The 'Everything Adobe Lightroom' Thread

[blastman]

Hey guys,

Welcome to ‘Everything Adobe Lightroom’ thread.

In here I hope (with your help) to give tips on the use lightroom, share pre-sets, discuss features and your workflows as well as anything else lightroom related.

I’ll kick things off with the download link of my pre-sets. All were found on websites offering them for free and I spent a good 4 or 5 hours hunting them all down.

please feel free to add your own tips, ideas and pre-sets below.

If enough people contribute I'll update this first post with the download links provided by others.

Adobe Lightroom 14 Day trail - http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

-------------- Forum members contributions -------------------

Shared Pre-sets;

Blastman; 436 presets - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6NJ4PN3Q
greedy123; presets - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ME5W64SB
Rojin; free presets from Onone - http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=33



Shared tut and links;

Schizophonic; Basic Tut's and how to's - http://www.photoshopsupport.com/lightroom/tutorials.html
neil_g; Workflow Guide - http://fallenlightphotography.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/our-workflow-explained/
blastman; some nice how-to's for 3.2 http://www.photoshopuser.com/lightroom3
blastman; Keyboard Shortcuts http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/3.0/Using/WS18e2013dd74eab5fe275e2711d1b186fe9-8000.html
Psychouk; Free Photoshop/lightroom/photography videos http://kelbytv.com
Psychouk; great site for LR presets and tips on using LR http://www.lightroomkillertips.com
aj_4176; Great ligthroom Blog http://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog
aj_4176; Another Lightroom site detailing tip and tricks http://thelightroomlab.com/



User Tips;

Khaaan!
The bets feature in Lightroom for me is the Create Virtual Copy (CTRL+') feature, I absolutely love this feature!

I've set up my Owner/Copyright and IPTC info slabs too which are saved with each import/export


PARUK
use the ALT key (in Windows, not sure about Mac equivalent) when setting the mask value during sharpening.

It gives you a visual way to balance out the sharpening so that you get the definition you need without overly contributing to noise.


Psychouk
'shift & tab' to close/reopen all of the side panels

'L' to cycle through the 'light out modes'

Right click on the small greyed out arrows on the side panels to change the way they open/close automatically.

'H' to hide/show the adjustment brush pins


Psychouk
selective colouring.

use the adjustment brush, turn the saturation right down and paint in the b&w leaving the area you want to highlight in colour.

 

[blastman]

My LR workflow looks like this…

Import images from camera or CF card to \My Pictures\lightroom images\ where each year has its own folder and each day a subfolder.

Then, once all imported images are displayed on the film strip I go through each one (starting from left to right) either rating the images I like with 1 star or flagging the image as rejected if it’s rubbish. There are normally loads of images that I dont rate or reject as thier family shapshots and not worth processing but I want to keep anyway.

After I’ve rated all the images I like and reject flagged all the ones I don’t I delete all the rejected photos and switch to the develop section.

I then use the filter to show only 1 stared images and take each one in turn and develop them using the pre-sets I included above (as well as tinkering with the settings) and when done I rate the photo with 2 stars.

I then use the filter to only show me the images with 2 stars and export them to a ‘keepers’ folder.

I can then use the filter on the folder ‘2010’ to see all 2 stared images taken this year and give them a colour category depending on the image style. Landscape, Portrait, macro and Family all get different colours.

This allows me to easily see different types of Photography by using the filter.

I normally assign 5 stars to images I believe to be portfolio quality.

Lightroom has changed my life and without it I wouldn’t use my camera as often as I do as doing all this in Bridge and PS would take an age.


Love it

 

[blastman]

first post updated. download link included enjoy...

 

[blastman]

This looks interesting. I'm on the verge of buying Lightroom but I'm caught up in the "do I need it when I've got DPP and Elements 6?" conundrum.

I've always taken the view that I don't need to worry about workflow as I'm not a pro but I now realise that my organisation of pictures, the PP and then what to do with all the files I accumulate is absolute rubbish.

I still can't work out whether Lightroom will help me organise my work but will duplicate the PP capabilities of the other 2 programs.

Ease of use is the key here.

I also own adobe CS4 master so have all the tools to do everything lightroom can in other apps, but to be able to do it in one place quickly is a god-send.

As i said above, I simply wouldn't use my camera that much if i knew that i had to PP each image in PS afterwards. I'm not great in PS and each image would take 20-30 minutes. Using the pre-sets is awesome.

