Lightroom etc adjustments

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Always on the M1.....
So at the moment, my photo adjustment method is the very scientific way of fiddling with the adjustments until i like the way the photo looks, trying not to go over the top with any one setting. But pretty much just starting from the top and working downwards.

Can anybody either explain what each setting actually does or point me to a decent explanation somewhere? The guides I've seen don't really explain the actual effect, only what the end result is. I feel I'd be much better served if I actually knew what I was doing with each adjustment as at the moment, it all feels a little bit random. I'm sure i could process my pics better if I understood more fundamentally what the adjustments actually do to the pixels etc.

Some seem obvious, like contrast, exposure etc, but some like luminance/clarity are a little less so. I suspect that a lot of what I do counteracts other stuff I do to the pictures.

I think I'm not bad at taking pictures, but I also think I could improve significantly if I understood better what I was doing in processing.
 
I would recommend buying the Tony Northrup lightroom book, really worth the money and you get access to the videos if you prefer watching to reading.
 
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I really like the Kelby books on lightroom. I just picked a picture and went through the develop section of the book and it described exactly what's happening and why. It's then pretty good for quick reference when i forget something.

There are good videos and video sites out there, I like https://www.slrlounge.com/ and loads of youtube channels I use but I still find it far quicker to quickly pick a book up and flick through pages than searching through a video for the bit of info I want :)
 
All sounds good. I'm quite technically minded so am after something that explains the fundamentals behind the adjustments. Most guides I've seen don't really go into the scientific/photographic principles of each adjustment.
 
i've just started using Lightroom recently myself and have been watching you tube videos by Anthony Morganti. I find them relatively easy to comprehend and does a good job of explaining what each thing does and how it affects image.
 
Janesy B said:
Learning how to interpret a histogram will help too.
Click to expand...

Always used the histogram on my camera when looking at exposure, but never really researched it much.

And as a result, I've just discovered the "expose to the right" logic - I didn't realise that half or so of the sensor levels in an exposure are actually in the final 1/5 of the dynamic range. Half the potential data in a photo sits in that final brightest fifth of the histogram.

Thanks Janesy B, without that histogram post, I would never have looked in any more depth at it and learnt something new!
 
A lot of PP depends on how you want your photos to look. But crucially before you get into all that you want to get your exposures right; getting that sorted so that you always have confidence in your pictures in that respect makes PP a lot easier.

Personally I like pictures that are as close to what you saw as possible. I'm very careful with clarity, vibrance, any changes to white balance and steer clear of using contrast.

To be honest I rarely use LR any more, prefer Bridge-->Camera Raw-->PS.
 
First thing I do in Lightroom is Turn OFF the Sharpness to Zero, then I click the Enable Profile Correcections and the Remove Chromatic aberations...Then I Hit the AUTO to see how it looks. I then turn down those sliders to Zero that Auto has done. I then Hold down my Shift Key and double click the White Slider then the Black slider.
I then move one or two of the others to see how it goes n looks.
KELBYs Book is Excellent. But plenty of FREE tuts if you google them.
 
To be honest with you a lot of lightroom is learning and finding out what works for you , I have my own settings I use pretty much 90% of the time .

Obviously the first things to do is :

Press R & adjust the horizon if its un-level.

Make sure the WB is correct with the pen tool , Again not that important if you plan to use a preset's as most of us do who have a big work pool of images to precess ,

I like to bump the shadow bar right up in my images too around 90% to remove all the dark areas around peoples eyes and faces , seems to work really well unless you want to keep that kinda look , but I like my images to show my clients eyes well always.

I always sharpen my images around the 25 Number , again some people will use more or less depends on the image.

Another thing I tend to do is put the Vibrancy up on images to around 30 as I find this brings images a live but again some won't like this. bright greens and colours and works better than the saturation as this makes peoples faces go RED !

Temp - Is great for changing the whole image setting for example , if its a really sunny day and you want to make the image look a little more , yellow / bright move the dial over too the yellow a little more, this is a great little effect I use all the time.

I'll be honest just go play around with it and find what works for you , Its an editing tool for a reason , to create images the way you want too , Use Youtube and watch how others and learn from them but always edit in your own style:) Stand out from the crowd don't join them.
 
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