Lightroom has offered custom Identity Plates since version 2, bringing the ability to put your name, brand or even your logo in the upper left corner. This is a great way to keep your name front and center when showing off work to clients from Lightroom. Unfortunately, the editing tools for inserting your graphic into the ID plate have always been terrible. There is no indication of size or shape, no template to get you started (until now!), and no way of editing, resizing or relocating images once you do get them into the ID plate.
I've always made graphical id plates by trial and error, until today. I decided to document and create a template to help make graphical ID plates much faster.
I've found that 57px is the absolute maximum height usuable, however it touches adjacent screen elements and drives me crazy, so I give a margin around my logo and text. 15px from the left edge of the screen matches the margin for the left toolbar thumb. The width is dependant on your screen width and how many modules you show on the right.
In LR5, there is an added complexity of the LR Mobile Sync Status bar, which you can disable. I disable mine, as clicking on the ID plate brings up the current sync status. I also usually have the top bar hidden, so I don't actually see my ID plate most of the time – especially while in Develop.
I've included an overlay to show you how much the sync status bar takes up if you have that turned on, and want to design with that in mind.
To Use
- Download the template
- Insert your logo and text
- Hide the black background
- Hide the sync status bar simulation layer
- Export as PNG, scaled to 50% I made this template at 2x size to keep resolution as high as possible if/when Adobe makes LR Id plates retina-ready.
- Insert into Lightroom ID Plate