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Useful Lightroom Plug-ins

30 Mar

Lightroom Export to PicasaWeb plug-in

In previous articles you learned: how to create a photo website using the Koken plug-in for Lightroom, how to use The Fader plug-in to add an opacity slider to Develop Presets, and how to upload photos to 500px using their own plug-in (scroll down to read that section).

Today I’d like to look at some other Lightroom plug-ins you may find useful. To clarify, I’m referring to plug-ins that add extra functionality to Lightroom by enabling you to do things with finished photos. Not programs such as those made by Nik or OnOne Software that are also plug-ins, but are used for editing photos.

Jeffrey Friedl plug-ins

Jeffrey Friedl has written lots of plug-ins for Lightroom (there’s a full list here). I’m going to highlight a few interesting ones here, but feel free to go and check the full list at the link above because there’s a lot of useful stuff there.

Jeffrey’s plug-ins work on a donation-ware basis. They are free to download and install, but will stop working properly after six weeks unless you register the plug-in. To register, you need to make a payment using Paypal. The amount you pay is up to you, the minimum is just one cent, making the plug-ins virtually free. You can pay more if you’d like to make a donation to support Jeffrey’s work.

Lightroom Publish Service

Export to Facebook

Lightroom’s Publish Services has built-in support for exporting images to Facebook. However, the photos are published to your personal Facebook page, not a business page. Jeffrey’s Export to Facebook plug-in lets you publish to Facebook pages as well.

For those of you unfamiliar with Lightroom’s Publish Services, these are found in the Library module and let you export photos directly to a location on your hard drive or a photo sharing website such as Flickr without leaving Lightroom. You get from this (photo right) > to this (below), with just the click of a mouse button.

Portrait published on Facebook page

Export to PicasaWeb

Lightroom’s Publish Services don’t support Google+, but you can get around that using the Export to PicasaWeb plug-in. PicasaWeb albums are used by Google+ to store your photos. Once your photo is uploaded to a PicasaWeb album, go to the photo albums in your Google+ account, select the photo and click Share to share it with your circles:

Lightroom Export to PicasaWeb plug-in

Export to Tumblr

The Export to Tumblr plug-in allows you to export images to a Tumblr account. It works a little differently from the previous two in that in doesn’t set up a Publish Service. Instead, go to File > Export and select jf Tumblr from the Export To menu at the top. You will need to authenticate your Tumblr account to get started:

Export to Tumblr plug-in

Adobe Plug-in Exchange

Plug-in exchange

If you click the Plug-in Exchange button in the Lightroom Plug-in Manager the Lightroom Exchange Classic website opens in your browser. This is the official Adobe marketplace for Lightroom Plug-ins and Develop presets. You’ll find a wide range of both, and plug-ins to do all sorts of things including exporting photos to SmugMug, Zenfolio and Dropbox.

Photographer’s Toolbox

The Photographer’s Toolbox website sells plug-ins written by Timothy Arnes, John Beardsworth and Matt Dawson. They are not free, but you can test them out by downloading them and using them (within the trial limitations). Some of them, such as LR/Mogrify 2, a plug-in that exports your images with borders, watermarks or text annotations, are donation-ware, letting you decide how much you would like to pay for the plug-in.

LR/Blog is another useful plug-in that lets you export photos directly to a WordPress, Blogger or TypePad blog, or a NextGEN gallery for WordPress.

Website Creation

I’ve already mentioned Koken, a free CMS (content management system) that lets you build a photo website, but there are a couple more websites that sell more sophisticated plug-ins for creating photo websites. One of those is The Turning Gate, and another is Sean McCormack’s Lightroom-Blog. Take a look at both of these if you want to create your own website from within Lightroom.

Installing Lightroom Plug-ins

The easiest way to install a Lightroom Plug-In is to start by saving the uncompressed file in a folder on your computer’s hard drive. If you use the same folder for all your plug-ins, you will know exactly where to go each time.

In Lightroom, open the Plug-in Manager (File > Plug-in Manager) and click the Add button in the bottom left-hand corner. Go to the folder where the plug-in is saved, select it and click the Add Plug-in button. If you get a message asking you to update your Catalog, then click the Update button. From this point on the process may vary, so check the installation instructions that come with the plug-in you have added to finish the installation and set-up.

Lightroom plug-in manager

More plug-ins

Here are links to the Lightroom plug-ins covered in earlier articles:

Koken Lightroom plug-in
500px Lightroom plug-in
The Fader Lightroom plug-in

Over to you

I’ve touched on a few of the more popular or useful Lightroom plug-ins in this article, but I can’t possibly cover them all. So now it’s your turn. What Lightroom plug-ins have you used? What do you recommend for other readers? Let us know in the comments.

mastering-lightroom-bundle-1

Mastering Lightroom: Book One and Two

My Mastering Lightroom ebooks are a complete guide to using Lightroom’s Library and Develop modules. Written for Lightroom 4 & 5 they take you through every panel in both modules and show you how to import and organise your images, use Collections and creatively edit your photos.

