8. Sharing and Exporting

Getting Your Work Out of Lightroom

You have edited and organized, but what fun is it to take pictures and then just squirrel them away on your hard drive? You’ve worked hard to improve your image editing skills, and this chapter is all about showing them off. One of the wonderful advantages of the digital medium is that you have many options for showing off your work, whether you decide to create an online gallery, make a slide show, or just send folks your photos in an email. Let’s take a look at a few of the many options that Lightroom has to offer.

Poring Over the Picture

This past fall I led a photowalk around the many monuments in Washington, D.C. It’s one of my favorite places to visit, but this was the first time that I had taken a camera into the Lincoln Memorial. A huge crowd was inside, so I chose a long focal length to isolate the statue of Lincoln and used my tripod like a monopod to grab a few quick shots. My capture lacked definition, and the color was a little off from the sodium vapor lights, but I repaired all the image’s problems in the Develop module.

Showing Off Your Photos

You have so many ways to show off your images these days that it’s sometimes difficult to choose one. Of course, my philosophy is why settle on one when you can have them all? When you’re using Lightroom, you have that option because it is so easy to take your photos from one display method to another. Let’s start with some tools that will help you get your photos up on the biggest stage there is, the Internet.

Creating a Web Gallery

The Web module allows you to create two different types of web-style galleries for your images. The first type is a simple HTML gallery, which is not very dynamic in its operation but has the advantage of being visible by almost any web browser. The other gallery style is based on Flash and renders a much more dynamic user experience. The problem with Flash-based galleries is that some browsers may not support Flash. This is especially true if you want your gallery to be visible on an Apple mobile device, such as an iPad or iPhone.

Just as you did with books and printing, the first place to start is with your images. Once again, the easiest method of collecting all of the images for use in the Web module is to create a collection so you can quickly select them from the Collections panel. You can also use the Quick Collection or even flagged or starred items. It really doesn’t matter as long as the images you want to use are visible in the Filmstrip. You should know, however, that the Web gallery will use all the images in your Filmstrip, so ensure that you are seeing only the images that you want included.

Choosing a Gallery Style

You don’t have to be a web designer to create a good-looking web gallery in Lightroom. All you need to know is where the Templates are. Lightroom has a large collection of the ready-to-use templates in the Template Browser. You can mouse over them to see their general design in the Preview panel located just above the Template Browser (Figure 8.1). Clicking the template name applies the layout to your images, letting you get a better view of just how the gallery would look in web page format (Figure 8.2). It’s difficult to tell which templates are HTML and which are Flash, but if you mouse over the name, you can see the type in the lower-left corner of the preview (Figure 8.3).

Figure 8.1 Mousing over a template shows you a quick preview in the Preview panel.

Figure 8.2 Click on a template to see it applied to your images.

Figure 8.3 The preview shows you whether you are using an HTML (left) or Flash (right) template.

Personalizing the Gallery

After you have selected the gallery style that you like from the templates, you need to add some information to the page. Click the Site Info panel on the right and start editing the page info. Fill in all of the information that you think is necessary for your gallery (Figure 8.4). If there is data you don’t want to include, simply click the disclosure triangle next to the item’s name and then choose Clear List from the pop-up menu (Figure 8.5).

Figure 8.4 You can personalize the layout using the Site Info panel.

Figure 8.5 To remove an unwanted item, choose Clear List.

You can also add an Identity Plate just as you did in the Print module but with a couple of exceptions. You can add a text-based Identity Plate by selecting the Identity Plate check box in the Site Info panel, clicking in the text box, and then choosing Edit (Figure 8.6). When the Identity Plate Editor dialog opens, type the name you want in the plate and set your font type, size, and color (Figure 8.7). It’s difficult to know which font size to choose at first, so select 18 or 24 and then click OK to see how it looks on the page. If it is too small or large, go back to the Editor and change it.

Figure 8.6 Change the Identity Plate by clicking in the plate window and choosing Edit.

Figure 8.7 Adjust the font, color, and size using the Identity Plate Editor.

