Exercise 9 – Introduction to Lightroom

Tasks

Creating a New Catalogue : 1.       Start Lightroom    (If it asks to backup then select ‘Skip Now’) 2.       Create a New Catalogue :- i.        Select ‘File->New Catalog …’ ii.      Name the Catalogue ‘YourName-Test’ iii.     Create it in a new folder on the desktop called ‘Lightroom Exercise’ Import Images : 3.       Plug your USB drive / Card reader into the USB port. 4.       If the ‘Import Photos’ dialogue box does not appear, then select ‘File->Import Photos from Device …’. i.        Select ‘File Handling: Copy Photos to a new location and add to catalog’. ii.      Copy the images into ‘Desktop / Lightroom Exercise / Pictures’ and organise by date. iii.     Name the files using ‘Custom Name – Sequence’ and add your own custom name. iv.     Turn on ‘Show Preview’ and uncheck any images you don’t want to import. v.      Select ‘Import’ – an indicator will appear under the Lightroom banner (top left corner of window) to show the progress of the import. Click on the red ‘X’ if you want to stop the import. Interface Options : 5.       Use the triangle buttons, the Tab and shift Tab keys to display and hide the panels. Use the F and L keys to change the display appearance. 6.       Click on the buttons at the bottom of the viewing area, to try different Library viewing modes – Grid, Loupe, Compare and Survey. What are the shortcut keys for these ? Grid- G   Compare- C    Loupe-E     Survey-N                                                                                                                                        7.       Set the viewing area to Grid mode. 8.       Use the triangle at the bottom right corner of the viewing area to set which controls to display along the bottom strip of the viewing panel. Labelling, Rating and Flagging Images : 9.       Use the controls along the bottom strip to give star ratings, colour labels and to flag and reject some images. 10.    Move the mouse over the grid area and click directly on the images to flag some images and give star ratings. Note : Make sure you have plenty of labelled and flagged images before proceeding to the next step. Filtering and Selecting Images : 11.    Go to the Library Filter bar at the top of the viewing area. If it is not visible select ‘View->Show Filter Bar’. What is the shortcut key to toggle the Filter Bar ?      \        (Hint : Look in the View menu) 12.    Select the ‘Attribute’ filter button to display the attribute strip and use the attributes to control which images are displayed. What three options are available for the Star Ratings attribute ? Rating is less than or equal to, Rating is greater than or equal to, rating is equal to    13.    Select the ‘Metadata’ filter button and use these options to further control the display of images. 14.    The button to the right will now say ‘Custom Filter’. Click on this and select ‘Filters Off’ from the menu. All images should be displayed again. Quick Collections : 15.    In Grid view move the mouse over the images and click on the circle in the top right corner of some of the images. These will be added to the ‘Quick Collection’. 16.    To display only the images you have just selected click on ‘Quick Collection’ in the Catalog section of the left panel. 17.    Use filtering options (as above) to further refine the displayed images. 18.    Click on ‘All Photographs’ in the Catalog section of the left panel to view all the images. 19.    Click on ‘Quick Collection’ again. 20.    Press ‘ a’ to select all the images in the quick collection, then click on the grey circle in one of the images to clear the quick collection. Collections : 21.    Use the filter options to display a group of images. (Eg you might select all the best images to develop and then use in a slideshow presentation). 22.    Select all the images by pressing ‘ a’. 23.    Click on the plus sign on the Collections panel and select ‘Create Selection …’ from the drop down menu. Type in a name (eg ‘Final Selection’) when prompted. 24.    Display all the photos, then drag some more images into your collection. Develop and Present : 25.    Select the Develop module. What is the keyboard shortcut for this ?Ctrl+Alt+2            26.    Make any necessary tonal and other changes to each image. 27.    Select the Slideshow module and use the panel on the right to customise your slideshow.