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Mastering Light Room Book Two The Develop Module
Mastering Light Room Book Two The Develop Module
Mastering Light Room Book Two The Develop Module
LIGHTROOM
A PHOTOGRAPHERS GUIDE TO LIGHTROOM 4, 5, 6 & CC
ANDREW S GIBSON
Contents
Introduction
Lightroom versions
Notes
Advice for new Lightroom users
Before you start
A useful exercise
Global adjustments
Working with panels
Lightroom workflow
The Camera Calibration panel
The Lens Corrections panel
The Basic panel
Basic panel: White balance
Basic panel: Tonal controls
A closer look at the Histogram
The Presence sliders
The Tone Curve panel
The Effects panel
The HSL / Color / B&W panel
The Split Toning panel
The Detail panel
3
7
8
9
11
12
13
20
22
24
29
44
45
55
63
68
79
89
98
106
109
Local adjustments
The Adjustment Brush
The Graduated Filter
The Radial Filter
Portrait retouching
The Crop Overlay
The Spot Removal Tool
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122
128
137
141
149
161
167
168
169
182
187
188
192
196
198
201
202
Conclusion
Photography ebooks
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208
INTRODUC TION
1. Post-processing starts at the point you press the shutter button to take a
photo.
In fact, it starts before then, when you decide which aperture, shutter speed, ISO
and focal length to use. In other words, you wont see any tutorials about how to
imitate the effect of using a wide aperture to blur the background here instead, I
expect you to select the appropriate aperture when you take the photo.
Ive been studying the work of two portrait photographers I have a lot of
admiration for: Tom Hoops and Eduardo Izquierdo. Both have portraits in their
portfolios with very dark, and sometimes completely black, backgrounds. This led
me to play with the idea of making the backgrounds in my own portraits even
darker. After trying it, and thinking about the results, I realised that I had gone
too far the backgrounds needed to be lighter than I had made them. Luckily in
Lightroom its easy to go back and make adjustments when this happens.
This is called visualisation the ability to picture in your mind, when you take
a photo, what the ultimate result will be after you have processed the image in
Lightroom. This takes practice, and is skill that is refined with time and experience.
2. Intent determines your approach. It is linked to your world view, and the
way you want to express it in your photos.
Lightroom versions
This ebook covers Lightroom 4, Lightroom 5, Lightroom 6 and Lightroom CC.
Lightroom 6 and Lightroom CC are the most recent versions of the software and
were released in April 2015.
Lightroom 6 is what you get when you buy or upgrade the perpetual license. You
can continue to use it as long as you wish without paying any more money.
Lightroom CC is what you get when you subscribe to Adobes Creative Cloud
Photography Plan, along with Photoshop CC, Lightroom mobile and Lightroom
web. If you stop paying the subscription fee at any time, some of Lightrooms
features, including the Develop module, are disabled. But you still have full access
to the Library module, and therefore to your photos and Lightroom Catalog.
Other than that, Lightroom 6 and Lightroom CC are virtually the same. It is possible
that future updates will get pushed out faster to Lightroom CC users, but at this
stage its too early to tell how often that will happen, if at all.
Notes
Screen shots are taken from a MacBook Pro using OS X. If you are a
PC user your screen will look different. Most of the differences are
minor, and down to the operating system not the program on the
whole Lightroom looks the same most of the time in both Windows
and Mac OS X.
I would also like to clarify the way shortcuts are used in this ebook:
Right-clicking: On a PC you can right-click just about anywhere in Lightroom
to bring up a contextual menu. If youre a Mac user right-click may be disabled.
You can access the contextual menu by holding the Control key down when you
click. Or, you can enable right-clicking (System Preferences > Mouse) even with a
single-button Apple mouse. An easy solution is to use a Windows mouse Mac OS
X recognises it and enables right-clicking. I find the right-click invaluable, and will
mention it frequently in the ebook. So please dont get confused if you also use a
Mac and right-clicking doesnt work.
Command/Control keys: Keyboard shortcuts on the Mac often use the Command
key. Windows keyboards use the Control key instead. I will list the Mac shortcut in
the ebook with the PC shortcut in brackets, like this: Cmd-S (PC: Ctrl-S).
Keyboard shortcuts: Although I will mention the most useful keyboard shortcuts,
I wont use them all. Most of the time I will guide you to the appropriate menu
option (i.e Photo > Add to Target Collection). If a shortcut exists, it will be listed
next to the relevant option in the menu (in this case, the shortcut is B). You can
also bring up a list of keyboard shortcuts relevant to the module youre in by
pressing Cmd-/ (PC: Ctrl-/) at any time.
Terminology: Photoshop comes in several versions: Photoshop Elements,
Photoshop CS, Photoshop CC and Photoshop Lightroom. For the sake of simplicity,
I will use the term Photoshop to refer interchangeably to Photoshop Elements,
Photoshop CS and Photoshop CC, and Lightroom to refer to Photoshop Lightroom.
Left: Right-click on a PC
or Ctrl-click on a Mac to
bring up a contextual
menu like this. Contextual
menus act as a shortcut to
commonly used functions
in the Lightroom menus.
The options presented are
related to the part of the
program you click on.
I will explain what Virtual Copies are in detail later. But for now, if they are new to
you all you need to know is that they are an easy way to make multiple copies of
an image that you can process in different ways. For example, if you want to make
both a colour and a black and white version of an image.
The corollary of this is that you should also learn what you can do in Lightroom to
avoid having to use another program. For example, the Soften Skin Adjustment
Brush preset in Lightroom is more than good enough for most portrait retouching.
You only need to use an alternative for high end retouching work.
Lightroom doesnt give you as many options as the plug-ins, but it may well be
good enough for your purposes. Understanding exactly what you can do in the
Develop module helps you understand when you need to use another application
to get the effect you want.
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Tonal contrast
Tonal contrast is the difference between the lightest and darkest areas of a photo.
For example, if you take a photo of a white flower against a dark backdrop there
is a significant difference in brightness between the flower and the background.
Tonal contrast is an important part of the composition. Its also the basis of most
successful black and white photography and much colour photography.
Strength of colour
Do you want your colours to be strong, soft or subtle? This is a question you
address when you take your photos as well as in post-processing. If you like strong,
saturated colours then you may want to take photos on a brilliant sunny day, using
a polarising filter to bring out their full depth and richness.
On the other hand, if you prefer soft colours, you may take photos in the shade, or
on a cloudy day, so that the colours are naturally softer. You can then think about
how you want to emphasise the softness of the colour in the Develop module.
Light or dark
The portraits I showed you earlier, the ones with the dark backgrounds, are
exercises in tonal contrast. The light skin of the model provides a rich contrast
against the dark backgrounds. Tonal contrast is an important part of my style, and
in those photos I chose to emphasise it in post-processing.
Colour balance
Do you want your image to have a warm colour cast, a cool one, or to have neutral
colour? I cover this in detail in the section about white balance.
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Do you want your images to have a dark feel or a light feel? Again, the answer
is mostly settled when you take the photo, and post-processing provides the
emphasis.
A useful exercise
The above questions are here to get you thinking about how you will use
Lightrooms Develop module. I appreciate that while visualisation is a useful tool,
there will be times when you just take a photo of an interesting subject and decide
how to process it later. Or something may occur to you at the processing stage that
you didnt see when you took the photo. Thats one of the interesting things about
processing images it can open up new possibilities. Then once you have mastered
new tools or processing techniques, you can take photos with these in mind.
You may be struggling to work out your approach to post-processing. Thats fine
its not always an easy process, especially if you are new to this way of thinking.
It is useful to look at the work of some of your favourite photographers, and think
about what aspects of their images appeal to you. These are pointers and will give
you ideas that you can apply to your own work.
Try this exercise. Choose ten of your favourite images from other photographers. It
may be helpful if they are from a similar genre. For example, if you are interested in
portraits, then choose ten photos of people.
If the images are in colour, how did the photographer use colour? Are the
colours predominantly warm or cool, or a mixture of the two? Are they saturated or
are they soft?
If the images are in black and white, how has the photographer used tonal
contrast and texture? Does the monochrome approach appeal to you, or would
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you prefer to see the image in colour? Why do you think the photographer chose to
work in black and white, rather than colour?
How important is light in the composition of the image? Is the light hard or
soft, natural or artificial? What is the relationship between the light and the use of
colour and tonal contrast?
How has the photographer used focus? Is the entire image sharp, or just part of
it? How would it look if the photographer had used a wider or a narrower aperture?
What focal length did the photographer use? You may not know the exact focal
length, but you can probably tell from looking whether the photographer used a
wide-angle lens, a normal lens or a telephoto. Why do you think the photographer
used the focal length he did? How would the photo look if he had used a wider or a
longer lens?
What is the emotional content of the photo? How do the use of lighting, colour,
tonal contrast and composition combine to make you feel? How has this been
emphasised in post-processing?
What type of post-processing style or techniques do the photographers
appear to be using? Do the photos you like tend to look natural or heavily
processed?
Global
adjustments
Lightrooms Develop settings divide into two broad categories.
Global adjustments are those applied to the entire image. Local
adjustments are those that you apply to just part of the photo. It is
sensible to make global adjustments first, so we will start with those.
But before we do, lets take a brief look at the right hand panels in the Develop
module. This is where all the developing action takes place. As you learn to use the
tools in these panels, your skills will grow and the quality of your images improve.
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Crop
Overlay (R)
Adjustment
Brush (K)
The Histogram
This panel displays important information about the photo you are developing.
You can see at a glance the camera settings used (ISO, focal length, aperture and
shutter speed), the histogram (including clipped highlights or shadows, if any) and
whether you are editing the Original Photo or a Smart Preview.
The histogram shown in Lightroom is similar to, although usually not exactly the
same as, the histogram displayed on the back of your camera.
