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Combining a Smart Filter with a Camera Raw Action in Adobe Photoshop

March 13, 2017

When editing photos, I usually launch an image into Adobe Camera Raw from Bridge, edit it as much as I deem appropriate and then move it into Photoshop to finish things up. I actually have a Preset that I use quite often in Camera Raw for most of my food photography. After I apply the Preset and tweak the photo a bit to customize it, I’ll launch it into Photoshop, which will automatically close down Camera Raw.

This has proven to be a fairly efficient workflow. The issue that has arisen, though, is that I’m finding myself not always absolutely happy with the product I move from Camera Raw into Photoshop. Because of this, I’m forced to start all over again. Again, I’ll launch the image from Bridge into Camera Raw, edit the image using the Preset I made, tweak the photo a little differently this time and finally, transfer the edited image to Photoshop. If I’m not happy again, I’ll need to repeat this process one more time or until I get it right.

A few days ago, I wondered if I could open an image into Photoshop from the get-go and turn the photo layer into an eternally editable Smart Object. From there, I can take advantage of the Camera Raw Filter and perform my usual Preset edits that way, right inside of Camera Raw. When finished, I would close Camera Raw and have the edited file sitting there inside of Photoshop, where it was. If I needed to re-edit, I could simply do so from Photoshop.

I’m happy to report that this process works wonderfully. And because it works so well, I’ve decided to lay out exactly what I did here. So, if you’re interested in making an already efficient workflow even more efficient, read on below. This one is especially good because I’ll throw in a concept from one of my previous posts that will make the entire process lightening fast.

Previous Posts You Should Read

In the post below, I’ll be using some ideas I’ve written about in previous posts. While you’re welcome to breeze through what I share below, it would probably be most helpful if you review what I link to below. Whatever you would like to do is fine, just know that all the resources you’ll need are right here.

How to Save Tool Presets in Adobe Camera Raw

What are Smart Objects in Adobe Photoshop?

Using Camera Raw as a Filter Inside Adobe Photoshop

How to Create Actions with Camera Raw Inside Adobe Photoshop

Demo Photo

For this post, I’ll be using the image below. What you’re looking at is what I’d like the photo to eventually look like. The original is much more dull as you’ll quickly discover in the next section.

Demo Field Photo

Creating a Smart Filter

After opening the photo into Adobe Photoshop, I’ll head straight to the Filter > Convert For Smart Filters menu item and click.

Filter - Convert For Smart Filters

When I do this, a small warning box will appear, telling me that my action will turn the layer into a Smart Object.

Smart Filters Dialog

Once I click OK, I’ll see a small box appear in the lower right side of the layer thumbnail in the Layers panel.

Smart Object Indicator in Layers Panel

At this point, you may be asking yourself what the difference between a Smart Object and a Smart Filter is. Well, any filter applied to a Smart Object is a Smart Filter. So, when you create a Smart Filter, all you’re doing is creating a Smart Object that you’ll apply a filter to. Ask me why Adobe broke this task up like this as opposed to simply telling us to create a Smart Object and then apply a filter to it and I’ll tell you that I have absolutely no idea.

Anyway, now that the layer has been converted over, I can go ahead with the remaining steps of this project.

Creating an Action

By now, you should know how to create an action in Photoshop. If you don’t, I have a post that will explain everything in very simple to follow detail. You can view that post here.

I’ll head up to the Actions panel and, after selecting the freshly created Demo Actions folder, will click the Create New Action icon.

Create New Action Icon in the Actions Panel

Immediately, the New Action dialog will appear, giving me the opportunity to name the action I’d like to make. In this case, I’ll call it Camera Raw Preset because that’s all I’ll be using with this task.

New Action Dialog Box

After I name the action and click Record, a small red circle will appear at the bottom of the Actions panel. That means my action is being recorded. Also, I’ll see the beginnings of the new action appear in the Demo Actions folder (set) in the Actions panel. I’ve outlined all this in red in the below screenshot.

Action Record Indicator

From here, I can head up to the Filter > Camera Raw Filter menu item and click.

Filter - Camera Raw Filter Menu Item in Photoshop

This will open Camera Raw right inside Photoshop. I’ll head straight to the Presets panel and click on my preset to activate it.

Camera Raw Presets Panel

Then, since I think the Exposure setting is too strong, I’ll head to the Basic panel and push that slider to the left just a bit.

Exposure Setting in Camera Raw Basic Panel

Finally, when I’m happy with the image, I’ll click the OK button down at the bottom right, which will cause Camera Raw to close out and me to return to Photoshop. In between that, I’ll see a status bar telling me the progress of the filter.

Camera Raw Filter Progress Dialog

At last, I’ll click the Stop button at the bottom of the Action panel in Photoshop to create the action. At this point, I should see the action and Camera Raw Filter step in the panel.

New Action Steps

If you look at the screenshot above, you’ll see that I clicked the small arrow to the left of the Camera Raw Filter step. Doing that exposed all the data that was transferred over to Photoshop from Camera Raw. This isn’t too critical, but I did want to show you that you can expand the action steps for a closer look.

The Benefit of Smart Filters

Okay, I just went over a heck of a lot of stuff. It sort of looked like the same steps from my previous post. There is, however, one huge difference between this post and the last one and it’s this; let’s say that I don’t like the output from Camera Raw. If I wanted to go back to Camera Raw to make a change, whether it be large or small, all I would need to do is to double click on the Camera Raw Filter text that sits directly under the Smart Filters object in the Layers panel.

Camera Raw Filter Smart Filter Text Line in Layers Panel

If I did that, Camera Raw would open back up and I would be able to see all of the edits I made previously. I could make any additional changes I saw fit and then I could click OK again. Those changes would then be applied to the image sitting inside Photoshop. I could do this a million times if I wanted to because of the mere fact that I created a Smart Object, which is completely editable, to begin with. It’s like magic. And that was the purpose of this tutorial.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. As always, thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


How to Visualize Spots in Adobe Lightroom

March 11, 2017

Oftentimes, when working in Adobe applications, such as Photoshop, Camera Raw and Lightroom, it’s tough to see everything a photograph contains. For instance, if you’ve got a photo that’s really light or faded and intend to print it out for some use, you may be concerned that imperfections may exist that aren’t readily visible to the human eye. Noticing a blemish after spending money on a print job certainly isn’t the way to go. If you can catch dirt, dust and objects you don’t want to show in the final product, before you export and print, that’s all the better.

In today’s post, I’m going to quickly discuss something I’ve touched on in previous posts. Since this isn’t an in-depth topic or something overly instructional, I’ll try to keep things brief. What I’d like to talk about is how to best visualize those “invisible” areas of a photo. And then, how to best get rid of the objects we don’t want around any longer.

