Technology Tales

Adventures & experiences in contemporary technology

Getting Adobe Lightroom Classic to remember the search filters that you have set

23rd April 2023

With Windows 10 support to end in October 2025 and VirtualBox now offering full support for Windows 11, I have moved onto Windows 11 for personal use while retaining Windows 10 for professional work, at least for now. Of course, a lot could happen before 2025 with rumours of a new Windows version, the moniker Windows 12 has been mooted, but all that is speculation for now.

As part of the changeover, I moved the Adobe apps that I have in an ongoing subscription, Lightroom Classic and Photoshop are the main ones for me, to the new virtual machine. That meant that some settings from the previous one were lost and needed reinstating.

One of those was the persistence of Library Filters, so I had to find out how to get that sorted. If my memory is not fooling me, this seemed to be a default action in the past and that meant that I was surprised by the change in behaviour.

Nevertheless, I had to go to the File menu, select Library Filters (it is near the bottom of the menu in the current version at the time of writing) and switch on Lock Filters by clicking on it to get a tick mark preceding the text. There is another setting called Remember Each Source’s Filters Separately in the same place that can be set in the same manner if so desired, and I am experimenting with that at the moment, even though I have not bothered with this in the past.

Rethinking photo editing

17th April 2018

Photo editing has been something that I have been doing since my first-ever photo scan in 1998 (I believe it was in June of that year but cannot be completely sure nearly twenty years later). Since then, I have been using a variety of tools for the job and wondered how other photos can look better than my own. What cannot be excluded is my preference for being active in the middle of the day when light is at its bluest as well as a penchant for using a higher ISO of 400. In other words, what I do when making photos affects how they look afterwards as much as the weather that I had encountered.

My reason for mentioning the above aspects of photographic craft is that they affect what you can do in photo editing afterwards, even with the benefits of technological advancement. My tastes have changed over time, so the appeal of re-editing old photos fades when you realise that you only are going around in circles and there always are new ones to share, so that may be a better way to improve.

When I started, I was a user of Paint Shop Pro but have gone over to Adobe since then. First, it was Photoshop Elements, but an offer in 2011 lured me into having Lightroom and the full version of Photoshop. Nowadays, I am a Creative Cloud photography plan subscriber so I get to see new developments much sooner than once was the case.

Even though I have had Lightroom for all that time, I never really made full use of it and preferred a Photoshop-based workflow. Lightroom was used to select photos for Photoshop editing, mainly using adjustments for such things as tones, exposure, levels, hue and saturation. Removal of dust spots, resizing and sharpening were other parts of a still minimalist approach.

What changed all this was a day spent pottering about the 2018 Photography Show at the Birmingham NEC during a cold snap in March. That was followed by my checking out the Adobe YouTube Channel afterwards where there were videos of the talks featured every day of the four-day event. Here are some shortcuts if you want to do some catching up yourself: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4. Be warned though that these videos are long in that they feature the whole day and there are enough gaps that you may wish to fast-forward through them. Even so, there is quite a bit of variety of things to see.

Of particular interest were the talks given by the landscape photographer David Noton who sensibly has a philosophy of doing as little to his images as possible. It helps that his starting points are so good that adjusting black and white points with a little tonal adjustment does most of what he needs. Vibrancy, clarity and sharpening adjustments are kept to a minimum while some work with graduated filters evens out exposure differences between skies and landscapes. It helps that all this can be done in Lightroom, so that set me thinking about trying it out for size and the trick of using the backslash (\) key to switch between raw and processed views is a bonus granted by non-destructive editing. Others may have demonstrated the creation of composite imagery, but simplicity is more like my way of working.

Confusingly, we now have the cloud-based Lightroom CC while the previous desktop counterpart is known as Lightroom Classic CC. Though the former may allow for easy dust spot removal among other things, it is the latter that I prefer because the idea of wholesale image library upload does not appeal to me for now and I already have other places for off-site image backup like Google Drive and Dropbox. The mobile app does look interesting since it allows capturing images on a such a device in Adobe’s raw image format DNG. Still, my workflow is set to be more Lightroom-based than it once was and I quite fancy what new technology offers, especially since Adobe is progressing its Sensai artificial intelligence engine. The fact that it has access to many images on its systems due to Lightroom CC and its own stock library (Adobe Stock, formerly Fotolia) must mean that it has plenty of data for training this AI engine.

