Tag: Adobe Lightroom Classic

Classic K14 Adobe Lightroom Preset compared with Kodachrome II Film Simulation Recipe

The real Kodachrome film is dead but lives on as Fujifilm X camera film simulation recipes or as Adobe Lightroom Classic presets.

Ritchie Roesch has done a fine job of creating Film Simulation Recipes for Fujifilm cameras. Two of my favourites are his Kodachrome 64, Vintage Kodachrome, and Kodachrome II recipes for the Fujifilm X-Trans III or IV sensor cameras. These recipes create excellent straight-out-of-camera (SOOC) JPEG images, which I often use for social media. I recommend clicking the links to Ritchie's website and reviewing his recipes.

One of the downsides of SOOC JPEG images is that they are well, straight-out-of-camera. Sometimes I want to correct for perspective, vertical or horizontal alignment, a crop to remove distractions, etc. I can do this in Adobe Lightroom Classic, but of course, I lose the look from the film simulation recipe. I could edit the SOOC JPEGs, but I prefer to retain as much image quality as possible. With the Classic K14 Lightroom Presets, I get the best of both.

For most SOOC JPEGs, I have used Ritchie’s Kodachrome II film simulation recipe. I used these JPEGs when I am out in the field, and I want an image for direct upload to my blog or for use in social media and when I am sure the as-is image suits my purpose. More often, I prefer to post-process the Fujifilm RAW image files (RAF) in Adobe Lightroom Classic before uploading them to my website for a blog post. Sometimes I want to remove a distracting object from the frame, something that I could not remove by re-framing or change the shadow or highlights in a particular section of an image frame, etc. JEPGS are not the best option for doing that. Often, after making my edits, I will apply an Adobe Lightroom Classic preset before uploading. Several months ago, I purchased the Classic K14 Lightroom Presets package from The Classics Presets.

The Classic K14 Lightroom Presets are an easy way for me to create the fashionable Kodachrome film look in Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop Camera RAW. With this Adobe Lightroom Classic preset the camera profile is included to ensure the preset will perform uniquely for each camera model. The Classic K14 bundle includes additional tools to adjust the contrast, white balance, grain, and correct for orange skin. For images processed with the Classic K14 Lightroom Preset, I typically adjust only the exposure or white balance.

What do you think? Which image do you prefer?

I can apply this preset in Adobe Lightroom Classic during import or later using the develop module. Examples are given below for some of the images I took on my Nikon D5100, a rented Sony α7 and my Fujifilm X-T2.

I can also apply the Kodachrome II film simulation recipe to an un-edited RAF file using the Fujifilm X RAW Studio app. I applied the K14 Kodachrome inspired presets from The Classics Presets to the images below.

Jul 1, 2015 | Classic K14 | Sony α7M2 | Sony FE 24-70mm F4 ZA OSS
Aug 26, 2019 | Classic K14 | FujiFilm X-T2 | Asahi Optical Co. SMC Takumar 28mm f/3.5

For comparison, I have included an image shot on my Fujifilm with the SOOC JPEG using Ritchie’s Kodachrome II film simulation recipe, and the Classic K14 Lightroom Preset applied to the Fujifilm RAF.

Street, Building, Colonial, Brick
Aug 30, 2019 | Kodachrome II Film Simulation Recipe | FujiFilm X-T2 | Fujinon XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR
Street, Building, Colonial, Brick
Aug 30, 2019 | Classic K14 64 | FujiFilm X-T2 | Fujinon XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR

Export Web Optimized Images Directly from Adobe Lightroom to WordPress

I'm lazy. I try to automate routine, repetitive tasks. One task I performed repeatedly for photo blogging was exporting images to upload to WordPress. My workflow used to export sized images to disk, upload each image to WordPress, optimise the image with a WordPress plugin, and then edit the image caption for use later in a post. It was tedious.

I simplified my workflow a few years ago using Jeffrey Friedl's Metadata Wrangler Export Filter plug-in and Automattic's WordPress plug-in for Adobe Lightroom. This post is a combination of two posts, Export directly from Adobe Lightroom to WordPress and Set WordPress Image Caption with Jeffrey Friedl's Metadata Wrangler Export Filter with the addition of information about the use of JPEG mini Pro. You can also consider this an update of the Export directly from Adobe Lightroom to WordPress post that includes all the information from Set WordPress Image Caption with Jeffrey Friedl's Metadata Wrangler Export Filter that provides information about how I use JPEG mini Pro to optimise images.