You can also use a graphic for your Identity Plate just as you did in the Print module. The key is to make sure that it is sized correctly before adding it to the page. Unlike the Identity Plate in the Print module, you can’t resize or move the plate around in your image, so size is important (Figure 8.8).

Figure 8.8 You can add a graphic as an Identity Plate for your gallery.

Change the Color and Appearance

Depending on the template you selected, you may be able to change the colors used in the web gallery. The items available for color customization depend on the template, but changing them is as easy as clicking in the color box and selecting a new color with the eyedropper (Figure 8.9). An Appearance panel contains options from let you adjust the layout. The Flash options (Figure 8.10) can be very different from those available for an HTML gallery (Figure 8.11). You just need to look at the panels and determine which options, if any, need changing. In addition to the color and appearance, you can change the information that you want to appear with each image, like a title, caption, or even camera metadata. You can add these items in the Image Info panel (Figure 8.12).

Figure 8.9 You can change the color scheme of your page in the Color Palette panel.

Figure 8.10 Changing the Appearance panel options for a Flash page.

Figure 8.11 The Appearance panel options for an HTML page.

Figure 8.12 You can add text information to your layout using the Image Info panel options.

Finalizing Your Web File

When you have everything laid out the way you want, you need to complete two more steps. The first is to save your changes as a new User Template. As in other modules, click the plus (+) symbol on the Template Browser title and then name the template (Figure 8.13). After you have saved the template, save your web gallery. This is a new feature in Lightroom 4, so if you are using an earlier version, you can skip this step. If you are using Lightroom 4, go the main Lightroom menus and choose Web > Create Saved Web Gallery. You can also press Command+S (Ctrl+S) or click the Create Saved Web Gallery button above the main layout window in the document bar. When the Create Web Gallery dialog appears, fill in the name and collection location where you want to save your gallery (Figure 8.14). Once you save your gallery, Lightroom allows you to continue working on other images. When you’ve finished, you can jump back to your gallery and make changes or even upload it to a server.

Figure 8.13 Save your layout as a new template for future use.

Figure 8.14 In Lightroom 4 you can save your gallery with all the included images.

After saving your template and your web gallery, it’s time to get it ready for the Internet. In the Output Settings panel choose a quality setting for your images. This is also where you can select whether or not to place a watermark on all your images in the gallery. Next, select the amount of sharpening you want to apply. I typically use the default settings of 70 for quality and Standard for sharpening (Figure 8.15).

Figure 8.15 The Output Settings determine the quality of your online images.

The last step is to upload your images or save the files for uploading at a later time. If you already have a web server and know the server information, choose Edit in the FTP Server section (Figure 8.16). A Server dialog opens to input your information (Figure 8.17). If you don’t know the server information, contact your server host company and ask for the settings. When you have filled in the information, click the Upload button at the bottom of the panel. Lightroom then creates your gallery files and uploads them to your server.

Figure 8.16 Choose Edit to set up your FTP server info.

Figure 8.17 Configure your FTP server information to upload your web gallery.

If you don’t have a server provider yet or aren’t sure if you do, save the web files to your hard drive by clicking the Export button, located at the bottom of the right side panel. A Save dialog opens. Choose a name and location for your web files. Lightroom will render all of the photos, create the web files, and store everything in a folder ready for uploading (Figure 8.18).

Figure 8.18 Exporting will save web gallery files to your hard drive.

Making a Slide Show

This isn’t your grandfather’s slide show I’m talking about. Lightroom has the tools to help you create a dynamic slide show that won’t put your audience to sleep after the first 30 seconds.

Let’s start with that same group of images that you used for the web gallery. Click Slideshow in the Module Picker to begin. Only a few templates are available to work with in the Slideshow module, and they are pretty basic, so I suggest you start with the default settings and begin modifying them to your liking.

Setting Up the Cell

The Slideshow module works similarly to the Print module in that your image will sit inside a cell, although it’s called a frame in this module. The Options panel lets you choose whether or not you want your photos to fit or fill the frame. You can also choose to put a stroke border around the frame and have it cast a drop shadow on the background (Figure 8.19).

Figure 8.19 The Slideshow Options panel.