Migrating to Windows 10

10th August 2015

While I have had preview builds of Windows 10 in various virtual machines for the most of twelve months, actually upgrading physical and virtual devices that you use for more critical work is a very different matter. Also, Windows 10 is set to be a rolling release with enhancements coming on an occasional basis so I would like to see what comes before it hits the actual machines that I need to use. That means that a VirtualBox instance of the preview build is being retained to see what happens to that over time.

Some might call it incautious but I have taken the plunge and completely moved from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10. The first machine that I upgraded was more expendable and success with that encouraged me to move onto others before even including a Windows 7 machine to see how that went. The 30-day restoration period allows an added degree of comfort when doing all this. The list of machines that I upgraded were a VMware VM with 32-bit Windows 8.1 Pro (itself part of a 32-bit upgrade cascade involving Windows 7 Home and Windows 8 Pro), a VirtualBox VM with 64-bit Windows 8.1, a physical PC that dual booted Linux Mint 17.2 and 64-bit Windows 8.1 and an HP Pavilion dm4 laptop (Intel Core i3 with 8 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSHD) with Windows 7.

The main issue that I uncovered with the virtual machines is that the Windows 10 update tool that is downloaded onto Windows 7 and 8.x does not accept the graphics capability on there. This is a bug because the functionality works fine on the Windows Insider builds. The solution was to download the appropriate Windows 10 ISO image for use in the ensuing upgrade. There are 32-bit and 64-bit disk images with Windows 10 and Windows 10 Pro installation files on each. My own actions used both disk images.

During the virtual machine upgrades, most of the applications that considered important were carried over from Windows 8.1 to Windows without a bother. Anyone would expect Microsoft’s own software like Word, Excel and others to make the transition, but others like Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom made it too, as did Mozilla’s Firefox, albeit requiring a trip to Settings to set it as the default option for opening web pages. Less well-known desktop applications like Zinio (digital magazines) or Mapyx Quo (maps for cycling, walking and the like) were the same. Classic Shell was an exception but the Windows 10 Start Menu suffices for now anyway. Also, there was a need to reinstate Bitdefender Antivirus Plus using its new Windows 10 compatible installation file. Still, the experience was a big change from the way things used to be in the days when you used to have to reinstall nearly all your software following a Windows upgrade.

The Windows 10 update tool worked well for the Windows 8.1 PC, so no installation disks were needed. Neither was the bootloader overwritten so the Windows option needed selecting from GRUB every time there was a system reboot as part of the installation process, a temporary nuisance that was tolerated since booting into Linux Mint was preserved. Again, no critical software was lost in the process apart from Kaspersky Internet Security, which needed the Windows 10 compatible version installed, much like Bitdefender, or Epson scanning software that I found was easy to reinstall anyway. Usefully, Anquet’s Outdoor Map Navigator (again used for working with walking and cycling maps) continued to function properly after the changeover.

For the Windows 7 laptop, it was much the same story, albeit with the upgrade being delivered using Windows Update. Then, the main Windows account could be connected to my Outlook account to get everything tied up with the other machines for the first time. Before the obligatory change of background picture, the browns in the one that I was using were causing interface items to appear in red, not exactly my favourite colour for application menus and the like. Now they are in blue and all the upheaval surrounding the operating system upgrade had no effect on the Dropbox or Kaspersky installations that I had in place before it all started. If there is any irritation, it is that unpinning of application tiles from the Start Menu or turning off of live tiles is not always as instantaneous as I would have liked and that is all done now anyway.

While writing the above, I could not help thinking that more observations on Windows 10 may follow, but these will do for now. Microsoft had to get this upgrade process right and it does appear that they have, so credit is due to them for that. So far, I have Windows 10 to be stable and will be seeing how things develop from here, especially when those new features arrive occasionally as is the promise that has been made to us users. Hopefully, that will be as painless as it needs to be to ensure trust is retained.

Why the manual step?

18th January 2010

One of the consequences of buying a new camera is that your current photo processing software may not be fully equipped for the job of handling the images that it creates. This is a particular issue with raw image files and Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 was unable to completely handle DNG files made with my Pentax K10D until I upgraded to version 7. Yes, I do realise that the upgrading camera should been in order but I only lost the white balance adjustments so I could with things as they until upgrading gained a more compelling case.

