Do you have Lightroom yet?

If not, It may be time to plop down that $10/month for a subscription to the Photoshop CC/Lightroom CC bundle.

Lightroom CC (v.6) has added more features that make a trip into Photoshop even less common for me. I've been using it for a while now and was reminded to mention it's increasing capability by this article:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2015/05/28/adobe-teases-new-dehaze-feature-said-to-be-coming-soon-to-lightroom-cc

The learning curve isn't as steep as you would think and there are hundreds if not thousands of YouTube tutorials covering just about any aspect of its many functions.

It might also be time to look in the ol' camera bag and eBay some of those non-polarized filters... ;)

Dave

I'm glad you posted that. I've got the CC subscription but never tried Lightroom. I've done everything thru Photoshop. I saw some videos recently on what you can do with Lightroom and wanted to try it, but forgot about it.

I've got it downloading at work now, and I'll install it at home tonite!

Last year when I was ready to get Lightroom 5, I found Elements at Costco for $39, I find it cumbersome, is Lightroom more dweep friendly?

John

I'm glad you posted that. I've got the CC subscription but never tried Lightroom. I've done everything thru Photoshop. I saw some videos recently on what you can do with Lightroom and wanted to try it, but forgot about it.

 

I've got it downloading at work now, and I'll install it at home tonite!

I was a Picasa + Elements guy for years and I got a copy of Lightroom 4 as a promotional gift. I tried it out and was pleased with it but not overjoyed. When 5 rolled around, I started using it for just about everything since it completely erased the lines between RAW and JPEG processing (like Picasa does). I have been using it exclusively for a couple of years now and when the Adobe Photographer subscription deal came out, I signed up and moved my edits back to Photoshop. This latest release sure isn't going do drive me away!

Not as easy as dropping the film off at Costco, but it's getting there!

Feel free to post if you can't find answers on the web.

Dave

I will take you up on that offer . . . I'm looking forward to working with it. Seems much more targeted to photography than photoshop, which is 98% of what I do with graphics.

Here's a link to some keyboard shortcuts for Lightroom. I found them very helpful!!

http://www.lightroomqueen.com/keyboard-shortcuts/lrcc6/

Here's a link to some keyboard shortcuts for Lightroom. I found them very helpful!!

http://www.lightroomqueen.com/keyboard-shortcuts/lrcc6/

Nice tip! Reads as a what's what for LR functions whether you use the shortcut keys or not!

Sadly, I'll have to give up memories of my childhood from kindergarten through third grade to make room to learn all of them...

Dave

When I bought my new computer, I purchased Lightroom to replace the CS5 I had on my old computer. I enjoyed it so much, I loaded CS5 again. Perhaps if I sat down and learned how to use it, I'd like it. But I expected a similar experience to PS, with which I am familiar.

As an occasional, hobbyist photographer, I can't justify $10/month for their new service.

I've had the subscription for almost a year now. (I think i need to renew in either june or july). The best part is they work so well together. I do most everything in LR (I import all my raw files and convert to dng on import) and edit my files there. If I want to do more it is a simple "right click" and "edit it photoshop" and away I go. When finished a simple "save as" and the finished product gets imported right back into LR with the same keywords I had before.

Getting all the updates and upgrades as part of the price is nice also. I just did the latest LR update a few weeks ago and the "merge to panorama" is really nice. I like doing HDR in photomatix a little better than either the LR or Photoshop version but that is just me.

The price can't be beat. $10 a month when you consider that LR alone was/is about $150 and PS was something like $600-$700 when bought outright.

Well, this seems worth the price of admission!

Since I got picked to do all the family reunion pics, seems like a good time to download the 30 day free trial and see whats what.

From Elements 12, this like going from horse and buggy to a Ferrari. Only been playing with it for a few hours but without a single tutorial, I'm quickly making progress. This is going to make easy work of compensating for harsh pm sun backlighting family groupings.

Last year when I was ready to get Lightroom 5, I found Elements at Costco for $39, I find it cumbersome, is Lightroom more dweep friendly?

