Tip: Use the Magical ‘Match Total Exposures’ Feature in Lightroom for a Quick Fix

by Michael Zhang             

If you’re just starting out in Lightroom (or haven’t explored its features much), perhaps you haven’t heard of the powerful “Match Total Exposures” feature. This is a feature that lets you quickly adjust the exposure of multiple photos to match a target photo of your choice.

In the short 5-minute tutorial video below, photographer Matt Kloskowski shows how the feature can be used for quick and easy exposure corrections.

“Match Total Exposures” is particularly useful if you use the exposure bracketing feature on your camera (i.e. the camera captures each scene multiple times at different exposures), as it allows you to match all the photos’ exposures with a few clicks rather than having to adjust each one by itself.
Here’s the low down: After selecting and adjusting the exposure of your base photo, use the Command or Ctrl key (depending on your OS) to select the other photos you’d like to match the exposure for. Then select Settings and Match Total Exposures to have Lightroom match the other exposures as best it can. Voila!

This is an example for when shooting RAW comes in handy, since it can allow for pretty large swings in exposure without ruining your shots.
(via onOne via Reddit)

Scrapbooking / Cards

Brandy Scrapbook

The great thing about manipulating photos is getting a personal touch with your photos and you can create cards to posters you are only limited by the size of the printer and your imagination.   

Some things mentioned in this post may not be on your photoshop mainly the 3D effects, the cookie cutter, and some of the brushes used to create the patterns.  

Video for In class photoshop

Elements Scrapbook

Elements Cookie Cutter 

Type Mask/create new brush

Free scrapbook items 

Layer styles / 3D effects 

see exercise below

Panoramas

The Digital Puzzle

Fitting the pieces together 

There are programs out there that do automatically build panoramas for you but these methods are refining your skills that you already learned and finding your own way of manipulating photos. The tools used are essentially the same as our first exercises STICKMAN we are just lining up pictures instead of overlapping them. 

I have also found a helpful link if you want to print a frame a large masterpiece 

How to Take, Print and Frame Your Own Gigantic Panoramic Photo for Just $150

Repair damaged photos

This week there is no real class because of the Monday holiday but I will expand on using the cloning tool and its other uses.

The exercise or challenge is to repair this or any of your own damaged photos. The primary tool you will be using is the clone tool. You might also use color correction, Transform, and even the crop tool. It is up to you. Have fun with it and don't worry if you make mistakes. 

Helpful tips 

1. NEVER SAVE OVER THE ORIGINAL make a save as or copy
2. When using the clone tool be aware of where you are cloning from look for the +
3. For small areas it is fine to re-sample (alt+click) areas to get the right colors 
4. CTRL+ALT+Z is your friend use all three buttons at the same time to fix any new mistakes. 

Selecting Exercise

Hi All,
I am posting the first exercise for this class. I also have more videos/readings on selecting and specific tools by clicking here.
If there are any questions you can always contact me by email or in the comments box below.   If you run into any trouble click here for some selecting tool overview and tips.

Selecting Tools Reading

I hope everyone had a great time and are inspired to do some practicing. 

*note this is a extra information section if you are having ay trouble with the exercises try these techniques, or if you are a reader and like to know the ins and outs of everything. 

Family Album

The applications for the Stickman selection exercise are firstly to get you used to making complex selections and can be used to add missing family members and objects to photos. 
The best types of photos for this is one with a solid background think of a green screen as a example it makes it easier to get a accurate and quick selection.


But that doesn't always happen
different selection tools are ideal for different things 

• Marque and Oval ----- These are best for basic shapes and creating effects examples are cropping and vignettes. Holding shift gives you perfect squares and circles.

• Lasso  
• The free hand tool allows for more odd shaped selections.
• The polygonal is great for selecting presents buildings and any straight edged object.
•  The magnetic lasso tool is great but not in all programs it works best with the green screen photos and will automatically attach to the color. Good for green screen photos.
For this tool you need to create a full loop if you cant find the end double click to complete the loop 

• Wands
• The magic wand selects blocks of color. Good for green screen or selecting a solid color clothing or object. 