Why not download the free trail and see for yourself

 

[blastman]

^^ cool. I haven't played with the copyright and caption options yet. Are they easy to setup and use?

 

[blastman]

As someone starting out who wants to get into post processing more, would you guys recommend Lightroom? Im willing to spend the money providing it will offer me everything I need.

Personally, I think lightroom is perfect for your use. It can be as easy or as advanced to use as you like. The presets make PP a doddle turning some good images into great images!

I recently upgraded to 3.2 and love Publishing stuff to facebook. I do kinda wish they would have allowed to create a custom site, where you can slap in a ftp site and your login details and add it to the publishing list. I could stick alamy in there and save some time

Anyone else willing to share some presets?

It's nice to see other peoples workflows. I thought I had a good one but Khaaan! your's is off the scale! FAAARRRR too advanced for little old me


@slothmeister; how could I ever forget you.... You still up for Sunday?

 

[blastman]

Most of the Lightroom reviews I've read emphasize that the real value of it seem to be in batch processing sets of images with pre-sets.
Is this the case?

I've never used that feature. Mainly because I don't know what preset i what to use on any photo until i view it. I rarely use the same preset twice in a row as I like some difference.

 

[blastman]

the last time i used Lightroom was version 1 and i must admit i didn't really get on with it to well so have stuck to photoshop. Is LR3 better?

I thought 2.2 was good. I upgraded to 3.2 and was blown away!!

the noise remover is 100% better and some of the other features detailed by others above are sweet.

It's my one-stop photo library/developing/sideshow viewer/printing app.

Wouldn't be without it (I should work for Adobe and try and get some commission!)

 

[blastman]

For those who want to make sure they know the basics watch these videos by Adobe hosted by Julian Khost. Not only does she do an excellent job of walking step by step but she explains why and it will come in effect in all real life scenarios.

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

In my opinion, like that Raymond said I now use LR to organise my photos than individually on Photoshop. Much much quicker!

Nice find. First posted updated with link cheers.

 

[blastman]

I believe it gives you the option to either save the presets with or without the catalog. meaning that you could use the same presets in a number of different catalogs.

Personally, (from what he said he wanted) I'd setup my folder structure like this;


Lightroom Images (Root directory)
- RAW - all raw get imported in here
--- Sub folders for years
----- Sub folders for days
- Produced images
--- Sub folders for years
----- Sub folders for days

I'd import all file from my camera to the RAW folder and work on them there. when finished I'd move a copy to the produced images section and file in the same way. that way you have both raw and produced images filed the same for easy access.

Hope that helps

 

[blastman]

updated 1st post with link to 3.2 how to's.

 

[blastman]

cor that's a lot of images!!!

makes my 8,500 images look tiny!!

Any presets you want to share?

 

[blastman]

hum, why doesn't it bother me then?

maybe I'm super special!!

 

[blastman]

Nice, cheers mate.

1st post updated

 

[blastman]

i was really surprised when you did share them actually

Now i dont want to get too bitchy, as the people who knocked me back i actually greatly admire their work, but the secrecy with the PP is strange. If the style and quality of the photo is down to the photographer, why the desire to keep the PP secret if you only need a good photographer to take great photographs.

only need a great photographer...

I know what you mean. To be fair I have passed over images before thinking they where bin worthy until I started using pre-sets and rediscovered a few cracking shots.

Anyone got any ideas on how I can make this thread better??

I've included the download links in the first post, but some tips would be really helpful. Something a few sentences long that you think others may not know.....

Cheers

 

[blastman]

Keyboard shortcut's link added to the first post

 

[blastman]

I would love help on organising my current and new photo's. I shoot in RAW + Large JPEG which i think is just adding to the clutter and I should just stick to shooting in RAW.

Yeah, I would move to RAW only.

have you had the time and date set correctly on your camera from day one?

I'd move all your pictures to one folder then import to lightroom and get LT to move the images to a decent file structure.

I'd also be temped to remove all jpegs from the import so you're just dealing with RAW.

Then you should be good

Hope that helps.

 

[blastman]

@Mrlol; according to him he used changed the 'levels, contrast, white balance, highlights & shadows'.

 

[blastman]

when you import the images you can choose where they go and how lr will sort them.

 

[blastman]

might be worth a look through some of the tuts and guides linked on the 1st post.

should make things a little clearer for you