The six buttons in the Tool Strip provide access to tools that you will use during
the development process. The three on the right (Graduated Filter, Radial Filter
and Adjustment Brush) are local adjustments. The next two, Spot Removal and
Red Eye Correction, are there to help you remove dust spots or red eye caused
by on-camera flash. The last tool, the Crop Overlay, helps you crop out unwanted
distractions at the edge of the frame or change the aspect ratio of the image.
Aspect ratio is a fascinating topic in itself that I will explore later.
Well come back to the Histogram panel shortly, and see how it relates to the Tone
sliders in the Basic panel.
You can access each tool by clicking on the icon or using the keyboard shortcut
(listed in brackets where available).
Note: The Radial Filter is not available in Lightroom 4.
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15
Basic panel
16
17
Detail panel
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19
Effects panel
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21
Lightroom workflow
If you are new to Lightroom you are probably wondering what is the best workflow
to use within the Develop module. The layout of the right hand panels means that
you can move easily from one to another, but its not always clear what the best
order to do so is.
What follows is my personal recommendation. Its the order that I use, it works for
me and it will work for you as well. But dont be afraid to go off in other directions
as your confidence grows. You should consider this workflow as a suggestion, or a
starting point, and develop your own working methods from there.
Youll notice that the order I move around the right hand panels is different to the
order in which they are stacked in the Develop module. Ive structured this ebook
so it moves through the right hand panels in the same order that they appear in my
suggested workflow. That makes it logical and easy for you to follow.
Start off in the Camera Calibration panel. Its important to select the most
appropriate Profile at the start as it determines the way that Lightroom
interprets the colours in your Raw file.
Next, go to the Lens Corrections panel. I feel that its better for you to see the
image with any Distortion corrected. For example, later on Ill show you how to
use the Angle tool to rotate an image so that the horizon is straight. But its hard
to do so if the horizon is curved because you used a wide-angle lens with barrel
distortion.
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Basic panel
Effects panel
Detail panel
External plug-ins
The Basic panel is next. The decisions you make here regarding white balance,
exposure and contrast are the foundation underlying everything else you do.
Then comes the Tone Curve panel. But you may choose to visit the Tone Curve
panel before the Basic panel to set the base contrast of the image. There are also
times when you wont need to use it at all.
The Effects panel lets you add a vignette to your images, or grain if you want to
imitate film.
Then its just a matter of following the right hand panels in the order they
appear. The HSL / Color / B&W panel is next. Its useful for adjusting colour
values, but like the Tone Curve panel you wont need to use it for every photo.
Next come local adjustments such as dust spot removal and using Graduated
and Radial filters or the Adjustment Brush to make local adjustments to
brightness, contrast or colour balance. The question of workflow becomes more
subjective here. For example, there are times when it will make more sense to
use local adjustments to dodge or burn while you are in the Basic panel. Thats
why the local adjustment tools are located under the Histogram.
Finally, if you are using an external plug-in (such as Silver Efex Pro 2 to convert
your image to black and white) or Photoshop to finish off the image this is the
time to do it. Take the image as far as you can in Lightroom first.
Dont worry if this doesnt make much sense to you yet. It will become clear as we
look at what each of these panels is for.
The Split Toning panel is more likely to be used for black and white work,
although it does have some applications for colour photography too. Another
panel you may skip sometimes.
The Detail panel is where you set sharpening and noise reduction. If you are
happy with Lightrooms default noise reduction and sharpening settings (which
work well most of the time) you wont even need to visit this panel.
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Process
Lightroom 4, Lightroom 5, Lightroom 6 and Lightroom CC use the 2012 Process.
The word Process refers to the algorithms that Lightroom uses to process your
images. The most notable difference is the sliders in the Basic panel have changed.
The Recovery, Fill Light and Brightness sliders from Lightroom 3 have disappeared.
The Highlights, Shadows and White sliders have taken their place. The way the Tone
sliders work has also changed, although you may not notice until it is pointed out.
There are three Processes to choose from: 2003, 2010 and 2012. You should
select 2012 for virtually everything you do (it is the default for images imported
into Lightroom). The only time you will see an earlier process used is for images
originally processed in earlier versions of Lightroom. The older Process is kept
because updating may change some of the tonal values in your image. Theres little
point in updating to Process 2012 if you consider a photo finished as you may have
to readjust the exposure and contrast settings so that it looks like it originally did.
But theres no harm in trying if you are curious, as Lightroom lets you undo the
change and revert back to the original Process.
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25
26
Colour calibration
The colour sliders underneath the Profile menu (marked right) are for fine-tuning
the colours within your image. Most photographers wont need to touch these.
Their main use is to help you create photos with accurate colour, and you can do
that with the White Balance slider in the Basic panel. The controls in the Camera
Calibration panel are of more interest to professional photographers whose clients
demand colour accuracy.
One way to use the Camera Calibration sliders is to take a photo of a colour test
card and display it on your monitor. Hold the real card next to it and use the sliders
to match the colours. This only works if you have a calibrated monitor, but once you
have profiled your camera you can create a Develop preset to apply those settings
to all Raw files imported from your camera. These sliders work with all photo file
types, not just Raw files.
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Monitor calibration
Colour management in Lightroom starts with a properly calibrated monitor. None
of the adjustments you make in the Camera Calibration panel really matter if you
are working with an uncalibrated monitor, as it is highly unlikely that it is displaying
colour accurately.
What happens if you dont calibrate your monitor? Well, most monitors, as
purchased from the shop, have a strong blue colour cast. Everything you look at on
the monitor is blue, although you probably wont realise this until it is pointed out
because your eyes are so good at adjusting to different colours. Every photo you
edit on an uncalibrated monitor is too warm because you are warming up the
image when you adjust colour to compensate for the screens blue cast. You may
also have trouble with contrast and brightness and youll never manage to get
a print that matches what you see on the screen. The bottom line is this you will
never get accurate colour from an uncalibrated monitor.
Monitor calibration isnt complicated. Its easy to do as long as you buy a
special monitor calibration tool called a colorimetric device (these are made by
manufacturers like Eye-One, ColorMunki, Pantone and Spyder). I use one made
by Spyder they start at around 60, and even the least expensive models are
accurate enough for most photographers.
Calibrating your monitor is as simple as connecting the device to your computer,
starting the software and following the on-screeen instructions. The software
that comes with it displays a series of colour patches on the monitor, which are
measured in turn by the device. The software measures the difference between
what the monitor displayed, and what it should have displayed, and creates a
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Converging verticals
Lightroom can also help you correct converging verticals. They occur because the
camera isnt straight when you take the photo. If it is tipped backwards or forwards,
or turned to the side, any verticals in the photo wont be parallel with the edges of
the frame. While its better to try and get the camera aligned correctly in the first
place, Lightroom can help out when thats not possible.
Lens Corrections can only be applied if you use a lens that appears in Lightrooms
database. Luckily the database is quite extensive. If you use your camera makers
software to process your photos, and find that it doesnt contain lens correction
information for one of your lenses, try it in Lightroom instead.
There is a up-to-date list of supported lenses here:
http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/multi/lens-profile-support-lightroom-4.
html#main_List_of_supported_lenses
By the way, Lightrooms Lens Corrections panel isnt limited to Raw files. It works
just as well with JPEG and TIFF files.
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Basic
Come to this tab first to enable lens corrections and chromatic aberration removal:
Enable Profile Corrections
Tick this box to tell Lightroom to apply corrections to the image. Each lens in the
Lightroom database has a profile used to correct the effects of vignetting and
barrel or pincushion distortion.
Remove Chromatic Aberration
Tick here to tell Lightroom to automatically remove chromatic aberrations. There
are very few reasons not to tick either of these boxes. The only one I can think of is
if you use a fisheye lens. You probably wont want to correct barrel distortion and
lose the fisheye effect.
Constrain Crop
This box is for the Upright tool. Its here because Lightroom may distort your
image to correct the verticals when you use the Full button (see the illustrations
on the next few pages). Probably best to leave this unticked you can always tick it
after seeing the effect of the Full button if you need to.
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Above: This image, taken with an 18-55mm zoom lens set to 30mm, has
converging verticals. Look closely and you can see that the sides of the house
arent straight. Converging verticals are often used for creative effect (i.e get
down low with a wide angle lens and really make the building tip backwards).
But sometimes it is preferable for the building to be correctly aligned. The
Upright tool helps you do that.
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Auto
The Auto button is the simplest approach. It tells Lightroom to do what it
thinks is best. It works quite well as you can see, although the sides of the
house are not absolutely straight. A side effect of the correction is that the
tip of the roof is cut off. When taking photos like this, include plenty of space
around the building in case you need to use the Upright tool. Take an extra
photo from a little further away just in case.
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Level
Vertical
The Level button levels the subject, without trying to correct any converging
verticals. Lightroom rotates and crops the image so that the bottom of the
building (shown by the red line) runs parallel with the bottom edge of the
frame.
Full
The Full button levels the building, corrects converging verticals and applies
horizontal perspective correction. This means that horizontal lines are
adjusted so that they run parallel to the edge of frame as well as vertical ones.
This gives the most accurate overall correction. The only drawback is that
the correction is so great that part of the image becomes white space (the
original boundary of the photo is indicated by the black frame). You can crop
it manually or tick the Constrain Crop box the result of doing that is shown
on the right.
35
Above: The result with the Full button pressed and the Constrain Crop box
ticked. This gives the best overall perspective correction, but with the tightest
crop.
Profile
Tick the Enable Profile Corrections
box and set Setup to Auto.
Lightroom will find the correct
profile for your lens if it is in the
database.
