Lightroom - Who Has It

[Ripley]

I've just downloaded a trial of Lightroom as I took a lot of my photos in RAW mode in Scotland and the UK. OK, now to get the motivation to start converting them within the 30 day trial, some of the functions are similar to my Elements 5 raw conversion software which is a relief.

What do others think of Lightroom? Seems I can convert them all there (they are mostly landscapes and city shots, some taken at night as well) and then that's it, no PS work required.

ETA: I wish i had the money to just pay someone to do it.

Edited October 12, 2008 by Ripley

[Bilbo_Baggins_Junior]

I have to have it it is one of the few software requirements for uni.

I love it, it is a really great program for initial editing before going on to serious editing in PS. So it is fantastic if all the photo needs is minor adjustments, no massive PS work.

I prefer it over ACR (Adobe Camera Raw), not sure why I just do. Best organization program too!

[Ripley]

It's very confusing. I'm convering all my holiday snaps and some (most) are raw. I've found elements 5's raw conversion better than CS2 which I also have. Elements 5 has vibrancy, clarity. I don't want to do anything to the shots in PS other than crop as they are mainly all landscape/wildlife/city photos so not looking for any arty look.

[chezzyr]

Ripley: I would be interested to know how you find it. I never have and

looking for something to use on the road - be it LR or elements with the

converter.

I am in Wentworth at the moment - almost outback! Have been using

the tent, motel last night so I could download photos and enjoy a hot

shower. Great weather - lots of flies though!!

[Ripley]

I was wondering how you are going, chezzyr. I uploaded the trial of Lightroom, looked at it, but it all looks so confusing. I think I'll give it a miss as I don't have time to read a book or anything on it. It also takes up HEAPS of memory on my computer! I taught myself raw conversions from a great camera magazine article that had the elements 5 one, so I know what each slider does. So I don't think it's for me and I might just stick to elements 5's converter which still has clarity, vibrancy the same as lightroom. Hey, I also think Canon's new raw converter that came with the 30D I bought this year from BH New York is pretty good too.

[Ashanali]

We have lightroom 1.4 and it is a must for us. It allows us to quickly work on photos and tweak them all in one go whether they are in RAW or JPG format. From there we can easily decide if we wish to go further with the PS work.

Camera RAW converter in PS is great if you only want to do a few photos at a time but LR is great as a workhorse (for those who are editing a LOT of photos). :p

[kja]

I have and love Lightroom!

I don't think you need a book or intense internet reading to get started and once you get the hang of things you'll find it really does cut down the time you spend with your photos - both in processing and organizing.

I'm home now and would be happy to help anyone who's interested to get over the "newness" bump in LR so you can give it a fair go...

[Ripley]

Thanks, kja. Is it much different from elements raw converter I wonder? I have so many holiday snaps to convert from raw. I havent' started as it's going to take an entire day or all weekend. Maybe next weekend.

[kja]

Converting to jpeg (or any other format) is fast and easy in LR ... File -> Export -> choose your settings and folder and let it do it's thing.

You do not have to convert to work on images though, so if you want to adjust anything at all do your adjustments before converting then follow the steps above. You can convert one at a time or whole batches...whatever works best for your particular purpose. I do both depending on the day and what I'm trying to do.

I use the stars or the colours (or both) to tag the images in a folder that I actually want to do something with. For instance, my first run through gets marked in green and X (for stuff to just delete totally). I just did 1500 photos in about 15 minutes or so. Now I have 230ish that I know I either want to deal with one way or another (email family/friends, add to blog, upload to web, etc). 230 is much more manageable than 1000+.

I use the stars to mark stuff I really like as I go through, too...if I know something is a definite, it gets 5*...if I can clearly see that I want to keep an image, but I also see that I want to "do something" to it (crop, rotate, tidy up) I mark it with 1*.

Sometimes I'll mark photos with another colour, flag or star rating if I want to do something in particular, such as print it, or add it to a gallery, or send it in for ID ... again, this makes grabbing the photos for a purpose really fast and easy. It's all done on the first two rounds of culling. Round two and round three are for selecting images for things that come up after the initial cull and/or for selecting an image from a group of similar shots coz I get a bit lazy doing that sort of thing in round one sometimes LOL I may also select some images to try more "advanced" editing on at this stage, though that's pretty rare for underwater stuff (happens all the time for above water stuff).

My culls will take about 30 minutes total max. My edits will probably take an hour or so. Converting for output will take another few minutes for each need. That's a week's holiday in only a few hours.

When tweaking, if I have images that are in similar conditions etc I'll tweak one, then select the others that I think the same tweaks will work on and synch the tweaks...some might need a little adjustment, but especially for the web uses, this saves oodles of times and gets me right in the ballpark.

I also try to keyword my images. The basics don't take long (select all images from my last holiday, add Wakatobi as a keyword and hit the button). Later I'll go back and add more keywords to the images like species names, dive site, behaviour etc. On my last US holiday, I added the keywords like San Francisco or Florida or 4th of July or fireworks right away ... so finding an image when I was ready to edit was easier as I could narrow down what I was looking at. I added more keywords (like Mom, Boat, Car, parade etc) later...this multi-approach works best for me as I don't want to spend too much time initially dealing with keywords and like to do it in smaller blocks.

Of course, when I started, it took longer, but LR is awesome for this kind of thing.

[Ripley]

My photos are in separate folders by date and my OH uploaded them daily so I can remember what is on each folder just by the date as I can remember where we were on that day (and later on if I forget, I have my itinerary to go by). I don't think the landscape images need much tweaking, I checked the histogram as I took the shots as I wanted to get it right in camera. So just the basic adjustments I'll be happy with. I'll give it a go next weekend - I don't have the concentration when I get home from work to do that sort of thing and night time light isn't great to gauge colours by.

[PossumCorner]

...

What do others think of Lightroom? ...

Had an early version way back and didn't much like it. But the new Lightroom2 seems terrific, have only a trial version so battling with how to do what and why a bit.

Does anyone recommend any of the books? Will probably get the Kelby one to join his shelf here. I booked a couple - LR2 for Dummies even - at the library yesterday but they'll take a month to become available on loan (just as the trial runs out, great). Most only seem to be available from overseas if in a hurry: Borders and Dymocks had nuthin'.