Kathryn Jefferson: Unit 1- Digital Darkroom- 1,2 and 3- Lightroom

Importing, Organising and Naming Files and Folders

For this part of the brief there are three things i need to do using Lightroom to demonstrate my understanding.

I will cover all three points on this post.

This is something that has become second nature to me in the last few months since i bought Lightroom it is all that i use, so in theory this should be fairly simple.

1. Demonstrate the action of importing, organising and naming files/folders in Lightroom or Aperture.

Firstly, i will be using Lightroom version 2 and it may vary slightly depending on the version that is used.
I think the easiest way to demonstrate my understanding of this is to use screen prints and explain what i have done.

Importing

When importing in Lightroom there are a few ways to do it depending on whether you are importing from your camera or device, or another file on your computer.

To inport a file that is already on your computer you firstly need to make sure you are in the Library tab in Lightroom, then click on the Import tab like this:

When you click this it should bring up a box that looks something like this:

You can then click on the image you want to import and press choose, if you are importing more than one image then you can either;

-Click the first image, then press and hold shift then click the last image, this will select all of the images then press choose.

-Press and hold ctrl and click on the individual images you want and press choose.

Once you have selected your image/s you will see a box like the one below.

If you were importing from a device you would have clicked File- then import from device and it would bring up the same screen as this:

You then have a number of options for the import;

- You can choose whether to copy or move the images- be careful if selecting -add photos to catalog without moving as this wont save them to Lightroom so if you delete them from your memory card you could then lose them.

-Below this you have the option to chose where the files are copied to- i save my files in a folder called Uni- Pictures- then i create a new folder within this with a name that suits my import.

Organising

Next there is a box called Organize, you have the option to organize your images by date etc

i find the date is the easiest way to do it so select this. The box is shown below inside the red circle.

You can also choose to import images from a particular date, so if the photos were taken on more than one date Lightroom will automatically separate these so if you untick a box it wont import the corresponding images.

-If you click the box underneath this that says backup to: you can chose to backup your files, i tick this box and then select to back the files up to my removable hard drive, this way i have a back up of my RAW files that is seperate from my laptop

Naming

You next have the option to name your files- this is useful because if you later need to search for photo from a particular shoot you can search for this name and all of the files with this name will come up, saving you time.

I choose custom name which then allows you to create your own name- this gives you maximum control and if you set the name yourself you are more likely to remember it.

There are other ways of giving your files a 'name'.

When in the Library tab of Lightroom on the right there is a section called quick develop, if you scroll down you will see the metadata, it looks like this:

You will see a box that says file name next to it, this is where you will see the name that you chose when you imported the file, if you want to change it then type a new one in this box.

You can also attach a label, to do this in batch you would select the images you want and go to this on the right of the screen, scroll down to labels and type in there one of your choosing, then click on sync metadata and this will apply it to all of the images in your selection.

Writing a Caption

2. Write a caption for at least 1 Photograph in your Lightroom or Aperture catalogue.

To write a caption in Lightroom you need to be in the Library tab in Lightroom.

Select the photo you want to write a caption for by clicking on it then go to the right hand side and you will see this box that says at the top Quick Develop, scroll down:

until just above the copyright box there is a box saying Caption, click inside the box and write a caption like this:

When you click off this screen it will automatically save the caption.

If you wanted to write a caption that was the same for a few photos you firstly need to select the ones you want to create a caption for, like this:

This shows the 8 images i have selected to write a caption for. Next i need to go to the Quick Develop box on the right and scroll down to the caption box then type in a new caption which i have done here:

Then i clicked on Sync Metadata which is at the bottom of the screen, it should bring up this box:

I made sure the tick box was ticked on the right hand side of my caption and then click Synchronize and this will apply the settings to all of the selected images.

Cool, Grey Balanced and Warm Photographs

3. Using the white balance slider in Lightroom or Aperture, produce 1 cool, 1 grey balanced and 1 warm version of one of your photographs.

Firstly you need to open the photograph you want to use by clicking on it then clicking on the Develop tab.

This should being up a screen something like this:

I know how to use the slider to produce warm and cool images in Lightroom but i have never used it to produce a 'grey balanced' image before so decided i would do this first.

I wasn't entirely sure how to do this but i remembered reading something about this in the Raw Workflow book on our reading list so read the relevant pages to refresh my memory.

This image hasn't been edited, i wanted to use an import straight from my camera as

it will be easier to demonstrate.

First i clicked on the White Balance Selector shown here:

When you move this tool over the image you will see a box appear, you can see it below, i have drawn around this in red so you can see it. Also, when moving the tool over the image the preview screen changes- on the left side of the screen to show you what the image will look like.

To get grey balanced or neutral grey photo i clicked on a neutral area- this is an area that is either neutral grey or contains the same amount of Red, Green and Blue.

You can see on the bottom of the grid that comes up, the amounts of Red, Green and Blue that are in the area where the selector is.

So, i selected an area that contained an even amount of each colour which was the shadowed area just in between the models wrists.

This is my Grey Balanced photograph.