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Color
The sliders under the Color tab are used to eliminate chromatic aberrations. Once
again the simple approach is to tick the Remove Chromatic Aberration box and
see if that removes all signs of colour fringing. This automatic feature of Lightroom
normally does an excellent job, although it may not eliminate purple/green colour
fringing, the hardest kind to deal with. But for that you can use the Defringe
sliders.
Chromatic aberrations are most likely in photos taken with wide-angle zoom
lenses. Colour fringing is always more pronounced near the edges of the frame,
and along the edges of highlights. If you want to minimise colour fringing, then
avoiding bright highlights or backlit subjects is a good start. Buying a better quality
lens, though not always practical, would help. So would switching to a longer focal
length if possible, as normal and telephoto lenses tend to suffer less from all types
of optical aberration. But luckily, Lightroom is on hand to help you out, and you
should be able eliminate virtually all colour fringing here, no matter how prone to
it your lens is. In short, Lightroom can make an inexpensive wide-angle zoom look
like a much better lens than it really is.
In the example on the next few pages Ive used a photo taken with an old 1855mm kit lens to show you how to use Lightroom to eliminate colour fringing.
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Above: This close-up from the top-left corner of the image on the right shows
colour fringing caused by chromatic aberrations within the lens. There is
a cyan fringe along the edge of the roof, and a magenta fringe around the
edges of the leaves.
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Above: When you tick the Remove Chromatic Aberration box Lightroom
should remove any blue/yellow or red/cyan colour fringes automatically. If
you look closely at the above sample youll see that the cyan fringing along
the edge of the roof has gone but there is still some purple fringing around
the leaves. Removing purple/green fringing requires a little more work.
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Manual
So far, the functions of the tabs in the Lens Corrections panel have been for the
most part automatic. The Manual tab gives you back control if you need it. Use
the sliders here to tweak the adjustments that Lightroom makes to correct lens
distortions, converging verticals or vignetting. You can even start from scratch and
do it all here in the Manual tab if you wish, or use it to make creative rather than
realistic changes.
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Tip: Is there a delay while your photos render on your monitor? This is
something that may happen at any time, but especially so in the Lens
Corrections panel. To understand why this happens when viewing
or zooming into images, its helpful to be familiar with the way
Lightroom works. When it displays a photo, it does so by looking at
the original Raw file then using the information stored in the Catalog
(i.e. the edits you have made) to create a preview.
Lightroom displays photos most quickly when you convert your
Raw files to DNG upon import and include Fast Load Data, and
tell Lightroom to create 1:1 previews (this is covered in detail in
Understanding Lightroom Book one: The Library Module).
The 1:1 previews take up a lot of hard drive space so Lightroom
discards them after a certain amount of time has elapsed (the default
setting is 30 days).
Even if you have a 1:1 preview it may be for the unedited Raw file
rather than the edited version. A new 1:1 preview is required
without it you will see a delay while the photo is rendered.
Either way, the solution is simple. Go to Grid View and select the
photo or photos that require new 1:1 previews. Then go to Library >
Previews > Build 1:1 Previews. Lightroom generates new previews and
displays the images much more quickly.
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Note: Some of the sliders in the Basic Panel are different to those
in earlier versions of Lightroom. Thats because the Process version
(Adobes term for the part of Lightroom that converts Raw files into
photos) has changed. If the Basic panel seems odd to you because of
this, you can relax. The 2012 Process is much better than previous ones.
Its easier to process Raw files in Lightroom now that it ever has been.
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The slider there to help you eliminate colour casts caused by non-incandescent
light sources. It is also useful for removing casts caused naturally, such as light
reflecting onto someones face from green grass, or a green wall, or light that is
passing through green leaves in a forest. Green casts can look fairly unpleasant,
especially on people, so Lightroom gives you a tool to remove them.
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One way to see the colour of the light falling on your subject is to go to
the WB menu and select the Daylight setting.
For example, if your subject is lit by light from the setting sun, it will
have a warm colour cast. If it is lit by sunlight on a cloudy day, it will
have a blue colour cast.
Now assess your subject. Is the light too cold, too warm, or just right?
Try moving the Temp slider to the left or right to see what happens.
Does the subject have an unwanted green or magenta cast? Use the
Tint slider as well. You can also select the Auto setting to see what
Lightroom thinks.
For those of you who remember (or perhaps even still use) slide film,
setting white balance to Daylight replicates using daylight balanced
slide film. Perhaps thats why this method works so well for me, as it
connects with the way that I learnt about colour temperature.
1000K
2000K
candlelight
(1000K-2000K)
3000K
4000K
household
tungsten bulb
(2500K-3500K)
sunrise or sunset
on a clear day
(3000K-4000K)
5000K
6000K
7000K
electronic
studio flash
(5000K-5500K)
9000K
10000K
cloudy sky
(6500K-8000K)
daylight on a
sunny day
(5000K-6500K)
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8000K
shade or very
cloudy sky
(9000K-10000K)
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Above: Another way to arrive at a neutral colour cast is to use the white
balance selector (the eyedropper icon). Move the cursor over a grey, white or
black tone in the photo. Lightroom displays a grid showing a 5x5 view of the
25 pixels directly underneath the cursor. When the grid is full of grey (or white
or black) squares, click and Lightroom calculates the white balance required
to render those pixels neutral (if you click on an area that is too light, you will
get an error message).
Above: I obtained this result by clicking on the blue stripe in the models
jumper. Look closely and you will see that it is now grey instead of blue. How
do you make blue grey? Add plenty of yellow hence the strong yellow colour
cast in the rest of the image.
This is a technique you often see mentioned in photography magazines as a
processing technique. Funnily enough, they never explain why you should
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do this. I suppose you could use it if you were trying to replicate the crossprocessed effect that you get if you process slide film through C-41 chemistry.
Or you could use it as a starting point and see what happens. I played around
with the image, reducing the saturation and adding a vignette. The result is
quite interesting, you can see it above. Its a little like a hand-tinted black and
white portrait.
Above: An easy way to obtain accurate white balance is to take a test photo
containing an 18% grey card. Activate the white balance selector, then click
on the grey card. Lightroom calculates the settings required for a neutral
colour cast.
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They are designed to be adjusted in the order that they appear, starting with
Exposure and Contrast then progressing through the Highlights, Shadows,
Whites and Blacks sliders. But like most thing in Lightroom thats not compulsory.
There may be times when you prefer to set the white and black points early, and
that task is carried out with the Whites and Blacks sliders. This approach may
appeal to photographers accustomed to working in Lightroom, where setting
white and black points is an essential part of the workflow. In Lightroom, it doesnt
seem to be so important, and you might not have to touch the last two sliders at
all. There is more than one approach, but as long as you understand what each
slider does then you can use them as you wish.
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This tells us something about how the Exposure slider works. It doesnt just make
your images brighter, but is also designed to preserve highlight detail where it
can. If you have upgraded from Lightroom 3 or earlier, you will know that in those
versions this was the function of the Brightness slider. That slider doesnt exist in
the 2012 process. Instead, that functionality is assigned to the Exposure slider.
The Exposure slider is a little more complex than it initially appears. Lets take a look
at whats going on behind the scenes.
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The extra bit depth of Raw files means that they contain more detail in highlight
areas than JPEG files. Most Raw files contain detail in areas that the highlight alert
indicates are clipped. Lightroom automatically recovers those highlights when you
open the Raw file you dont have to do anything, it does it for you. This is different
from how Lightroom 3 (and earlier) work, and explains why there is no Recovery
slider in Lightroom 4 and 5.
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You will get the best results in Lightroom from a correctly exposed Raw
file. There are three basic principles to keep in mind:
1. Use the Raw format, as the extra bit depth means the file has more
information that Lightroom can work with.
2. If you underexpose the image in-camera, then make it brighter using
the Exposure slider in Lightroom, you create more noise in dark tones.
You may also lose shadow detail. Both effects become more noticeable
at higher ISOs. Yes, its possible to reduce noise in Lightroom, but youll
obtain a better result by getting the exposure right in the first place.
3. If you overexpose the image in-camera, you lose detail in the
brightest areas. Once it has gone, you cant get it back.
Get the exposure right in-camera and using the tone adjustment
sliders becomes very easy. But get it wrong, youll have to work a lot
harder. You will find it difficult to obtain the same quality as you would
get from a well exposed Raw file.
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Above: The same Raw file in Lightrooms default settings. Lightroom has
recovered far more detail from the highlights.
Increasing contrast
is like applying an
S-curve to the images
curve.
The image-adaptive
behaviour of the
2012 Process means
Lightroom may move
the midpoint of the
curve.
Decreasing contrast
is like applying a
reverse S-curve. Again,
Lightroom may move
the midpoint.
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Its probably easiest to demonstrate the use of these sliders by going back to the
tone curve:
The Highlights slider affects tones to the right of the mid-point.
The Shadows slider affects tones to the left of the mid-point.
Image adaptive processing comes into play again. Both sliders have a greater effect
on high contrast images than flat ones.
The Highlights slider is useful for making bright highlights in a high contrast
image darker. Conversely, you can also use it to make the highlights in a flat image
brighter.
The Shadows slider is useful for making dark areas lighter. But you can also use it
to make them darker. It comes back to intent see the mini case study at the end
of this section for an example.
Neither the Highlights or Shadow sliders affect the white or black points. Thats the
job of the Whites and Blacks sliders.
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Unlike the Exposure, Contrast, Highlights and Shadows sliders, the Whites and
Blacks sliders alter the white and black points. As Lightroom sets the black point
automatically, and also recovers highlights automatically, there may be little reason
to use these sliders. But they are there if you need them perhaps to help add
contrast to an extremely flat image, or to increase the amount of pure black or pure
white in an image for aesthetic reasons.
If you take a photo on a cloudy day or in the shade without including any bright
highlights such as the sky then you will probably end up with a flat image. Theres
nothing wrong with that as you can easily extend the brightness range of the
image in Lightroom.
