FYI
Its another Lightroom
Tuesday! In fact, it is one of the most important
LR2sdays since I started all this.
Each week I gather the best of the Lightroom-o-sphere
into one place for your edification, perusal and
gain. Lets get started, shall we...
- First, for the big one. Adobe has released Lightroom 3. Finally. $299 and upgrades are $99. Go get it here...
- Adobe’s look at what is new in Lightroom 3.
- Adobe’s support pages...
- The team’s official blog has the word.
- The Lightroom-Blog covers the
release. Speaking of which, looks like Sean is trying to
steal my thunder with a nice resource list here
- Viktoria Bampton has a great rundown on the new stuff as well...
- Photoshop Cafe does likewise...
- Laura Shoe has her say. And a look at thew new custom print layouts.
- Nat Coalson has a new book out already, and if it is as good as the last one, its recommended.
- Peachpit has a plethora of tutorials coming for the new release. Wow, look at al those books...
- John Beardsworth has released a new plugin for Lightroom called Locktastic. Learn more here.
- Julianne Kost has some great new tutorials on AdobeTV.
- Jefferey Friedl has some announcements for your consideration...
- Blurb has an upcoming webinar (man I hate saying that) on taking images from Lightroom to book.
- Lightroom Pro Q&A with Chris Orwig
- CameraDojo has a learning center online...
- Ian Lyons looks at the new release...
- Lightroom Secrets takes a look at the new import dialog. And the new grain feature.
- X-Equals has a few jewels this week: a gander at Lightroom print templates and hints on editing sequences.
- David DuChemin talks LR3 and how to refine your vision with Vision & Voice...
- Scott Kelby has his LR3 learning center up and running as well...
- The Luminous Landscape will have a massive video tutorial available in short order.
- TheLightroomLab has a look at five new features for pros...
- John Nack points us to some new video sessions coming up for Lightroom and Photoshop CS5.
If you’re upgrading and are a member of a professional organization, don’t forget you might get a discount (ASMP etc). Adobe also has some promos out there...
Jewel Heart Dress Rehearsal
Lightroom Tuesday
Have a great week...
Dance-a-Palooza
Shows are today @ 2 and 7 pm. Details in the link above.
Lightroom 3 Beta 2 in Production
Coppelia Redux
So this weekend I shot a performance of Coppelia in
Portland for a young dancer. You can see some of the
shots from that performance over the past few days on
the blog.
After pretty much ignoring LR3 beta X since its
launch last fall, I decided it was time to put it
thru its paces. Mainly I was looking to see how the
updated noise reduction features were going to work -
I tend to work in such situations at 640 to 3200 ISO
and at the higher end I like to take the edge off a
bit.
Let me preface this quickly:
Lightroom 3 is in beta still. Beta
as in not-final. As in, it still has bugs. This is
why I’ve ignored it for production work since it came
out. But I’ve talked to a lot of other photogs who
are using it daily for production, so I decided to
forgo my usual reticence and give it a workout.
So lets see...
So I imported the files and converted to DNG. The
shoot was about 2400 images, and I pulled them off
the cards using Photo Mechanic because it will work
with multiple CF card readers. Come to think of it, I
didn’t even give LR3 a try as I’ve become so
accustomed to doing it this way with LR2.
I really hate the extra steps that this takes, but it
beats doing each card serially. This way I can then
import, convert to DNG and build 1:1 previews in one
fell swoop - i.e. like when I’m asleep as I did here.
I’m still getting used to the new import dialog, but
I like how it helps you visualize where things are
going (but I’m biased as I worked on the early
versions of this).
I came back in the morning and found all the pictures
where they should be, ready to roll.
I then applied a preset in Library to turn them all
to Black & White (using my fave b/w preset) and
started to work.
My B/W preset usually gets me close, so after a bit
of tweaking contrast/brightness/exposure, I generally
dive into cropping and then the spot tool. Both tools
seemed a bitt laggy and slower than their LR2
brethren. I certainly stared at that beach ball a lot
more - both to get the tool ready to roll and in
between placing spots. When you have 20 or 40 pieces
of dirt on the dancer’s marley, you want speed to get
them all taken care of. This was (and always is) the
most time consuming part of shooting dance photos.
Note to self, this is a beta. And to be honest, I’ve
never found it to fast for my liking. Beta. Beta.
Beta.
Also, when working on a
plethora of spots, you often keep running into other
spots or their clone source. This requires
workarounds - create a spot elsewhere and drag it to
where you want it. Then reposition the source. That
takes alot of time. I wish there was an “ignore” the
other spots keyboard shortcut or something to speed
this frustrating part of my workflow up. But hey, I’m
dealing with detritus on a black floor...
I then used the adjustment brushes to dodge and burn
areas as appropriate. It seemed to work about as I
was used to, with the exception that they took away
the (-) and (+) button sets for shortcutting your
selection. I missed them, and may continue to do so.
I’ve never really wanted to adjust all those sliders
at once, so a quick plus or minus for exposure or
clarity was a bit faster. I may get accustomed to it,
but I miss it.
