Overview

Mastering Lightroom Introduction & Free Samples
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Lightroom has really many applications in one. And where those many applications are divided is up here in your module picker. So you can see we've got a series of different modules, we've got our library module, Develop module, map, book, slideshow, print, and web. Now the library module is where you manage all your images you do your organization, you apply your keywords, writing, ranking, and so forth. the develop module is where you do all your image adjustments, cropping altering, brightness, color, contrast, and so forth. The last four modules, book slideshow, print and web.

These guys are all what we call output modules. So you really only go there when you're finished with your images happy with their appearance and you'd like to share them with friends, family or clients file the photo book module. The slideshow module prints to connected printers, from the print module or export web galleries to publish online through the web module. So the vast majority of the work in Lightroom actually happens here in the library and the develop module. These are the two most important modules. And these are the two modules where we'll spend the most time throughout these training videos.

The map module is one we'll also look at a little later on the map module. It's almost an extension of the library module in that it helps you organize your images, but using the GPS coordinates that might be in your images, the map module hooks into Google Maps and shows your images on a map. So all of this will be revealed in great detail as we move through various videos. But for now, I just like to give you a good sort of overview of the Lightroom interface. So you've got your orientation. So the module picker across the top enables me to pick whichever module I wish to be in.

So if I click here on the develop module, now I'm over in the develop module. If I click back here on the library module, now I'm back in the library module. So You can see whichever module we're in, it becomes highlighted up here. And it's a common mistake when people think they're in one module when they're actually in a different one, and they can't find the particular feature they're looking for. So I highly recommend making sure that you get very well acquainted with what module you are in at any given time in your Lightroom experience. So looking around the library module a little bit more, you see you've got these grid of thumbnails here in the middle of these thumbnails of our images splaying out nicely for us.

As I've mentioned in my introduction, video, these are all my photographs from the various photography trips that we run around the world regularly visiting Japan and Spain and China and Cambodia with a few other places as well in development. So you'll be seeing lots of my photos throughout all of these videos. So right now we're looking at this grid of images that we can scroll through, I've got a thumbnail slider down here to the lower right hand corner, and I can make The thumbnails bigger, just by sliding it to the right or I can make them smaller, just by sliding it to the left, or I can just use the Kate the plus and minus keys on my keyboard. So that's a mecco windows, I can just use plus minus and they get smaller, or I can press plus and they get larger. So that's my grid view, I guess the grid of thumbnails.

Now if I double click on an image, it goes into what's called loop view. So I'm still in the library, as you can see up here, but I'm now looking at my image in loop view. And if I want to go back to grid view down here on the toolbar, you can see the little grid icon to the far left here you've got your grid and loop view, clicking back on the grid icon there brings me back to grid mode. Now, if I just again, if I double click I got a loop view and now if I click one more time I go into 100% view. So you can see was zooming into 100% actual one image pixel for one screen pixel. And if I click here, I zoom out again, returning to grid is very easy with the keyboard shortcut j for grid.

And that takes me straight back to grid. So that works no matter where you are. If I was over in the develop module, for example, and I don't have my grid icon here on the toolbar, I would just press g for grid. And it takes me back to the grid view in the library. So that's, that's probably the first keyboard shortcut, you really want to get down pat j for grid, so you can always return to the grid. Now, the second keyboard shortcut I think you're really gonna like is the fk because when you press F, you go into full screen mode, we get this lovely full screen image and we can from there just use the arrow keys on our keyboard to advance through and get a very quick and manually driven slideshow.

So I'm just using my arrow key going next next and if I wanted to just go back, I could go back with the left arrow or forward with the right arrow next, next so forth. So that's simply pressing f5 full screen. And if I press F again, I'm back to my grid view. So nice, easy, straightforward keyboard shortcuts there. Another interesting keyboard shortcut if I was to click on a colorful image, and I was to wonder what it would look like in black and white, let's say who Why don't we go into this lovely image here of the Apsara at by own temple in Cambodia in Siem Reap, if I wanted, what's this image going to look like in black and white, I can press the V key and bang, I get an instant black and white conversion, I think okay, maybe that's interesting. Keep that in mind.

And I've only got back to color. I press V again, and I'm back to color. Everything we do in Lightroom is non destructive, nothing is permanently applied. So you can try all sorts of different things. change your mind later. Not a problem.

I press G and I'm back to grid. So lots of keyboard shortcuts V for black and white f a full screen j for grid. How are we going to remember them? Well, fortunately, you don't have to, you go up to the Help menu at the top of the screen, you click help you get into your library module shortcuts just there, and you click there. and up comes this lovely chart with all your keyboard shortcuts for the library module. And you'll notice there's lots of nice little single key keyboard shortcuts, which are useful.