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The histogram is divided up into five zones that correspond roughly to the
Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks sliders. When you move the
mouse over the histogram Lightroom tells you which slider affects that specific
part of the histogram (the zone is highlighted in light grey). The same thing
happens when you move the mouse over the sliders.
You can use the tone adjustment sliders to alter the tonal values of your images,
from the shadows right through to the highlights. The examples on the next few
pages show you how it works.
The Whites slider affects the lightest
tones.
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Above: The opposite happens when you hold the Alt key down while moving
the Blacks or Shadows sliders. Clipped tones are shown in red, blue or black
against a white background.
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The histogram for the original photo of the statue (above left) shows the
tones occupying the centre of the graph. Its an easy fix, using the techniques
explored in the last section. Hold down the Alt key and move the Whites slider
right until the first white patches, indicating clipping, appear. Then move the
slider back a little until they disappear. Repeat with the Blacks slider, this time
moving it left.
The histogram has changed (above
right) the tones have been
stretched out to fill the graph. Its
still a little flat, but you can add
some punch using the Contrast and
Clarity sliders.
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Contrast + 50
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Clarity + 50
Contrast +50
Clarity + 50
Contrast + 50, Clarity + 50
Ive zoomed into the same three images so you can see the difference
in colour and texture. The Clarity slider increases texture and apparent
sharpness without increasing Colour Saturation.
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Contrast +100
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Clarity + 100
Clarity 0
Clarity +50
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Clarity -50
Clarity 0
Clarity + 50
Three Clarity settings. Note the difference in skin texture. Subtle Clarity
adjustments (around +10 or so) are usually best for female portraits, both
+50 and -50 are a little extreme for this type of subject.
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Clarity 0
Clarity +34
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you move it left strong colours are desaturated before weak ones. And at -100
there is still some colour in the image. The effect is a little like an old-fashioned
hand-tinted black and white print and is not displeasing:
Most readers will be familiar with the function of the Saturation slider. You can
move it right to increase the saturation of all the colours within your image, or you
can move it left to decrease the saturation. Move it all the way to -100 and youll
end up with no colour at all and a black and white image.
Generally, its a good idea to move the Saturation slider left rather than right.
Increasing colour saturation is rarely worthwhile and usually detrimental because
it doesnt look natural.
On the other hand, its surprising how often reducing the colour saturation,
even just a touch, can improve an image. Sometimes colour just demands too
much attention, and reducing the saturation means that other elements of the
composition (such as line, texture and the use of light) become more prominent.
You could also decrease saturation to create a faded or vintage feel to the image.
The Saturation slider, useful as it can be, is bit of a blunt instrument. Pushing it to
the right increases the saturation of all the colours in the image, even those that are
quite intense to start with. Decreasing saturation works the same way, all colours
are evenly desaturated.
Enter the Vibrance slider. When you move it right, it increases intensity in weak
colours before strong ones. Its image adaptive processing in action again, and the
effect is much more subtle than increasing saturation. The opposite happens when
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Vibrance -100
Saturation -50
Saturation +50
Saturation 0, Vibrance 0
Vibrance -50
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Vibrance +50
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The Tone Curve panel gives you control over four curves. Theres the RGB curve,
which affects brightness and contrast and may also increase colour saturation.
Then there are the three colour curves: red, green and blue. You can adjust these
individually to fine-tune the colour balance or to create a cross-processed or
vintage look.
With all that in mind, I will show you a couple of quick ways to use the Tone Curve
panel, then give some more detailed information for those of you interested in
diving in deeper.
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Highlights
Darks
Lights
Shadows
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What is cross-processing?
There are two types of colour film: colour negative and colour
transparency (also known as slide film). They are processed differently.
Most colour transparency film is processed using the E-6 chemical
process. Colour negative films are developed using the C-41 process.
Cross-processing is when you deliberately process colour film in the
wrong chemistry. The most common way is to process transparency
film in C-41 chemistry. You finish with colour negatives that you can
print (or scan). The result (depending on the type of transparency film
used) is a high-contrast negative with odd colours.
Nowadays, the chemical processes are no longer required and you can
play around with applying cross-processing effects to your images in
Lightroom. Dont worry about how authentic the technique is youre
not going to be able to replicate the cross-processed look exactly. The
important question is does it look good? If it suits your purpose, then
use it.
There is an example of a cross-processed effect on the next page.
Before
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After
Saving curves
Whenever you create a custom curve Lightroom provides the option for you to
save it, so you can use it with other photos:
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The difference between the Vignetting slider (found under the Profile tab in the
Lens Corrections panel) and the Post-Crop Vignetting tool in the Effects panel is
this:
The Vignetting slider in the Lens Correction panel is designed to correct
vignetting caused by the optical characteristics of the lens. The aim is to achieve
an image with uniform brightness from edge to edge.
Post-Crop Vignetting is used to make the edges of the image darker (or lighter)
for aesthetic reasons. The effect is always applied, even if you crop the image.
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Post-Crop Vignetting
The images on the next few pages demonstrate the
Post-Crop Vignetting tool. The following photos
show the effect each slider has.
Amount
At zero, no Post-crop Vignetting is applied (below).
A positive value brightens the edges of the image,
and a negative one darkens them. Each example
on the following pages uses the extremes, so you
can see the full effect. But most of the time you
would use the Amount slider much more subtly.
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Midpoint
The Midpoint slider controls the size of the
vignette. A value of zero gives the greatest
coverage, and 100 the least.
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Roundness
The Roundness slider determines the shape of the
vignette. The default setting of 50 gives an oval. A
value of zero makes a square vignette, and a value
of 100 a near-circle.
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Feather
The Feather slider controls the hardness of the
selection used to create the vignette. A value of
zero gives the hardest edge, and 100 the softest.
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Highlights
An effective way to use Post-crop
Vignetting is to darken the edges
of an image that already has lots of
shadows. In this type of composition,
you are using Post-crop Vignetting
as a tweak, often in conjunction with
the Shadows or Blacks sliders in the
Basic panel, to make an already dark
background even darker.
There are times though when you
will want to darken the edges of an
image that contains light tones. The
result may look unnatural, and in that
case you can use the Highlights slider
to preserve any light tones near the
edges of the image. The further you
push it right, the lighter they stay.
Note: Ive chose the example on this
page and set Amount to -100 because
it shows how the Highlight slider
works, not because I recommend you
use these particular settings.
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Grain
Back when everybody used film, grain tended to be seen in one of two ways. One
view held that the best type of grain was the sort that you didnt see. Proponents
used low ISO film, or even medium or large format cameras, to minimise it.
Then there were the photographers that embraced grain. Two big names that
did so were Robert Farber and Sarah Moon, both of whom used fast colour film
and produced a lot of beautiful work. The colours produced by fast films are less
saturated than slow films, hence a look was created exploiting fast grain, muted
colours and soft light. Many black and white photographers also embraced it and
films such as Delta 400 and T-MAX P3200 were noted for the beauty and aesthetic
quality of their grain.
The character of grain is an inherent characteristic of a specific film if you want a
different quality of grain (pushing and pulling techniques aside) you need to use
a different film. Now, digital cameras have removed the problem (if indeed you
see it as a problem) of grain. If you want a grainy look, or miss the grainy look of a
particular film, you can add it back in with Lightroom.
Above: A portrait taken on an
EOS 5D Mark II at ISO 1600. Even
at this relatively high ISO setting
there is very little noise, and
definitely no grain.
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The HSL and Color tabs let you adjust the hue, saturation or luminance of eight
colours. They do the same thing, but present the sliders in different layouts.
The HSL tab groups the sliders by function, so that you can concentrate on
adjusting either hue, saturation or luminosity.
The Color tab groups the sliders by colour. Choose this if you want to alter the
qualities of specific colours.
The Targeted Adjustment tool is available under the HSL tab, but not the
Color tab.
The sliders are the same, just presented in a different order. If you reduce (for
example) the Blue Saturation slider under the Color tab to -20, then switch to the
HSL tab, you will see the Blue Saturation slider there is also set to -20.
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Black and white: You wont be surprised to learn that the B&W tab is
for converting your images to monochrome. Its a complex topic that I
will explore in full in the next ebook in this series.
Selective desaturation
One of my favourite applications of the HSL tab is
selectively reducing the saturation of specific colours
without affecting others.
Take the portrait on this page as an example. The
background is in shade, and has a blue colour cast
compared to the model.
What happens if we use the Saturation slider in
the Basic panel to reduce colour saturation? All the
colours are reduced in saturation together as seen in
the image on the far right.
Theres nothing wrong with that, if its what you want.
But the HSL tab opens up some interesting creative
possibilities by allowing us to reduce colour saturation
in the background without affecting the model or her
clothes. The technique is shown on the next page.
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Adjusting luminance
Another reason for going to the HSL / Color / B&W panel is to adjust the
luminance values of specific colours. Luminance is another word for brightness,
and you may find it useful to make certain colours lighter or darker.
The reason why is to do with the relationship between tonal contrast and colour
contrast. You may already be familiar with the concept of colour contrast. It occurs
when two colours from opposing sides of the colour wheel (see below) are placed
next to each other. The photos on this page show how it works. The orange and
yellow fish contrast with the blue background.
Now look at the black and white version of the same image, below. All I did was
set saturation to zero to remove the colour. The body of the fish (orange in the
colour photo) and the background (blue in the original) have very nearly the same
brightness value. There is no tonal contrast between them just colour contrast.
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One simple adjustment in the HSL tab is all thats required to improve this image.
You can make the blue background darker by using the Targeted Adjustment
Tool (see below for details). When you reduce the luminance of a colour, it
becomes darker and more saturated. If you increase the luminance, it becomes
lighter and less saturated.
