Importing, Resizing, Exporting, Oh My!

Time to see just how much fun it is to be in charge of taking photos for the school! We were asked to provide some photos of the girls’ hockey team. I went and took a whole bunch. You get to go through them and provide the photos in the very specific size and format that they are needed!

If you’re sitting where you normally sit in my class, I’ve done you a huge favour and put the rather large folder of photos on your desktop. You’re welcome! (If you’re part of that confusing back row game of musical chairs – or you can’t find it on your desktop, you’ll have to download the folder from the Hand Out folder. It’s HUGE. It’ll take some time… You may want to ask me nicely to drop it onto your desktop.)

I’m going to demonstrate using Lightroom Classic. You can use the other version of Lightroom if you wish. It’s VERY similar, but not EXACTLY the same, so things might work a little differently.

First, Import the photos. You should know how to do this already, but just in case, press Import or go into the File menu or Ctrl + Shift + I

Select your source on the top left. It’ll recognize a card, but these aren’t on a card, so you’ll have to find them. Luckily, Desktop is usually a quick option:

Look for that folder I dropped onto your desktop. (again, if I didn’t, you may want to wait or else you can find them in the Hand Out folder.)

Once you find the folder, it’ll probably select all of the photos in that folder. The ones with the checkmarks will be imported. If they aren’t all checked, you can click All Photos at the top:

or Check All at the bottom:

Once the photos you want are checked, Import (bottom right)

There are different modes for different jobs. The first job should be done in the Library mode (top of the screen):

if you can’t see a grid of photos, click the little grid on the bottom left

This next step is optional, but HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. You can create different Collections (like a folder or album). I like to click the plus sign beside Collections and then Create Collection:

I’d name my collection to help keep your library organized:

Right now, I have nothing in that Collection

Select all of your photos (Ctrl + A or click the first one, scroll to the last one, click Shift)

Then just click any of the photos and drag them on top of the Collection name.

Now they’re all in there:

While the photos are all selected, I usually do a Quick Develop. I like to click the Auto button next to Tone Control:

SOMETIMES I also like to change the White Balance to Auto. It’s not always a good idea, but feel free to give it a try. You can always change it back later just as easily.

Following that, switch to the Develop mode

or in the Window menu:

I think I gave you 197 photos. You only need 21 of them! Go through the photos by pressing your left and right arrow keys and pick ONE team photo that looks the best to you. It’s difficult! There’s always someone with their eyes closed or a weird smile or something. Choose carefully and find one that looks good. For the ones you don’t like/won’t use, just press Delete or Backspace to remove it from the Collection.

You only need ONE team photo! OK, we took some with the coaches and some without. If you want to save one of each, that makes sense. You also need ONE photo of each player.

In the end, your collection should have 21 or 22 photos!

Once you cut down your collection, do a bit of editing.

Carefully adjust the sliders as you see fit. Make the photo look as good as you can.

You should also switch to the Crop mode (R on your keyboard will take you there)

These photos should be pretty level because I used a tripod, but you should check and should know how to fix photos that are not level. Usually Auto does a pretty amazing job, but you can drag that slider to rotate your photo to straighten it:

While in that mode, you can tighten up the photo by dragging the corner handles in to Crop out unwanted areas:

The individual player photos are a little trickier. There are some important specifications that need to be followed carefully.

The photos must be cropped so that only the player’s head is showing. The lowest point in the photo must be below the neckline of the jersey or above the team crest.

You also need to crop to a specific Aspect Ratio.

In the Crop mode (R), you’ll see the word Aspect. It’ll probably say Original next to it. Click that and change it to 4 x 5 / 8 x 10

Drag in the selection so you see the player’s head, the neckline of the jersey, but not the school logo. Note that the photos need to be in Portrait orientation (TALL, not wide):

In the end, it’ll be pretty tiny, but it’ll look like this perhaps (yours might be a little different):

Go through all of the player photos and make any adjustments, then crop the photos this way.

Once you have finished adjusting and cropping the photos, you are ready to export.

The settings for the team photo and the individual photos are very important and very different.

The team photo has fewer restrictions.

Export your photos by pressing the Export button at the bottom of the screen in the Library mode

or by going into the File menu and choosing Export, or Ctrl + Shift + E

In the Export box, you can choose where your photos are exported to. I chose my Graphic Tech folder:

You can rename your files. The team photo needs to be called Westwood

and perhaps most importantly, the file cannot be over 1 mb in size. It must be a JPEG file, and then choose to Limit File Size To: 1000 K

You do not need to change any of the other settings.

Player photos are a little trickier. You can choose to export all of your photos at once (assuming they are all cropped properly!).

They actually need two different sizes in two separate folders.

When you choose your Export Location, you can choose a Subfolder. My first set will be Larger, so I’ll create a Subfolder for those:

The files will have to be renamed by me before uploading, so your name doesn’t really matter, but the order sure does! Export your photos as a Sequence. I’ll call them player: