Lightroom 4 Sliders Work Differently!

Lightroom 4 was recently released, the first major release in over two years. Adobe regularly updates Lightroom but with each major release comes change! Lets take a look specifically at the Develop Module.

The biggest and most significant change comes in the "Basic Panel". Not only are there new sliders, but some of the olde sliders now work differently.

I could go in depth and compare and contrast to version 3 but I think this would only makes things confusing. Lets try to forget what the old sliders did before and concentrate on what they all do now.

I've listed the main sliders of interest and what light spectrum they address within a photograph. Over all each slider is more (but not absolutely) modularized in so far as what part of the light spectrum they address. I think this new approach makes MUCH more sense and will be easier to understand and use. If you "mouse over" the different sliders the specturum that they address will be highlighted within the historgram. This is a good way to remember what earch slider will do.

The sliders are listed below and identify what part of the light spectrum they work on within the photograph. You should use them roughly in a top down manner.

Exposure - Works on Mid-tones only, it will no longer clip highlights when you increase exposure.

Contrast - Works as you'd expect.

Highlights - Similar to the old Recovery but only works on Highlights and will not effect mid-tones.

Shadows - Similar to the old Fill but only works on Shadows and will not effect mid-tones.

Whites - Used to control Highlight clipping.

Blacks - Used to control Dark clipping.

Much of the rest of the Develop Module works as before.

The above video does a great job of recapping the changes, thanks to Olaf Bathke a German photographer who did a great job on this video. This guy is not only an incredible photographer but he really knows Lightroom. Amazing what he can do with this tool.

Update on Monday, April 23, 2012 at 2:13PM by Tom S.

Another nice review article with demonstrations.

Customizing Vignettes

With both Apple reducing the cost of Aperture to $85 and Adobe following them by reducing Lightroom to $150 from $300, there is little excuse for not having great editing and organizational tools for your photographs.

What I'd like to do today is introduce you to vignetting in Lightroom and how to take it further then you might have thought Lightroom is capable of. There are photographic examples below.

Vignetting in post processing is typically the placement of a halo, either dark or light, either round or oval around the subject in a photograph. It is an attempt to draw the eye to the subject away from distracting aspects of the photograph. Some lens create this effect from poor design and it is generally considered, in that case,  an unwanted attribute. But in post processing you can use this effect in a positive way to enhance a photograph.

Click to read more ...

Other Rules then Thirds

Important click to EnlargeWell we just never stop learning do we.... About the time I think I have LightRoom figured out... someone writes a blog about a feature that was right under my nose the entire time.

This one is on Scott Bourne's site PhotoFocus by a guest contibutor Jason D. Moore who points out that when you are in the 'Develop' module and cropping your photograph, you can hit 'O' and toggle you through other guides for framing your photographs.

Alternative Framing Techniques in Lightroom and in the Camera

Tether Any Camera?

Chris with his Tethred Nikon D3If you made it to Chris and Cami Smith's "Bending the Light:411" course last November, you'll remember that Chris tethered his D3 to LightRoom. Tethering allowed him to display any photographs he took directly on his laptop. When he took a shot of the model, LR would immediately import it and display it on his computer screen... The laptop was hooked to a projector and we could see his work real time.

We've been told that you have to have a Canon or Nikon camera to tether in LightRoom and although this is technically true... there is a way around this.

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Lens Correction

It is often said that photography is a matter of compromise and in the world of lenses that is true as well. No matter how good a lens is, it can have distortions and other oddities that it will introduce into a photograph that it taken. Thought most of these are very slight in some situations they might become objectionable and are correctable.

 The types of problems can be vignetting, lens distortion (both pin cushion and barrel) and chromatic aberration for example. You'll have to visit each of the above links for explainations and I have included a few graphics here as examples.

One of the neat features of most of the Adobe family of products is their "Profile Based" lens correction. Adobe has a large database that contains many of the problems associated most of the popular lens. However, not all lens have profiles built for them.

There is hope however. Adobe has supplied us with a tool and instrucitons to create our own profiles should the lens you are using does not yet have a profile built for it and is called The "Lens Profile Creater". It is free for download from Adobe Labs.

Here are some further instructions from another site that are worth reading.

Learning Lightroom

We will be doing a Lightroom workflow session soon..... How soon? That will depend on the next few weeks and how crazy it gets with the Biathlon World Cup events.

We've been doing classes for those of us just starting into photography, now it is time for those of us that are more advanced and need to buff up on our "post processing" skills. Even if you are not a Lightroom user I think the discussions will really help us all.

It would be neat to take a single picture that is complete, revert it back and go through the process from beginning to the end.

It might also be fun to take other Lightroom users and show us their way of doing things too.

Stay tuned and give us some feed back on when you think this should take place. The sooner the better in my opinion....

Correct Clipping

The ability to 'Preview' both highlight and shadow clipping in a photograph gives the photographer an easy way to identify these and correct them. This feature is available in both Lightroom and Bridge.

Using the photograph above shows an example in Lightroom. Note the "Clipping Indicators" located at the top of the Historgam panel. If you click on one or the other Lightroom will show you all areas of the photograph that are being clipped either in the Blacks or Whites.

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Touching Up in Photoshop

Here is the direct link to Jesse Rosten's video, along with some good tips about the process.

Basic Photo Retouch from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Lightroom - Managing Your Web Presence

One new feature that has appeared in Lightroom is it's ability to publish to the web via Facebook, Flickr and SmugMug. There is a plugin for Zenfolio and I'm sure there will be more support for other systems as time goes along.

With this feature Lightroom becomes your portal (window) on to these sites. Previously we talked about 'collections' which are logical folders that hold icons that point to you photographs. Collections can be based around a “Star Rating System” or any number of other attibutes that you assign to your photographs. Collections allow you another way to manage your photographs. Your window into Facebook, Flickr, etc. is just another collection. When you drag and drop a photograph to the Flickr collection, for example, it is ready to post with the click of a button.

Click to read more ...