At the same time, adjusting luminance also changes the tonal contrast, as the
desaturated black and white version of the main photo on this page shows.
Compare it to the version on the previous page. The background is darker than the
body of the fish. The colour image now has tonal contrast as well as colour contrast.
Below: Go to the HSL tab and click Luminance, then the Targeted Adjustment
Tool (circled). Move the mouse over the colour you would like to adjust, hold
the left mouse button down and move the mouse downwards. Lightroom
moves the appropriate sliders (marked right).
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Adjusting hue
The final adjustment you can make in the HSL and Color tabs is to the hue. Hue is
another word for colour and you can use the Hue sliders to alter colours in your
images.
I havent found a practical use for this, but you might be able to. But it does
show one of the advantages of working with Raw and processing your images
in Lightroom. You have a lot of control over colour, and you never know when
the ability to adjust hue (not to mention saturation and luminance) may come in
useful.
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The Split Toning panel contains five sliders. Two of those control the
colour applied to the highlights, and another two the colour applied to the
shadows. The selected colours are applied to the highlights and mid-tones
on one hand, and the shadows and mid-tones on the other. They meet
somewhere in the middle, and you can influence where by using the Balance
slider. Move it right to give precedence to the Highlights, and left to give
precedence to the Shadows.
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Sharpening
One of the advantages of using the Raw format and processing your images in
Lightroom is that it is very easy to adjust the Sharpness settings at any point. If you
use JPEG, sharpening is applied by the camera when you take the photo. That gives
you less leeway in post-processing as additional sharpening may also make any
artefacts such as halos worse.
Photoshop users will be accustomed to leaving sharpening until the very last step
of their processing workflow. This helps avoid artefacts and lets you apply the
amount of sharpening required according to what you intend to do with the photo.
An image that will be displayed at small size online, for example, may require a
different level of sharpening to one that will be printed.
With Lightroom, you can apply Sharpening at any stage (it applies some by default
anyway). Every setting can be altered at any stage, and you always have the ability
to adjust sharpness if it turns out that you have under- or over-sharpened an
image.
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Sharpening sliders
Sharpening requirements
The amount of sharpening required depends on what you intend to do with your
photo.
If you are printing an image, sharpening depends as much on the content of the
image as well as the print size and paper type. You may find after you have printed
the image you need to increase or lower the amount of sharpening to get the best
result.
If you are going to display your images online, they also need sharpening, and
probably with a different setting than you would use for printing. Some photo
sharing websites, like Flickr, apply sharpening when you upload images, and
require less sharpening on your part.
If you are preparing images for publication the criteria change again. Stock libraries
usually require unsharpened images, so that they can apply sharpening according
to the clients requirements.
Magazines require unsharpened images too, as sharpening is applied at the
printing stage. Sometimes you will see over-sharpened images in a magazine
look out for halos and other artefacts. It shows that even the professionals can
sometimes get it wrong.
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Above: The CMOS sensor from the EOS 70D camera. Most digital cameras
have an anti-aliasing filter in front of the sensor. The filter reduces moire
patterns which may show up in certain textured materials like clothing by
blurring the image slightly. Any photo produced from a Raw file from a digital
camera with an anti-aliasing filter is slightly soft and needs to be sharpened.
Some manufacturers, most notably Leica, Nikon and Fujifilm, have started
producing cameras without anti-aliasing filters for sharper images.
Sharpening sliders
The effects of all the Sharpening sliders are best judged at 1:1 magnification. There
are examples of each on the next few pages:
Amount: Controls the amount of sharpness applied to the image. Default is 25 for
Raw files and zero for JPEG or TIFF files.
Radius: Controls the spread of the sharpness. Move it too far right and you will
lose detail. Move it too far left and sharpening isnt as effective. The default setting
of 1 seems to work well for most images. Increase Radius to make edges and lines
sharper.
Detail: Move the slider right to increase textural detail. The trade off is that it also
increases halos and unwanted grain in smooth areas like sky. Most of the time you
can leave it at the default setting of 25.
Masking: A potential side effect of sharpening is increased sharpness in smooth
areas like sky. It adds texture where there shouldnt be any and looks unnatural.
The Masking slider helps prevent this by limiting sharpening to the edges within
the photo. At zero (the default) Lightroom applies sharpening evenly across the
entire image. The further right you move the slider, the more it is restricted.
The easiest way to see which areas are affected is to hold down the Alt key. Areas
shown in white will be sharpened, and areas shown in black wont be. The black
areas increase as you move the Masking slider right. You can also hold down the
Alt key while using any of the sliders to see similar information.
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Above: The same image with the Sharpening slider set to 150. There are white
halos around the stonework where it meets the sky, and more grain. These are
signs of over-sharpening. This is just an example I cant imagine that you
would ever need to increase sharpening so much. The trick is keep it subtle.
While the sample on the left looks a little soft, I think its mainly to do with
over-sharpened version making it look softer than it really is in comparison.
Heres what happens when you hold down the Alt key and use the Masking slider:
Above: Masking 45, Alt key held down. Areas affected by sharpening shown in
white.
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Above: Masking 100, Alt key held down. Now there is much less white as the
area affected by sharpening is reduced.
The Alt key is also useful for evaluating the effect of the Radius slider:
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Above: Radius 3.0, Alt key held down. Edges and lines will be much sharper at
this setting.
The Alt key also helps you valuate the effect of the Detail slider:
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Above: Detail 100, Alt key held down. This setting brings out more detail in
texture areas.
Sharpening at export
The Detail panel isnt the only place you can apply sharpening. You can also do
it when you export your images and save them as JPEG or TIFF files. The simple
approach is to leave the Sharpness settings at their default and apply sharpening at
the export stage. There are lots of photographers that do this as it saves you time,
especially when processing large numbers of photos.
Ill go more into exporting later, but for now here are the Output Sharpening
options Lightroom gives you:
Sharpen for: Here you can choose from Screen (for web use) and Matte Paper or
Glossy Paper if you are printing. Lightroom uses a sharpening formula designed to
give the best performance for these purposes.
Amount: You have the choice of Low, Standard and High.
Trial and error will reveal the best choices for you. I use Standard and it works fine
for me.
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Noise Reduction
The days when photographers used third-party software or complex processes
in Photoshop to reduce noise are gone. Modern digital cameras produce images
with very little noise, and if you use Lightroom to process the Raw files you will be
pleasantly surprised at how little noise there is in your images, even at higher ISO
settings. It works with older cameras too. If you have recently upgraded from an
earlier version of Lightroom you should notice an improvement in performance
Adobe has improved Noise Reduction with every iteration.
As with sharpening, you can take the simple approach and leave the Noise
Reduction settings at their default. Its more than good enough most of the time.
The results will vary depending on which camera you have, but I have noticed
that Lightroom renders noise on files from my EOS 5D Mark II in a way that closely
resembles the grain structure of high ISO film. The texture of the noise becomes an
integral part of the image, and aesthetically pleasing in its own right.
Lightrooms Noise Reduction is not intended to compensate for poor technique.
Help Lightroom out by getting exposure right when you take the photo.
Remember this principle:
If you underexpose the image when you take the photo, then brighten it in
Lightroom, you will increase any noise in the dark tones.
You cant compensate for underexposure in Lightroom (or any other software)
without increasing noise.
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Types of noise
Luminance noise: Affects the brightness of pixels but not the colour. It looks a
little like black and white speckles in your image. The default setting for luminance
noise reduction in Lightroom is zero, as applying luminance noise reduction
always reduces the sharpness of the image.
Colour noise: Prominent coloured speckles, highly visible at high ISO settings.
The default setting of 25 for colour noise reduction may be all you need for the
majority of your images. Unlike luminance noise reduction, you can increase colour
noise reduction without much loss of sharpness.
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Tip: If you use the Raw format you can leave the High ISO Noise
Reduction or Long Exposure Noise Reduction functions on your
camera switched off. They are only applied by the camera to JPEG files.
When you use Raw, noise reduction is applied by your Raw conversion
software instead.
local
adj ustments
Lightroom works best when you apply global adjustments first.
Once you have set the colour and tonal values, you can think about
making local adjustments to improve the image. If you are new to
Lightroom you will be pleasantly surprised how easy it is to make
local adjustments. In Photoshop, you need to make a selection or use
a mask, and combine this with using layers. Lightroom is different.
There are no layers and no Marquee Tool to create selections. It has
its own tools, and they are simple and intuitive to use.
As we look at the local adjustment tools keep in mind that it is easy to go
overboard, and end up with something that doesnt look natural. This isnt unique
to Lightroom, it can happen in any software, or in the chemical darkroom. I
understand that some photographers prefer a more heavily processed look than
I do, and thats fine. But along the way I will point out the tools that can produce
unnatural results if pushed too far.
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Adjustment Brush
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Graduated Filter
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After
Before
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If youre familiar with the graduated neutral density filters used by landscape
photographers the concept of the Graduated Filter is easy to understand.
Lightrooms version is similar, although please dont think that it obviates the need
for a physical graduated filter. It doesnt. The Graduated Filter cant bring back
detail in burnt out skies, and its up to you
to make sure that the cameras sensor
captures as much information as
possible for Lightroom to use.
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You can create a Graduated Filter with a softer transition by holding the mouse
button down for longer. The lines are spaced further apart (see below) and when
you set Exposure to -4.0 you will see a softer change from dark to light. This is a
better setting for landscape photos.
Tip: Once a Graduated Filter is in place, you can alter the strength of the transition
by clicking and dragging the outer lines. If you hold the Alt key down while you do
so the centre line remains fixed in place. With this technique you can change a soft
Graduated Filter to a hard one, and vice versa.
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Mask overlay
In Lightroom 4 and Lightroom 5 you cant tell with any precision which parts
of the image are affected by the Graduated filter. You can work around that by
temporarily setting Exposure to -4.0, as shown on the previous page.
