You have pulled together your photos and designed the slideshow using the Slideshow module, and it looks fabulous!  Short of exporting it to a PDF or MP4 movie, how do you save it so you can be sure it will be there any time you visit the Slideshow module, and so you can continue to revise it? Saving a template will save your design or layout, but it does not store the photos with it.  Creating a collection in the Library module stores a group of photos, but not the slideshow design.  The solution to storing the design with the photos is to create a special kind of collection, only available to you in the Slideshow module.

In previous posts this past week I have explained how to add beginning and ending title slides to your Lightroom slide show, and how to add section title slides.  In this post I will explain how to add photo-specific titles and other information to your photo slides. To add titles (or captions), you first have to type them into your photo’s metadata.  In the Library module, select your photo, then on the right side, scroll down to the Metadata panel and type in a Title, and hit Enter/Return.  Do this for each of the photos you plan to use in your slideshow. In the Slideshow module, in the toolbar below the slide, click on the ABC button, and then change [...more]

As I wrote in my last post, you can add beginning and ending title slides to your Lightroom slideshows by using the Intro Screen and Ending Screens in the Titles panel.    But what if your slideshow has different sections, and you want a title slide introducing each section? It’s not as straightforward as perhaps it could be, but  as long as you are o.k. with a white or black background for these slides, it can all be done in Lightroom. Here’s how: 1.  Create a virtual copy of any photo in the folder or collection you are going to use for the slideshow. Right-click on the photo, and choose Create Virtual Copy. 2. Turn the virtual copy white or [...more]

By default your Lightroom slideshow doesn’t have title slides — it starts with your first picture and ends with your last.  However, you can use the Titles Panel on the right side of the Slide Show module to add beginning and ending text slides. Here are examples of beginning and ending slides (black borders not included):         Here’s how to make your own:

Anywhere you see a color selection square in Lightroom, such as for page background color in the Print module, you can choose a color not only from the color picker that comes up when you click on it, but also a color from one of your photos. How?  Simply click in the main color selection area (shown above where the eyedropper is), hold the mouse button down, and drag out to your photo, either in the main window or down in the filmstrip. You can actually select a color from anywhere on your monitor, so if you want a color that is on a web page, for example, position it next to Lightroom, then just click, hold and drag out [...more]

While I know a fair amount about Lightroom, I am always picking up more from my fellow bloggers.  Here’s a quick but useful shortcut  from Sean McCormack over at Lightroom-Blog.com:  To see your image and nothing but your image, type Shift-Ctl-F on the PC, or Shift-Cmd-F on the Mac.  This will hide the surrounding panels, menu bars, tool bars and system task bars, and your image will be displayed as close to full-screen-size as possible .  While in this view, you can use your left and right arrow keys to scroll to other images.  This shortcut works in all modules, and your other module shortcut keys will continue to work, such as 0-5 for stars and P for Pick/X for [...more]

You are designing a slideshow, and you want the background color to be a particular color from one of your images.  Or, you are designing a web gallery, and you want the background color to be the color on your website, or some other cool color you have found.  The question is, how do you find out what that color is, and tell Lightroom to use it?   A while back I wrote a post on using Photoshop to identify the color, and then specifying this color in Lightroom.   It turns out though, that there is an easier way — you can do it all within Lightroom.  This is why I love Lightroom more every day — it just continues to [...more]