Keep in mind that while the Lightroom 2 beta is free to download and try out, it’s still in a very early stage and shouldn’t be considered as production software. This is strictly for testing and providing feedback to Adobe, and shouldn’t replace your current photo software at this point.

You can download the LR2 beta from here.

Some higher end SLRs (like the Nikon D300 or D2X) allow you to actually connect your GPS unit to the camera and automatically geotag your pictures with latitude and longtitude information.

However, this means having to attach the GPS to the camera, usually through the use of a specialized cable… and not every camera has this function. Though it’s handy (since the information is recorded “on the go”) there is another way which is a little more work, but a lot more flexible.

Geotagging can be done as long as you have the tracklog from your GPS and a program that will read it. In a Mac environment, GPSPhotoLinker lets you download your GPS track log, and then matches up your photos to the GPS data. It does that by comparing the timestamp in your photo’s Exif data to the timestamps in your GPS track log. Once done, it can create a GPX file. For a Windows machine, RoboGeo is your best bet, and it basically does the same thing as the GPSTrackLog application for the Mac, and also exports a GPX file.

The benefit of having the GPX file is that you can export these with many third party GPS applications. You can create Google Earth KML or KMZ files, or upload the pictures to Flickr where they will be automatically geotagged. Also, once you have a GPX file, you can then integrate that information into the metadata of the file as shown in Adobe Lightroom.

After you’ve run through and embedded that geocode information into the Exif, you want to Save Metadata to File in lightroom. This causes Lightroom to update the XMP file. You then select Read Metadata from File and Lightroom will pick up the updated Exif, which includes the Geotag information.

A good idea is to then add a keyword like “Geotag” or “Geocode” to those files that have the new updated GPS information embedded. That way you can easily see which ones have and have not been updated.

Something happened around the late 1990′s that saw a dramatic decrease in the number of black and white pictures being published. Though there were still a good number monochrome pictures being produced, it suddenly became more trendy for commercial photography and photojournalism to be shot in bright color.

I think with the loss of film, many of us started losing our taste for black and white images. Maybe that’s because it’s trickier to get a good looking black and white image now, as the one-stop “convert to black and white” button in cameras rarely do a stellar job.

Though black and white is still a very popular way of finishing a picture, within the realm of digital photography it’s more realistic to shoot in color and convert the picture in post-processing after the fact. This can be done differently in different software, but we’ll approach the Photoshop and the Lightroom method. Any application that gives you control over color channels and a conversion tool will allow you to get similar results, though.

Photoshop

The most common (and quickest) way of turning a color picture to a black and white is through the use of the Desaturation option under Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. This method gives you no control over how the colors are shifted to their monochrome level – so you end up with poor results. Despite this, it’s the most popular method of doing the conversion.

Instead of giving up all control to Photoshop, you can use the channel mixer to specifically alter each color channel seperately, thereby allowing you to increase or decrease the amount of control on tonally different locations within the image. In other words, you’ll end up with a stronger black and white shot.

In Photoshop you can go to Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer to open it up. Check the box called “Monochrome” to make the initial conversion. Now you can adjust the Red, Green, and Blue sliders independently. Try playing around with them a bit, but use the 100% Rule as a guide. All the channel percentages should add up to roughly 100% to keep the same level of brightness and contrast in the image.

Lightroom

Because Adobe Lightroom is designed with photographers in mind (as opposed to Photoshop which is first and foremost a graphic design application) it’s a little easier to make these sorts of adjustments in this application.

When you open a color photo under the Develop view, you’ll see an HSL / Color / Grayscale palette on the right. By clicking on Grayscale you’ll do your initial conversion. The same kind of controls you get in Photoshop with the Channel Mixer are right there as Grayscale Mix in that palette, allowing you to independently control the various color channels (broken down further than in Photoshop). By moving a color slide to the right, you increase the brightness of that channel, and decrease it if you slide left.

I like a little extra contrast in my pictures, so I’ll usually bump that up, as well as the blacks.

There are also several presets on the left side of the same view in Lightroom, allowing you to quickly convert to Antique Grayscale, typical Grayscale, Sepia, or others. Rolling over these presets will give you a preview of the effect in in the Navigator window. You can also save your own Grayscale Mix to the presets list by clicking the plus symbol next to the Presets header.

While nothing can match the real deal, you can do a good job of reproducing the LucisArt Whyeth look in Adobe Lightroom. Bring up a picture into the Develop view and perform the following steps on it.

Remember to trust yourself… this will look ugly before it looks good.