In Lightroom 6 and Lightroom CC Adobe has introduced a new feature a Mask
Overlay to indicate which parts of the image are affected by the filter. It works
exactly the same way as the Mask Overlay for the Adjustment Brush. You can toggle
it with the O keyboard shortcut or by ticking the Show Selected Mask Overlay
box in the Toolbar.
Another improvement is that you can now edit the mask created by the Graduated
Filter. Adobe have added a Brush option to the Graduated Filter panel, effectively
combining the Graduated Filter and Adjustment Brush (see diagram right). This is
extremely useful as it lets you create custom Graduated Filters especially for the
image that youre working on.
Note: The Mask Overlay and Adjustment Brush have also been added to the
Radial Filter.
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In the photo above I wanted to make the top half of the wall darker without
affecting the mailbox. In Lightroom 4 and Lightroom 5 the only option is to
use the Adjustment Brush to paint in the irregular area. But in Lightroom 6
and Lightroom CC you can use the Graduated Filter instead. The screenshot
shows the area affected by the Graduated Filter.
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I set the Adjustment Brush to Erase and deleted the section of the Graduated
Filter that covered the mailbox. When you do this, you can zoom into the
image for finer brush adjustments by holding the Space bar down. The brush
icon changes to a magnifying glass with a plus sign in it and Lightroom zooms
in when you left-click. When you are zoomed in, if you press the Space bar
again the brush icon changes to a hand icon. Click and drag to move the
photo around. With this technique I was able to erase the mask from the bits
of metal on top of the mailbox.
Above: This screenshot shows how I was able to zoom in accurately mask the
pieces of metal on top of the mailbox.
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After
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Before
The Radial Filter lets you create a mask in the shape of a circle or oval. You can
apply the adjustment to the area outside the mask (the default) or inside it (tick
the Inverse Mask box to do so). Use the Feather setting to soften the edge of the
mask.
The Radial Filter is a relatively new feature introduced in Lightroom 5. If you have
Lightroom 4, you can achieve these effects using Adjustment Brushes. But Radial
Filters have several advantages:
Radial filters are quicker, as you dont have to paint in the area you want to mask.
You can duplicate a Radial Filter (right-click the pin and select Duplicate). This
lets you apply the same effect elsewhere in the image or a different effect to the
same shape.
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3. Rotate the
selection by
hovering the
mouse near the
edge of the mask
until the double
arrow icon (left)
appears. Click and
drag to rotate.
4. Use the Feather slider to adjust the softness of the selection. A setting of
zero gives you a hard edge, and 100 the softest. Tick the Invert Mask box to
apply the changes inside the circle.
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After
Before
In Lightroom 6 and Lightroom CC the Mask Overlay has been added to the
Radial Filter as well as the Graduated Filter. You can also edit the mask using the
Adjustment Brush.
Above: In Lightroom 4 and Lightroom 5 the best way to judge the area
affected by the Radial filter is to set the Exposure slider to -4.0.
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Above: In Lightroom 6 and Lightroom CC you can use the Mask Overlay
instead. This is easier as you dont need to touch any of the sliders.
Portrait retouching
Now Im going to show you how to bring the skills youve learnt so far together to
retouch a portrait. Ill introduce you to the Spot Removal tool, and youll learn how
to use the Adjustment Brush to retouch skin.
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The model has great skin, but she still has a few spots. They are easy to remove with
the Spot Removal tool:
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Adjustment Brush
You have probably seen several portrait retouching programs advertised in
magazines or online, and wondered if they were worth buying. The answer is a
firm no. I have tried out quite a few, and the truth is that the Soften Skin preset
in Lightroom does just as good a job as any of them. For most photographers
Lightrooms retouching tools all are you will ever need.
Take some time to think about your personal approach to portrait retouching.
Some photographers seem to like the airbrushed, almost plastic look of heavy
processing, and its something you see used a lot in commercial photography or
movie posters.
Others will go for a more natural effect, and use the retouching tools with a light
touch. Thats definitely my approach, and it fits with my preference for natural
light and for creating portraits that capture character. Either way, Lightroom can
accommodate your needs.
The Adjustment Brush is the best tool to use to apply the Soften Skin preset with,
as it lets you create a mask of any shape. Before applying skin smoothing to the
entire face, it may be helpful to clean up any dark shadows under the models eyes.
You dont want to hide them completely, as they are a natural feature of most faces
created by the crease under the lower eyelid. But its nice to minimise them:
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Above: Start by painting in the area under the eyes with the Adjustment
Brush. Use the O keyboard shortcut to show you the covered area.
Above: Go to the Effect menu in the Adjustment Brush panel and select
Soften Skin. Use the O shortcut to hide the mask. Youll see the improvement
immediately. If you look at the sliders you will see that Lightroom has set
Clarity to -100 and Sharpness to 25. This combination smooths the skin yet
retains some of the underlying texture.
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Its not necessary for every portrait, but there will be times when you want to apply
the Soften Skin preset to the entire face. The Adjustment Brush is also the best
tool for this task.
Above: Use the Adjustment Brush to paint in the face, leaving the eyes,
eyebrows, lips and the bottom of the nose unchanged. The easiest way is to
use either the A or B brush to paint the entire face, then the Erase brush to
remove the mask from the areas you dont wish to soften.
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Above: Press O to hide the mask and select Soften Skin from the Effects
menu. Lightroom sets Clarity to -100 and Sharpness to +25. The effect is much
stronger than you need unless youre going for the heavily retouched look.
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Graduated Filters
Finally, lets apply a couple of Graduated filters to the background to make it
darker. You can use the Adjustment Brush as well to do this, but the Graduated
filters are often easier. You can always use the Adjustment Brush to fill in the gaps if
necessary.
Apply a Graduated Filter to the left side of the background and reduce
Exposure. The amount you do that by depends on your portrait, in this
example it was around one and half stops.
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Apply a second Graduated Filter to the right side and reduce Exposure until
it looks the same as the left side. The best way to judge is by eye rather than
trying to match the numbers exactly, as one part of the background may be
brighter to start with.
After
Before
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To place an overlay over the image to help you visualise how well the
composition works. It includes common compositional tools such as a rule-ofthirds grid and a Golden Spiral. The overlay changes size to suit as you crop.
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Note: As an alternative
to the Angle tool, you can
rotate the image manually
using the Angle slider.
Lightroom places a square
grid over the image to
help you see whether
the horizon (or any other
straight lines) are level.
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Aspect ratio
Aspect ratio is the term used to describe the relationship of the width of an image
to its height. Its expressed as a ratio, like this width : height (width is always first).
6x6, 5x4, 6x7 and the panoramic format are four more popular aspect ratios that
some of you will be familiar with. You can buy film cameras that utilise these, but
they have not made their way into digital photography as native sensor sizes yet:
The commonest aspect ratios in digital photography are 35mm and micro fourthirds:
35mm cameras have an aspect ratio of 3:2. The frame is one and a half times
as wide as it is long. The aspect ratio remains the same whether you have a fullframe or a crop sensor camera.
4
2
35mm (3:2)
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Square (1:1)
5x4 (5:4)
16
Panorama (16:9)
6x7 (7:6)
3. Move the photo back and forth until youre happy with the crop.
Alternatively, use the mouse to grab hold of an edge or a corner of
the frame and click and drag to change the size of the cropping frame.
As long as the lock icon (marked above) is in the locked position,
Lightroom maintains the selected aspect ratio.
If you want to break free of the selected aspect ratio, click the
lock icon so it is in the unlocked position (right). Then you can
adjust one side of the frame without affecting the others.
If you move the cursor near the corner of the cropping frame a curly
arrow appears. Click and drag on this to use it as an alternative to the
Angle tool to rotate the image.
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Use the Lights Out feature to hide the cropped part of the image and the Lightroom interface. This makes it
easier to see how effective the crop is. Press the L key once to fade out the interface, again to turn it black,
and once more to reveal it again.
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At this point you may be wondering why you would alter the aspect ratio of an
image. The short answer is that it may improve the composition. If you have a
35mm camera, it can be hard to compose effectively using the entire width of the
frame (or height in the portrait orientation). If you have any wasted space at the
ends of the frame, you may be able to create a stronger photo by cropping to a
shorter rectangle.
Using one of the aspect ratios mentioned in the previous pages is a good idea.
Each one has been used for many years in at least one camera system, and
photographers have learnt to compose images within these formats. Also, if
you crop to a specific aspect ratio, rather than arbitrarily, you retain consistency
amongst your photos. This may assist when it comes to putting together a portfolio
or a website.
Lets take a look at some of these aspect ratios in more detail:
The square format (1:1): Used in many medium format cameras, including
the Hasselblads used by many professional photographers in the heyday
of film, the square format has experienced something of a renaissance with
digital photography. The square frame changes the dynamic of the image, and
emphasises simple, graphic compositions that make strong use of shape. Youll
often see this format used in black and white photography.
5x4 (5:4): This is a format associated with large format view cameras and landscape
photography. It is much easier to compose a landscape photo when the camera is
in the portrait orientation in the 5x4 aspect ratio than 35mm. Some photographers
used micro four-thirds cameras for the same reason.
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Panorama (16:9): The panoramic format comes into its own when used with wideangle lenses to capture the sweep of the landscape. The 16:9 ratio is the same one
used in the cinema and encourages the eye to move from side to side, taking in the
detail in the image.
Micro four-thirds (4:3): This is a relatively new format in digital terms, although
it was used in 6x4.5cm medium format film cameras. Micro four-thirds cameras
have a sensor that is half the size of that found in full-frame models. That enables
manufacturers to make smaller cameras and lenses. Like the 5x4 aspect ratio, the
micro four-thirds format provides a smaller rectangle than the 35mm frame, which
can make it easier to compose some subjects such as landscapes and portraits.