As things stood, Elements 7 was unable to import CR2 files from my Canon PowerShot G11 into the Organiser so it was off to the appropriate page on the Adobe website for a Camera Raw updater. I picked up the latest release of Camera Raw (5.6 at the time of writing) even though it was found in the Elements 8 category (don’t be put by this because release notes address the version compatibility question more extensively). Strangely, the updater doesn’t complete everything because you still need to copy Camera Raw.8bi from the zip archive and backup the original. Quite why this couldn’t have been more automated, even with user prompts for file names and locations, is beyond me but that is how it is. However, once all was in place, CR2 files were handled by Elements without missing a beat.

8?

12th October 2009

It now seems that we have a new version of Photoshop Elements from Adobe for every year unless you’re a Mac user. Version 7 convinced me to splash out and that gained me Camera Raw recognition of my Pentax K10D along with subtly enhanced image processing power that I have been putting to good use to get more pleasing results than I ever got before. What can be achieved by using levels, curves and the shadow/highlight adjustment tool for exposure correction has amazed me recently. Quick selection functionality has allowed me to treat skies differently from everything else in landscape photos, a flexible graduated filter if you like. It seems to work on Windows 7 along with Vista and XP so I plan to stick with it for a while yet. As you may have gathered from this, it would take some convincing to make me upgrade and, for me, version 8 doesn’t reach that mark. All in all, it seems that it is a way of giving Mac users a new release with added goodness after having to stay with 6 for so long; yes, there are new features like autotagging in the image organiser but they just don’t grab me. Given that they already have Aperture from Apple and Windows users seem to get more releases, it’s a wonder that any Mac user would toy with Elements anyway. Maybe, that’s Adobe’s suspicion too.

Alt-Click problems in Ubuntu-hosted VirtualBox Windows guests

24th October 2008

Ubuntu Window Preferences

The Alt-Click keyboard-mouse combination is a very common way of working with various flavours of Adobe Photoshop. So, it was with some frustration that I couldn’t use it while working in Photoshop Elements (still on version 5, by the way; the temptation of newer versions has not struck) on a Windows XP guest in VirtualBox on my main Ubuntu system. A quick google later and a proposed solution was for me a surprising one: going to System -> Preferences -> Windows on the host OS and changing the setting of the Movement Key from Alt to Super (Windows key on many keyboards). That was enough to set all in order. It seems that a setting on the host operating system was preventing a piece of software running on the guest from behaving as expected. That’s all in the past now that I have got my clone brush functionality back and can work as normal again.

An upgrade threadmill starts again…

25th September 2007

No sooner have we passed the CS3 circus than Adobe and Corel start bringing out new releases of their consumer digital imaging software. This autumn has brought us Paint Shop Pro X2 and Photoshop Elements 6. I’ll wait for the reviews but I can’t say that very much about the new Elements strikes me as making it a compelling upgrade and I definitely have left the PSP fold, even if the latest release seems to have some interesting features on offer. In any case, I am not sure who is going to upgrade their software on an annual basis. With so many other calls on my cash, I definitely am not of that ilk.

Adobe Digital Editions

3rd June 2007

Adobe Digital Editions

For now, I still have my eye on Photoshop CS3 and it was with interest that I noticed that Peachpit Press had published a book, entitled Adobe Photoshop CS3: Up to Speed, exploring the changes made from CS2. The plot thickened when I found that I could download as an e-book.

However, it was then that I discovered a major change made to Adobe Reader for its eighth version: it no longer reads what Adobe titles Digital Editions. For that, you need either the previous version or to download the beta version of Adobe Digital Editions (yes, it does rather appear that they couldn’t tie up the final release dates), which appears to be a Flash front end to Reader.

As it happens, I am not so convinced by this development: the thing is in essence coloured black and the mouse pointer disappears a lot of the time. Having menus and navigational screen furniture constantly disappearing and reappearing doesn’t do much to enhance the reputations of Adobe’s user interface designers. It wouldn’t be too bad if you could customise the colours but you can’t; a light grey has to be better than black. Its taking over the whole screen when maximised is another irritation, especially when it covers up your task bar and the Alt+Tab shortcut is needed to leave it without having to hit the minimise button.

Yes, it does do the job but I still find myself hankering after an Adobe Reader style interface and I have no idea why this has been foisted upon us when the previous approach was a perfectly good one. All in all, I have only to say it seems a premature roll-out of the approach. Now, where’s Reader 7 when I need it?