The Layout panel is where you determine the size and shape of your photo frame. If you leave all the sliders linked, the frame will adjust equally on all sides. If you want to use a different-sized frame and not have it centered, you need to unlink the sliders and move them accordingly (Figure 8.20).

Figure 8.20 Use the Guide sliders to adjust the size and location of your photos.

If you want to change the color scheme, a good place to start is the Backdrop panel. You can not only change the color of the slide show background, but you can also create a color wash, which is like a gradient that changes from one side to the other (Figure 8.21).

Figure 8.21 You can change the background color and add a color wash using the Backdrop panel.

If you really want to get fancy, you can use an image as a background. Just drag and drop it into the Background Image box in the Backdrop panel and set the opacity (Figure 8.22).

Figure 8.22 You can use a photo as your background by dragging it into the Backdrop panel.

Adding Information

The Overlays panel lets you add information on top of your slides. To start with, you can add the now familiar Identity Plate in both text and graphic form. Unlike the web gallery, you can move your Identity Plate all over the slide and resize it to your liking. You can also add watermarks, star rankings (which appear in the corner of the photos), and text overlays (Figure 8.23).

Figure 8.23 Add watermarks, Identity Plates, and even star rankings in the Overlays panel.

Adding Titles

Because you are making a show, you should kick it off with a title, and what’s a show without closing credits? Fortunately, you can create title slides for the start and end of your slide show using the Titles panel. Truth be told, this feature is a little squirrelly but it does work if you know the secret. Turn on the Title slide by selecting the check box next to Intro Screen, Ending Screen, or both. This places a default black screen at the beginning and/or end of your show. You can change the color of the screen using the default color picker in each panel section (Figure 8.24).

Figure 8.24 You can add simple title and ending screens using the Titles panel.

If you want to add text, you can do so by adding an Identity Plate. You’ll need to set one up for each screen. But here’s the weird part. When you select the Intro or Closing Screen option, the screen will only appear for a couple of seconds and then disappear. This makes it very difficult to see your text and change its size. The trick is to click and hold on the triangle in the Scale slider; the screen will stay visible and you can resize your text. When you let go of the mouse button, the screen will disappear again. Weird, huh?

Playback Options

To finish your slide show, you might want to add a music sound track or control the duration of your slides. All of this takes places in the Playback panel. If you want to add a sound track, select the Soundtrack option, click the Select Music button, and locate the music track that you want to use for the slide show. If you want the slide show duration to match the length of the song, select the Slide Duration check box, and then click the Fit to Music button to adjust the duration time for the slides (Figure 8.25).

Figure 8.25 Add music and control slide duration in the Playback panel.

You can also have the slides run in random order by selecting the Random Order check box. In addition, you can reorder your slides by dragging them around inside the Filmstrip. Just drag and drop the photos until they are in the order that you want from left to right.

If you want to use only specific slides from the Filmstrip, change the selection preference by clicking the Use option in the slide show control bar at the bottom of the layout window (Figure 8.26). You can preview your slide show by clicking the Play button on this bar as well as add a slide text overlay by clicking the ABC button.

Figure 8.26 Select the method for determining which images in the Filmstrip will be used in the slide show.

Play and Share

To play a full-screen version of your slide show, click the Play button at the bottom of the panels on the right. You can pause the slides by pressing the spacebar, but it doesn’t pause the music. If you want to see a preview of your slide show, click the Preview button to the left of the Play button. This will start the slide show but not at full screen. It will play inside the layout window and is useful for checking your transitions and slide timing.

If you aren’t available to show the slide show on your computer, you have two options for sharing it. If you want the actual look and sounds of the slide show, click the Export Video button to turn the show into a video that you can then give to others to play on their computer. You can also upload the file to a video sharing site like YouTube or Vimeo. Just click the button, name your file, set the video output size, and click the Export button (Figure 8.27).

Figure 8.27 Slide shows can be exported as high-quality video files.

For a more static version, click the Export PDF button to render the slide pages as a PDF document that can easily be shared on a CD or even via email. Of course, there won’t be any music in the PDF version.

