Lightroom

[fh1805]

I could use some help in getting started with Lightroom. I currently have my Nikon D70 set to "JPEG Norm" but keep wondering what I am missing by not using RAW files (*.NEF files from the D70). Today I was given a copy of a 30-day trial licence of Lightroom v2.6. I have installed it and begun playing with it. I took two images with the D70 set to RAW so that I had a couple of images to play with. I have successfully imported these into Lightroom and am now faced with the "Develop" module's interface.

All my image work is done for use in AV sequences. I have no interest in printing or web-publishing. If these images were JPEGs I would use Photoshop Elements v7 to adjust the levels using the histogram, possibly lighten the shadows a little more, (remove any unwanted elements using Spot Healing Brush, Clone Stamp, etc as required), resize to the desired size, apply some Unsharp Mask and do a File Save As into the folder for the AV sequence.

What do I do using Lightroom? And how do I do it?

Can somebody point me at a good set of online tutorials or an "idiot's guide" book that will get me started along the right lines? Right now this is a totally alien workflow. There are so many options that I don't know where to begin.

regards,

Peter

[Ken Cox]

Peter

i believe Ian Bateman knows how lightroom works

ken

[Ken Cox]

Peter

found these

http://lightroomkillertips.com/

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/lightroom/tutorials.html

ken

[Ed Overstreet]

Personally I've never seen the point of Lightroom, for what I do. In fact I recently bought Photoshop Elements 8, because my aging Photoshop CS3 won't read the RAW files from any of my recent Panasonic Lumix cameras and I simply refuse to spend another roughly $300 upgrading to CS4 or 5 only so I can read RAW files from my cameras (Elements 8 has no trouble with any of those files BTW, and with the rebate certificate I got a new, fully-functional Elements 8 from Amazon.ca for all of $60).

After getting familiar with Elements 8, and after installing my favourite Nik plugins in it (perfectly OK on the same computer without a new license, I checked with Nik tech support on that), I find myself using Elements 8 a lot and Photoshop almost never.

If I were you, Peter, I'd stick with Elements 7 or upgrade to 8 if you ever get a more recent camera that isn't supported in 7. I've attended a few presentations on Lightroom and have never seen the need for it, never mind the expense ....

But different strokes for different folks, as they say

[stonemason]

Hi Peter stick with it once you get your head around lightroom you will not use any other software for image editing. Contaxman posted a link to a pdf tutorial on av and lightroom at www.bishopthorpe-camera-club.com Just click on Resources and follow the Pictures to Exe (or Lightroom) link.

Well worth a read. Lightroom killertips have excellent movie tutorials download as many as you can and watch them, they will soon get you up and running. The url is http://lightroomkillertips.com/ scroll down the page and get the tutorials that you are interested in, then at the bottom of each page is a "previous page "link just keep going back until you run out of pages. You should by then have a library of tutorials from basic use to advanced.

If I can be of further help let me know.

Geoff

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Peter

Have a look here. http://www.flickr.com/groups/adobe_lightroom/

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.

[crossfade]

All my image work is done for use in AV sequences. I have no interest in printing or web-publishing. If these images were JPEGs I would use Photoshop Elements v7 to adjust the levels using the histogram, possibly lighten the shadows a little more, (remove any unwanted elements using Spot Healing Brush, Clone Stamp, etc as required), resize to the desired size, apply some Unsharp Mask and do a File Save As into the folder for the AV sequence.

What do I do using Lightroom? And how do I do it?

Can somebody point me at a good set of online tutorials or an "idiot's guide" book that will get me started along the right lines? Right now this is a totally alien workflow. There are so many options that I don't know where to begin.

You can do the same adjustments in Lightroom. They're all there in the develop module. Definitely look for training videos on line. If you watch someone do it, it's easy. Then once you're done getting the images the way you want, export them any size you want in jpeg or tiff and go to PTE. You can even put them in order in lightroom and have it add numbers to the images when exporting.