The Demo Photo

Since I don’t have tons of photos with dust or dirt showing in them that jump right out at me, I had to do some digging. The photo I settled on is of a lighthouse at dusk. It’s a creative shot that shows some stars in the background. I’ll use the lower portion of stars and consider them undesirable. Now, if you look at the photo below, you’ll notice that many of the very dim stars aren’t very visible at all. If I can’t see them, how can I get rid of them? I’ll go over that below.

How to Visualize Spots in Adobe Lightroom

Previous Resources

In this post, I’m going to rely on a few posts I’ve previously written. If you’d like to review some writing on the Spot Removal Tool in Adobe Lightroom, please click through the links below.

Using the Spot Removal Tool in Adobe Lightroom

Tips for Clearing Complexion in Adobe Lightroom

Removing Straight Lines with the Spot Removal Tool in Adobe Lightroom

Visualize Spots

In order for me to get the most clear picture of what’s going on in the way of spots, or stars, in this photo, I’ll first need to active the Spot Removal Tool in Adobe Lightroom. To do this, I’ll click the Spot Removal tool icon in the Develop module.

Spot Removal Tool Icon in Lightroom

Once I do that, the Spot Removal sliders will appear in the right column. Again, if you’d like to learn all about them, please feel free to click into the links I provided above.

For now, what I’d like to look at more closely is the Visualize Spots feature that’s available down below the center image. I’m not even going to bother trying to remove any spots the traditional way because I already know I can’t see all of them. And since the sky is generally smooth and solid, I can rely on the Visualize Spots feature with confidence.

Visualize Spots Feature

Next, I’ll click the small check box in this section and watch as the image turns black and white. I can adjust the strength of this feature by pushing the slider back and forth. If I push the slider to the left, I’ll reduce the number of visible imperfections I’m able to see and if I push the slider to the right, I’ll increase that number of visible imperfections. I found a spot somewhere in the middle. If I go too far to the right, everything will turn into an imperfection and it’ll be just too sensitive.

Darkened Photo Made Black and White

At this point, I could go ahead and begin removing spots with this tool.

Removing Spots with Tool

There really isn’t a whole lot more than this. I think this tool and feature are perfect for these types of scenarios because of how solid the sky is. Any imperfection will show and they are relatively easy to remove with this few.

I do want to warn you about something quickly. If I go ahead and use the Ctrl++ keyboard shortcut to enlarge the view of the image, all of a sudden, a heck of a lot more spots become visible. It’s sort of like looking through an ever more powerful telescope. Since stars are visible as far as a telescope can see, we need to recognize the depth of editing that’s possible.

Enlarged View

If I were working on a high resolution photo that was going to be printed large as well, I’d want to make sure I zoomed in a good amount so I could remove any spots and blemishes that weren’t visible with the smaller view. Keeping the editing view small is doing a disservice to the amount of time it takes to properly edit a photo.

That’s it. I wanted to share this tidbit of information with you because I feel it’s important to know for different types of photo editing. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Lightroom


Using Focus Area & Smart Sharpen to Edit a Photo in Adobe Photoshop

March 9, 2017

For today’s post, I’m going to work on another quick project. I’ll fall back on two previous posts I wrote a while ago and use the lessons learned in them to take care of a few editing methods I’ll need for this one. Nothing is too difficult here, but a few steps need to be followed carefully.

Basically, the goal I have today is to isolate the bird in the photo below and sharpen it. While there are multiple methods for going about this, I’ll use the most efficient. Knowing that the bird is already in focus, while the background of the photo isn’t, I’ll take advantage of the Focus Area Selection feature inside of Photoshop. Then, once I’ve got the selection taken care of, I’ll move toward the actual sharpening of the bird. For that part, I’ll take advantage of the Smart Sharpen Filter feature. By the end of this post, you’ll hopefully have a clear picture of how you can use isolated ideas to complete a project like the one I’ll show you below.

Original Photo

For this post, I looked for a photo that had a distinction between the subject and the background. I think I hit the nail on the head with this one. I’m not sure you can get any more distinct. Now, just because both areas of this photo are fairly far apart from one another doesn’t mean I don’t need to take care when creating my selection. I did a few test runs of what I’d like to demonstrate below and I think you’ll be impressed by a few tips I’ll let you in on. This photo worked out perfectly for everything I’d like to include.

Using Focus Area & Smart Sharpen to Edit a Photo in Adobe Photoshop

Previous Posts

I’m going to move kind of fast through this post. Don’t let that stop you from learning everything you’d like to learn though. Below, I’ll give you a few links to posts that go into more depth than what I’ll share here. If interested, please go ahead and read through these additional resources.

Selecting a Specific Focus Area in Adobe Photoshop

The 3 Best Ways to Sharpen Photos in Adobe Photoshop

Selecting with Focus Area

To select the bird in this image, I’ll head up to the Select > Focus Area menu item.

Select - Focus Area Menu Item

Once I click this menu item, the Focus Area dialog box will appear. Also, right after the dialog opens up, areas that aren’t in focus will begin being removed from the image.

Focus Area Dialog Box

Also, some of the bird may be inadvertently removed. To deal with how much of the out-of-focus area I want to get rid of, I’ll need to push the In-Focus Range slider around. For more on this, please refer to this post. I cover the concept more extensively there.

Next, I’ll use the small brushes to add material back to and remove it from the image. These two brushes are the ones that I outlined in red below. They have the small + and – in the icons.

Select and Mask Button

Once I have pretty much all the out of focus background gone, I’ll change the Output drop-down selection to New Layer with Layer Mask and then click the Select and Mask button, which will bring me to an area where I can refine the edge of my selected area. If you’re interested in learning how to refine an edge of a selection in Photoshop, please check out the post I link to below. It’s really good and explains a lot.

Basically, by choosing the New Layer with Layer Mask option, Photoshop will take the selected area and turn it into a mask, which will give me flexibility in the future. By clicking on the Select and Mask button, I’ll have the ability to remove some of the jaggedness from the selection edges and smooth them out so they’re the way I’d like to see them in the final result.

Selecting Objects & Refining Edges in Adobe Photoshop

After I finish refining the edge, I’ll press the OK button to close out the Refine Edge dialog box and to return to the normal workspace.

Refine Edge Dialog

I’ll end up with this:

Masked Bird

Just to let you know, all I did here was select the bird and then mask what was inside the selected area. It’s a very straightforward process that seems complicated because of the additional options I used. If necessary, I could have done all of these steps by hand. Good thing Photoshop comes with these built-in tools.