The next tricks can be applied to all selection tools

• Multiple selections --- Holding SHIFT while selecting multiple times will keep adding selection ants where you highlight and you can switch tools as well.
• De-selecting---- If you want to de-select everything hit Ctrl+D. If you just want to make a tighter selection or fix a selection holding ALT will de-select just the sections you highlight. 

•  Selecting the opposite -----using the green screen method mentioned in the stickman exercise going to SELECT > INVERSE will do that.

• Reselecting---- If you get the perfect selection and you loose it by accident you can go to SELECT>RESELECT

Getting started

Welcome to the first class you may feel overwhelmed but we will take it slow and may not get to everything but as long as you have fun and accomplish your own goals you are doing fine.

 In the first class we are getting to know the program and tools. You can use a photos from your own collection or those provided with the lessons to practice on. A photo of a object with a solid color background is best for this lesson. This is a week I just want everyone to be comfortable with their program and just start playing around. If you are unsure what programs or versions you have or have any computer setup questions now is the time to ask. I will try my best to help get everyone up and running.      

Here are a few links for review of the tools we covered this week. We will focus on the selection tools because they are the most commonly used tools but, you can try using other tools to get an idea what they do. 

Try selecting just the blue or peach background, the objects or just parts. Have fun


For the readers

**** When playing with tools remember DO NOT SAVE you could ruin a treasured photo ***

For those looking for advice on how to organize their digital photo collection to make photos easier to find Here is a great article.

  I also have continued on this post the photos we used during the class. Practice makes perfect and have fun. 

To get this image for your program simply RIGHT CLICK and SAVE IMAGE AS and put it in a file where you can find it I usually SAVE TO DESKTOP

Black and White

Black and White Handstand

Black and white Photography is a reviving art with companies offering your black and white photos originally shot in color and vice-versa.  The exercises under more are for creating a black and white image and the second is for coloring black and whites. For those more comfortable with dark room techniques there are   Burn and Dodge tools for you to play with. There are also many programs online like POLADROID for example that create that old photo style look. 

Exercise 4 / Clone and Picture fixing

When you have missing parts of a picture or just have a imperfection there are many tools to fix a photo. The Clone tool is your best friend. It copies ans pastes parts of pictures all in one click, another magic brush. Others are more self explanatory like the red eye tool.

The red eye tool is a single click with the tool and it auto corrects the eye and it even works on blue eyes, Animals are a tad harder because they don't get red eye they get yellow or green eye, and it reflects. For animals you usually need to copy and paste an eye or draw one in. Red eye tool     red eye without tool     Dog eyes  
        
                               
Clone tool As mentioned before the clone tool is very useful for scratches and missing pieces as long as you have something to replace that part with. Missing arms you can copy from the other arm or a different picture. Other missing parts that you don't have a reference you may have to draw in or fill with a shadow.  Video  Reading   Below is the exercise.

Since we are talking about taking things away we can also add items as well. Using the same technique as the dog eye you can paint items in or using clone or copy and paste, you can also ad type to add some fun to the image as well. Remember always have a extra copy in case you need a picture without words you never know when you just want the origional. Video    Reading

Photoshop Tools

In the first two class we will be covering the tools available.

 Photoshop comes with many tools and they increase with each newer version. It depends on what version you have available but the most common tools such as the eraser will always be available. This includes non Photoshop programs like GIMP Some names and possibly some pictures may be different but they all do the same things. 

The neat thing about Photoshop is that some of the tools are hidden behind other tools to give you more space to work. Below is the picture of a toolbar where all your tools are stored. Each box is just like a drawer. If a tool has a BLACK ARROW in the bottom right corner you can "open it". I like to think of the arrow as a drawer handle, by CLICKING AND HOLDING (or RIGHT CLICKING) your mouse on the tool the drawer will open and you can see all the tools inside that are similar. 

The drawers in this picture are all open so you can see all the options and find the tool you are looking for 

You can  follow this link  to a interactive version that you can click on each little tool for a brief description.