Lightroom Tips I Forgot

Here are some Lightroom tips I came across that are worthwhile using:
1. Use Caps Lock to advance images after Rating (1-5) 
1a. Rating is one way to quickly vet images for post-process
2. Use Lightroom Mobile and Collections to share photos
2a. Filter images in Film Strip > Create Collection > Move Images > Right Click > View on Web > Share > Comment (private)
3. Virtual Copy - edit photo twice and create a copy with same edits
4. Solo Mode - reduce all open windows
5. Target Adjustment Tool for color adjust (up/down icon) for HSL
6. Compare Tonality Adjustment (Lr versus You) by holding Shift and select Color
7. Brush with Grad Filter: Use brush and erase 'layer'
8. Color Profile Selection (FIRST!) - select grid profiles and choose your Camera Profile
9. Alt Preview: Alt + Sharpness or Exposure or ...
10. Match Total Exposures: Adjust best image > Sync (bottom right) > Settings and Match Total Exposure

Video: 10 Hidden Features in Lightroom

The Most Important Setting in Lightroom

Protect yourself from a corrupted Catalog by saving XMP file containing all your edits. Here's how:

You will find the setting in the Catalog Settings of Lightroom.

MAC > Lightroom > Catalog Settings > Metadata

PC > Edit > Catalog Settings > Metadata

Source: Fstoppers

Post-Process Mod ... a slight enhancement turn

Photography, and more specifically post-processing, is a continuous self-examination and learning endeavor. Using that and peer feedback (both positive and negative), I reviewed my editing style, along with tools available in Lightroom and Luminar to see how my photos have changed/improved. Here are several areas where more attention is being applied in post-processing:
  1. color saturation (mostly orange) is being reduced when I perform HDR merge using easyHDR
  2. subject placement in the cross-areas in Rule-of-Thirds is being emphasized
  3. vertical and horizontal lines orientation are being corrected using Transform in Lr
  4. distractions (visual objects) in the image are being removed (Lr and Luminar)
  5. ghosting is being checked and corrected (option: use single image from a 3-bracket merge)
  6. image brightness confirmed outside of editing software and readjusted 

Lesson Learned (LL): Photo Title/Captions

Last night, Ginger and I with friends went on a tour and photoshoot in Mt. Dora to capture their town lighting displays celebrating Christmas. The event named Light Up Mt. Dora was beautiful and I used that event name as my photo caption. Today, I shared a photo on Facebook and my good friend Jennifer provided a pointed and positive comment: "Wow that’s a lot of lights, great composition to show it". This was followed by "the lights in the foreground look like curtains drawn back to show the view below...that’s what I see." Hmmm, very appropriate for anyone posting photos. Lesson: if captioning a photo, be sure the photo absolutely supports the caption and the caption supports photo so the viewer does not have to pause and consider both.