Lightroom - A quick play

So in keeping bang up with technology, I bring you the first images on the blog processed in the just superseded Lightroom 3. As regular readers will know we are both fans of Phase One's Capture One RAW processing software.

Well I have generally shied away from Lightroom as a processing tool, and have just generally dabbled with it as a library tool. I did some processing with it in the beta test stages and was quite impressed as it was the first Adobe RAW processor that didn't make Canon 7D files in particular look worse unlike earlier versions of the Adobe RAW processing engine.

So here are a some side by side comparisons of firstly the Capture One RAW conversion with some Photoshop CS5 work to complete the cropping and sharpening functions with the second image processed in Lightroom

Images taken at Gigrin Kite feeding station in Wales in October 2010 with the 7D and 500 f4L

While there are actually very obvious differences in the processing in terms of sky colour, due to operator error on my part, I have say when lookiing at the full size images on my screen, I am very impressed with the Lightroom images.

I will do some more tesing and watch a few YouTube tutorials to improve my skills, but loking good so far.

There is a long way to go before I decide whether I will stick with full Photoshop or not. With upgrades massively cheaper than the full version, (ca.£150 v £600) it will be a brave move to bale out of future upgrades now.

Martin

Adobe - Heads up on Upgrades

Dave and I had a Skype catch up recently and one of the many topics of conversation was the upgrade path policy on Adobe products.

It used to be that if you had say Photoshop CS2 you could bu the upgrade to take you to CS5 as you could make the cheaper route option with up to 3 levels of version variance.

Caution, my friends - No more is that the case.

So unless you upgrade at each an every version, and miss one out you will pay full whack.

So for example, you are on CS4, CS5 is current and CS6 is just around the corner, then if you wait you will be shelling out £600 or thereabouts instead of ca. £150.

OK, so you are now warned.

I will check out Lightroom and see if that is the same, but will assume so.

So if you are on levels below CS5 or LR3, get buying if you want to save in the longer term

Links below for UK and US purchasers.

For UK buyers




For US/International buyers



Martin

Software-CS4/Lightroom Adjustment Tool

Now i am the first to admit that i am not good at processing-OK but definantly not good, This i proved to myself yesterday whilst going through the last of my images for my new website-Red Fox, Now foxes are my favorite animal, I dont know why but i love to photograph them and i have more fox images that any other mammal, Last year was a bumper year for me spending 3 months watching very small cubs growing up, Most of the photography was done in low light with a Canon 1D MK3, I dont know why but the images were quite flat as RAW files and although the foxes in Switzerland seem lighter than other places where i have seen them i could never really get a result after processing that did the fox any justice, As i mentioned in a previous post i have recently purchased a book on CS4 for nature Photographers and going through that and the attached DVD i thought that i would give the new Adjustment brush a go-WOW is all i can say,Layers made easy, Layer masks are something i never really got to grips with and Martin did show me a couple of times, Basically its where you isolate a part of the image and do localised adjustments to it without affecting the rest of the image, The new Adjustment brush does this without the need for making the image black and painting it back in, So first off open a RAW image and do any normal adjustments i.e exposure,colour temp etc then with the fox image i hit the adjustment brush and 'painted' over the fox, I ticked the auto mask feature to keep the brush strokes within the bounderies of the fox outline,if you do go over there is an erase button that you then can go back and paint out the area you dont want doing, once i had painted the fox (i set the exposure for -0.5 as i wanted to darken it) i ticked the show mask which then made the fox white and shows any areas where i had missed which i quickly painted in,Once i had done this i ticked the erase button and painted the eyes back in as i did not want to darken them, i moved the exposure to a setting that looked right which ended up around -0.4 and then added some saturation-remember this will only affect the part of the image that is 'painted' once i was happy i then repeated the process just taking in the eyes and i lightened then a little by adjusting the exposure to +0.25 and a little saturation, If shooting a landscape you could do this on a mutiple areas,If you tick the show pins box every time you add a new ask a pin will appear on the area that you have done so if you have made 5 masks on different parts of the image you can click on a pin and it will take you back to the settings applied for that part and if needed you can readjust them-all very easy to use and well shown in the DVD with the book, Once you are happy with what you have done just 'open' the image into CS4 and apply any extra processing needed i.e curves ,sharpening etc,Look at the 2 images below,The top one is from last year after my usual processing and the bottom one is from yesterday after using the adjustment brush