Also, since the bird is masked, I had to do some slight touching up with the paint brush, using black. By using black, I was able to remove some narrow areas between some feathers that weren’t removed with the Focus Area tool. It’s all good now.

Would you like to learn more about masks and masking inside of Photoshop? If so, I’ve got something for you.

What are Layer Masks in Adobe Photoshop?

Sharpening with Smart Sharpen

Okay, on to the fun stuff. Now that I have the bird isolated from the background, I can go ahead and sharpen it. To do this, I’ll first make sure the actual bird is selected in the Layers panel.

Selected Thumbnail in Layers Panel

The reason I need to double check this is because it’s easy to overlook. Whatever is selected in the Layers panel is what will be sharpened, so it’s a good idea to be actually focused on the image itself.

Anyway, next, I’ll head up to the Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen menu item and click.

Filter - Sharpen - Smart Sharpen

Doing this will open the Smart Sharpen dialog box.

Smart Sharpen Dialog Box

For this section, I’ll follow the instructions I gave in this post. Those instructions cover the material in the top part of this dialog box. I’ll ignore the Shadows and Highlights sections because I really don’t need to change anything there.

I’ll go ahead and move the sliders for the sharpening aspects.

Sharpen Sliders in Smart Sharpen Dialog

Finally, because I don’t see any types of obvious or mistaken blur in this image, I’ll leave the Remove area untouched. If there was some sort of gaussian, motion or lens blur in the image, I could attempt to remove some of it with this control. I’ll just head over to the OK button and click on it.

Once I’m back in the regular workspace, I can click the small eye that controls the layer visibility for the bottom layer.

Layer Visibility Control

This will turn the blurry background back on and I’ll be able to see the finished product.

Sharpened Photograph in Adobe Photoshop

Now, what’s really cool about this process is that I was able to separate the part of the photo that was in focus from the part of the photo that was out of focus. If I wanted to go for an even more extreme effect, I could duplicate the masked layer, invert the mask and blur the background. That would really make the bird pop out of the photo even more. For now though, I’ll leave things alone.

Basically, with this post, I wanted to show you a quick project workflow that would demonstrate how to sharpen just a part of a photo. As I stated above, there are a bunch of ways to do this and I chose just one. Perhaps in the future, I’ll go over other methods as well.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. As always, thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


Selecting & Adding Saturation to an Object in Adobe Photoshop

March 7, 2017

Sometimes, I sit at my desk and just mess around in Photoshop. I’ll take an image and see what happens when I apply a new tip I found out about or I’ll try to remember something I learned years ago. I suppose you can call this “brushing up” or simply staying in the loop. Today, I did some of this messing around.

I thought I’d open Photoshop to see how fast I could add some saturation and vibrance to an object in an image. Of course, I had to find the perfect image to do this to because that makes life a heck of a lot easier. I found the image and went to work.

In today’s post, I’ll be walking through the process I followed to add saturation, or more enhanced color, to a splash in a photograph. While everything only took a few steps, I think it’s worth sharing what I did. There are some really good tricks I include that I feel you may benefit from, so check out the rest of this post to find out what they are.

Original Image

Selecting & Adding Saturation to an Object in Adobe Photoshop

Since the photo above has a nice smooth background and an obvious “object” front and center, I felt that it was appropriate. In the next few sections, you’ll see exactly why that is.

Selecting the Object

The objects I’d like to select here are the separate splash of liquid that’s not attached to the liquid below it as well as the vertical stream of liquid that’s touching the pool on the bottom.

To accomplish this type of selection, I’ll use the Lasso Tool. To activate this tool, I’ll click the third icon from the top on the left vertical toolbar or press L on my keyboard as a shortcut. Once ready, I’ll draw a circle around the object, which will, when I’m finished, create a selection evidenced by some marching ants.

Selection with Lasso Tool in Photoshop

You may be wondering why I wasn’t more careful when making this selection. After all, it’s the liquid I want, not a circle around it. Well, since this is an isolated object and since the background is so smooth, I can take advantage of a little trick. I’ll change tools so the Magic Wand Tool is active and then I’ll hold down the Alt key (Option on Mac). Once the Alt key is pressed, I can click inside the selection on the background area until that area isn’t selected anymore.

Magic Wand Selection

That’s a pretty good tip. To “unselect” something, as opposed to selecting something, just hold down the Alt or Option keys and go about clicking where you don’t want any selection.

If you take a look at the screenshot above, you’ll see that the marching ants are now hugging the droplets.

Adding an Adjustment Layer

By this point, you know that adding adjustment layers add masks. So, since I’ve got my selection ready, all I need to do is click on the Vibrance icon from the Adjustments panel.

Vibrance Adjustment Layer Icon

Once I do that, the Properties panel for that adjustment will open up.

Vibrance Adjustment Properties Panel

As you can see from the above screenshot, the adjustment layer with the mask in it was also created. It’s sitting as the top layer in the Layers panel.

Making the Adjustment

As you probably already know, any adjustment I make in the Properties panel will only apply to what’s inside the once selected area (the visible area of the mask) of the image. Also, the reason I chose the Vibrance adjustment as opposed to the Saturation one was because of its mild nature. To be honest, I haven’t used Saturation in years. Perhaps just a smidge here or there, but really, nothing more than that. Even the Saturation slider in the Vibrance panel is a mere shadow of the true Saturation adjustment.

Anyway, because both the Vibrance and Saturation sliders in the Properties panel are fairly timid, I’ll push them both all the way to the right. This will enhance whatever color already exists and make it more bold.

Vibrance Added and Fully Saturated

And if I wanted to remove some color, I could push both sliders all the way to the left.

Removing Color and Making Object Black and White

I actually like the second one. The liquid looks like some sort of molten metal.

Because there’s more to this object, I’ll need to colorize or desaturate the vertical stream of liquid as well. To do this, I’ll follow exactly what I did above, with just one minor change.

After following all the steps, I noticed that the bottom part couldn’t be cleanly deselected with the Magic Wand Tool. You can see that below.

Extra Selection

Since I already created the adjustment layer and pushed both sliders to the left, I can clearly see what I need to clean up with the Brush Tool. If you’ve ever worked with masks before, you know that black hides and white reveals. Since I want to hide some of the extra adjustment, I’ll select this tool, resize it, change the color to black and do a bit of painting.

Correction with Brush Tool

Now, if I take both versions of the final image and place them side by side, you can see the differences. I think it looks pretty cool and this post gives a decent indication of where you can go with these types of edits. Basically, if you want to either add color to or remove color from an object, you can do so by following the steps in this post.

