Lightroom samples

[elizabethlmccoy]

anyone want to share before & afters of photos they've used lightroom on?? I'm really wanting to get this but i'd like to know how effective it is on not so great photos and turning them into great photos.

[jtaubman]

I suppose it depends on not so great to great you are looking for.

I find I can "finish" photos in light room 95% of the time, by that I mean I can get them ready for printing or use in layouts with out reverting to Photoshop Elements. I tend to only use PSE now when I need to do HDR style merges of two conversions.

Here is just a quick finish on a RAW photo

Original
http://www.rjt.org.uk/filestore/files/img_0664-3.jpg

Fixed
http://www.rjt.org.uk/filestore/files/img_0664-2.jpg

[Emma]

it seems with PS/PSE, Lightroom is redundant because I can fix them in there anyway. I loathe getting more software, so what's the main benefit of LR over PS/PSE?

[jtaubman]

Emma, I think you might be missing the real point of LR.

For me it allows the following

1. Batch processing and editing of RAW files. So if I have a batch of photographs from the same situation, I can white balance and process tens of photos at once.

2. Key wording and cataloguing and sorting photos. To give you an idea, Steve and I had 2500 photos when we returned from a weeks holiday, 95% of which were in RAW format. We rated and tagged all the photos, so when I came to do my Holiday Album, I was able to quickly group together by quality and location to do my pages.

3. The virtual copies - I love being able to have 8 or 9 conversions for a single image, with out using disk space for them, I currently have 18000 photos in my lightroom catalogue and on my hard disk, I would be hard pressed to find the ones I would want with out it.


I used to use the PSE organiser, but it struggled with the size of my catalogue and it does not have as many options for searching as LR.

Obviously if you don't shoot in RAW, one of the main reasons for getting LR goes away as PSE/PS can open the photos directly. For me though the fact I can fix my RAW files ready for export to what ever format I want with out generating full size jpg or tif or PSD files for them.

[Emma]

Hmm, I think I already get all of that between Bridge and PS, though I do not know exactly how to BATCH files from one type to the other in Bridge. PS can open RAW fine using its Camera RAW feature (open by itself when I try to open a RAW file), and then I can apply those settings to any other RAW pics I want. PSE Organizer has versions, but I don't know if Bridge does. IN some ways I think Organizer does more than Bridge, which is just plain wrong! Either tha or I need to learn more!

[elizabethlmccoy]

i've just seen the finishing especially in children pictures really POP...love the auto lighting effects that i've seen.

[shazzt]

From what I have seen, Lightroom is aimed at photographers. I have been tempted to try it out because I have seen so much cool stuff done with it (particularly with downloaded presets) but I don't want to risk really liking a piece of software I can't afford!

[Tina]

could you show these, Liz?

[elizabethlmccoy]

lol...nope that's what i'm looking for...i'll try googling...and i think what i'm saying is the presets that sharon mentioned.

I'm just really loving the lighting/coloring effects

[elizabethlmccoy]

here we go i found one!!!!

http://clickthegoodnews.blogspot.com/2007/10/lightroom-before-after.html

[sammdc]

wow that is awesome the way it changes the photo thanks for the link Liz

[elizabethlmccoy]

yeah...i wonder if you can dl a trial version like other ps products...if so i might try it out. I think the lightroom by itself isn't too too expensive...its saveable...$2-300???

[Tina]

I DLed the 30 day trial tonight.

Here are my results after twiddling with it...

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/data/1624/05_Jan_21_23_37.jpg

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/data/1624/03_Jan_21_23_29.jpg

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/data/1624/04_Jan_21_23_33.jpg

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/data/1624/02_Jan_21_23_25.jpg

dang. now i want it, and yes, it's $300...

:doh:

I especially like how it really shows off the color of Tate's eyes that I can never capture in photos.

[shazzt]

They look gorgeous Tina (well Tate always does!!). Lightroom Killer tips (http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/)often has free presets to download as well as all kinds of useful info. In fact here is a link for presets to download from them (http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/archives/presets/). I am pretty sure I have seen other presets around if I can only remember where. I will continue to go la la la and pretend it doesn't exist....

[bettyred]

I love LR- I think it's so simple and easy to use. I throw my card in the pc, it catalogs them with my personal settings and I can keyword them as well as color code lol I think if you want to choose between adding PSE or LR, and you already have a version of photoshop- then by all means go for LR if you take tons of pics. It has super simple controls as well as fun presets and you can create virtual copies for editing then export the edited images into a folder without holding a huge folder with alllllll of your full res photos it stores them in catalogs.

Here's my friends daughter- they live in SC and I haven't been able to make it for Halloween-

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/291/2004010610028002cp8.th.jpg (http://img85.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2004010610028002cp8.jpg)

and this is after you clicks in LR- I did take this into photoshop and add sparkles and color back into the wand- but it's a lot of fun, and did I say easy? LOL

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/1158/200401061002800eg4.th.jpg (http://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200401061002800eg4.jpg)

It's strictly a no-frills photo software- if you have PS and want an add on to help organize and process your RAW images- this is it.

Red

[elizabethlmccoy]

OOOOHHHH now i'm really really really wanting it!!!! Tina those samples ROCK.... I love how it really handles the white balance for you...that's something i always have to fiddle with

[carlalee]

So at risk of jumping in with the BIG dogs (er I mean ladies ;)), I saw where LR can be used for jpgs. Now I have a nice p&s (Canon SD750) and CS2 but I'm finding that still the camera can only do what you tell it to do and we're not speaking the same language :( most of the time. I'd like to have better pictures to scrap but just don't have any more free time to really delve into photography per say. So with all that said, would LR just be over kill considering what I have already? I don't plan on purchasing a DSLR at any point and have tried to "fix" photos in CS2 but seem to get lost very easily, without much to show for it. What do you think? I'd love to hear from some more experienced folks. TY -c-

[elizabethlmccoy]

hmmm hard to say why not download the trial...then see what you think

[carlalee]

Rrrrrrrrrrr I knew that is what you were going to suggest! :D So, I did last night. I was surprised that it was less than 50 Mbs, considering that CS3 was like 450 Mbs. I haven't installed it yet. I'll probably wait until the weekend since I'll be fairly busy until then and want to make the most of my 30 days. Hmmmmmmmm If I work like the dickens, I can fix all of my current photos before the 30 days is up then have at least some stuff to work with for scrapping until the new release of LR comes out next year... YEAH RIGHT! ;) TY elizabeth! -c-

[shazzt]

From the Adobe website:
"Adjustments you make to images in Lightroom won't alter the original data, whether you're working on a JPEG, TIFF, DNG, or camera raw file."

I finally caved and downloaded the trial. The one click presets are cool and it does seem straightforward to use.

[elizabethlmccoy]

i'm holding off on downloading the trial until i have alittle $$ saved up... I really don't want to have to wait if I absolutely love it LOL

[jtaubman]

If you have the time (& money) the lynda.com course on lightroom is really good.

You have to join for month to do it, but they also have a good few other courses on all sorts of software related things.

[lilanne99]

I love Lightroom, but I am using it for a photography business as well as personal photos. I think it works very well for working on a large number of RAW files. WAY WAY WAY better and less time consuming for me than using Bridge or PS.

[kim]

Working in lightroom is so intuative!! :)

I posted some preset samples here...

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=5604

[carlalee]

WOW Kim these are totally amazing! Will you be offering this class later on? Unfortunately, the tax man cameth and the tax man taketh away. LOL TY -c-