The post Useful Lightroom Plug-ins by Andrew S. Gibson appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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10 Highly Useful Photography Lessons You Can Learn Today From YouTube

14 Feb

It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or a professional photographer: Learning and perfecting your technique will help you be a better one! Being a photographer is more than shooting and uploading pictures. As in almost any other profession, any good photographer should stay up-to-date with the market and master his skills. By searching for tutorials, you will get Continue Reading

The post 10 Highly Useful Photography Lessons You Can Learn Today From YouTube appeared first on Photodoto.

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Photoshop Elements 12 adds useful editing tools, without the subscription

25 Sep

Adobe has released version 12 of its Photoshop Elements software for Mac and Windows. One of the highlights of the latest version of this consumer-friendly photo editor is ‘Mobile Access’, which uses Adobe’s Revel cloud service to let users view and retouch photos on their mobile devices, keeping everything in sync. Other new features include ‘Content-Aware Move’, guided editors, and 64-bit support for Macs. Best of all, there’s no monthly subscription fee. Read on to learn more about Elements 12, and if it may be a good substitute for its big brother.

News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Three Useful Tips On How To Make Your Photography Backdrops Fun

31 Jul

The popular image of a professional photographer is of somebody who takes portrait pictures against a purely white background. To the very top with their profession, this really is all they desire, but it is more common in a photography business to find customers who want dynamic backgrounds. These could be of the nation’s flag, or simply of different colors, however the professional photographer will also be able to provide additional options. Amateur photographers and people studying the subject at school, will also want to use more than just an ordinary white background. Rather than going for traditional colors or images like flags, it’s a good idea to shake some misconception a little by utilizing fun and dynamic photography backdrop sets to present your subjects a much more interesting picture. There are lots of ways in which you are able to improve the appearance of your respective backgrounds.

1) Get Relevant
Use striking images that is popular with customers. There will always be themes which people find interesting, like fairy-castle, racing cars, and holiday themes. It is easy to purchase posters and also other accessories that can fit into the theme, and printed backgrounds can be acquired which will satisfy your clients. By way of example, as the Twilight series is as popular as ever, a spooky theme, with large full moons, and mists, will surprise clients who want to theme their picture around the popular book and film series. Needless to say, this type of background also doubles as a ‘rock and roll’ theme, therefore it is a good purchase for those on a low cost. Bricks or walls as backgrounds will also be very popular, although sometimes your subjects will have their own ideas in what they want. Some clients have even joined together with the fun and dressed up as a comedy villain and heroine, together a backdrop of a train appearing about to run them down. These types of backdrops may bring out the fun side of clients, and also help you to capture a good portrait ones.

2) Go Wild
One other popular theme with people and one which may be turned into a fantastic and fun picture is nature image. The seaside is particularly popular, and also the photographer can enhance the image with the addition of buckets and spades. This backdrop is perfect for children, but young partners might prefer a more ‘windswept’ theme. Nature can even be charming, so performing a portrait picture of a family with their pets could be enhanced by using a ‘nature’ picture to their rear, full of animals. For anyone with an eye for the budget, self-printed images of animal prints can be quite a good alternative, or even a large print tablecloth with animal images on can be a cheaper replacement for buying printed backdrops.

3) Try it for yourself
Of course, don’t assume all professional photographers contain the budget to splash on a variety of different backdrops, which is where the principle of DIY could be a good way to come up with a fun background without splashing the cash. The best form of DIY photography backdrop is one made from torn sheets of colored paper, or ribbons, strung in the studio utilizing an old curtain rail. These could look particularly effective if you adopt a colour scheme, such as green or blue strips. Ribbons help give a classier look to the images, because they have neat edges, and appear smooth and professional. An alternative for these backdrops is by using wallpaper or print stamps to make fun and original backgrounds. See TheLAShop for excellent photography ideas.

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Posted in Equipment

Useful Billboards? Advertisements Extend Into Urban Space

08 Jun

[ By Delana in Design & Guerilla Ads & Marketing. ]

smart ideas for smarter cities awning billboard

At its best, advertising is entertaining, even useful. At its worst, it is invasive, abrasive, and perhaps even offensive. IBM’s new campaign from Ogilvy France skirts the line, featuring public objects that are useful but which somewhat invade the urban space.

ogilvy france bench billboard

The Smart Ideas for Smarter Cities campaign includes three billboards that extend out from city walls and into the urban environment. One is an awning of sorts, providing a dry space for residents to get out of the rain or a bit of shade to get out of the sun.

ibm ramp billboard

Another is a small bench which gives weary pedestrians the chance to sit down for a moment. The last is a ramp that covers a portion of a small staircase, letting cyclists or luggage-wheeling residents take an easier route.

The campaign is meant to inspire viewers to think differently about their cities and how some elements could be tweaked to be more useful for residents. It’s something of a risk, however, since this invasion of the urban environment may not be welcomed by residents who think that advertising is already too ubiquitous on city streets.