The new soft-proofing profile is available for download. After downloading it, you should go back to the original articles and replace the references to the profiles with this one. The earlier articles did not include links to any profile but MagCloud had allowed me to share them with anyone who wanted to use them. This should make the series of articles on this subject more complete and useful.

I have been a NAPP subscriber for many years, and also joined the sister service KelbyTraning.com a few years back. I like the group not only because of the fine magazine and the NAPP Web site, not only because they bring varied programs to their members from shooting to outputting, but also because they bring unique programs like A Day With jay Maisel. I enjoy following these programs, that alone is worth the money. But I also want to support them by my membership so that they continue offering their rich resources to me and photography fans all around.

I encourage you to take a close look at NAPP, and Kelby Training. You will not be disappointed with their offering. I want them to be aware of my support, so please use the links here to visit their sites. Kelby media also provides significant support for our local camera club, Photographic Society of RI, and I want to show them my appreciation by making my friends aware of these services and rich sources of photography related information.

Get a free copy of The Best of Photoshop User: The Twelfth Year DVD as a bonus gift. Just use this special discount code — FRIEND — online or when calling NAPP customer service at 800-738-8513

Photographers and programmers have been trying to expand the capabilities of Lightroom by developing plug-in modules for it to perform functions that are not available in the core program. I will share several with you in this post. What you will read in this post will be the tip of the iceberg as there are many more such add-on modules, I will only share those that provide functions that I consider of use. Furthermore, this review excludes paid plugins from vendors like onOne, Nik, SlideShow Pro, and others. What you will find here are plugins that are free to try, and donate to own. The developers put many hours to developing these programs and deserve to be compensated no matter how small or large you decide to donate.

LR/Enfuse

I first tried Enfuse, an image stacking software add-on, several years ago when it was an experimental piece. After a few tries, I decided to put it aside and then totally forgot about it. Recently I saw it mentioned in a book Night Photography by Lance Keimig (very good book, by the way) and tried it once more. The Lightroom plugin that makes using Enfuse much easier is from Photographer’s Toolbox and the use is fairly straight forward. Below are three photographs that show the input, the first two, and the output from LR/Enfuse. The plugin is donationware, you are free to try it with some limitations. I sprung for the donation and got the fully functional version. It works as advertised. I took the two shots with a hand-held 5D Mark-II in a children’s museum in Massachusetts. The result is akin to HDR processing without the lengthy process and unsightly artifacts. I like that.

LR/Mogrify 2

After my Exploring Lightroom presentation a short while ago at the Photographic Society of RI, a friend asked if Lightroom did have the facility to add a watermark as he exported images for sharing on the Web. I knew the print and slide show modules had that feature but was not sure if the export workflow had that built-in. It turns out that Lightroom 3 added that to the export facility. That said, if you want to add more elaborate watermarking or to add a frame on the photograph, LR/Mogrify 2 seems to be the tool to use. Its installation is a bit involved, so read the instructions on the site and follow them carefully. The opening image was processed with LR/Mogrify 2 with the bluish border and the text in the center. It can be positioned depending on your needs and it can contain EXIF data as you see here.

Elemental

This could be a very useful plugin for those who use Lightroom and Photoshop Elements. Although Lightroom has a very tight integration with Photoshop, it can only pass an image to edit to other programs. The promise, and the premise, behind Elemental is to offer a similar tight integration with Photoshop Elements, like opening multiple files as layers, or photo merge. Since I do not have Elements, I cannot tell you how well the integration works, but the free trial should encourage Elements users to give it a go. It may be a satisfying experience.

GPS-Support

Some cameras have built-in GPS facilities that add location data to each image identifying the exact location where the photograph is taken. My cameras do not have that and some photographs will benefit from having geoencoding data. This plugin, GPS-Support Geoencoding, allows the user to manually add location data. It interfaces very nicely with Google Earth and takes the coordinates of the displayed location. The embedded geoencoding data is not visible under some circumstances which are explained in the documentation on the Web site. With many cell phones having built-in GPS may allow users to take a few photographs at certain places will acquire the GPS location data for use in this plugin.

Metadata Wrangler

Each image exported to various formats contains surprisingly rich metadata. Sometimes this is useful at other times it may reveal information you may not want to reveal. The two photographs that accompany this segment are identical in every respect except for the amount of metadata. Take a look at the first image’s metadata, I am sure you will be surprised at the length and detail of information. Now, take a look at the second one’s metadata which was passed through the Metadata Wrangler, removing much of the information. You decide how much to keep and how much to discard.

In addition to these, you may consider looking into plugins for Proshow Producer or Gold for Lightroom, or Photomatix plugin if you use these software, they are free to download but do not do much if you don’t have the host software that will interface with them.

There are also Lightroom presets that you can download from different sources. onOne Software offers presets for Lightroom, and there are many others on the Adobe Lightroom Exchange. Visit and look around.

You may have your favorite Lightroom plugin, share it with everyone by posting a comment to this post.

Here are two photographs of a sample lens similar to those that are implanted in my eyes. The numbers you see below the lens are the ISBN numbers on the back of a book. That should give you a sense of scale. The process by which they implant the lens it is also quite interesting. The incision in the eye is quite tiny and they roll up the lens lengthwise into a thin tube and inject it through that small opening where it unfurls inside the eye’s own lens sack. One of my eyes has an implant that lets me see near to mid distance and the other from mid distance to far. Amazingly, in time, the brain learns how to use this oddity and I expect to need to wear glasses less and less.