UKH

I never realized how powerful Lightroom was until I looked at a few YouTube's.  I know that there are a lot of Lightroom jedi on here.  Care to share your tips and tricks for any Lightroom admin or image enhansing effects such as making a portrait pop?

Gaussian Blur I find can make Landscape images pop. Never really done portrait photography tho so it might not work the same but still worth a try

My Main one is to keep you catalogues small otherwise it may slow your machine a fair amount. (I made the mistake of adding 6000 photos to a catalogue and it wasn't good!)

Set import settings to apply across a whole upload if you are aware of any quirks with your camera or you have been shooing in an unusual environment(light) e.g. ev+2, colour sat etc.  This gives a good base to work from (but can be undone if it doesn't suit a particular frame)

The default import thing is rather handy. 

Not sure about the catalog size though. Depends on the comp and what you’re after. 

But what ever you do, try to decide your keywords taxonomy beforehand. Changing it afterwards is a nuisance.

oh, and try to harmonize a workflow you do every time. I try to use a 5 step workflow. 

1. Sort

2. Tag

3. Edit

4. Rate

5. Publish

also learn how to utilize smart collections (e.g. for your workflow).

Consider your audience, give them what they want not what you want. If your audience likes stupid colours, crushed curves and soft lens blur then go nuts with every filter in the catalog.

A good example is to check out some of the pro’s galleries on UKC, their images are tailored to selling post cards to grannies passing through cafes in the Peak or Lake District. Now compare it to their entries into pro-comps or stuff they put on their website, totally different approaches. Each audience will have its own unwritten rules. Typically less is more, unless it’s going to fall into the same emotional category as cheap, low quality chocolate or cheese, which in this case more, more and more is best.

I've got 85,000+ images/video in my Cat, not a problem!

I find shooting with Canon the images definitely need sharpening. I also fill in shadows and knock the blacks down a notch. Once you find a look you like then save the preset and apply. If you going for a B&W the I find Lightroom better than photoshop to get a proper film look. 

TBH, LR is not about tips and tricks.

You need to put some hours in and learn how to use it !

Don't let the organisation of your catalogue get away from you. It's much easier to organise and tag things as you import them, rather than have to do several thousand photos later on. It can also very useful to have a metadata preset and a develop preset that you apply to every photo for consistency - for example I have a metadata preset which adds copyright and licencing information to everything imported, and a develop preset which sets the camera profile to 'camera standard' (as opposed to Adobe standard) for every image that I import.

If you have a bunch of photos all taken in the same conditions, it's quicker to process one and then sync the basic attributes (exposure, CT, etc) to that one, rather than do them individually. Tweaks can then be made individually as necessary from what should be a good starting point.

If you hold down the alt key while tweaking certain attributes, you'll get a more useful view of what you're doing. For example if you hold it down while adjusting sharpening masking, it'll show you what areas of the photo are being masked.