[Rickl]

Can somebody point me at a good set of online tutorials or an "idiot's guide" book that will get me started along the right lines? Right now this is a totally alien workflow. There are so many options that I don't know where to begin.

regards,

Peter

Hi Peter,

I am very impressed with the tutorials from this source...

http://luminous-landscape.com/videos/LR2.shtml

Jeff Schewe of course is very well connected with Adobe, and I've learned so much from Michael Reichmann's web site.

I use Silkypix for my raw conversion and Idimager for my Digital Asset Management, but I have used Lightroom, and it is remarkable. After processing images with Lightroom, you seldom need photoshop to do any further work on your raw images.

I bought Mike and Jeff's tutorial 'From camera to print' and enjoyed it immensely.

Hope this helps,

Dick

[JEB]

Hi Peter,

I think our needs are very similar regarding software. Like you I ditched PS3 over a year ago in favour of PSE6 at the time (now upgraded to 8). I was given a copy of Lightroom around the time of my change from PS3 and thought that it together with Elements was the answer. However I NEVER use Lightroom but DO USE Elements and DON'T MISS the full Photoshop. However I would love to afford some of the bells and whistles of PS5 but truthfully don't NEED them.

Regards

John

[davegee]

Peter,

If you are going to start using NEF files from your D70 I would SERIOUSLY investigate Nikon Capture NX2.

It has all that you would need in a RAW converter and is the ONLY RAW Converter that opens NEF files EXACTLY as you see them in your camera's LCD display.

If you get it right in camera there is little else to do other than perhaps cloning out those nasty dust spots.

If you don't get it right in camera then as well as being able to reset your camera settings retrospectively**, the U-Point (Control Point) Technology takes care of a lot of selective edits in the simplest way.

** the only things that you CANNOT change retrospectively are the ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture.

It's a bit like going back and taking the pic again. If you use the Colour Modes on the D70 then you can either change the Colour Mode (retrospectively) or use the Picture Control technology of the D3, D700, D300 etc.

Try the 60 day free trial.

DG

[AnKo]

Hi Peter,

In short, Lightroom is the darkroom for photographers, like Nikon Capture NX, but with a much more pleasant interface.

Working on images is non-destructif, so you always keep the originals. Lightroom catalogs your photo's as well. The slideshow option I never use, but I did use the web publishing options and that worked great. The printing module is quit good, but it misses the proofing.

The trick is to use RAW images (like you I have a D70). In the Development section you can adjust the whitebalance and tint (very important) exposure, brightness, contrast, etc. Which is different on jpg's, beacause you can make jpg's look brighter, look lighter/darker, but you can never adjust the original settings you made on the camera when shooting the images. Only on RAW this is possible. That is because the RAW image is just what the camera sensor has shot and which is presented on screen, like a digital negatif, and the elementery camera settings are read out, implemented so that you can change them.

And there is much more, like dust removal, spothealing, red eyes, great graduated filters, exporting in formats, sizes and colourspaces, flagging, tagging, marking, make collections, etc. Once a bit familiar with it you will see the advances of Lightroom. It even is possible to use NIK software (colour effects, viveza, etc) as a plugin in Lightroom.

But I believe there is not much extra value when shooting in jpg.

For me Lightroom (2.7 came out yesterday and 3 beta 2 if available) is a must have and I can only recommand this to all of you photo enthousiast. Only on rare occasions I need to use Photoshop.

Kind regards,

André

[Barry Beckham]

Peter

With the greatest respect to DG you cannot get it right in the camera most of the time for a very simple reason. Our camera (no matter how much we paid for it or how much photographgic knowledge we have) cannot capture what we see with our eyes. What you see is not what you get and image manipulation however we come at it, bridges the gap between what we saw with our eyes and what our sensor/film was able to capture.

What is, best, Raw or Jpeg? The answer is Raw, every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Using Raw and a little practice your image quality will improve dramatically because we can better balance the tones and contrasts in any image shot in Raw.