Publishing Services

Starting in Lightroom 3, Adobe added publishing services for uploading photos to online sites like Flickr and Facebook. One of the benefits of using the publishing service as opposed to just exporting and downloading is that the service will keep track of your uploaded photos. So if you make any changes to your images after upload, Lightroom will keep track so you know if you have the most current version uploaded and also provide you with a way of updating them.

Setting Up a Service

Flickr is a very popular photo sharing site. It is also one of the sites that lets you use your account to upload your images directly from Lightroom when you are ready to share them. To set up the Flickr service, go to the Publish Services panel in the Library module (it’s located in the lower portion of the panels on the left) and click Set Up in the Flickr section to open the Lightroom Publishing Manager (Figure 8.28). The Flickr service should be highlighted in the Publish Services section on the left.

Figure 8.28 Use the Publishing Manager to set up your Flickr account and upload options.

You’ll need a Flickr account to use this service, and Lightroom will need you to log in to upload your images. Clicking the Log In button will open a dialog that will ask you to authorize Lightroom to upload to Flickr (Figure 8.29). Clicking the Authorize button will take you to Flickr where you will need to click through one more authorization screen. When you’re done, you can return to Lightroom and continue to set up your export options. The options are pretty self-explanatory and will only take a few seconds for you to set up. Click the Save button to close the dialog when you’re done.

Figure 8.29 You must authorize Lightroom to use your Flickr account.

Adding Photos

Once the service is set up, you’ll see a new item added below the Flickr section in the Publish Services panel that reads Photostream. This indicates the number of images you have uploaded with the service. To add images, just locate them and then drag them into the Photostream (Figure 8.30). When you have added all the photos you want to upload, click the Photostream title to see how many photos you have added (Figure 8.31). When you are ready to send them to Flickr, click the Publish button at the bottom of the panels on the left. After the images have been published, open your web browser to your Flickr page and check out your images (Figure 8.32).

Figure 8.30 Drag photos from the Grid into your Photostream.

Figure 8.31 The Photostream displays the number of images that have been added.

Figure 8.32 After publishing, your images will be uploaded and ready to view in Flickr.

As you add images, they will appear in the Published Photos section of Grid view. If you modify any of the images that were uploaded, they will be added to a section above the Published Photos section and labeled Modified Photos to Re-Publish. If you click the Publish button again, Lightroom will send only these modified images to the service to replace the previous versions (Figure 8.33).

Figure 8.33 You can easily keep track of your edited images in the Photostream Grid view.

Adding a Service

Lightroom has included a couple of the most popular photo services for you to use, but you might want to use one that isn’t included in the list, which is why Adobe included a button to let you find more services through its online Exchange program. If you find a service you want to use, you will eventually download a plug-in file that will add the service to your list. To add the service, choose File > Plug-in Manager in Lightroom. When the manager opens, click the Add button at the bottom of the list of installed plug-ins. Locate the plug-in file you want to add, and click the Add Plug-in button (Figure 8.34). Lightroom might display a warning telling you that the catalog must be updated to use the plug-in. Go ahead and click the Update Catalog button to finish adding the service (Figure 8.35). Click Done in the Plug-in Manager dialog and then look in your Publish Services panel to locate your new service (Figure 8.36).

Figure 8.34 Use the Plug-in Manager to add a downloaded Publish Services plug-in.

Figure 8.35 Some new plug-ins require an update to the catalog.

Figure 8.36 Newly added services will appear in the Publish Services panel.

Exporting Your Images

Throughout this book I’ve mentioned that one of Lightroom’s many benefits is that it never really alters your original images. This is great for working within the program, but sometimes you’ll need copies of your photos to send in an email, give to your clients, or send to a printer. You don’t want to just copy the images from their folder locations, because these files wouldn’t contain all of the edits that you’ve made in the Develop module. That’s when you turn to the Export function.

Using a Preset

To open the Export dialog, choose File > Export. You can also access the Export dialog by pressing Shift+Command+E (Shift+Ctrl+E). When the Export dialog opens, locate the Presets in the panel on the left (Figure 8.37). Several Lightroom presets let you export your images to email, as DNG files, as full-size JPEG files on a CD/DVD, or as files on your hard drive for emailing later.

Figure 8.37 The Export dialog.

