Lightroom Users Post Up!

Okay, so Moose's thread got a few responses from those using Adobe Lightroom. Post up if you are using it and how. I generally use Presets to get close to the look I want and then tweak from there. I have not played with the local adjustment brush all that much as I just upgraded to LR2. Here are a few pics that I would have had to play with in Elements for a much longer time than it took in LR...

 

sweet pics bro!!

 

I love lightroom Im still trying to figure out all the in and outs to it, but by far much more user friendly and work flow friendly then photoshop.

 

I use LR most of the time, though RAW conversion from the 1Ds2 can be done better in some other packages. 99% of the time LR is good enough though.

Here's my basic workflow:

1) Import the images from the card
2) Using the arrow keys and numbers 1-5 I go through and quickly rate the images (1 = crap, out of focus; 2 = not a good shot, might be usable at some point; 3 = ok, can be used, 4 = very good, 5 is very rare for me -- I think I have all of six images in my library with that rating).
3) I select all the 1 rated ones and kill them
4) I then filter to show only ones rated 3 and above
5) I go through them again and re-rate some lower (they disappear from the view if I rate lower than 3)
6) I do some rough tweaking, like WB adjustment and exposure adjustment. It's handy to have the copy/paste feature so I can make a WB adjustment to one shot and then apply it to an entire group of shots.
7) Now I go through and perform a fine tuning of exposure, black point, tweak the curves to bump contrast when needed, maybe apply a little light NR if shot at 1600 or higher.
8) This leaves me with a subset of basically decent shots from the initial load. From here one each image is unique and cropping, color, desaturation etc is applied as needed.

 

I also like the idea that I can make minor tweaks to one photo and sync it to other photos and it will make all the minor adjustment as well. Keeps the works flow to a minimum which is always a plus when I do a wedding and have 400+ photos

 

I was missing this step. GREAT idea and something simple that I should have been doing. Gotta lurv the interwebs...

 

They don't really advertise the keyboard shortcuts very well, but man, it makes life easier.

Also, I recommend Martin Evening's book on Lightroom 2 -- excellent read. Around $40 or so at the local stores.

Example of a mildly post processed shot (desaturation, cropping, exposure, black point, curves, some burning):

 

Glad I could help. Since I shoot RAW+JPEG sometimes I never even touch the RAW file. Here's one JPEG straight out of camera (ISO 800) that I just cropped slightly and resized. The in-camera JPEG can really nail it sometimes.

Scott, that first shot of yours is great. I would crop the dark area in the lower right out, but the light is just incredible -- it has that cool blue tint but it doesn't look off-color if that makes any sense.

 

Wonderful pics...and yes, lightroom is an amazing program. I have really only scratched the suface of what it is capable of. It has become my primary image organization tool, which is mainly what I use it for. I tend to only edit photos when I need to use them...and therefore, I don't get much practice with it. That, and my plate is pretty much overflowing with automotive tech right now.

 

A friend of mine uses LR and takes Portraits. She wanted to watermark the images with her logo and needed help.

I emailed her this link: http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=lightroom&seqNum=103

It has some other useful tips as well.



I just bought her D90 with 18-105 kit lens. I'm a total newb but have really learned a lot from this site and you guys in the past few hours. Sounds like I'll be looking for an SB-600 and Sto-Fen Omni Bounce soon and some other lens for car pics...10-20? Just joined the nikonians forums too. Lots to learn.

 

*dp