What do we use to convert the files, well some swear by Lightroom, but I think that rather depends on how fussy you are with your images (ie individual manipulation of the images) and to some degree what your particular work flow is generally like. I was sent a copy of Lightroom when it first came out and I worked hard at it, but I just could not fit it into my own way or working and after some time I came to my senses and removed it from my PC. I found myself struggling to find a use for it, over an above what I was already doing with Photoshop (or Elements) I work every image through Raw individually so for me, Lightroom just didn't suit the way I work. I doubt it is better or worse than Photoshop just different in the workflow.

You will hear all sorts of views about what Raw convertor is best, but in my view pick one and stay with it. Once you find your way around you will then get the best from that convertor. Better that, than those who flit from one bit of software to another and NEVER get the best from any of them. Unless someone has extensively tried the many Raw convertors around, how can they really state what is best, but I am told quite often that this is better than that.

I have used Adobe Camera Raw for ages because I have always used Photoshop and I love it. In CS4 the power it gives us just blows Jpegs out of the water. Learn to use a Raw convertor effectively and it will elevate the quality of your images to a new level. If your like me, you could be struggling to make a bit of software like Lightroom fit in when it clearly doesn't.

[davegee]

Barry,

I keep telling you that you need to change to Nikon.

My suggestion to Peter was made in the same spirit as yours.

Unless Peter TRIES all of the various different Converters he is not going to know what is best for him. I have been using Capture since I got my D70 when that was new. I have also kept up to date with the various different versions of PS CS but have always stuck with Capture for RAW processing.

To me, it makes sense to use a Camera Specific Converter because the makers of the software have all of the necessary information required to do the job.

I want a Converter that READS the WB (for instance) from my D700 NEF file and not one which GUESSES it.

To each his own. IMHO etc etc etc

DG

[xahu34]

.... In fact I recently bought Photoshop Elements 8, because my aging Photoshop CS3 won't read the RAW files from any of my recent Panasonic Lumix cameras and I simply refuse to spend another roughly $300 upgrading to CS4 or 5 only so I can read RAW files from my cameras (Elements 8 has no trouble with any of those files BTW, and with the rebate certificate I got a new, fully-functional Elements 8 from Amazon.ca for all of $60)....

Perhaps not a good decision! Here is a workaround in order to make CS3 work: Use a recent DNG converter by Adobe (it is free), and convert your raw files to the Adobe raw format. Open the DNG files with CS3.

Regards,

Xaver

[jfa]

Peter

I tried Lightroom several years ago and found it did not do some things I wanted and like others have said I just could not adjust to the restricted work-flow it required. You need to try it for yourself to see if it suites you but it is not for me.

Using RAW to shot your images is by far the best way if you are serious about processing/improving your images, and arn't we all. Like you I started in JPEG many years ago and was reluctant to go to RAW when it first arrived but after a lot of testing and comparing I could see there was a large improvement in the final result and I still had the original unmodified data to go back to if required.

The advice from previous posts is very valid, get to know a program that gives you the results you want in the manner you want and stick with it. Photoshop with a few plug-ins, Adobe Camera RAW and Bridge do this for me.

I assume you are not getting the results from PS Elements that you want and this is why you are looking elsewhere, good luck.

[Barry Beckham]

Sorry DG I am not sure trying all the different convertors is the best way forward.

For a start where do we get all these convertors to try, then how much time do we commit to them. You have to use a chosen piece of software for quite a while before you really have all the evidence to judge it. In my experience we have neither the time, inclination or the analytical mind to do that.

Best way forward? Look at images you really admire created by someone else, ask them what they use and try that.

Often, especially in the digital world, enthusiasts spend so much time trying out different software that they rarely get time left to make a decent slide show.

On a personal note, I like to use Adobe Camera Raw. It is convenient, very powerful and I also love the ability to open images up as smart objects. Smart objects are rather like live text. You can be working on an opened Raw file in Photoshop, decide you want to make a change to the raw settings, double click the layer thumbnail and Camera Raw reopens your image and you can make another change. Bearing in mind of course that you would be working on Raw computer data, so your not making a change to a change. This is great when you have a landscape where the foreground needs a different Raw tweak than the Sky.

