I’ve been refining a new effect for a gentle warm sunset feel. This result is something that may well find it’s way into my Color Fantasies and Lightflow collections in the future, but I thought it would make a great freebie for you readers today.
It was interesting making the same effect side by side in both LR and Aperture.I don’t plan to do that with everything, as both my Lightroom and Aperture preset collection have their own effects that suit the tools available in each. But it was a good challenge to use the varying tools of both applications for the same effect. While their not identical, the preset should run very close on a RAW file in Lightroom or in Aperture. Cross platform. Oh yea.
This effect is gentle. Well suited for pictorial or portrait work, where a warm gentle process is needed. It’s meant to be used like a summer breeze. Not sharp, but not dull. Not too hot, but enough to make you smile. I really like it and I hope you will too. Below is a quick example of what the preset does. You can download it via the link. Enjoy… Gavin Seim
Wow another year has gone by. Crazy stuff. It’s been a busy year here and I’m thankful. Seim Effects keeps growing by leaps and the new products have done great thanks to all of you. There’s more good stuff in the works. In the growth of Seim Effects I hope that the focus of what I do here has stayed strong. Good products and the great service to along with them.
Anyways on to the goodies. Merry Christmas to all of you. This years freebie pack has something for just about everyone and I hope you’ll enjoy it. Lets take a peek.
Lightroom Presets:
Color Years: I made this to look back on the refinements and experiments I did with color this year. It’s a subtle but delicious color twist that will work on a variety of images.
Silver Grains: 2010 Was a big year for editing. LR3 and Aperture, CS5, better RAW processing. For me a growing passion for black and white. I have lots of new Silver tones in the pipes, but here’s a rich silver effect with smooth blacks and bold tones.
Aperture Presets:
Color Years: 2010 was the year presets finally came to aperture. I’m working with it and have a full collection in the works, but I made the Color Years effect for you today. It works very similar to the LR version.
Silver Grains: I decided to keep it simple, so this is also similar to the LR version. Of course the programs process a little different, but the concept was the same.
Adobe In Design Album Template: You’ll need Adobe InDesign for this. But it’s a big one, so even if you have to download a demo from Adobe, give it a shot. InDesign is how I make albums and it’s blazing fast. Makes Photoshop for album design look like a slug on the Interstate. UPDATE: The main album file is CS5 only. I updated the download to 1.1 and included a .idml file for CS4 users. More info in the download.
More details on all this stuff in the What’s Inside” document included in the download, which I’ll give you right now. Enjoy… Gav
By Gavin Seim: Last year I posted a collection of LR2 print layouts for making page designs in Lightroom. With LR3, things have changed a bit and we now use the Custom Package option to make layouts. It’s more powerful and has more features. For that reason however the old layouts no longer work correctly. If your using an older LR, you’ll want the old layouts. If you have LR3 download these new ones for more variety and cool new stuff like controlling background color and drag and drop simplicity.
While there’s some album design style features I would like to see added, LR3 is defiantly coming along in allowing you to make layouts. Once you have these installed (see here for LR preset install video) you select the layout you want in the print module. Then simply drag and drop images from the filmstrip into the cells. When you done you can print or print to file to save as a JPEG.
Now in my opinion these do not replace a tool like In Design for doing full on album design (weddings for example). It has far less features and there’s really no ability to save a project with its layouts. That said, these can be great for quick layouts, folios or album pages. This download has 9 different 10×10 layouts, with both black and white background. If you like them and want more I may consider a complete set in the future. Enjoy… Gav
Once installed (see link above), go to the print module and select the layout you want. You can mouse over presets to get a layout preview (top left). Once you have the desired layout, simply Drag in images from the filmstrip into the open spaces.
Images will fill the cell irrelevant of aspect ratio. If the cell crop of the image is not the way you want, hold the CMD key (CNTRL on PC) and drag the image inside the cell to the crop that works. Also don’t hesitate to play with the settings and make your own layouts (changing border styles etc).
Exporting & Printing:
Once you have the desired look you can print it out directly. More often however you’ll probably want to export them to send to a lab or make a book. While export does not actually work from the print module, you can quickly achieve the same result by printing to JPEG.
To export the layout just use “Print To JPEG” from the “Print Job” menu in the right side (see image below). Click the “Print To File” button and the file will save out as high res JPEG file ready to be used. Repeat for each layout and Presto you have your ready to upload or save for later.
Power Worklfow v3 has finally arrived, representing three total years of LR study and experimentation since this all started. I’m really excited. I feel they set a standard for workflow presets that fit just about any situation you could possibly need. You can see the details, video, samples etc, on the PW3 info page.
As always, I wanted to post up a freebie sample pack so readers can get some goodies and a small taste of what in store inside my latest collection. Below you’ll find a download with 8 presets from Power Worklfow3, including Super Hero2 and my new LOTR effect. The full collection has more than 75 presets, so if like them there’s lots more where these came from. Download and enjoy… Gav
I frequently crawl under the hood in Lightroom. Today I’m working some projects in LR3 and experimenting with the latest features and tools. Something I’ve started doing to make certain effects more adaptable, is what I’m calling Tone Independent Presets. They add an effects without using any of the primary tone settings like exposure, brightness, contrast, white balance etc. The result is an effect that can easily be applied to a plain image, or after general and batch corrections without effecting previous tone settings. This preset is an example of that.
I’ve spent quite some time today (probably too much) looking at the tones and feel of classic Polaroids and doing lots of tweaks in LR to get the look I wanted. The result is this effect I’m calling Gavin’s Old Polaroid. It’s a classic Polaroid themed tone that I think you’ll find appealing. This is a test of effects that will probably show up soon in an update to Color Fantasies presets collection. You get it today however and it’s free to boot. You can download the ZIP below. While it uses some LR3 features, This, like all my other presets will still work on older versions of LR. Enjoy… Gav