Spot tool gripe b: Q. For years you used N to get to
the spot tool. Now you have to use Q (as in Quit
beachballing I guess - sorry Jon) and it took quite a
bit of time to retrain myself. I suppose it will be
easy to get used to, and I do like the consistency
this now brings to Library/Dev modules. Shrug long
term, pain short term.
Exporting to SmugMug went pretty good - it even
seemed that the SmugMug plugin from Friedl was less
buggy than the one in LR2 but that might be just me
thinking to much. (PS. It is. Jefferey emailed me to
ask about it and told me its the same plugin). I also
might be blaming him when network issues are to
blame...
The noise reduction is much nicer.
The new Post-Crop Vignetting tool gives me better
results than LR2. Nice.
I was very happy to see my presets and export stuff
where it should be. Pretty painless transition.
It felt like Library/Develop transitions and preview
generation was a bit faster. Hooray for that.
Overall, its a nice upgrade from LR2 (better than PS
CS5 which has been a bit ho-hum for me).
And better yet, guess how many photos went to
Photoshop for further work? None. Zilch. Not a one.
This is good, because a trip to the big blue box
translates to at least 5-10 minutes, 200 MB on disk
and extra file management duties. Not one. Awesome.
Can’t wait for the final release. I expect that the
final code will show some significant trimming on
those laggy episodes I was having.
Dance Monday!
Its another Lightroom
Tuesday!
Each week I gather the best of the Lightroom-o-sphere
into one place for your edification, perusal and
gain. Lets get started, shall we...
- X-Equals looks at color spaces and IC profiles. Part 1 is up.
- X-Equals also looks at how to “Bend Presets to Your Will” No luck getting that preset to get me a soda from the fridge though...
- LightroomKillerTips.com has a new installment of their Q&A day up...
- LightroomNews.com has announced the release of LRB Portfolio 2.6...
- David Monnerat is using Lightroom 3, read why.
- Correcting White Balance and Exposure in Lightroom.
Looks to be a slow week, so that is what we got. Have a great Tuesday!
Vase
And one of a young dancer
struck me as well (its hard to just focus on one
dancer)...
Lightroom Tuesday!
When I lived in the Bay Area, I’d do a daily bike ride out to Baylands park and around the Guadalupe slough for exercise. It was a 13 mile loop and I was always the only guy out there - rare for the Bay Area.
So today I got up early and headed over to walk the same route. I didn’t do the full loop, obviously, but I did clock off 7 miles before 9 am. It was a gorgeous day and I took my new 70-200 f2.8 IS lens out for a stroll.
Here are a few picts...
Dance Friday!
Its another Lightroom
Tuesday!
Each week I gather the best of the Lightroom-o-sphere
into one place for your edification, perusal and
gain. Lets get started, shall we...
- A set of very interesting collage templates for LR 3 Beta
- X-Equals has a great article on correcting color cast.
- LightroomKillerTips.com has a great Q&A with Sean McCormack of LightroomBlog.com fame.
- Victoria Bampton gives us sneak peak at Lens Corrections in ACR 6.1 (and presumably what is coming in LR 3)
- Matt Kloskowski posts 4 Lightroom Productivity tips he can’t live without on LightroomKillerTips.com
- PresetHeaven.com has a new preset for your edification.
Thats it for this week. Have a great Tuesday!
Lightroom Tuesday!
Good Morning!
Its another Lightroom
Tuesday!
Each week I gather the best of the Lightroom-o-sphere
into one place for your edification, perusal and
gain. Lets get started, shall we...
- Laura Shoe in Seattle has announced the dates for the rest of her 2010 Lightroom and Photoshop courses.
- What software for a Photographer’s new Mac? Lightroom? Check. Office? Bzzt. I hate MS office for the Mac. Slow, bloated and crappy. iWork or OpenOffice (free!) are both better/less expensive choices. InDesign/Illustrator are a must have for layout and design work (if you do it). Doing business cards or brochures in Word is a recipe for insanity.
- LightroomKillerTips.com looks at Lightroom Beta 3, CS5 and sharpening.
- Ever wonder what makes up a Preset? Before you click on that very inviting bit of text, watch this...
- X-Equals had a great series on mastering the HSL pane in Lightroom. Read up. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
- DPS looks at Survey Mode
- The folks at DPE have a look at tethered capture in Lightroom 3 Beta 2.
- A quick overview of using the brushes in Lightroom.
- A free Quick Touch Up preset for your Tuesday.
That is it for today. Have a great Tuesday...
Dance Friday!
Scouts
Lightroom Tuesday!
What You Got?
- Lens distortions and abberations got you down? Spend a measily $15 and get PTLens, a good tool that can be run as a Lightroom Editor (and it streamlines the workflow some from a standalone app). I’ve tried it, and it works well. Not as well as a correction module, but that isn’t yet on the radar. Until then, working on a rendered tiff is what you get - and its worht noting that this is Aperture’s solution to everything and it kinda sucks compared to being able to do this fancy stuff on Raw images. See LR 2.0’s Local Corrections for example. Zing! (Via the Lightroom Blog)
- A reader, Mike Solomon, pointed me to a tutorial and a couple of Lightroom presets on his blog. He says they give photos the “it” that sometimes is needed for advertising photographs. Worth a read.
- Like to put your stuff on the web from Lightroom? Check out all the galleries on Lightroomgalleries.com