Photoshop CS 4 added gradients to camera raw so you can apply a sort of graduated filter over any image you produce at any angle. Apply it as a neutral density, or add some colour to your sky. It is superb for landscapes as you can add the intensity to skies to give your images more appeal and impact. CS4 also introduced the Raw adjustment brush so you can lift the tones in a small area such as a face, or dark shadow without affecting all the other settings.

[jfa]

Often, especially in the digital world, enthusiasts spend so much time trying out different software that they rarely get time left to make a decent slide show.

Oh how right you are Barry!!!!!

[fh1805]

Thank you, everyone, for your advice. Collectively, you've given me many links to web-based resources that I'll now investigate; and also much food for thought about which products/combinations of products have been found useful to you.

Just to clarify one point, though: I'm not dissatisfied with either my JPEG images or with Photoshop Elements 7. But everybody I come across at camera clubs, and here on the forum, talks about how using RAW files is a better way of working. It may well be better; it is certainly "different". And therein lies the problem: it is taking me out of my comfort zone.

I agree entirely with Barry about the need to spend considerable time establishing ones own particular process flow with a piece of software. I've been using Photoshop Elements since 2005 and it's only in the last 6 months or so that I have settled on a particular process flow through it for the images that I take with the D70.

If I switch to RAW files I don't know whether the same steps are required, whether there are some steps I should now omit, whether there are other steps that I must include; and I don't know how to drive either Adobe Camera Raw or Adobe Lightroom or any other software to do those things. The only thing I do know is that switching to RAW files is going to reduce the capacity of all my storage devices when expressed in the number of image files they can hold. So there will be additional costs associated with whatever benefits may come from using RAW files, over and above any software licences.

As I said, lots of food for thought. I'll try and remember to come back and post an update after I make my decision as to the future of RAW and me.

Once again, thanks to you all for your advice.

regards,

Peter

[Rickl]

As I said, lots of food for thought. I'll try and remember to come back and post an update after I make my decision as to the future of RAW and me.

Just a few thoughts...

RAW processing is an extra step, and will probably lead you to increase your online storage...

It is not at all necessary if you are able to set your camera perfectly for every exposure...

RAW processing moves the image processing decisions to your computer instead of letting the camera firmware decide what the image should look like...

Here are some examples where raw processing has saved the day for me...

Wrong Exposure... recovers 2+ stops under, 1 stop over including recovering some burnout

Wrong white balance... Decide later how to set color balance. Sure nice to see good skin tones in fluorescent lighting situations...(why didn't I see the lighting color????)

Print or Web? Decide later whether to use aRGB or sRGB

...

There are many more capabilities depending on the RAW software you use, but many features can be corrected by PS or PSE to some degree. But bear in mind that RAW processing works with the original image data from the sensor rather than the decompressed image data from the camera processed jpeg...

In my case, (Pentax K20d) most of my flip top flash exposures are wrong. It may be my declining brain power to fix, but if there is anything reflecting in the image - mirror, window, shining chrome, my flash shuts down early to avoid burnout. In RAW, I can easily alter the image processing ro raise the ISO... and ignore the source of the burnout... ie the flash in the window...

Is it worth it? Well it's the cheapest insurance policy you can buy... It can cost a lot of money to reshoot - and sometimes impossible - So in my view it's worth dedicating a few megabytes in file size... (and perhaps SD card size). Once you are satisfied with the image, you can save it as a tif or jpg, and delete the raw file. But I don't. I come back later, and I find that there are many ways of seeing an image, and sometimes my first interpretation is not always the best...

Hope this helps,

Dick

[Ed Overstreet]

Perhaps not a good decision! Here is a workaround in order to make CS3 work: Use a recent DNG converter by Adobe (it is free), and convert your raw files to the Adobe raw format. Open the DNG files with CS3.