The real key to using the presets is to select one of the existing presets and modify the options to save it as your own. This should sound pretty familiar by now because you’ve done this with presets in several of the other modules.

Changing the Settings

I use the Export function all the time. In fact, many of the images in this book were created by exporting the images using my own preset. Here’s an example of how I would set up a preset for this chapter.

1. In the top of the dialog, change the Export To option to Hard Drive (Figure 8.38).

Figure 8.38 Choose the destination location for the exported photos.

2. Set the Export Location to my Lightroom Book folder, and then create a subfolder called Chapter 8 (Figure 8.39).

Figure 8.39 Set the export folder location.

3. Leave the File Naming and Video settings unaltered, and then change the File Settings to save the file as an 8-bit TIFF with Adobe RGB(1998) Color Space (Figure 8.40).

Figure 8.40 Choose the exported file format.

4. Set Image Sizing to Resize to Fit the Long Edge to 2000 pixels (Figure 8.41).

Figure 8.41 Set the output size for the exported images.

5. Set the After Export option to open the image in Photoshop (so I can convert the image to CMYK color space) (Figure 8.42).

Figure 8.42 Select what happens after the images are exported.

6. Click the Add button and save the settings as a User Preset (Figure 8.43).

Figure 8.43 Save your new export options as a preset.

You need to search through all of the options to determine which ones to change for your particular needs. Once you’ve saved your preset, you can easily export your images with just a couple of mouse clicks. Just make sure that you select the images that you want to export before you start the process.

Export for Email

If you are using Lightroom 3 or earlier, you’ll have only one preset for email. This preset will export your images to a folder on your hard drive. You can then go to your email program and attach the files to your outgoing message. Just remember to check your image sizes so that they aren’t too large. I like to keep mine at 800 pixels along the long edge of the image.

If you are using Lightroom 4, you have a new email preset that will load the images into a new message when you’re done setting the options. To use it, click the For Email preset, and then set your file options accordingly (Figure 8.44). When you click the Export button, a new dialog appears with thumbnails of your images already set as attachments. Type an email address for the recipient and a subject, and then click Send (Figure 8.45). After Lightroom finishes the export, your mail program will open with a new email message with your images all set for sending (Figure 8.46).

Figure 8.44 Choose the appropriate email preset.

Figure 8.45 Enter an email address and subject in the dialog and click Send.

Figure 8.46 Photos will be exported into a new outgoing message using your email program.

Conclusion

There is no big secret or silver bullet that will transform your images into works of art. It’s mostly just getting the shot right in the camera and then applying some sound, basic image adjustments that transform average-looking photos into vehicles that express your vision. The most important part of image processing is being able to look at a photo and know what it needs to look better. This doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and practice to become skilled at image editing, but the more you work at it, the better you will become. And with the skills and techniques that you learned in the last few chapters, you should be well on your way to producing stunning images.

Chapter 8 Assignments

All right, it’s time to put all this practice to some good and start sharing those photographs. You have so many options available for sharing your new works of art that the only problem you might have is deciding what to do first.

Share a Slide Show on YouTube

You know you’ve been dying to show off some of your favorite photos, so now is the time. Create a slide show of your favorite images, and then export them to a video. Try using the 720×480 video preset so the file won’t be too large. Then upload the video to YouTube and share it with your friends. It only takes a minute or two to set up an account if you don’t already have one, and it’s free.

Get Your Work on the Web

What’s that? You don’t have your work on the Internet yet? Well, now you have no excuse for not showing off your best shots. Head to the Web panel and create a new web gallery using one of the templates. Customize it with your personal information, and then find a web host. If you don’t want to pay for a hosting site, just do a Google search for “free web hosting.” You can actually find many free hosting sites that you can use for uploading and sharing your gallery.

Create Some Export Presets

I use presets all the time and have numerous presets set up to quickly get my work out of Lightroom and into another application. I have a preset for my blog photos, one for email, another for book images, and even one for sending prints to an online printing service. Creating them is easy, so give it a try. They will save you time and effort in the future.

Share your results with the book’s Flickr group!

Join the group here: flickr.com/groups/photoshoplightroomfromsnapshotstogreatshots