SEim Effects Photo Tools

By Gavin Seim: Last year I posted a collection of LR2 print layouts for making page designs in Lighrtoom. With LR3, things have changed a bit and we now use the Custom Package option to make layouts. It’s more powerful and has more features. For that reason however the old layouts no longer work correctly. If your using an older LR, you’ll want the old layouts. If you have LR3 download these new ones for more variety and cool new stuff like controlling background color and drag and drop simplicity.

While there’s some album design style features I would like to see added, LR3 is defiantly coming along in allowing you to make layouts. Once you have these installed (see here for LR preset install video) you select the layout you want in the print module. Then simply drag and drop images from the filmstrip into the cells. When you done you can print or print to file to save as a JPEG.

Not in my opinion this does not replace a tool like In Design for doing full on album design (weddings for example). It has far less features and there’s really no ability to save a project with its layouts. That said, these can be great for quick layouts, folios or album pages. This download has 9 different 10×10 layouts, with both black and white background. If you like them and want more I may consider a complete set in the future. Enjoy… Gav

- Download LR Page Layout Templates II ZIP -

by Gavin Seim: So Power Worklfow v3 has finally arrived, representing three total years of Lightroom study and experimentation since this all started. I’m really excited. I feel they set a standard for workflow presets that fit just about any situation you could possibly need. You can see the details, video, samples etc, on the PW3 info page.

As always, I wanted to post up a freebie sample pack so readers can get some goodies and a small taste of what in store inside my latest collection. Below you’ll find a download with 8 presets from Power Worklfow3, including Super Hero2 and my new LOTR effect. The full collection has more than 75 presets, so if love them there’s lots more where these came from. Download and enjoy… Gav

Download FREE PW3 LR Presets Sampler (ZIP)

Check Out My Video & The Complete Set

Mouse over for Before/After sample.

I frequently crawl under the hood in Lightroom. Today I’m working some projects in LR3 and experimenting with the latest features and tools. Something I’ve started doing to make certain effects more adaptable, is what I’m calling Tone Independent Presets. They add an effects without using any of the primary tone settings like exposure, brightness, contrast, white balance etc. The result is an effect that can easily be applied to a plain image, or after general and batch corrections without effecting previous tone settings. This preset is an example of that.

I’ve spent quite some time today (probably too much) looking at the tones and feel of classic Polaroids and doing lots of tweaks in LR to get the look I wanted. The result is this effect I’m calling Gavin’s Old Polaroid. It’s a classic Polaroid themed tone that I think you’ll find appealing. This is a test of effects that will probably show up soon in an update to Color Fantasies presets collection. You get it today however and it’s free to boot. You can download the ZIP below. While it uses some LR3 features, This, like all my other presets will still work on older versions of LR. Enjoy… Gav

- Download Old Polaroid Preset ZIP -

How to install Lightroom Presets.

OK it’s Time for some fun. Since Seim Effects started we’ve been saving so much time editing that I say we need to kick back for a few minutes, relax, get some free Lightroom presets, perhaps win a prize, get some tips, laughs and best of all have a good time. You’ll find all this inside our Seim Effects Disorganized Photographer FolderMaze so lets do it.

Many of you are probably asking, what the heck is a FolderMaze. Well as photographer I think we’ve all experienced the hunt for files we placed somewhere on our computer like a needle in a haystack. FolderMaze is a reminder of why it’s good to stay organized and lots of fun as well. It’s an idea I came up with recently (though I’m sure I’m not the first) where you take a bunch of folder and search for the Golden Trophy in the folders. As a side note, I even registered the domain name foldermaze.com in case I find an idea that takes off.

But why are you still reading? Download the maze below, unzip and follow the instructions inside. Then go for the Gold. If you get there soon you can win a FREE Seim Effects editing pack of your choice. Good luck… Gav

- Download The FolderMaze ZIP -

Some Windows users experience file problems due to the large structure of folders. If you are having issues unzipping you can try one of these alternate packages.

• FolderMaze TAR Package
• FolderMaze 7Zip Package

You may need to download 7Zip (win) Or ZIPEG (Win/Mac) to unpack the alternate packages. These are free Zip utilities.

UPDATE (Windows Users): NOTE: This information if only regadirng this Game. All our effects packs are still wornking fine on Win and Mac – The maze seems to work great on Mac, but it seems Win does not allow folder paths longer than 255 character total length. I’ve tried to find a solution, but the Win OS cannot handle the depth of the folder structures in the maze and it causes problems. Using one of the alt packages, some Win users are able to get the maze to unpack and use it, but they may experience issues where windows does not allow them to delete the files when finished (again due to the path limitation in Win). To delete, users may need to go into the maze and delete blocks of folders from the inside to shrink the path length until the main folder can be deleted.

I know it sounds crazy that this would be a problem and I’m as frustrated as you, but it’s a limitation of the Win operating system. Win users are still welcome to try the maze, and while it should do no damage to your computer, you may have a few hassles getting it to unpack, delete ect. In the future I’ll see if it’s possible to build mazes that have shorter overall paths, but it may make them too basic to be a real challenge. Other than that we can only hope that Microsoft fixes that issue. Sorry to exclude some of you, but I had no idea Win would have a problem with this as the entire folder maze concept is very simple. I’ll see what I can do as I learn more.

Mouse over images to view the “before effect” version.

A little something for you Apple Aperture users today. Aperture 3 released and they FINALLY added support for presets. I was stoked. It’s not perfect and while I still prefer Lightroom myself (no need for you Lighroom users to worry. I won’t be forgetting you) it does have real presets functionality that works well..

Anyways I jumped right in and started playing with presets and seeing what I could do if I got under the hood in the Adjustments panel. It’s not the same as Lightroom, but there’s some powerful tools. I made this pack of 6 presets that cover a variety of looks including B&W, basic enhancement and color tones. There even a preset that boosts dynamic range for a mild HDR like effect.

I plan to keep looking in Aperture and if I see enough interest I may consider a complete workflow collection of presets like I offer for Lightroom, so if you’re interested let me know. Download an enjoy. I’ll paste some basic usage instructions below as well… Gav

- Download FREE Aperture Light Study1 Presets -

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Color Fantasies is my latest collection of Lightroom Presets that focuses entirely on color. It doesn’t mess around about it either. CF gets under the hood in Lightroom and transforms images into beautiful color tones that can be applied instantly with a click. Wow I sound like my own PR guy (oh wait, I am).

In tradition with my other collections, here’s a FREE sampler pack that includes 5 presets from Color Fantasies. There’s more image samples and a video on the product page so feel free to take a peek. The complete set come with more than 45 presets, plus an action. So when you like what you see, go check out the complete collection

- Watch the video and check out the whole set -

- Download the FREE CF sampler pack -

Included sampler effects are…

• Dynamica.
• 1975.
• Lemon Drops.
• Criss Cross.
• Morning Coffee.

I decided it was time for some fun. And I really did have fun with this. I say enough of ho hum screen casts explaining things we already know. It’s time to do something revolutionary with our photos. Lets get really ugly. Enjoy… Gav

Amaze your friends. Download the free Flickr HDR presets

- Download these ultra ugly presets -

- Look at Gavin’s real products -