Final Image

And that’s it! If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


How to Save Files as PDF Versions in Windows 10

March 5, 2017

One aspect of operating a computer, for who knows how long, that’s been problematic is the saving of a file or document as a PDF. If you’re not sure what a PDF is, it’s an acronym for Portable Document Format and it was created by Adobe. In the most basic sense, a PDF is a format for specific files that’s used to present documents in a fashion that’s independent of application software, hardware or operating system. It’s a wonderful thing that folks in the computer world have been using for a very long time.

Let me give you a quick example. Say I create a Microsoft Word document on my Windows computer. Let’s say I want to send that file over to my friend who uses a Mac. Now, I’m not sure about this, but the last time I checked, it’s a bit of a process to open this file. I believe you can do it, but again, it’s a process. If I had just converted the .DOC file to a .PDF file, he wouldn’t have any issues.

A few years ago, I began using Google Chrome. One of Chrome’s best features is that it can easily “print” a document or web page to a PDF really, really easily. I used to only use this feature in OpenOffice Calc, but it’s becoming much more widespread, so I use it more frequently these days. Today, with the popular usage of Windows 10, anyone can turn a file into a PDF. Personally, I find this incredibly useful because this type of document really is the way to go.

In today’s post, I’ll walk through the process of printing a file to a PDF. The original file stays the same, so there’s nothing to worry about there. All that happens is that the file is essentially copied and transformed into another version. A version that’s widely accepted.

Navigating to the Correct Folder

The very first thing I’m going to do is to navigate to the folder where the document I’d like to convert to a PDF resides. In this case, I created something called Demo Folder, just for this post. Inside of it, I placed a beautiful image of a mountain scene.

Demo Folder with Sample Image Inside of It

If you have an interest in turning a file into a PDF, you’ll need to visit the folder where that file is stored.

“Printing” the File

When turning a file into a PDF, it’s oftentimes referred to as “printing.” In actuality, you’re not sending anything to your printer. You don’t even need a printer. The term “print” merely means that you’re going to send a copy of the original to a place where a conversion is going to occur.

At the top of the window my image is located, there are a few tabs. I actually wrote a post about these tabs previously. If you’d like to read up on that, you can do so here. In the meantime though, go ahead and click the Share tab and select the file in question. Again, in my case, it’s the image file, so I’ll simply click on that to highlight it.

Share Tab with Image Selected

You may notice that once you select the file, the Print option comes to life.

Print Icon in Window

If you click Print, you’ll see the (in my case) Print Pictures dialog box appear.

Print Pictures Dialog Box

If you’re attempting to convert a text document, or something like that, to a PDF, your dialog box will appear differently. In that case, all you need to do is choose the Save as PDF option at the bottom of the dialog. In this case though, we have a few additional options to choose from.

The first thing I’m going to do is to click the leading drop-down box. This contains the instructions of what I’d like to do with the file. I’ll click on Microsoft Print to PDF.

Microsoft Print to PDF Drop-Down Option

Next, I’ll click the center drop-down and select the output Paper Size.

Paper Size

To the right of that is the Quality drop-down. Since 600 x 600 is the only option, I’ll obviously keep that there.

Next up, I’ll select the layout for this PDF file. Since I’m messing around here, I’ll choose to shrink the size of the image down to a quarter size.

Select Layout for Image PDF File

And because only one is showing, I’ll increase the number of images per page to four.

Copies of Each Picture

At this point, I can see all four photos on this one PDF file. Pretty cool.

Finally, all I need to do is click the Print button down in the bottom right corner. Doing this will bring up the Save Print Output As dialog box, where I would choose my save location, name the file and then click the Save button. After I press Save, it will take a few seconds to do what it has to do. This is what the intermediary screen looks like.

Printing PDF Pictures Dialog Screen

If I go ahead and open up the freshly created PDF file, I’ll see the images, just as I left them.

Four Photos in PDF File Output

And that’s it! See, I told you it was easy.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Technology


How to Make Video Playback More Smooth in Adobe Photoshop

March 3, 2017

If you’ve ever edited video, you probably know all about how “choppy” the playback can be while working in your favorite application. There are a few reasons for this choppiness and they all revolve around your computer’s resources. Not enough RAM, a video card that doesn’t have enough power, a processor that’s too slow – all reasons to cause skipping, freezing and an overall horrible experience.

In today’s post, I’m going to quickly outline two areas that will help you immensely while working inside of Adobe Photoshop. Whether you know this or not, I’m here to tell you that life doesn’t have to be excruciating in this respect. With the adjustments of just two settings, you can edit video inside Photoshop in a relatively smooth manner with only 8GB of RAM. I know, it doesn’t sound possible. Read on to see how it actually is.

What is Playback?

Before I begin, I thought I’d give you a bit of behind the scenes insight to my thinking. When I refer to “playback” in this post, I’m referring to the act of playing back a video or clips of different videos inside of the Photoshop interface for review. Playback is different than the final product. Inside of Photoshop, it doesn’t matter what you do to the settings I describe below. Even if you reduce them to their lowest quality, the video, after being rendered, will remain at its initial quality. Playback is merely a “review” of the original, so don’t concern yourself with how lousy things look inside the editor.

The Video Interface

For this demonstration, I’ll need to open a video file into Photoshop. I chose a nice clip of a flower with a few bees buzzing around it.

Flower with Two Bees Flying Around It

The two methods to increase playback efficiency are quite simple to find. I’ll list both of them, with descriptions, below.

Allow Frame Skipping

When playing back a video, Photoshop has the ability to skip frames that haven’t yet been cached by your system. This speeds up and smooths out what you’re watching. To enable the Allow Frame Skipping feature, head over to the small menu that sits at the top right of the Timeline panel.

Allow Frame Skipping Menu Item

As you play and replay your file, your system will eventually cache many more frames. This will result in an even smoother playback.

Adjust Resolution

Even more important than skipping frames is the resolution of your working video file. Not the original or the final cut, but the working version. If you head over to the playhead controls on the left side of the Timeline panel, you’ll see a small icon that looks like a gear. If you roll over this icon, a small popup will appear that says Set Playback Options. Click the gear and you’ll see this:

Resolution Settings For Photoshop Video

Inside this options area is a drop-down and a check box. The check box controls whether or not your playback loops back to the beginning of the video once it hits the end. Changing this setting is up to you, but just realize that it has nothing to do with altering the efficiency of your editing experience.

The area that needs to be focused on is the Resolution. Setting this to 100% (which is the default) will cause all sorts of issues if your system isn’t up to snuff. Actually, if you’re dealing with problems, this is most likely the cause. By reducing the video’s virtual resolution to 50%, you’ll most likely alleviate many of those issues. Staying with 50% resolution is a very good idea. While you’ll lose a slight bit of clarity, you’ll make up for it in ease of use. Also, if your computer is really low on RAM, you may want to reduce the resolution even further to 25%, but please understand that the clarity of what you’ll be working with may be extraordinarily pixelated. 50% is a happy medium.

