Lightroom, where does it fit in?

Before I start on the up and coming weekly video tutorials, I want to mention a few things about where Lightroom fits into the family.

Firstly, it's been built from the ground up for photographers. You can use Photoshop if you like but not to the same speed as Lightroom. Being a database driven application, it moves at a blinding pace so best get your coffee and chocolate all set before you start as rendering is a thing of the past.

Lightroom has five main modules and these will expand to more in the future. But for now we have The Library for sorting, working with metadata and managing your entire library of images. And they can sit anywhere. On a local hard drive or any number of external hard drives.

The Develop module, for processing your RAW, JPEG and TIFF images. You can do all sorts of things in this module that doesn't require you exporting your images to Photoshop. 90% of your time you will find spent here for image manipulation. Maybe 10% of the time will require you sending the image to Photoshop for some deep pixel massaging.

The Slideshow module blows Bridge out of the water, I can't see why anyone needs bridge any longer. All Bridge does, Lightroom does better and faster.

The Print module is simply fantastic, no need to go through 35 steps to make sure all the setting are correct for printing at home as is the process in Photoshop, here in Lightroom we are in a better happy environment, it even smells better.

Finally we have the Web module. With a little digging you will be able to post galleries in html or flash form on the web, but I will be covering this later.

So follow me along next week.

Bob Jones knows good wine

I popped over to a good friend's place yesterday morning to help him out with Lightroom. As I was leaving he gave me a bottle of red...oh my it's good! Thank you Bob and if you need another favour, just let me know!

Lightroom 1.2 Update

Not a ground breaking update like 1.1

But, in Lightroom 1.1, some photographers had complained that the software applied overaggressive noise reduction when importing raw images, the unprocessed image sensor data without any in-camera processing. Adobe apparently took heed with Lightroom 1.2.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.2 Update

Corrections for several issues including XMP auto-write performance, Vista grid display errors and noise reduction for Bayer patterned sensors. Additional camera support for the Canon EOS 40D, Fuji FinePix IS-1, Olympus EVOLT E-510, Panasonic DMC-FZ18 and more.

Lightroom weekly video

I've been thinking about the best way to post lessons on Lightroom. As many don't know the first thing about it, I've decided to start from the beginning. I recently promised to give twice weekly video tuts on Photoshop and Lightroom. What was I thinking. I don't have the time.

My new approach is to give a weekly tut on Lightroom starting from the absolute beginning. I'm in the process of setting up the videos so it may take a week or so to get the first one out.

Light Control and Lightroom

Here's an interesting question that may get your brains working.

Apart from the fact I did use Lightroom to close the image of Shelley down, another reason exists for having such a dark background and it happened at the time of shooting, not during manipulation. The image was shot at midday in my lounge with the ambient light flooding into the room. It was bright!

So how is it possible to make the background go almost totally dark while exposure properly for the subject? Any answers, fire away!

Shelley in Black

This is an interesting composition of my lovely partner, Shelley. As usual, click on the image to make it bigger.

I used Lightroom to establish a white balance. Went with a warmer tone than Lightroom initially picked. The best way to find a white balance that works is to take a look at what Lightroom dishes out first, then if you don't like it, swing the temperature slider way left and then way right, a little like a swing in the play ground. Continue to swing each way with smaller and smaller swings until you settle at a point that suits. This is of course an artistic choice so it's totally up to how you feel about it.

Then I reduced the exposure and brightness somewhat to darken the blacks, I also applied a vignetting to totally close the image down. You may be aware that I almost always shoot as bright as possible and then reduce the values in Lightroom after the fact. This is one of the few occasions that I exposed the image normally as I knew that I was going to reduce the exposure/brightness anyway so wasn't too concerned about shooting bright in this instance. Remember the brighter you shoot the great detail you will have in your image.

Then I increased the Clarity Slider to about 30 and increased the vibrance. I finally used the Details Panel to sharpen the image the way I wanted it. I used 35/1.2/20/70 respectively from top to bottom (I'm talking sliders here). I then exported the image to Photoshop for some final sharpening.

Questions - Fire away.

Fixing Blurred Images in Photoshop

This image was sent in by Margaret Penney from the Manukau Photographic Society and also Pukekohe Franklin Camera Club. It's a tough image as the jeep is blurred beyond what I would normally tackle, but for the purposes of demonstration, I'll take you through the steps I used.

First I selectively increased the saturation of the yellows and reds with a hue/saturation adjustment layer. Most greens you see in trees and grass are made up of more yellow than green.

