Lightroom: RAW In-Depth Primer

[TheWAND]

So there have been a few questions regarding Lightroom and Photoshop, mainly, "which program is right for the average user?" I'm going to address the question here and hopefully give some knowledge regarding the two programs.

 

First things first, for reef photos and day-to-day use, I choose Lightroom. In this thread, I will only cover Lightroom, because frankly, I only open Photoshop once every few weeks to put together a collage or something of the sort. Lightroom is a photo-management program that has Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) built into it. What does this mean? It means Lightroom will recognize your RAW files and allow you to export them into .jpg files.

 

The most important thing with staying organized with Lightroom is to keep your files organized. That means keeping RAW files date-filed in a RAW folder, and keeping .jpg's date-filed in a LIVE folder. Here's what I mean.

 

This is my root "Pictures" folder.

 

 

Because this is such a big project, it gets its own folder. We have the RAW folder for RAW files, and the LIVE folder for pictures that have been exported as .jpg's.

 

 

This is what "date-filed" means. This is done so you can keep pictures organized easier by date in the same catalog in Lightroom.

 

 

Exported .jpg files are given the same treatment in the LIVE folder.

 

 

So back to Lightroom. How does it work? First, we'll go into the Library screen. The Library screen allows you to choose which folder you will be looking at on the far left of the screen. That list of dates is the different folders I have imported into the program. Lightroom keeps records of both the modified versions of the RAW files as well as the unmodified versions, which is why it is classified as a non-destructive image processor. On the far right is the "Quick Develop" pane, which allows me to apply a saved preset to the entire folder or selected images. This is useful for large projects that have consistent color and lighting situations.

 

 

Now that I've chosen the image I want to process, I will move to the Develop screen. This image hasn't been altered yet, and is exactly what the camera sensor saw when the shutter was actuated. On the left, there is the Presets pane, Snapshots pane, History pane, and Collections pane. Presets allows you to change multiple image processing sliders with a single click of the button. They are convenient for giving a consistent look from image to image when doing larger projects. The Snapshots pane is for when you are in the process of processing the image. You can save a Snapshot of the sliders to snap back to for comparison with your current settings. This is convenient for when you are indecisive of the overall look of the image. History allows you to go through each step of the processing in case you have made a mistake somewhere and you cannot figure it out by looking at your sliders on the right of the screen. Normally, I will only have my Presets and History pane expanded. To finish the Lightroom side, I will process this single image and export it.

 

 

First step for me always is to select a preset. Here I chose the one highlighted in the picture ("ccea"). It's named after the event I initially used it for, but I've really taken a liking for the look of it. You can see a slight difference in the image now. It looks closer to a finished product!

 

 

The first problem I saw with the preset is that now the highlights have been blown out in some major details in the picture, mainly on the aluminum milling on the record platform. I'll lower the exposure a tad (which the preset had already boosted 0.95+ stops) and recover the highlights a bit. Once I can see lines, I stop.

 

 

From here, I like how the image looks, so I export it. Export shortcut on Mac is (cmd+shift+e), on PC, it is (ctrl+shift+e). This is the main export screen. Here you can choose which folder to export to, image size (I normally export for the web at 2500 pixels long side), and even put in a simple text watermark.

 

 

Pick a folder!

 

 

This is the simple watermark screen.

 

 

Last, but not least, this is the finished product!

 

[Withers]

FYI, your first 5 images have broken links

[Veng]

Nice write up. I'm going to have to explore light room a bit. You've got some broken links as well.

[TheWAND]

Sorry. Fixed the links. Links broke when I moved them into an album.

[Withers]

ew you use the presets?

[TheWAND]

ew you use the presets?

I use my own custom presets. The ones that come with the software aren't for me.