I recently added 8GB in addition RAM to my computer, so many of the issues I was dealing with cleared up. I still dealt with some stuttering though, until I altered the settings I described above. I couldn’t be happier with the result. Now, when I edit any type of video, it’s smooth sailing.

If you’re experiencing problems while editing video in Adobe Photoshop, please give what I wrote in this post a chance. Also, if you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


Using Smart Objects For Video in Adobe Photoshop

March 1, 2017

By this point, you probably know how important Smart Objects can be when it comes to editing photos in Adobe Photoshop. What you may not know is that the concept that’s applied to photos is also applied to video in the same application. Smart Objects are a critical piece of editing with the freedom of resizing, reshaping, twisting and turning. No matter what you do to a Smart Object, you can rest assured that the original is still available and it hasn’t been destroyed in any way.

By the way, if you’d like a refresher on Smart Objects in Photoshop, please read through the posts I link to below.

What are Smart Objects in Adobe Photoshop?

Converting Multiple Layers into a Smart Object in Adobe Photoshop

Linking a Smart Object to a File in Adobe Photoshop

Editing RAW Files as Smart Objects in Adobe Photoshop

The Difference Between Duplicate Smart Objects in Adobe Photoshop

There are more posts, but I didn’t want to go nuts with the linking here. If you really truly have an interest, simply search “smart objects” in the search bar above.

In today’s post, I’ll demonstrate how to work with two video clips at the same time. I’ll convert one of the clips into a Smart Object and then set it up so it transforms in size. Then, I’ll export the final product and post the movie here so you can see it. Along the way, I’ll explain the importance of working with Smart Objects during video production in Photoshop.

Opening & Combining Clips Into the Same Tab

It’s easy to open multiple video clips into Adobe Photoshop. It’s even easier to combine all those clips into one tab. Below, I’ll explain exactly how to do that.

First, I’ll head up to the File > Open menu item and click. I’ll locate the video clip I’d like to launch into Photoshop and select it so it opens in its own tab.

File - Open Menu Item

Next, I’ll do the same exact thing for the second video clip I’d like to launch into Photoshop. Once both files are opened up, I’ll have two tabs with one video in each.

Video Clip Tabs

In the above screenshot, please excuse the third tab. I’m using that one to create these graphics.

To combine the second clip into the tab the first clip is in, all I need to do is, inside the second tab, click and drag the video layer onto the first tab. After that, while continuing to drag, move the layer down on top of the first video. Then, I’ll let go.

Dragging Layer

In the above screenshot, you can see the ghost of the layer being dragged and dropped into the first tab. After they’re both included, they should reside inside of the same group. In the next screenshot, you’ll see them stacked in the Layers panel. They’ll be contained in Video Group 1.

Video Group 1

When video clips are contained in a group, they play sequentially. This is shown in the Timeline panel above. In order to have both clips play in parallel, I’ll need to break the group apart. To achieve this, I’ll simply right-click on the Video Group 1 layer and select Ungroup Layers from the menu that appears.

Ungroup Layers

Now, if you look at the next screenshot, you’ll see the “Group” layer in the Layers panel has disappeared. Also, the two video clips are no longer forced to play sequentially.

Separate Layers in Timeline Panel

If I click and drag Layer 2 over to the beginning of the Timeline panel, both clips will play at the same time. Perfect.

Parallel Video Clips

Creating a Smart Object

The goal for this project is to have Layer 2 start off very small in the upper right corner of the Video 1 layer and transition to a window that measures about 25% of the larger video. Basically, I’d like to have two videos playing at the same time. I want one of them full size and the other a smaller size. I’d like the entire video to last a bit over 20 seconds and for about 5 of those seconds, I want the smaller video to transition from really small to just small.

There’s a funny thing that happens inside of Photoshop when you attempt to transform a video layer. Before you can accomplish the task, you’re told to make the layer a Smart Object. When I select the layer I want to transform and then press Ctrl+T (Command+T for Mac) on my keyboard, I see this message:

Convert Smart Object Layer Dialog Box

This message states: Transforming a video layer requires converting it to a smart object layer. So, to convert the layer, I can either click on the Convert button or do what I should have already done – manually converted the layer.

To convert a layer to a Smart Object, right click on the layer in the Layers panel. Then, inside the menu that appears, choose Convert to Smart Object. When I need to transform a layer from now on, I’ll know to take this step first, so I don’t waste time dealing with the pop-up box.

Convert to Smart Object Menu Item

Once the layer has been converted to a Smart Object, it’ll turn purple down in the Timeline panel.

Purple Smart Object in Timeline Panel

Trimming Unwanted Footage

As you may have noticed, both video clips aren’t the same length. One is around 22 seconds and the other is around 55. I’d like it so each clip is around 22 seconds long, so they match up.

To trim this longer video clip, all I need to do is hover my mouse over the far end of it until the pointer turns into a black half-square with a double-arrow that goes through it. When that happens, I can click and drag the video clip to the left until it snaps into position at the end of the shorter clip. Basically, I’m just clicking and dragging to shorten the clip.

This next screenshot shows the process about halfway through.

Trimming Video Clip

After I do that, I can move the Set End of Work Area marker so it trims off the millisecond difference from both clips, so they’ll end at exactly the same time.

Set End of Work Area Slider

Transforming the Layer

Okay, things are looking very good. I made all the preparations I needed to make and it’s time to transform the layer.

To make this transition, I’ll need to follow a few steps. First, I’ll open up the layer options by clicking on the small arrow that’s to the left of the layer name. This will expose the available transitions.

Transition Options

Next, I’ll press Ctrl+T (Command+T for Mac) on my keyboard to activate the free transform option. I’ll shrink the layer down to the size I’d like it to begin.

Free Transform

After that, I’ll position the layer where I want it to be when it’s small. I’ll create a few guides that will assist me when I’m enlarging the layer as well.

Positioning and Adding Guides

I want to stop here to mention something very quickly. As you can see, I’ve reduced the size of this layer quite a bit. If this was a photograph and I didn’t convert it to a Smart Object, you can probably imagine how horrible and pixelated it would look after I enlarged it again. Converting the layer to a Smart Object preserves the sharpness and quality, no matter what size you transform it to (as long as it’s no larger than the original). You can see why Photoshop makes Smart Object conversion mandatory with this type of transformation while working in video.

At this point, I can head back down to the Timeline panel, move the playhead to the position I want this transition to begin and click on the Transform stopwatch icon. This will add a keyframe to the timeline.