Its a tool that will now become part of my workflow, I know that Lightroom has the same feature and is the cheaper option if you are looking for software with it

Dave

Reviews - A good read for Photoshop CS4 users

If you buy the latest greatest Camera bodies you are normally forced to up grade various components to go with it. Like software and even your PC to work with the new programmes. This is something I had to do when I bought the Canon 1D3,To open the RAW files in Photoshop I had to buy the new CS3 as I prefer Photoshop to Canons DPP software, I could have opened the RAW files in DPP then converted to Tiff and then opened in CS2 but I like to work on a RAW not a Tiff so I purchased Photoshop CS3 and then found that my PC was too old for the new software so ended up with a new Dell-A lot of extra money on top of the Camera body, Now moving over to Nikons new bodies i purchased in advance from Adobe the new Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom programmes, CS4 is not that different to CS3 but it does have one or 2 nice new features tucked away in the ACR engine,The adjustment brush for one, Now I am the first to admit i am not really into processing and keep it to a bare minimum,I always try to get it right in camera so basically my workflow involves adjusting levels,Curves,Saturation and sharpening along with cropping and levelling if needed,So i have £500 software and use 2% of it, So i decided that now is the time to learn how to use the product more just in case I need to, After looking around the shops and forums one book kept coming up and that suit my needs-Photoshop CS4 for Nature Photographers-'A workshop in a book' By Ellen and Josh Anon, I purchased it from Amazon and for the last week or so have been going through it,The thing that I like is that it comes with a DVD that lasts about an hour and shows you how to set up 'Bridge' and runs through the new features found on CS4 over CS3,By watching the DVD you can clearly see how to do things and its done it a very simple manner-perfect for me as I hate it when people who know what they are doing write stuff like everybody would know how to do it,The book has lots of images of before and after and what the screen should look like as you are doing things-very layman's terms. It's priced here in the states at $39.99 but on Amazon its much cheaper-A good read and perfect for the Nature Photographer who is trying to get his/her head around Photoshop CS4-Now just need to get one for Lightroom 2

Dave

News and a few views

Just a short update from me today, having just got back from a meeting with a few folks from the RPS Nature Group as we get ready for the 2009 Exhibition. Images from last years exhibition can be seen here. My partner Sue is this years Exhibition Secretary and so we now have a house full of printed work, and stunning it looks too of the some of the work submitted so far, and I am sure that the digital entries will be stunning quality too, with the anticipation of increased numbers this year.

On the news front, this week has seen Canon updated the firmware for the 40D - who said it was superseded then? I occasionally steal Sue's 40D so will get that updated in a couple of weeks time. I like to leave any firmware updates for a couple of weeks before updating, unless it is a specific problems that I am experiencing. There are plenty of people who will be the beta testers for me, and the forums are full of problems , real or perceived soon enough. The only area where I didn't follow this was when I was going through the traumas of the 1Dmk3 AF issues last year.

To follow up the the 5Dmk2 recent upgrades, posted here, Adobe have released Lightroom v2.3 and ACR 5.3 as release candidate status. This was a new one on me but apparently means they are seeking further 'community' testing, as set out in more detail in DPR.

I finally bought into the Lightroom way of life over the Christmas holiday period and am getting to grips with it slowly. My main reason is simply for the Digital Asset Management (DAM) capabilities, as this is one area that I am sadly lacking and having had a good friend Andy Page show me some capability I can see where he is coming from, pity it cost me though.

Finally, there was a thread last night on EOS Forums pointing out that Calumet were selling the Canon 800 f5.6 IS L lens for just over £900. Well worth a punt I thought, but as to be expected there was a prompt email in my inbox this morning explaining the computer error. More like operator error!!

If you haven't done the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch today, then you have still got the opportunity on Sunday' We would love to hear of your sightings so please do leave some comments with what you have seen.

Dave will be back tomorrow with an update from his garden and local patch since we started blogging.

Martin