Lots of newbie questions to ask about Lightroom 2.0

[Sgt_Strider]

What are the JPEG settings that you guys use? Do you guys think it's necessary to use a quality of "1''"? Also, I need to figure out how to properly resize my photo to put up on Flickr. The resolution of the picture is 3888x2592 (taken by my Canon XTI). If I want to maintain the correct aspect ratio, is a resolution of 1296x864 a "correct" resolution to use? If I want to use the resolution, what should I do about the resolution part where it list 24' pixels per inch as default? Should I also check "sharpen for screen" and use "standard" for "amount"?

Thanks!

 

[snowdust]

Hi Sgt,

I'm a newb to LR also, but I would say if you are planning on printing, then save at 1'' quality.

As far as flickr, you can upload any size file. If you are on the free account, then it will resize down to what you can see or retrieve. Paid accounts and you can view or download back the original.

Hope that helps

 

[Sgt_Strider]

Hi Sgt,

I'm a newb to LR also, but I would say if you are planning on printing, then save at 1'' quality.

As far as flickr, you can upload any size file. If you are on the free account, then it will resize down to what you can see or retrieve. Paid accounts and you can view or download back the original.

Hope that helps

I do have a paid account on Flickr, but that's not my point. I just want to know if the lower resolution that I specified is the appropriate resolution to use to maintain the correct aspect ratio as the original file? I don't want the JPEG file to look funny or distorted when compared to the original.

 

[Brad Snyder]

Sarge, select the 'longest edge' option for the pixel resolution, the other edge will be sized proportionally to the aspect ratio. (See screen capture attached)

I like sharpen/screen/standard for Flickr uploads.

 

[Sgt_Strider]

Sarge, select the 'longest edge' option for the pixel resolution, the other edge will be sized proportionally to the aspect ratio. (See screen capture attached)

I like sharpen/screen/standard for Flickr uploads.

Don't I want the lower resolution pic to conform to the original aspect ratio? From your picture, I can only see that I can choose one part of the resolution and I'm not even sure if that is vertical or horizontal. Do you usually use a JPEG quality of 76?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

You don't need to worry about the aspect ratio - Lightroom will automatically keep the same ratio, regardless of what you put in. It won't let you distort it, even accidentally.

You also don't need to worry about the resolution - web browsers don't know anything about the resolution, they just know the overall pixel dimensions. If you do a search on resolution, you'll find numerous articles.

With regard to quality - higher values will give a larger size. If they're going to be kept as full res 'master copies', you probably want maximum quality, or somewhere close. I wouldn't drop below about 8' (equivalent of PS quality 1') for 'finished' photos, whereas for the web you may want much smaller sizes, and no one will ever see the difference if you select a lower quality still.

 

[Sgt_Strider]

You don't need to worry about the aspect ratio - Lightroom will automatically keep the same ratio, regardless of what you put in. It won't let you distort it, even accidentally.

You also don't need to worry about the resolution - web browsers don't know anything about the resolution, they just know the overall pixel dimensions. If you do a search on resolution, you'll find numerous articles.

With regard to quality - higher values will give a larger size. If they're going to be kept as full res 'master copies', you probably want maximum quality, or somewhere close. I wouldn't drop below about 8' (equivalent of PS quality 1') for 'finished' photos, whereas for the web you may want much smaller sizes, and no one will ever see the difference if you select a lower quality still.

Hi Victoria,

I'm not sure if I understand you. Looking at that attached picture, I see a total of 1''' pixels. What does that mean in terms of resolution? I'm assuming that means there are a total of 1''' pixels in that image and it's up to the browser to display it properly depending on the resolution of the display?

This is all for uploading to Flickr and not for archival purposes. So is a quality of 8' as low as you go for web uploads?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

That's 1''' pixels along the longest edge, by however many are needed along the other edge to keep the right shape. The browser will sort it out from there.

For web, I'd quite comfortably drop to about 65 (about 8 in PS). Try one and see if you're happy with it.

 

[Sgt_Strider]

That's 1''' pixels along the longest edge, by however many are needed along the other edge to keep the right shape. The browser will sort it out from there.

For web, I'd quite comfortably drop to about 65 (about 8 in PS). Try one and see if you're happy with it.

I guess I'll try this out to see how it works. What do you and others usually use (settings wise) for your upload to Flickr, Smugmug, and etc.?

Btw, do you also "add a copyright watermark" and "minimize embedded metadata". I'm not sure what these features do.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Add copyright watermark adds any copyright info onto the exported photo itself - you enter the info you want for each photo in the Library module Metadata panel.

Minimize embedded metadata strips all of the other metadata about the photo - camera settings, keywords, all of that kind of thing.

 

[Sgt_Strider]

Just to be sure that I have all the "right" settings going for me. I'll just post it here.

File Settings:
- JPEG, sRGB, and a quality of 95

Image Sizing:
- resize to fit: long edge at 1''' pixels, untick the "don't enlarge" option, and use a resolution of 3'' pixels per inch

For Output Sharpening:
- check the "Sharpen for Screen Box" with a "standard" amount.

For the Metadata section:
- leave all boxes unchecked

Is there anything else that I need to consider? I also don't see a DPI option, but rather a PPI (Pixels Per Inch) box. From what I read, the PPI box is irrelevant if I have already set the resolution, but I want to change the DPI to 3''. Does anyone here know why the DPI option isn't present?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

PPI and DPI are basically the same - except they are pixels, not dots until you print, hence PPI rather than DPI. The wording's just technically correct. Whatever you set for PPI/DPI will have no effect on web use.

Settings sound fine. You could probably afford to drop the quality a fair bit if it's just web use.