Requirements

To make this work, you'll need Adobe Lightroom Classic CC, Automattic' WordPress plugin, Jeffrey Friedl's "Metadata Wrangler" Export Filter, and JPEGmini Pro Suite. The requirements assume you're running macOS Mojave. I don't use Windows. For me, Linux is a server OS. I also think all the required software is installed already, including Jeffrey Friedl's filters and presets, JPEGmini Pro Suite, and Adobe Lightroom. Jeffrey Friedl has excellent instructions on installing and using his "Metadata Wrangler" Export Filter on his website. You'll need WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress with Jetpack installed.

Configuration

The setup for the JPEGmini Pro plugin is complete once it's installed. There are no settings. Automattic's WordPress plugin configuration can be found in my earlier post. JetPack is a requirement for this to work. I don't think it's necessary to repeat all the steps here. Setup and configuration for the "Metadata Wrangler" Export Filter are the same as in my earlier post on the topic.

Screenshot of Adobe Lightroom CC export with Metadata Wrangler
Screenshot of Adobe Lightroom CC export with Metadata Wrangler

From the "export preset" window, add the JPEGmini and Meta Wrangler post-process actions to the export preset.

The export template that I am currently using is as follows:

{Title?{Title} —} {CameraName?{CameraName }} {CameraMake?+ {CameraMake}} {Lens?{Lens}}  — ({FocalLengthMM? {FocalLengthMM}}, {Aperture?{Aperture}}, {ISO?ISO{ISO}})

I set the image's title in Adobe Lightroom before I exported the image. The template sets the image caption upon export by appending the title and image-specific information.

Example.

Upper Buttermilk Falls along the Gorge Trail, Ithaca, New York — FujiFilm X-T2 + Fujifilm XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR — (16 mm, f/16, ISO200)

Other notes

Screenshot of Adobe Lightroom CC export with JPEGmini Pro

While I use the specific setup for WordPress, if I used Jekyll or Hugo or some other static site generator, my image file export to disk workflow could work for that purpose. It's similar to the preset mentioned above, except the images are exported to the disk where Jekyll resides. I would still need to edit the content file and insert links to the pictures manually. Exporting images from my Adobe Lightroom catalogue to disk, WordPress, Instagram, email, etc., is done with variations of this export preset. The only thing that changes is the export destination.

Summary

Using this Lightroom export preset, I name, size, caption, optimise, and export my image files directly to WordPress. It's one step - right-click, then select the export preset.

As of the beginning of 2020, LR/Instagram is no longer a viable way to post directly to Instagram. The developer's note on their website says, "Service Note: Instagram has updated their protocol, and currently plugin does not work. We are investigating the issue, and the plugin will be updated when a fix is available."

Set WordPress Image Caption with Jeffrey Friedl's Metadata Wrangler Export Filter

As of the beginning of 2020, LR/Instagram is no longer a viable way to post directly to Instagram. The developer’s note on their website says: “Service Note: Instagram has updated their protocol and currently plugin does not work. We are investigating the issue and the plugin will be updated when a fix is available.”

Jeffrey Friedl is a software developer and photographer based in Japan. For years he has been scratching his own itch and creating plugins for Adobe Lightroom that make using and exporting images from Lightroom easier. He makes these plugins available for a nominal fee -- whatever you want to pay. I've used many of his plugins for years.

Need to export images to Tumblr or Twitter or Facebook? Need to control what metadata is/isn't included during any export? Need to inject Creative-Commons license data into exported images? Jeffrey has written plugins to do each of those things. And some of the export plugins can be combined with other export plug-ins. Which is what prompted this blog post.

Some time ago I [started using the Automattic’s WordPress.com export plugin to export directly from Adobe Lightroom to my Jetpack-powered WordPress.org website. This plugin-in saves me time.

One of Jeffrey’s plugins is the Metadata Wrangler Export Plugin. This “export filter” plugin for Lightroom allows me to strip or modify selected metadata components from images as they are exported.

I just learnt a trick for adding EXIF data to the caption of the images I post to this website and also to Instagram by combining the two plugins.

I use the Metadata Wrangler Export Plugin as a post-process action to overwrite the caption metadata field with image data from my Lightroom catalogue before it is exported to WordPress.

Here’s the information inserted into the caption.

{Title?<p>{Title}</p>—}{Caption?<p>{Caption}</p>—}

<p>{CameraName?{CameraName}} {Lens?+ {Lens}} {FocalLengthMM?@ {FocalLengthMM}}, {Aperture?{Aperture}} {ShutterSpeed? at {ShutterSpeed}}, {ISO? ISO {ISO}}</p>

{RightsUsageTerms?<p>{RightsUsageTerms}</p>}

These preset template tokens inserts the image capture information such as camera make and model, and image EXIF data.

On my WordPress website, images with a caption display will display capture information.