Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
This is one of those features that once you try it, you fall in love with it, because it
gives you the opportunity to make sure an image you're shooting for a specific project
(like a magazine cover, brochure cover, inside layout, wedding book, etc.), looks and fits
the way you want it to, because you get to see the artwork as an overlay in front of
your image as you're shooting tethered. This is a big time and frustration saver, and it's
simple to use (you just need a little tweaking in Photoshop to set up your artwork).
Step One:
You'll need to star t in Photoshop by opening
the layered version of the cover (or other
artwork) you want to use as an overlay in
Lightroom. The reason is this: you need
to make the background for the entire file
transparent, leaving just the type and graph-
ics visible. In the cover mock-up we have
here, the cover has a solid gray background
(of course, once you drag an image in there
inside of Photoshop, it would simply cover
that gray background). We need to prep
this file for use in Lightroom, which means:
(a) we need to keep all our layers intact, and
(b) we need to get rid of that solid gray
background (more likely, you'll have a solid
white background, but that looked weird
with all this white type, so I filled it with gray
so it was easier to see).
Step Two:
Luckily, prepping this for Lightroom couldn't
be simpler: (1) Go to the background layer
(the solid gray layer in this case), and delete
that layer by dragging it onto the Trash icon
at the bottom of the Layers panel (as shown
here). Now, (2) all you have to do is go under
the File menu, choose Save As, and when
the Save As dialog appears, from the Format
pop-up menu (where you choose the file
type to save it in), choose
PNG
. This format
lets you keep the layers intact and, since you
deleted the solid gray background layer, it
makes the background transparent (as seen
here). By the way, in the Save As dialog, it
will tell you that it has to save a copy to
save in PNG format, and that's fine by us,
so don't sweat it.