Transform Keyframe

Now, I’ll push the playhead to the 5 second mark, transform the layer so it’s the size and position I want and press Enter on my keyboard. I’ll use the guides I set up to keep the small video in place (centered on the guides). Also, after I press Enter, Photoshop will automatically add the second keyframe. The first keyframe indicates the smaller size and the second keyframe indicates the larger size. Everything in between is transition performed automatically by Photoshop.

Two Keyframes on Timeline

Here is the final size for the smaller video.

Final Transform Size

Rendering the Video

That’s it! All my editing is complete and I can render the video for output. To do this, I’ll head up to the File > Export > Render Video. I’ll be writing posts that focus on how to properly render video in the future, so I won’t harp on it now. I will, however, give you a quick screenshot of the Render Video dialog box.

Render Video Dialog

Depending on the length and quality of the video, rendering my take a few minutes. In my case, it took about 60 seconds to complete.

I uploaded the video to Youtube and here it is. Please let me know what you think. Also, if you have any questions or concerns about this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Editing Video in Adobe Photoshop – Converting Layer to Smart Object

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


Painting With the Mixer Brush in Adobe Photoshop

February 26, 2017

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no painter. As a matter of fact, I can’t draw or paint. I can hardly even trace. But when I saw how cool the Mixer Brush was in Adobe Photoshop, I had to stop to take a closer look. Today, I’m here to tell you that it’s not only cool – it’s really really cool.

Who would have thought that you can actually imitate real painting inside of a computer program? Boy, we’ve come a long way from those early days. In today’s Photoshop, you can control all sorts of stuff, including how much paint comes off the brush, the color or colors you’ll paint with and the wetness of that paint. If you learn how to set and adjust each of these aspects, I think you’ll be truly surprised and impressed with what your results can look like.

In today’s post, I’d like to introduce you to the Mixer Brush Tool inside of Adobe Photoshop. This is a post for those who have never seen, or perhaps even heard of, this tool. It’s intended to be an intro. Hopefully, by the end of this post, you’ll have a grip on what this tool is and what it can do. You may even be able to hold your own during a conversation on the topic.

What is the Mixer Brush

Before I go any further, I think I should give you a very brief overview of what the Mixer Brush does. Basically, it allows you to mix paint on either a blank canvas or from a photo. It does a great job of blending colors, whether they’re already on the brush or on the canvas itself. In the sections that follow, I’ll show you what some of the controls look like and then in later posts, I’ll walk through the process of painting and mixing color right over a photograph. This will make it look like I painted a picture rather than closely following the lines of something that already existed.

The Mixer Brush Tool & the Options Bar

Accessing the Mixer Brush Tool is easy. All you need to do is head over to the left vertical toolbar and click and drag out the Brush Tool. Once the additional brush options are available, you can select the bottom choice. That’s the Mixer Brush. The icon looks like a brush with a small droplet next to it.

Mixer Brush Tool

Alternatively, you can press the B key on your keyboard to cycle through the brush options. That’s a handy shortcut to know.

Once you select the Mixer Brush Tool, you’ll notice the options bar up top change to offer more appropriate features and options. While I won’t cover everything up there in this post, I will talk about a few of the most important areas.

Mixer Brush Options Bar

Choosing a Brush

Choosing a brush and setting that brush up so it works well with the Mixer Brush Tool can get somewhat involved. It’s tough to stay focused here and not run off on a tangent, so I’m going to do my best to keep thing simple. In that vein, I’ll choose a custom brush I created back when I was writing a previous post on how to make and save your very own custom brush. I’ll also size the brush so it’s a good working size for my canvas.

Options Bar Controls

The first primary area I’ll focus on in the options bar is the Current Brush Load & Clean Swatch.

Current Brush Load and Clean Swatch

If you click the small arrow to the right of the color swatch, you’ll see a few options. They are Load Brush, Clean Brush and Load Solid Colors Only. Think of using the Mixing Brush exactly as you would when using a real paint brush. You need to load it with paint, mix it with other paint and clean the brush off to start over. This isn’t terribly different and it’s in this area that controls that aspect of things.

The next area I’ll cover is called the Preset Pop-up Menu. Even though I haven’t discussed them yet, this drop-down menu can pre-populate the paint measurement controls I’ll talk about in the next section. Keep your eye on this menu though because it can be a huge time saver later on when you get more used to this tool.

Preset Pop-up Menu

Next up are four values that are critical to your painting. They are Wet, Load, Mix and Flow. Just as their names imply, they have everything to do with the amount of paint that gets loaded onto the brush, what the consistency is, how it looks and how it comes off the brush. I’ll describe them more thoroughly right now.

Wet – This value tells Photoshop how much paint the brush should pick up from the canvas. If the brush picks up more (a higher value), it’ll return more of a paint streak when painting over other paint. So, if you paint one stroke and then paint over that stroke with another color (or even the same color), a “wet” brush will drag the bottom paint pretty far, depending on this setting. Be aware, the Wet value is extremely sensitive. You may not notice all too much of a difference between just 1% and higher values. It’ll take some getting used to to perfect this setting.

Take a look. The first image is Wet set to 100% and the second is Wet set to 0%. See the way the first one drags the lower layer of paint?

Wet Paint

In this example, no paint was dragged at all, not even the blue.

Dry Paint

Load – This setting controls the amount of paint that’s loaded into the reservoir. A low setting doesn’t load much paint, while a high setting does. Think of it this way; if you had a real paintbrush in your hand and scooped up tons of paint on it, you’d be able to paint for a long time. If you merely dabbed the brush into some paint, you wouldn’t be able to use it for nearly as long.

In this example, I set the Load beginning at 1% and then increased it to 30% and then 60% and then 100%.

Load

I thought it was interesting how the bottom three strokes were the same. Because of this, I reduced the size of the brush and repeated the experiment. Here’s how that turned out.

Load Example with Smaller Brush Size

As you can see, the effectiveness of this value depends on brush size, so be cognizant of that when you use it.

Mix – This setting specifies the ratio of how much paint is picked up from the canvas versus how much comes from the reservoir. Think of it this way; if you set this value to 100%, it’ll be like painting over paint that’s already been put down on the canvas, but with a dry, empty brush. If you set this value to 0%, it’ll be like painting with paint from only the brush that’s in the reservoir. This one is sort of tricky because the Wet setting is somewhat similar. It’ll take some getting used to.

In the example below, I painted a vertical line. Then, for the horizontal lines, I set the Mix value to 0%, 50% and 100%, respectively.

Mix Values for Mixer Brush

I’d say the results coincide well with the description I wrote above.