Regards,

Xaver

I tried essentially the same thing for a while using Pansonic's Silkypix Developer RAW converter that came with the camera, batch-converting the RAW files to 16-bit TIFs then opening them in CS3. Too much extra hassle in my workflow, I much prefer opening them in Elements 8. Also Elements 8 Editor and Organizer don't keep crashing randomly on my system the way CS3 Bridge and sometimes Photoshop have been doing since I got them. I'm fed up with Photoshop. I do all my editing of Nikon NEFs in Nikon Capture NX2, can't do that with Pano RAW files without converting them to TIF first, same issue. But for NEF editing Capture NX2 is much preferable to Adobe anything IMO.

[Ken Cox]

ACCORDING TO THIS

http://www.irfanview.ca/main_formats.htm

irfanview will do raw files

ken

[cgbraggjr]

For me the most important RAW feature is the added headroom. I shot a bunch of photos in overcast skies, and to get some punch I decided to darken the blue elements in the sky (BTW, this is really easy in LR). But, they were jpegs and after about 40% drop in luminance the texture of the blue started to look like a bad paint job, so that was all I could do. With a RAW image you can extract a lot more from your shadows and highlights. I've recovered a lot of overexposed highlights in RAW images.

Most of the time this kind of processing is not needed and [original] jpegs work fine for PTE shows. Most of the time. That's, most of the time.

IMHO LR is as good as it gets if you want to use just one program, but if you have five programs you can do better. The big pluses are its database capability and its non-destructive editing of jpegs. Quality of RAW processing varies from superb to just good, and can be bettered in specific formats, so check if your format is one of those. It looks as if LR 3 will have a super lens correction function, so don't buy 2.x unless you get a free upgrade - or wait until 3 is out. I've been doing all my perspective correction in PS up until now.

Negatives for LR: you can do better noise reduction and sharpening with other programs, or with PS and PS add-ons. However, with today's DSLRs noise reduction is less of an issue, and for screen images basic sharpening is fine, so this is really a large print issue.

BTW you RAW processors might want to check out Raw Therapee - it's free and I've seen some very nice reviews. I have not used it.

[gwignall]

Hi Peter

Conversion to Jpeg files should be the final step - and only to get the files to a manageable size for use in PTE.

You should have a RAW converter be it NX2 (as suggested by davegee above) or Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) - there are others as well.

[by the way I am a Nikon user and I have NX2 - I use Lightroom and CS4 - and I convert NEF's to DNG on import, and export to jpeg as required for output]

ACR is the same 'engine' in CS4 as in Lightroom - although the default Colour Space in Lightroom is Adobe ProPhoto - a wider gamut than Adobe RGB, and certainly sRGB.

But where Lightroom scores is in Image Organisation - Ok there are issues with having to 'import' image location references into the program (that is all they are, 'references' to wherever they are 'stored') but the sorting e.g. into 'Slide-Show' 'Collections' is far quicker than in Abobe Bridge.

Lightroom is a database of references whereas Bridge is a Folder Browser - like Windows Explorer, so if an image is in two folders then there are two separate images on the disk, whereas with a database referencing system there is only one.

What you cannot do in Lightroom (or NX2 for that matter!) is 'composites' e.g. making an in between image as well as the two separate images either side - as you may like to do for a sequence - that is a Photoshop (layers) job.

Nonetheless, Lightroom is good for image organisation and RAW Processing - which is what you should be doing for the reasons bbdigital outlines.

For reference I admit I am a 'book' person and I have - and use:

'Lightroom 2' (2009), Nathaniel Coalson, Wiley, Indianapolis - Straightforward, to the point and covers all the bases

'The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book', (2009) Martin Evening, Peachpit, Berkeley - Comprehensive - its the official Adobe manual (that does not come with the software lol)

But bear in mind Lightroom 3 is currently in Beta, and has been for a while so I do not expect it will be too long before it is relaesed (although if we have to wait as long as for a mac version of PTE then the breath is not worth holding - lol again!)

Regards

Geoffrey