• Under Basic adjustments, slide Recovery to 100%
• Fill Light up to 100%
• Blacks to about 20-50, will adjust more later.
• Contrast to 100%
• Clarity to 100%
• Vibrance to 100%
• Now drop your Saturation to -20 and bump it down as needed to get rid of some of the gaudy color we’ve introduced.
• Go back and play with adding some Blacks and adjust Exposure as needed.
• If one particular color is overpowering, you can visit the HSL palette and adjust it’s saturation.

At this point, you can continue manipulating it by adding noise reduction or some lens correction to add a nice vignette. You can also adjust the Saturation and Vibrance sliders to get the right amount of color. Because this is an artistic look – there’s no right and wrong way to adjust the settings, but like with any effect, too much and you can overdo it. Use some restraint and find those pictures this looks best on.

While Photoshop may still be the “industry standard”, Adobe Lightroom is quickly making inroads and also has a few quick keys that may make working on photographs a little easier.

Photoshop

• Pressing Space Bar will get you the Hand Tool while you hold it down.
• Pressing Tab will make your tool palettes disappear/reappear.
• F will toggle between standard, maximized, and full screen mode.
• Holding down the Alt (or Apple) key will let you zoom with the scroll wheel.
• [ and ] let you increase or decrease brush size. Holding down shift while you use [ or ] let you do the same with softness.
• 1->0 will let you change opacity on a tool starting with 1 (10%) up to 0 (100%). Quickly following it with another number will let you fine tune the opacity change.

Lightroom

• 1-5 will let you set a rating for the photograph.
• P, U and X will let you set flags. P for Picked, U for Unassign Flag, and X for Reject. (see here)
• Tab will show or hide the display panels.
• L will toggle through Lights Out mode, first a dim background, next a totally blackened background.
• G will take you to Grid mode.
• E will take you to Loupe mode.
• ~ will toggle between Loupe or Grid mode.

Learn them and use them, they’ll save you a ton of time when working on images.

The effect adds an “edgy” and “surreal” quality to your images, and it’s really easy to do (especially with Lightroom’s presets). It’s definitely not an effect for everyone, and certainly not for every photo, but it might open up some new ideas and give you some new inspiration. (Thanks, Garrett)

This little trick works on both Windows XP systems and in OSX almost exactly the same way, you just need to make sure the shortcut (or alias) gets into the right location.

Follow the steps provided below and you’ll be uploading to your Flickr account in no time.

Windows XP

After installing the Flickr Uploadr, you need a copy of the shortcut to it. You can either create one by right clicking the Flickr Uploadr in the Program Files folder, or copy the shortcut if it made one on your desktop.

Place the shortcut in the following folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\[YOUR USERNAME]\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Export Actions

Now simply go into Lightroom and when you highlight an image (or multiple images) and click EXPORT, you will have a brand new option in the Post Processing portion of the Export dialog box.

You can select it and when you finalize the export, Flickr Uploadr will launch and automagically bring in that set of pictures for you – ready to be uploaded to your Flickr account.

Mac OSX

Find your installation of the Flickr Uploadr (should be in the Applications folder) and make an alias of it. Take this alias and move it to the following folder:

Users > [YOUR USERNAME] > Library > Application Support > Adobe > Lightroom > Export Action

Now, just like above, when you go to the EXPORT option in Adobe Lightroom, one of your post-processing options is “Flickr Uploadr”.

Many of the photographers I speak to utilize some sort of software to help them keep their photographs organized. One of the best software packages out there to help you do this is Adobe Lightroom. Still, even the best software needs guidance, and when you come back from a shoot with 100 or 1,000 images – you’re always faced with the inevitable task of sorting through your shots for the keepers.

A great system for helping you wade through this process is built right into Lightroom. It’s a system which they call PUX. The essence of PUX is to use flags to get the job done.

The ‘P’ key sets the flag to Pick. Those are keepers. The ‘X’ key set it to Rejected, and those ones are sequestered. Once all of your pictures are sorted through, you can then revisit your rejected (X’ed) pictures and use the ‘U’ key to remove the flag for re-assessment. This is nice because you don’t have to worry too much on your first run through… and you can leave the decision making to your initial gut reaction.

The PUX system makes it much quicker and user friendly when you’ve got a lot of pictures to catalog. It’s an intuitive way of thinking when deciding which ones stay… and which go. The process can be streamlined even further by filtering, and Pix Veritas goes into detail about how to do just that. [Link] (via Gene)