Lightroom has an admittedly different learning curve (you have to operate in different modules: Library for picking/choosing pictures, Develop for editing them, etc.) but I find it extremely powerful for the absolute vast majority of my work. We were able to thin down approximately 15,000 pictures from our last 7-day cruise to about 400 "finalists" in perhaps 10 hours, including edits. It's also extremely capable of copying the EDITS from one picture and pasting them onto lots of others, so if you have a series all shot in the same light, you can rapidly replicate your edits across the board.

So I'm feeling my way through Lightroom after only ever using Elements before.

I'm fixing all the family reunion portraits I was asked to do. I intentionally shot into the mid-afternoon sun (they would not adjust their schedule for decent lighting) and I didn't want everyone squinting in the sun.

As an example, before:

After:

I think it's a miracle they are coming out as well as they are - but you Lightroom users - any hidden tips I may be missing?

I was able to save a preset of settings to apply to most that were shot in similar conditions - awesome in that it gets me in the ballpark and I tweak them from there.

Just throw a few critiques at it if you feel compelled. It's the only way I learn, or at least other points of view and ideas beyond the tunnel vision I get when doing this.

Thanks.

So, is there a magic button in PS or LR that removes a sun flare?:(:(:(

So, is there a magic button in PS or LR that removes a sun flare?:(:(:(

Have you tried contextual fill in Photoshop? If the flare isn't overlapping something, you can just outline it with the polygonal lasso and press Delete. The dialog will pop up and pressing enter will "usually" remove the offensive object and fill is intelligently cloned from the surrounding area. If it is overlapping an object, it can get tricky but with the dodge and burn tools and using the hue slider on a masked area, you can do it. It's a PITA, though.

Cat Removal (would apply to non-overlaid flare)- close to one step - outline cat, press Delete to remove and clone missing shoe edge.

Flare removal - multi-step as outlined above.

No magic button but it is much easier than it used to be.

Dave

I was able to save a preset of settings to apply to most that were shot in similar conditions - awesome in that it gets me in the ballpark and I tweak them from there.

You don't always need to save a preset. you can highlight a corrected image and click the Copy (or Ctrl+Shift+C) button below the preset list in Develop then highlight another image and click Paste (or Ctrl+Shift+V) to copy all of the settings. It will retain the copied settings until you click Copy again or close the program, so you can adjust as many images you want by selecting and pasting. You can choose if you want to copy all or only a few settings in the dialog that pops up on copy.

Dave

I guess this is now an official tips and tricks thread!

Stacked focus

This is an awesome feature and very easy. Tripod is easiest but with a steady hand and burst mode you can move in slowly will work in a pinch.

Take a series of shots changing focus from near to far (or vice-versa) in slight increments to cover the area you want in focus.

From Lightroom, highlight all the images in the series and choose Edit In > Open as Layers in Photoshop

Select all layers and choose Edit > Auto-Align Layers. Choose Auto as the method and click OK.

When that is done, choose Edit > Auto-Blend Layers. Choose Stack Images and check Seamless Tones and Colors. Click OK.

Right-click on the layers in the Layers status window if you have it open and choose Flatten Image. You can also choose Layer > Flatten Image from the menu.

Crop as needed to remove any ragged edges or simply for composition.

Woo-hoo! That's it! Hours of painstaking erasing and cloning layer parts done in two minutes flat!

Single image at f/1.8

Eight image stack at f/2.5

Give it a try!

Dave

I wanted to ask you about this so bad, but was outstaying my welcome I feared!

Can't wait to try this. Thanks again Dave.

I wanted to ask you about this so bad, but was outstaying my welcome I feared!

 

Glad you didn't ask. I'm hoarding my Photoshop and Lightroom experience to give me an advantage during the Zombie Apocalypse!

In the real world, feel free to drop a question on any of these threads. I'm always happy to answer what I can. If I can't, someone will!

Dave

Glad you didn't ask. I'm hoarding my Photoshop and Lightroom experience to give me an advantage during the Zombie Apocalypse!

Just thought I would share a before/after lightroom... and this is a couple years old:

before70.jpg by Adam Brown, on Flickr

fallsunrise-70.jpg by Adam Brown, on Flickr