Flow – This final setting is easy to grasp. Basically, it tells Photoshop how much paint to push out of the brush. It’s sort of like ink flowing from a pen. If the value is low, there will be hardly any paint being released from the brush. As this value is raised, more and more paint will be released.

In the example below, I started off with a value of 5%. Then, I increased it to 30%, 70% and then 100%. The reason I had to start at 5% was because if I want any lower, you wouldn’t have been able to see any paint.

Flow From Brush

The last setting I’d like to discuss in this post is called Sample All Layers. This one is important. You can find it all the way at the right side of the options bar and it consists of a check box.

If you leave this box unchecked, you’ll have the ability to paint on one layer and then paint on another layer without the paint on either layer having an effect on anything other than itself. Each layer will remain isolated. Conversely, if you check this box, whatever is on one layer will affect whatever is on another layer. It’ll be as though everything is on the same layer. In later posts, I’ll explain why this is important and how this can help or hurt you.

For now, I tried to explain this concept through another example. On one layer, I painted three horizontal green lines. Then, I created a new layer and I painted, with aqua, the top diagonal line. As you can see, this top line didn’t affect the green lines at all.

After that, I checked the “Sample All Layers” box and painted another aqua line in that separate top layer. I’m referring to the lower diagonal line. You can clearly see that this one affected itself, as well as the green lines in the lower layer.

Sample All Layers Example

This setting will become extraordinarily important when you begin painting over photographs. You’ll need to have an impact on the layers below.

Anyway, I think I’ll stop there. This really is a huge topic and I think I’ve done a decent job at giving you an introduction to the Mixer Brush Tool. There is so much to this tool that I think it’s going to take a heck of a lot more posts. I’ll build off this one in the future.

If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


A Smart Use of Multiple Cropping Methods in Adobe Photoshop

February 24, 2017

For the longest time, I used the Rectangular Marquee Tool in Adobe Photoshop for all my cropping. I used it, it was great, things got done. It wasn’t until I learned about the power of the Crop Tool that I switched over to that. There are distinct benefits to using the Crop Tool and I talk about many of them in this post:

Using the Crop Tool in Adobe Photoshop

Through the years, instead of abandoning the Rectangular Marquee Tool entirely for this use, I decided to use it in conjunction with the Crop Tool. And in today’s post, I’ll show you why. As great as the Crop Tool is, it does have its disadvantages. There are some workarounds to those disadvantages, however, and I’ll talk about them below. By the end of this post, I hope you’ll get a grasp on how you can creatively use both of these tools to make your life easier while editing.

Demo Photo

For this post, I’ll be using a demo photo of a starry night. In this photo is a silhouette of a person and a vehicle. The reason I chose this image is because of the identifiable object in it. Since I’ll be cropping, I needed something to crop.

Night Silhouette

The Problems With the Marquee & the Crop Tools

In my intro, I indicated that there were a few issues with both the Rectangular Marquee Tool and the Crop Tool. In this section, I’ll let you know what those problems are.

Back when I used to crop with the Rectangular Marquee Tool, I quickly found that my method wasn’t all that great. For example, let’s say I wanted to crop inside of the demo photo.

Rectangular Marquee Crop Inside Adobe Photoshop

In this case, to separate out what’s inside the marquee, I could either copy and paste the selection into a new file or I could simply use the Image > Crop menu item.

Image - Crop Menu Item

Either way, I’d be left with two undesirable scenarios.

First, after copying and pasting into a new file, I’d lose all the surrounding pixels from the old file. Basically, I’d lose the remainder of the image, so if I ever wanted to edit or change my crop later on, I couldn’t. When these pixels are gone, they’re gone. And actually, the same is true when using the Crop menu item. Those pixels get deleted as well.

Second, when cropping while using either of these two methods, it’s cumbersome. I can’t even tell you how many times I cropped and then said, “Hmmm, nope, I gotta go back and change that.” While cropping with the Rectangular Marquee Tool, going back to change things takes more steps than necessary. While it’s doable, which I can attest to, it becomes a pain in the side.

Now, you probably already know the Crop Tool in Photoshop is awesome. It’s potentially non-destructive (if using the proper setting) and is really easy to use. It’s also got some neat features that I’ve already covered in previous posts. There is one area that you need to be very careful of though and that’s making sure that you don’t delete any pixels while cropping. So, if I set up a crop area in my image like this:

Crop Tool

I need to be extremely sensitive to this one setting up here:

Delete Cropped Pixels

If the Delete Cropped Pixels setting is checked, my cropped image will have the same characteristics as the one where I used the marquee tool. Any surrounding pixels will be deleted and that’s what I call destructive editing. That’s no good. Left unchecked, all of the pixels in the entire image will be saved leaving me the opportunity to go back and change my crop later on.

Applying a Filter

You may be asking yourself, “If using the Crop Tool is so much more flexible and less destructive than the marquee tool, why not just use that all the time?” Well, here’s your answer. Let’s say I wanted to apply some soft of filter to the cropped part of the image. While not all filters do this, some do. They open up a dialog box that shows the entire image, even after it’s been cropped. Basically, because this method of cropping is non-destructive, everything shows while using these types of filters.

For this example, I’ll use the Lens Correction filter. I’ll just open the filter to show you what I’m talking about. Remember, I’ve already cropped the image to that small square.

Lens Correction Filter

Here’s the filter dialog box:

Lens Correction Dialog Box

Yeah, that’s a problem. It may not seem like it in this case, but just imagine you were using a filter while targeting, very specifically, the cropped part of the image. If the entire thing opened up in the filter dialog box, how would you know where you cropped? You might think you know, but can you be absolutely sure? You wouldn’t be able to see the edges anymore. Everything is blended together.

This type of issue occurs when you use the following filters; Filter Gallery, Adaptive Wide Angle, Camera Raw Filter, Lens Correction and Liquify. All I’m saying is that photo editing is a very technical process. If you make a crop and then want to further edit the image, you certainly don’t need the entire photo returning. That’s as confusing as all get out.

The Solution to the Problem

So far, we’ve uncovered a few issues. In the first case, pixels were deleted, which is no good. In the second case, pixels remained, which was no good either. Let’s see if we can unearth a trick that will help us deal with both of these issues. I’d like to preserve all of the image but have the ability to use some of the Photoshop filters on just the cropped area.

This solution is so simple it’s going to make your head spin. To start off, I’ll crop the image using the Crop Tool.

Cropped Image

Next, I’m going to use the following keyboard shortcuts (Command on Mac): Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. All this does is select the entire cropped area using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, copy the area and then paste it into a new layer.

Layers in Layers Panel

If you look at the above screenshot, you’ll see two layers. The top one is the copied and pasted layer, which consists of only those visible pixels. All other pixels have been deleted. The bottom layer is the entire image, but was cropped with the Crop Tool. So, that bottom layer has the entire image preserved inside of it, even though it’s not visible.