6x7 (6:7): Another format used by medium format film cameras for many decades.
Often used by landscape photographers to take advantage of the shorter rectangle
in comparison to 35mm cameras.
Tip: Some cameras with electronic viewfinders or Live View give you
the option of cropping to different aspect ratios in-camera. If you use
the Raw format, the image captured by the entire sensor is recorded,
but the camera shows you the cropped image. In Lightroom, you
can crop the image however you like. With most cameras, Lightroom
will initially display the cropped version. If you wish, you can select
another aspect ratio from the Crop Overlay panel.
Here are some examples of how changing the aspect ratio alters the
composition of an image:
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Grid Overlay
This overlay is useful for checking that any lines in the photo are straight. Useful
when processing landscapes or photos of buildings.
Thirds Overlay
Places four lines over the photo to indicate the thirds. If
you like to compose according to the rule-of-thirds, this
overlay will help you see where the subject is located in
the frame in relation to the thirds and their intersections.
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Diagonal Overlay
The diagonal is similar to the rule-of-thirds. The idea
is that a composition based on diagonal lines is more
powerful when they align with these lines. If you select
the 1:1 aspect ratio, the number of guidelines is reduced
to two.
Triangle Overlay
Another guide based on the idea that diagonal lines
become more powerful if placed on the lines in this grid.
Use the Shift+O shortcut to reverse the overlay.
Mastering Composition
The Diagonal, Triangle, Golden Ratio and Golden Spiral
overlays are heavy going for those of us simply interested
in creating beautiful photos. My advice is to ignore them
their use in composition is dubious at best, and more or
less useless at the post-processing stage considering that
composition is carried out at the time you take a photo,
not in Lightroom.
If youd like to learn more about genuinely useful ways
to improve your composition, then take a look at my
ebook Mastering Composition (click the link to go to
my website). Its full of solid, useful tips that will help
you compose more interesting images. Plus, it doesnt
mention Golden Spirals once!
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Above: Use the [ and ] keys to adjust the size of the brush. The gap
between the inner and outer circles shows the area being feathered. It
changes in size as you move the Feather slider back and forth.
Above: When you click on the dust spot, Lightroom removes it and places
another circle to show you the area it took the sample from. If required,
click and drag the second circle to sample a different area.
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Above: Repeat with any other dust spots. Lightroom displays light grey
circles to show you where else you used the Spot Removal tool.
Visualise Spots
While some dust spots are obvious, some are
harder to see. They are easy to miss, and you
may not even notice they are there, especially if
you are not in the habit of viewing your photos
at 100% magnification. This could become a
problem if you print your photos, or create a
photo book with them having to reprint is both
a pain and an expense. It might also be an issue
if you sell your photos to a magazine or through
a stock library.
The Visualise Spots function to simplifies the
task of detecting spots. Activate it by ticking the
Visualise Spots box in the Toolbar. The photo
turns black and spots show up as white circles.
Move the slider right to increase the sensitivity or
left to decrease it.
You can use the Spot Removal tool with
Visualise Spots activated, but dont forget to
untick the box every now and then to make sure
you are actually removing genuine dust spots,
and that Lightroom is sampling from the most
appropriate area.
Note: This feature is not available in
Lightroom 4.
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Removing shapes
Healing objects with more complex shapes than dust spots is just as easy with the
Spot Removal tool. Hold the left mouse button down and drag the mouse over
the shape you want to remove. Lightroom selects an area to sample and connects
it with an arrow.
The larger the area you are healing, the more likely it is that Lightroom will take a
sample from another part of the image. You may have to zoom out (hold the space
bar down until the cursor changes to the hand icon and click once to zoom out to
see the entire image) to see the sampled area and move it around if required.
You can use the H keyboard shortcut to hide the edges of the area covered by the
Spot Removal tool. This makes it much easier to see how effective the healing
process was.
The most useful thing about the new functionality of the Spot Removal tool is
that it saves you having to go into Photoshop from Lightroom for minor retouching
(although Photoshop is still better for complex cloning or healing tasks).
Note: This feature is not available in Lightroom 4.
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Click on Fit to show the entire image, or on one of the zoom ratio settings to
magnify the image. Alternatively, click on the thumbnail once to go to the last
used zoom setting. The white rectangle indicates which part of the image you
have magnified. Drag the square around to view different parts of the image.
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The second category is what you could call genuinely useful presets. They are a bit
better thought out, and designed to make post-processing an easier and quicker
task. Usually they are created by a photographer that has put them to use over a
long period of time and tweaked them until they work well.
Presets do more than save you time they can also help you achieve a consistent
look across your portfolio by developing an individual approach to post-processing
and employing creative effects.
However, you do need to use common sense with Develop Presets just because
they work with one photo doesnt mean that they will work with others. If you are
new to Presets this is something you will get the hang of as you go along.
In addition to creating your own, Lightroom comes with some built-in presets,
and you can download more from other websites. Some are free, and others
(usually the more useful ones) you have to pay for. They tend to fall into one of two
categories:
The first are what you might call one-shot presets, which seem to work well on one
or two images but not many others. A good example is Develop Presets intended
to create a vintage or cross-processed look. They may work well on the photos that
the photographer originally created them for, but not with your images. Having
said that, you can always use them as a starting point and tweak the settings to see
if you can improve the result.
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Develop Presets
are listed here.
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3. Give the Preset a name and select the settings that you want to
include in the Develop Preset in the New Develop Preset window.
You dont have to tick every box. If you did, the Develop Preset would
probably only be useful for that specific photo.
4. By default the new Develop Preset appears in the User Presets
folder. You can change that by selecting a different folder from the drop
down menu. If you want to create a new folder for your preset, go to
Develop > New Preset Folder before you create the preset.
4. Press the Create button when you are done.
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OnOne Software
OnOne Software, who some of you will be familiar with thanks to their Perfect
Photo Suite software, have created several sets of Lightroom Develop Presets that
you can download from their website at the link below. There are a lot of good
presets in these sets. One of my favourites are the Instantastic presets, part of the
OnOne Signature Collection Presets Vol. 2. They imitate the filters that come in
the Instagram app., and are the easiest way that I know of to apply Instagram-like
effects to your photos.
www.ononesoftware.com/products/lightroom-presets/
Presets Heaven
These vintage presets from Presets Heaven are a nice addition to your presets
collection. They are especially effective with portraits. Search through the website
to find more free presets.
www.presetsheaven.com/featured/7-free-vintage-presets-for-lightroom-4/
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After
Tip: You can create several virtual copies (covered later in the
ebook) of an image and use different Develop Presets to see
how they come out. Doing so uses virtually no extra hard drive
space as the changes are stored in the Lightroom Catalog in
the form of text commands, and is an easy way to experiment
with different processing styles.
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For this example I used the Grandmas Lemonade preset from OnOne
Software to finish processing this portrait. I felt the full effect was a little too
strong, so I faded it to 50% using The Fader plug-in.
Original
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The history of the photo is listed here. Click on any of these entries
to return to that point in the photos development history.
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Above: Snapshots are very useful when you get to a stage in the development
of an image when youre happy with what youve achieved so far, but youd
like to try something adventurous and are not sure if it will work. To make a
Snapshot, click on the Create Snapshot icon (circled above) and give it a name
in the New Snapshot window (below).
Above: If you realise you have made a mistake, all you have to do is doubleclick on the Snapshot you created earlier (marked) to return to it.
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Before/After Left/Right
Before/After Top/Bottom
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HDR merge
In Lightroom 4 and Lightroom 5 the only way to merge two or more images
together to create a high dynamic range (HDR) photo is to export the task to
Photoshop or a plug-in. In Lightroom 6 and Lightroom CC you can do it from right
within Lightroom. There are several advantages to this method.
The resulting HDR file is a Raw DNG file that you can process using the same
tools as any other Raw DNG files. The main difference is that the Exposure slider
runs from -10 to +10 stops rather than the normal -4 to +4.
It streamlines your workflow and saves you a lot of hard drive space.
There is less noise in shadow areas than you would expect from a regular photo.
The HDR merge tool in Lightroom is geared to creating natural looking results
rather than the garish, colourful, high contrast images some photographers
seem to love. Not everybody will see this as a benefit!
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Lightroom also requires access to the original photo files. It cant create a HDR
image from Smart Previews alone.
1. Start in Grid View in the Library module, and select the images you want to
merge. Alternatively, you can select the images in the Filmstrip in the Develop
module. In this example Ive chosen two images from a bracketed series of
nine. Go to Photo > Photo Merge > HDR.
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3. You may be surprised to learn that there are not many settings to adjust.
This is deliberate, as the aim is to let Lightroom produce a natural looking
HDR image. You can set Deghost Amount to Low, Medium or High if you see
any ghosting in the image. Ghosting takes the form of lines, white patches
or other artefacts caused by subject movement taking place between
frames. Note you cant zoom into a 100% view, so you may only become
aware of ghosting once you move onto the Develop module and zoom in to
1:1 magnification. You can re-process the images if you notice ghosting at
this stage. Tick the Show Deghost Overlay box to reveal the area in which
Lightroom has detected and attempted to clean up ghosting (shown in red).
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4. Click the Merge button when youre done. Lightroom saves the merged
image as a 32-bit DNG file, with the suffix -HDR appended to the file name,
and takes you back to the module you started from. From there you can edit
the image as normal in the Develop module.
5. This screenshot shows a comparison between the HDR image (left) and the
same photo taken without any exposure compensation (right). As you can see,
merging two exposures has brought out a lot of detail in the rocks and tree. If,
at this stage, you think the image has too much of a HDR feel, you can use the
Basic Panel sliders or local adjustments to darken parts of the photo.
