We had a great Lightroom Masterclass workshop this weekend, and I want to thank everyone who attended and helped make it a learning experience for all. One of the great benefits of teaching any subject is that you learn more than you expect, especially when students present challenging questions. Such was the case this weekend as we explored how to become more efficient with Lightroom, and spend less time with repetitive tasks or time consuming operations.
For example, I’m a big advocate of using nested or hierarchical keywords, which greatly increases the value of keywording when it comes to performing searches. In the case of locations, I start with the country, state, geographic area, city, park, street, etc. So my keywords would be nested as follows:
United States > New York > Hudson Valley > Hudson River > Long Dock
Here’s how it actually looks in Lightroom with additional keywords:
The major advantage of this from a workflow standpoint is that any image keyworded with “Long Dock” will automatically get all of the other keywords added to it. This is a huge time saver, and a way to make sure that a particular image gets found regardless of how specific or broad the search term is. The easiest way to create your hierarchies is to think about broad terms, then narrow them down to the most specific keyword you need. Create them individually in Lightroom, then just drag and drop them on top of each other in the Keyword List panel to create the nesting.
This is just one of the many topics we covered on Saturday which I hope will increase students enjoyment of using Lightroom. I’m already working on an a new workshop to cover many advanced features of Lightroom including creating web galleries and printing, and also spend more time working with students one on one for their specific needs. Look for the dates of the Advanced Lightroom Masterclass soon…
Finally, I’ll be at the Professional Club of Lower Fairfield County in Connecticut tonight presenting a talk titled “Beauty Within – The Journey of Landscape Photography” which I’ve been working on for the last few days. As usual, I’ll stress that I continue to be a student and as such only present ideas and concepts to inspire and motivate creativity. If I can only remember my opening lines, I should be ok – wish me luck!
On February 17th, 2010, the Professional Club of Lower Fairfield County (PCLFC) will have Robert Rodriguez Jr, a renowned landscape photographer, as their special presenter. Robert will be giving a slide show presentation titled “Beauty Within – The Journey of Landscape Photography” for the association’s members.
The special presentation will be held at the Stamford Senior Center, 2nd Floor, 888 Washington Blvd, Stamford, CT on February 17th, 2010 at 7:30pm. PCLFC Members are free, visitors $5.00.
Robert is a highly respected educator in all aspects of landscape photography including field work, digital printing and editing. He gives seminars and workshops in the Hudson Valley region on a regular basis and has been invited to speak at numerous industry associations.
If you would like have Robert Rodriguez Jr as an invited guest speaker please call (888) 425-4755.
I had a great time at my first Dutchess Regional Professional Photographers (DRPP) meeting last weekend where I was invited to give a 2 hour seminar to their 50+ members on the basics of Adobe Lighrtroom. Held at the Holiday Inn in Fishkill NY, I was quite surprised and impressed with how well run it was and that there was not only a cocktail hour, but a full course meal with very nice seating as well. This certainly helped me feel more comfortable, and I had good conversation about what else – photography, with 5 other members at my table which I met for the first time.
We then proceeded to a conference room where I already had set up my Epson projector and MacBook Pro, and a very nice 8ft screen. I used Apple’s Keynote to give a short introduction to the basic concepts of Lightroom, how it differs from Photoshop and Bridge, best ways to use them all together in a productive workflow, as well as advantages of RAW files and how Lightroom stores and manages your images.
The second part was basically demonstrating the Lighrtroom UI (user interface), and giving everyone some insight into how I use Lightroom to manage my photographic workflow. I displayed many of my landscape images from my recent trip to Maine, where the recovery slider was put to good use with all of the snow in the scenes. Before I knew it, I was 2 1/2 hours into the seminar, and the fun was over. I received many great questions and positive compliments, and hope to be back again soon. (UPDATE: I’ve been asked to return for another seminar, so I’m considering different topics, but so far “Digital Workflow from Camera to Print” is the likely candidate).
Of course, this seminar only really scratched the surface of Lightroom and post processing in general, but my one-day workshops cover all of the features and their practical use, as well as allowing for more interaction with students and their own photography.