So that's under the Help menu, library module shortcuts. So I'm just going to click off that again. And we're back in our grid, looking at out all our images. So this, the broad reference for your Lightroom collection of images is called your catalog. So all the images I'm looking at right now are in a catalog. And if you look over in the left hand panel here, you can see there's actually 1600 and 28 images in this catalog, 1600 and 28 in total, and you can see that they're divided up into a whole series of different folders here.

Right now I'm looking at a mix of all the images, but you can see I've got a folder here called Travel photos. And I can just go to Cambodia by clicking on Cambodia just there. I could just go to Japan by clicking on Japan just there. Or I could just go to Spain by clicking just there on Spain. Or if I wanted to see a mix of my images, I go back to travel photos folder there, and I'm looking at all the images ordered. Based on their writing, you'll notice I've awarded stars to the images.

And I've got down here on the toolbar, I've got my images sorted according to their writing. So by default, your images are sorted by capture time. So if I was to go to capture time, just now, you're going to see the images in a more logical sort of order as they were shot. And if I scroll to the top, you'll see the oldest images in my catalog at the top. And if I scroll to the bottom, you'll see the most recent images down here at the bottom, all in capture time. Now notice the capture time is a sending by default that means the earliest image at the images at the top And then the lighter images at the bottom.

So it said, so if I wanted to reverse that from a ascending to descending, meaning the most recent images at the top, I click there on that it has an icon now it says Zed to I. So now I've got my most recent images at the top, and my oldest images at the bottom. So very flexible situation here in Lightroom, as to how you want your images to display. Now, I personally like to display my images based on the writing, you'll notice I've got a writing system here, some images have one star, some have three stars, two stars, five stars, and so forth. If I go down to my sort menu on my toolbar here, and say please sort not by capture time Lightroom please sort by writing then the images all get ordered based on their writing stars. So my highest rated images come to the top and lowest rated images down here at the bottom.

So that's how I prefer To set up my Lightroom, I think that's a nice way to be greeted by your best images when you open Lightroom each day, rather than a random bunch of images perhaps or something very similar. So using the sort menu on the toolbar, now the toolbar just on keyboard shortcuts, T for tools, if you press T for tools, you will show and hide your toolbar. Sometimes people can't find the toolbar because they may have accidentally press T for tools and hidden the toolbar. So you press T for tools, and your toolbar will return along the bottom there. So just talking about the basic structure of each of the modules, we've got the top panel here called the module picker, same in every module, and we've got this bottom panel along here we call the filmstrip. Now the filmstrip shows me a nice little preview of all my little thumbnails there.

And the module picker obviously lets me move through different modules. You've got your left and right panels and each of the left and each of the panels, they have a series of tabs, you've got navigate a tab, catalog tab folders and collections in the left hand panel of the library. And if we were to go to the develop module out of interest, you'll see you've got presets, and you've got history snapshots. And we've still got our collections right there in the develop module. So different tabs in the panels as we move through different modules, but the very similar look to the interface. So there's a bit of different terminology here isn't there.

So I think it's probably important to be clear. Lightroom is the application. So Lightroom is, it is the entire application. Your catalog is all the images you're currently looking at. Many people get by working with one catalog, which is fine for all your images. You can work with multiple catalogs, and I'll talk about that in session two when we look at catalog management, but for now we're in one single catalog.

The catalog is made up of a series of modules. seven different modules across the top here. And each module has a series of panels, you've got your top and bottom panels and your left and right panels. So that's the basic terminology. And actually, the panels then are in turn made up of tabs. So catalog tab, folders, tab, collections publish services.

So all the panels have their own different tabs. So that's a bit of an overview of the library interface. In the coming videos, I'm going to go into a great deal of detail on each of these individual tabs. And I'm going to talk about how they work and, and what we can do there. And we're going to take you gradually deeper and deeper into the wonderful application that is Lightroom and unleash your power so you can have a wonderful ability to control all your images, manage them, find things that you shot years ago, very quickly and easily. Because Lightroom is a database and then edit them so they can look as good as possible because Lightroom is also a wonderful raw image processor.

Now I say raw image processor, but I should clarify, it works just as well with any with JPEGs. If you happen to be shooting JPEGs I mean certainly the raw format has a little bit more sort of depth and information to contribute to the process. But if you're shooting JPEGs, you can certainly edit them in Lightroom with all these features as well. So that's an overview of the library module and join me in the coming videos as we go deeper and deeper into the individual tabs.

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