The jeep is moving which works to our advantage as I can selectively motion blur the surround and give the jeep a subtle sharpening effect. The contrast between the blurred surround and the sharp jeep will make the jeep look sharper. Gota use any method available for this one as the jeep will never be tac sharp.

So how did I do this. Firstly I duplicated the background and applied a motion blur to the top layer at a similar angle to the movement of the jeep. I then applied a mask to the top layer. The mask will be white, so all I need to do is select a soft brush and paint with black over the jeep. (make sure the mask layer is selected). This will cause the jeep to have no motion blur.

I now flattened the image and applied a selective sharpening of the jeep with PhotoKit Sharpener, I used the haze cutter tool which works similarly to the Clarity Slider in Lightroom. I then applied an export sharpening for the web.

Comments are welcome.

Black and White in Lightroom

Black and White in Lightroom is a joy. All you need to do is go to the HSL/Color/Grayscale Panel and click on Greyscale. Then click on the little target at the top left corner of the HSL/Color/Greyscale Panel and go to your main image. Click and drag up or down on various tones in the image and you have excellent control over how dark or bright you want those tones to be. Sweet! You'll notice the Red/Orange/Yellow/Green/Aqua/Blue/Purple/Magenta sliders move as you change the tonal values.

Changing the feel of an image

Above is the Raw Image

Photoshop and Lightroom are tools to create the feel you experienced in an image when you made it. The thing is, it's impossible for others to appreciate the sensations you felt at the time. That's when you need to use tools to create the feel you experienced and that will allow others to get an idea of what it was all about.




Above is the Completed Image

As always click on the image to see it bigger.

The image at the top is the "Raw" data, the one underneath incorporates Lightroom and Photoshop manipulation to magnify the feel of the image.

It was cold and windy this morning so I wanted to impart those feelings in some way. When I get very cold I feel my vision becomes more focussed on a single point. My peripheral vision reduces. I sense a feeling of white and blue colours. You get the idea.

First things first - lens choice, I decided to go with a lensbaby with a wide open aperture to give a heap of blur away from the focal point, I then increased the shutter speed up to 1/640 sec for two reasons, one because I was at F/2.8 and two because I wanted to underexpose the ambient by a couple of stops (you know that cold feeling) so now I had to use a flash to bring up the exposure on the subject.

After I got home I imported the images into Lightroom, I cropped an image the way I wanted it. Then I changed the white balance temperature to something cold. I then increased the clarity and vibrance in the image to make it pop and little. What the heck is Clarity. It allows you to add punch in the midtone contrast. So now you know what the slider does. You'll find you'll put it up to at least 40 on most images. I then popped down to the Lens Correction panel to create a vignetting effect, to close down the image a little, you know that cold feeling.

I then exported the image to Photoshop and removed skin problems by using the Spot Healing and Healing Brush tools. I wasn't keen on the hard shadow under the nose created by my small light source. It would have been better to increase the size of my light source when I shot the image but because I didn't I applied a subtle smudge along the shadow line under the nose with the Smudge Tool.

I created a new layer, filled it with 50% grey, changed the blend mode to Soft Light and used a white brush at 10% to whiten up the knuckles a little (cold cold cold).

I then used PhotoKit Sharpener (plugin) to selectively sharpen Shelley's left eye and thumb and a bit of the scarf. And selectively smoothed out her skin with a tool in PhotoKit Sharpener.

Finally I applied an export sharpening for the web. Done! Any questions. Fire away.

Got a Great Idea!

Okay here's the plan. Send in any image that you want to change but are at a loss on how to go about it. I will then show the before and after images and show the steps I used to get from A to B. If I get a huge influx I may not be able to cover all images. Let's see where this goes. It will also be an opportunity for comments on the images sent in.

Photoshop Reflections

Michael from the Henderson Camera Club sent me the top image asking me how I would remove the branch from the bottom left of the image after cropping in tight.

The steps are as follows.

Duplicate the background layer

This is a tough one as I think the bottom part of the image needs to be cleaned up a bit. I thought about it for a while and came up with the idea of copying the top part of the image by selecting it then press Ctrl + J (pc) to move the selection to a new layer, then flip the layer vertically. Then move the copied part of the image on top of the reflection to match the original reflection.

I've had to edit this post as a person commented that reflections don't compress and of course he/she is right!

Step two was to create a mask on the flipped layer and brush out the areas I didn't want. Ahhh the control you get with masking.

Any questions, fire away.

Here comes another one just like the other one

This image is similar to the before and after image of Shelley. Again, only one light has been used. I had a strobe shooting through an umbrella high camera right. The strobe is doing two things. FIRSTLY it's lighting the subject and SECONDLY it's creating a specular reflection off the background which also drowns out any background shadow. (Like playing billards with light) If you look at the face of the subject you will see a soft diffused to shadow transfer zone which has been created by the large light source.

