where I’ve dragged it to the bottom of the page).
A BAD THING

IT WORKS Since your photo is zoomed in by default for the regular template, you can also reposi-
tion your image within the page (well, within the full-page cell, if you want to be
SIMILARLY FOR technical about it). Just click-and-drag side to side on the image (as shown here, where
I changed the position of the umbrella by dragging it to the left).
EDGE-TO-EDGE
TEMPLATES
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[ BOOK MODULE ]
Click on the Change Page Layout icon and let’s create a two-image layout (I chose this
NOW LET’S TRY layout with two pano-like stacked horizontal photo cells). Of course, I only have one photo on

A TWO-IMAGE the page, so that photo gets put into one of the cells and the other cell is blank (as seen here).

LAYOUT

To get a second photo on the page, just go down to the Filmstrip (along the bottom of the
interface; if it’s not visible, press F6), click on the photo you want, and drag-and-drop it right
onto that cell. Now, you can click-and-drag it to position it and zoom in to crop the image
tighter (if you zoom out, the image won’t fill the cell any longer and you’ll have a gap,
which usually doesn’t look good, but it’s your call).

Tip: See How Many

Times an Image Appears
You see in the image here how
the thumbnail for the image
we just used has a number
“2” at the top (down in the
Filmstrip; it’s highlighted)?
That’s a warning telling you
that this image appears two
times in your book, so you may
want to go and find out where
else it appears and remove it
from that other page by click-
ing on it and hitting the Delete
(PC: Backspace) key. It will just
remove it from that page, not
from Lightroom (or from any
place else in your book).
 THE PERILS Once you press Command-R (PC: Ctrl-R) and switch to a two-page spread
view, you might realize that this two-image layout you just created for this
OF WORKING one page doesn’t work very well with the page that you have opposite
it in the spread. So, as soon as you place a photo into an empty cell and
IN SINGLE you think it looks good on that page, switch to a two-page spread view
and see how the spread looks as a whole before you start tweaking that
PAGE VIEW second photo. It might save you a little time and aggravation.

Next issue, I’ll cover how to customize the Auto Layout feature, which
we touched on back in Issue #1. It’s a big enough subject that it calls for
its own article, so that’s what I have planned for next time. See you back
here then. Cheers. n

ALL PHOTOS BY SCOTT KELBY

[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

54
 TRICKS
TIPS
AND
SCREEN
BY SEÁN DUGGAN

PRESS F TO CYCLE THROUGH THE

SCREEN VIEWING MODES, FROM NOR-
VIEWS MAL TO FULL SCREEN WITH MENU BAR

AND TO FULL SCREEN. THE TAB KEY WILL

HIDE THE SIDE PANELS AND SHIFT-TAB
HIDING WILL HIDE THE SIDE PANELS, AS WELL

PANELS AS THE MODULE PICKER AT THE TOP

AND THE FILMSTRIP AT THE BOTTOM.
COMMAND-SHIFT-F (PC: CTRL-SHIFT-F)
HIDES ALL THE PANELS AND ENTERS
FULL SCREEN MODE.
[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

ISTOCKPHOTO, FOCUSEYE, IMAGE# 2420784 ISTOCKPHOTO, KR7YSZTOF, IMAGE# 2495981 ISTOCKPHOTO, HALBERGMAN, IMAGE# 8369357
56
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[ T I PS A N D T R I C KS ]
USE THE The Painter tool is located in the Toolbar under the grid. If you don’t
see the spray paint can icon, choose View>Show Toolbar. Click the
PAINTER TOOL Painter tool icon (or press Command-Option-K [PC: Ctrl-Alt-K]) to
apply eight different attributes, including keywords, to the images
FOR KEYWORDS you click on. You can select the different attributes from the Paint
drop-down menu to the right of the Painter tool after you activate
the tool. Press Option-Shift-Command-K (PC: Alt-Shift-Ctrl-K) to open
the Set Keyword Shortcut dialog so you can define the keyword or
keywords you want to add using the Painter tool. You can also click
in the Enter Keywords Here field to the right of the Paint drop-down
menu once you’ve activated the Painter tool. Now click on individual
images or click-and-drag over several thumbnails at once to apply
the keywords to those files. Add the Option (PC: Alt) key to remove
the keywords applied with the Painter tool. You can also apply the
defined keyword to selected images by pressing Shift-K.

SEÁN DUGGAN

Use the Profile menu under the histogram to set the profile for the
SET PROFILE destination space. For images destined for the Web, or for proof-

AND INTENT ing a book project that you’ll send to Blurb, use sRGB. For an inkjet
printer, choose the profile that represents your printer and the type
of paper you’ll be using. There are two rendering intents you can
use: Perceptual and Relative Colorimetric. Depending on the image
and the profile you’re proofing to, these may produce slightly differ-
ent results. Give each one a try and see how it affects your image.
There’s also a checkbox here for simulating paper and ink properties.
SEÁN DUGGAN
 WHAT TO INCLUDE FOR After you’ve adjusted the image the way you want, click the Create
New Preset icon (+) next to Presets in the left-hand panel of the
GENERAL PRESETS Develop module. A dialog will appear letting you choose which
Develop settings are included in the saved preset.

At this point, you need to determine what type of preset you’re sav-
ing. Is it a preset that applies a basic overall adjustment to the image
that would work well on most photos? Included in this category
would be basic brightness, contrast, saturation, color adjustments,
and simple conversion to black and white. For these types of what
I call general image tuning presets, you should not include any adjust-
ments that are focused on the problems of a specific image, such as
ones that perform drastic highlight darkening or shadow lightening.

When making general tuning presets for average images, you

might want to use a file that has good overall exposure and no
significant issues that need specialized corrections. Of course, you
can also build a set of presets that are targeted toward correcting
images that do suffer from more significant exposure issues.

CREATE Since changes made to an image for a specific output device may
not be how you want the main version of the file adjusted, click
PROOF the Create Proof Copy button under the histogram to create a copy
for soft proofing. Or, once you begin to make any changes to the
[ LIGHTROOM MAGAZINE ]

COPY Develop settings, Lightroom will ask you if you want to make a
proof copy. Proof copies are essentially the same as virtual copies,
but are used for soft proofing. n

58
FEATURED
PHOTOGRAPHER

Folders/Nicole S. Young
NICOLE S. Nicole S. Young is a professional photographer and author based in Portland, Oregon. She has authored
several books and eBooks and is best known for her book Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great
YOUNG Shots, published by Peachpit Press.

ALL PHOTOS BY NICOLE S. YOUNG

FEATUREDPHOTOGRAPHER I NICOLE S. YOUNG I

Folders/Nicole S. Young
Nicole creates commercial and editorial images for her stock portfolio on iStockphoto and Getty Images and also works as a Photoshop Help Desk
Specialist for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. You can find out more about Nicole at www.nicolesy.com. n
FEATUREDPHOTOGRAPHER I NICOLE S. YOUNG I

Folders/Nicole S. Young
If you’d like to be considered for the “Featured Photographer,” email [email protected] with “For Consideration” in the subject line.
LIGHTROOM
THE ADOBE PHOTOSHOP LIGHTROOM HOW-TO MAGAZINE
® ® ®

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NEXT ISSUE
SOLVING THE MYSTERY OF
COLOR MANAGEMENT
How to get consistent color between
Lightroom and Photoshop

LIBRARY MODULE
Using Keywords: Why and how to
organize image files to simplify
your workflow

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