Return to Elements

4th April 2007

After a session with Photoshop CS2 and a preview of CS3’s capabilities, I went and got myself a permanent copy of Elements 5 after seeing the similarities between Scott Kelby’s books on Elements 5 and CS2. In any event, I fail to justify the cost of CS2 with CS3 being imminent and the attractions of Elements 5 were too much to ignore. I may yet go for CS3 but I’ll stick with Elements 5 for now.

The similarities between the different members of the PhotoShop family are eerie. Once I got used to finding some things in different places from where they are in CS2, I quickly found myself at home in Elements. The biggest miss that I found was the lack of an adjustment layer for the curves adjustment. Otherwise, everything else is as I would hope to find it and the sliders for curves adjustment in Elements make up for the absence of an associated adjustment layer. Bicubic resampling, an enhancement since Photoshop 7, is as per CS2 and my new workflow worked without too many changes. I took advantage of Kelby’s advice when using Camera Raw and used the Adjust Sharpness feature in place of the Unsharp Mask to get what I perceive to be good results. Everything seemed to work fine for the test digital photo that I was processing for my other blog. I am not totally abandoning my examinations of Elements’ big brother though; the smart layers feature looks interesting, especially for non-destructive sharpening.

Adobe CS3 Launch

28th March 2007

Last night, I sat through part of Adobe’s CS3 launch and must admit that I came away intrigued. Products from the Macromedia stable have been very much brought under the Adobe umbrella and progressed to boot. One of these that attracts my interest in Dreamweaver and Adobe is promoting its AJAX capabilities (using the Spry library), its browser compatibility checking facility and integration with Photoshop, among other things. Dreamweaver’s CSS support also gets taken forward. In addition, Dreamweaver can now integrate with Adobe Bridge and Adobe Device Central. The latter allows you to preview how your site might look on a plethora of WAP-enabled mobile phones while the latter, unless I have been missing something, seems to have become a media manager supporting all of CS3 and not just Photoshop.

Speaking of Photoshop, this now gets such new features as smart filters, I think of these as adjustment layers for things like sharpening, monochrome conversion and much more. Raw image processing now has a non-destructive element and Photoshop Lightroom is being touted as a companion for the main Photoshop. Speaking of new additions to the Photoshop family, there is a new Extended edition for those working with digital imaging with a 3D aspect and this is targeted at scientists, engineers, medical professionals and others. It seems that data analysis and interpretation is becoming part of the Photoshop remit now as well.

Dreamweaver and Photoshop are the components of the suite in which I have most interest but I also note that Contribute now has blogging capabilities; it would be interesting to see how these work, especially given Word 2007’s support for blogging tools like WordPress and Blogger. Another member of note is Version Cue, adding version control to the mix and making CS3 more like a group of platforms than collections of applications.

Unsurprisingly, the changes are rung out for the rest of the suite with integration being a major theme and this very much encompasses Flash too. The sight of an image selection being copied straight into Dreamweaver was wondrous in its own way and rendering of Photoshop files into 3D images was also something to behold. The latter was used to demonstrate the optimisations that have been added for the Mac platform, a major selling point apparently.

I suppose that the outstanding question is this: do I buy into all of this? It’s a good question because the computer enthusiast seems to be getting something of a sidelining lately. And that seems to the impression left by Windows Vista in its giving the appearance that Microsoft is trying to be system administrator to the world. There is no doubt but CS3 is very grown up now and centred around work flows and processes. These have always been professional tools and the present level of sophistication and pricing* very much reflects this. That said, enthusiasts like me have been known to use them too, at least for learning purposes. The latter point may yet cause me to get my hands on Photoshop CS3 with its powerful tools for digital imaging but Dreamweaver is another story. It doesn’t fit what how I work now so this is an upgrade that I may give a miss, as impressive as it looks. For a learning experience, I might download a demo but that would a separate matter from updating my web presence. This time next month may tell a tale…

*Pricing remains the bugbear for the U.K. market that it always has been. At the present exchange rates, we should be getting a much better deal on Adobe products that we do. For instance, Amazon.com has the Web Premium CS3 suite from Macromedia Studio 8 priced at $493.99 while it is £513.99 on Amazon.co.uk. Using the exchange rate current as I write this, £1 buying $1.96605, the U.K. price is a whopping $1010.53 in U.S. terms. To me, this looks like price gouging and Microsoft has been slated for this too. I wonder what will be said to Adobe on this one.

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