I'm presently shooting IR only as I blew up my D200. Had something to do with my camera touching one of the umbrella spokes while taking a shot. Somehow the camera shorted in the process. I'm sure Canon users will have something to say about this!

This image was sharpened in Lightroom using the four new sliders in the Details Panel.

Nikon D3 released

Here are some of the specs on the new Nikon D3.

The only down side is that Nikon have now moved to a full frame sensor, fine for those that don't have DX lenses... I do. However the camera automatically allows for DX lenses by providing an autocrop, unfortunately this reduces the size of the image.

Nikon D3 Key Features

First ever Nikon DSLR with a Full-Frame (36 x 24 mm) sensor (coined FX format)
12.1 megapixel full-frame sensor (8.45µm pixel pitch)
ISO 200 - 6400 (with boost up to ISO 25,600)
Also supports DX lenses, viewfinder automatically masks (5.1 megapixels with DX lens)
5:4 ratio crop mode (10 megapixels, up to 9 fps, viewfinder masked)
14-bit A/D conversion, 12 channel readout
Nikon EXPEED image processor (Capture NX processing and NR algorithms, lower power)
Super fast operation (power-up 12 ms, shutter lag 41 ms, black-out 74 ms)
New Kevlar / carbon fibre composite shutter with 300,000 exposure durability
New Multi-CAM3500FX Auto Focus sensor (51-point, 15 cross-type, more vertical coverage)
Auto-focus tracking by color (using information from 1005-pixel AE sensor)
Auto-focus calibration (fine-tuning) now available (fixed body or up to 20 separate lens settings)
Scene Recognition System (uses AE sensor, AF sensor)
Picture Control image parameter presets (replace Color Modes I, II and III)
Custom image parameters now support brightness as well as contrast
Nine frames per second continuous with auto-focus tracking
Eleven frames per second continuous without auto-focus tracking
Ten / eleven frames per second continuous in DX-crop mode (AF / no-AF)
Dual Compact Flash card slots (overflow, back-up, RAW on 1 / JPEG on 2, copy)
Compact Flash UDMA support
3.0" 922,000 pixel LCD monitor
Live View with either phase detect (mirror up/down) or contrast detect Auto Focus
Virtual horizon indicates if camera is level (like an aircraft cockpit display)
HDMI HD video output
'Active D-Lighting' (adjusts metering as well as applying D-Lighting curve)
Detailed 'Control Panel' type display on LCD monitor, changes color in darkness
New MB-D10 vertical grip fully integrates into body, multi battery type compatible
Buttons sealed against moisture
Dual battery charger as standard
Available November 2007

Photoshop Portrait - Before and After

Okay be subtle when touching up portrait images, a little goes a long way. Have a look at both images and see if you can pull the retouched image apart. I'll give you a step by step soon. As usual, click on each image to bring it up to size.

Lookout all you Canon shooters!

Someone has inadvertently disclosed the new Nikon digital SLR top D3 series of posters.The posters on the backs of the camera clearly marked : the high-precision 51 points autofocus system! The nine per second shooting speed! Up to 920,000 pixels, covering a total area of 3.0-inch low-temperature polysilicon LCD screen!

I believe the unveiling will happen 24th August, less than a week away.

Photoshop Colour Correction Part Two

Follow through the steps in this tutorial and you'll be able to colour correct almost any image.

Photoshop Colour Correction Part One

Colour Correction Part One

Photoshop Colour Correction

Later today I'll be posting two video tips on colour correcting an image in Photoshop. Part One will deal with the initial steps which only need to be applied once.

Part One

Step One - Setting the eye dropper tool set to 3 by 3 average.
Step Two - Resetting the RGB default values in the black point, grey point and white point which can be found in the curves dialog box.

Sharpening with Lightroom 1.1 Video Tip

Here's the Lightroom 1.1 sharpening tutorial I promised. And it includes sound. Excuse the quality of the video, still fine tuning the ideal size of the video. You'll get the idea of how to sharpen an image in Lightroom after viewing.

READ BELOW

I great tool for checking out how your sharpening is coming along is to blow the image up to 1/1 or 100% and then hold down your Alt/Option key as you move any of the four sliders. This will allow Lightroom to give a better view of what is and isn't been sharpened.

Lightroom and Masking in Photoshop

Okay, used a bit of lighting on this one. Have a go at reverse engineering the image and post your ideas on how this was acheived. HINT. I used a tripod and shot two images.