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Above: The final image, after a few tweaks in the Develop module.
Panorama merge
Photoshop has had a photo merge tool for many years and now Lightroom has
a similar feature. It is called Panorama merge and, like HDR merge, comes with
Lightroom 6 and Lightroom CC.
There are several ways you could use photo merge.
To merge several landscape orientation photos to create a panorama.
To merge several portrait orientation photos to create a large photo with a
rectangular aspect ratio (that is, squarer than a panorama).
To merge two photos together to create a large square image. These are
sometimes called vertoramas and align best when taken with tilt-shift lenses.
You may be able to think of more.
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Its essential to set your cameras exposure mode to manual and use the same
settings for each photo. Use manual focus and make sure the focusing distance
is the same for each image in the sequence. Try an overlap each photo by at least
30%. This should ensure a seamless merge.
1. Start in Grid View in the Library module, and select the images you want to
merge. Alternatively, you can select the images in the Filmstrip in the Develop
module. Go to Photo > Photo Merge > Panorama.
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Tip: You can speed up the photo merge or HDR merge process by
holding the Shift key down when you go to Photo > Photo Merge >
HDR or Photo > Photo Merge > Panorama. Lightroom process the
images without opening the Merge Preview window and using the
last selected settings. The process takes place in the background and
is visible in the Activity Centre. Adobe calls this headless mode.
3. The white space around the edges of the photo in the previous screenshot
was a result of hand-holding the camera while taking the photos. You can use
a tripod to reduce wasted space. In the Panorama Merge Preview window tick
the Auto Crop box to tell Lightroom to make the largest possible crop from
the available image information. Click the Merge button when youre done.
Lightroom creates a new Raw DNG file with the suffix -Pano. You can see the
result on the next page.
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Above: The finished panorama, after some tweaks in the Develop module. I
chose this sequence of images because the textural detail in the leaves and
grass provides an excellent test for the photo merge process. Ive examined
the result at 100% magnification and the merge is perfect. Its impossible to
tell where the images where joined.
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Copy Settings
The Previous button copies every
setting. Its a useful shortcut, but
there are times when it is better to
copy just some of the settings, not
all of them. This is how you do it:
1. Right-click on a photo and go to
Settings > Copy Settings. Choose
which develop settings to copy in
the Copy Settings window (right).
Click the Copy button to complete
the process.
2. Select another image, rightclick and go to Settings > Paste
Settings. Lightroom applies the
Develop settings you selected
previously.
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Syncing settings
Use the Sync button when you want to copy Develop settings to more than one
image:
1. Select an image and process it as normal. This is the most selected image.
2. Select the other images youd like to apply those settings to. Hold the Command
key (PC: Control key) down so that they are added to the selection. Do this in
either Grid View or the Filmstrip.
3. Press the Sync button. Select the settings you want to synchronise in the
Synchronize Settings window, then click the Synchronize button. Lightroom
copies the selected settings from the most selected image to the rest.
Note: You can pick as many or as few Develop settings as you like. For example,
you could synchronize white balance across a selection of images taken at the
same time of the day, so that you dont have to adjust them individually.
Auto Sync
The Auto Sync button works the same way, except that it copies the settings from
the most selected image as you make them (click the toggle next to the Sync
button to reveal it). In effect, with Auto Sync you are processing two or more
photos at the same time.
The Sync button is located at the
bottom of the right-hand panels.
It replaces the Previous button
when you select multiple images.
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Exporting photos
Exporting is one of the final steps
in the development process. If you
want to view your processed photos
in software other than Lightroom, or
send them to someone else (perhaps
a magazine, stock library or a client),
then you need to convert them
to a format that other people and
programs can use.
The two most common formats are
JPEG and TIFF. The JPEG format is a
compressed file suitable for sending
images to another person, or for
uploading photos to a website (such
as Flickr, 500px or Facebook). TIFF
files are much larger, but let you save
16 bit files which are best for editing
in software like Photoshop.
Start by selecting the photo or
photos to be exported. It is easiest to
do this in Grid View. Then go to File
> Export to start the export process.
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Export Location: Tells Lightroom where to save the exported files. Select Ask
what to do or Choose a new name for the exported file from the Existing Files
menu to avoid accidentally overwriting existing files.
File Naming: Opt to keep the original file name or create new ones. What you
choose to do here depends partially on whether you created new file names at
import, or kept the original names created by your camera. The most obvious
use here is creating a naming format for images to be sent to clients.
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File Settings: Select the format, quality and colour space of exported files.
There are five Image Format options to choose from. The settings change with
each one:
JPEG: For creating small files for sending to other people or uploading to
websites. Suggested settings:
PSD: Photoshop files. For maximum quality set Color Space to ProPhoto RGB
and Bit Depth to 16 bits/component.
For web use: Set Quality to between 60 and 80 and Color Space to sRGB. You
may also wish to tick the Limit File Size box to ensure that files are below a
certain size. If you are exporting photos to use on a web page, restricting
file sizes to less than 150kb will help the page load faster in a browser. You
also need to set the pixel size of the exported files under the Image Sizing
heading.
For full size images: Set Quality to 100 and Color Space to sRGB.
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TIFF: Photoshop files. For maximum quality set Compression to None, Color
Space to ProPhoto RGB and Bit Depth to 16 bits/component.
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DNG: Use this setting to convert native Raw files to the DNG format. Tick the
Embed Fast Load Data box to create DNG files that load faster in Lightroom.
Image Sizing: Lets you alter the size of the image and set the resolution. Use
this to upscale the photo for printing, or to create a smaller file for uploading
to a website.
Original: Retains the original photo file format. If the original is a Raw
file, Lightroom exports the unmodified original, with a sidecar .XMP file
containing the changes made in Lightroom.
Output Sharpening: Lets you add sharpening for display (Screen) or printing
(Matte Paper and Glossy Paper). Select from three levels: Low, Standard and
High.
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Conclusion
This is one of my longest ebooks, and has been an educational experience for me
as I wrote it. I hope it has been at least as helpful to you in your quest to learn to
use Lightroom.
There is a lot you can do with Lightroom that I havent covered here. One of those is
convert images to black and white, the subject of the next ebook in this series. But
at least now you have enough information to set you on the right track, and start
learning how to use this amazing program. It really does give us photographers all
the tools we need to organise and process our Raw files in the shortest amount of
time possible.
Heres to more photos, and better ones.
Happy shooting.
Andrew S Gibson
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Photography ebooks
Mastering LIGHTROOM
Andrew S Gibson
The rest of my photography ebooks are listed on the next few pages. Click the links
or the ebook covers to learn more.
208
Square
In Square, I delve deep into the
mysteries of the square format.
Digital cameras have opened up
the square format to everybody. But
using the square format isnt simply
a matter of cropping. It demands
a new approach to composition
and relies on aspects like shape,
simplicity and balance. This ebook
explores these concepts in detail.
AndrewSGibson.com
Design & layout: Andrew S Gibson
Copyright 2014 Andrew S Gibson
Notice of rights
All rights reserved. No part of
this ebook may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form by any
means without the permission of
the author.
Understanding EOS
Are you new to photography?
Are you wondering what all
the buttons and dials on your
camera are for? Do you want to
know how to use the potential
of your EOS camera to take
creative photos? Understanding
EOS teaches you how to use
your EOS camera to take
beautiful photos by exploring
the settings that you need to
know how to use to get started.
Youll learn about exposure
modes, Picture Style and white
balance, plus the importance of
composition, lighting and postprocessing.
209
Understanding Exposure
Understanding Exposure explains
the principles of exposure so
that you understand why your
camera doesnt always get the
exposure correct. Once you
understand these you will know
why your camera gets exposure
wrong, and what to do to put
it right. This ebook explores
advanced concepts in simple
terms and gives you the tools
you need to get the perfect
exposure every time. Youll be
walked through both basic and
advanced principles of exposure
and shown how to arrive at the
optimum settings every time.
Understanding DPP
Understanding DPP is written
for anybody who uses a Canon
EOS camera and wants to learn
how to get the best out of their
Raw files with DPP (the free
but powerful Raw processing
software that comes with
the camera). It will appeal to
photographers who would like
to use Raw, but are put off by
the complexity or expense of
more advanced software. Its
written for photographers who
want to use the functions within
DPP to make creative images,
and explains why as well as how
to use DPPs functions.
210
Slow
Slow takes you through
the creative possibilities of
using slow shutter speeds,
from blurring motion with a
shutter speed of 1/30 second
to long exposure techniques
using shutter speeds of five
minutes or longer. It explores
the creative side of the slow
end of your shutter speed
dial including slow-sync flash,
panning, intentional camera
movement and long exposure
photography.
Up Close
A guidebook for photographers
who want to create fresh and
stunning close-up photographs.
Enthusiasts of every level
will thoroughly enjoy the
discussion of the advantages
and disadvantages of working
with the best tools. I cover
crop factor and magnification,
focusing techniques, depth-offield, lighting, single/doubleelement lenses, reverse lens
macro, extension tubes and
more.
Beyond Thirds
This captivating and inspiring
ebook is about taking
composition past the socalled rules. Its a thoughtful
but practical look at the way
we build our photographs. It
explores important subjects
like the creative use of balance
and focal points, insights into
how to shape a subject, and
using aspect ratio to establish
an ideal foundation for making
photographs, and so much
more.
211
Andes
High in the Andes are wonders
such as the worlds highest city,
deserts above the clouds and
remote villages where the local
people hold traditional celebrations
whose origins stretch back to the
years before the Spanish conquest.
This ebook has over forty black
and white photos created during
my travels to the Andes over a six
year period. Part monograph, part
travelogue, it tells of my journeys to
the Andes and my parallel journey
through photography as I made the
transition from film to digital.