Now, if I head up to the Filter menu and click on Lens Correction, let’s see what happens.

Cropped Lens Correction

Ahh, that’s better. Since I selected the top layer and chose the filter, only the cropped pixels are appearing. I can now go ahead and edit the filter the way I see fit, knowing that I have the entire image to fall back on if I need to do so. And the best part is, everything is contained in the same .PSD file, so I can open it and work on it any time I want. Now that’s workflow if I ever saw it.

This post may sound a bit confusing if you’re not familiar with these two cropping methods. I suggest you play with them a bit to get used to them and if you have and questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


Collapsing Stacks & Organizing Virtual Copies in Adobe Lightroom

February 22, 2017

I’ve got some really great tips for you today. If you’re into using virtual copies in Lightroom, these shortcuts will be truly helpful. They’re the types of things you’ll likely use every time you take advantage of virtual copies themselves, so keep on reading below.

In today’s post, I’d like to talk about how we can organize virtual copies so they don’t take up so much room in the center panel grid view or in the bottom filmstrip view in Adobe Lightroom. I’ll show you how we can go about collapsing what we call “stacks.” Also, along those same lines, I’ll demonstrate how to change up which photo shows on top of the stack, or which one is the stack’s “representative.” Finally, I’ll walk through the process of changing which photo, among those in the stack, is the primary one. This is extraordinarily helpful if you’ve made many edits to a virtual copy and would like to make that copy the master photo. It’s as easy as 1-2-3.

Creating Some Virtual Copies

For this post, I’ll go ahead and create two virtual copies of a random photo. If you aren’t familiar with how to do this type of thing, you can catch up by reading a few of my previous posts on the topic. If nothing else, at least read through the top post that I link to below.

How to Create Virtual Copies in Adobe Lightroom

Finding, Sorting & Filtering Virtual Copies in Adobe Lightroom

Building Sequential Virtual Copies For Easier Edits in Adobe Lightroom

Creating Sample Photos with Virtual Copies in Adobe Lightroom

In the screenshot below, you can see the one master photo and the two virtual copies of that photo. They are of an airplane and all three are highlighted (selected).

Lightroom Grid View

As you can see, I’ve gone ahead and made the first virtual copy, which is the second in the row, black and white. After that, I enhanced the colors of the second virtual copy, which is the last in the row of three images. The master is the dull one at the beginning.

Collapsing the Stack

The three images that are selected are called a “stack.” If I had multiple groups of master and virtual copy images, I’d have multiple stacks. Now, you can imaging that if I worked extensively with virtual copies in Lightroom, each of these stacks would take up a lot of room, which isn’t necessarily a good thing if I’m trying to navigate around the application. Also, in this case, I only have two virtual copies. If I had twenty, all of those copies would really be in the way. If I were a wedding photographer, I could imagine this scenario multiplied many times over. My point is, hiding all the virtual copies that aren’t currently being worked on is the perfect way to keep a workspace clean and easy to get around.

Collapsing a stack is really easy to accomplish. All you have to do is to click on one of the thin vertical lines at either side of the stack. In the next screenshot, you can see both of the stack handles. I’ve outlined them in red.

Stack Handles

If I click one of the handles, the stack will collapse, saving me tons of room in my workspace.

Collapsed Stack

Now, you may be asking yourself right now, “If a stack is collapsed and only one photo is showing, how do I know that virtual copies exist?” Well, if you look at the previous screenshot, you can see the small number in the upper left corner of the thumbnail. That’s the number of photos in the stack. If that number is rolled over with a mouse pointer, a popup box appears telling you that a stack exists. Once you get used to looking for that number, it’s fairly simple to recognize.

Also, just so you’re aware, the stack is also collapsed in the filmstrip view that runs along the bottom of Lightroom.

Changing the Top of the Stack

In the above screenshot, you can see that the top of the stack, or the representative photo, is the master. In this case, it’s rather dull. And in reality, it doesn’t represent what I’d like to see if I were quickly browsing through all of the thumbnails. The good thing is, I can change which photo shows when a stack is collapsed. This effort is almost as straightforward as the one in the previous section.

To change which thumbnail appears on top of a stack when it’s collapsed, make sure the stack is open and all virtual copies are showing. Then, click and drag the photo you’d like to appear on top, to the leftmost position in the series of images. Then, let go.

Reordering Stack Thumbnails

As you can see, the more colorful virtual copy is now at the beginning of the series, leaving the master image second in line. If I go ahead and collapse the stack now, let’s see which image remains visible.

Visible Virtual Copy in Collapsed Stack

Just as I suspected. The thumbnail I wanted is now at the top of the stack.

Changing Which is the Master Photo

For whatever reason, you may want to change which image is the master in the series of virtual copies. Let’s say that you made a few copies off of a “not so spectacular” master and worked on one of those copies for a good long time. In this case, you may want to actually change which photo is the original.

To make a virtual copy the master photo, first select the copy thumbnail. Then, head up to the Photo > Set Copy as Master menu item and click.

Photo - Set Copy as Master

Once that’s done, the copy will switch over to become the master and the original master will now be considered a virtual copy. To be sure this has happened, you can select the new master thumbnail and look at its file name. No longer will it be appended with / Copy. It will take on the file name of the original master.

File Name

Also, you’ll see the small number in the upper left of the new master thumbnail and you’ll see the folded lower left corners of the virtual copy thumbnails. You can change which copy is the master as many times as you wish.

That’s about it. I hope you got something from this post and enjoyed reading it. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Lightroom

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Recent Comments

  • Jay Gaulard on 7 Search Engine Optimization Tips For Small Business: “You are very correct, Mike. I wrote this post a while ago, but it's interesting to follow the trajectory of…” Feb 18, 17:24
  • Mike Khorev on 7 Search Engine Optimization Tips For Small Business: “Onsite SEO is important, but only one piece of the puzzle... It's funny, 10 years ago you would've had…” Feb 18, 16:24
  • Jay Gaulard on How to Reset Edit Settings Back to Default in Adobe Camera Raw: “Hi Charleen, I'm assuming you are talking about the small circle identifier that appears in Adobe Bridge after…” Feb 11, 15:57
  • charleen smith on How to Reset Edit Settings Back to Default in Adobe Camera Raw: “Hi Jay, Your instructions for returning a dng to its original settings were very clear. I…” Feb 11, 15:20
  • Jay Gaulard on How to Export Video From Adobe Photoshop: “Hi Mayur, I've actually had this happen. I just need to remember what was causing it. I'll reply…” Feb 5, 08:13

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