Anyone Using Adobe Lightroom?

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[Morcheeba]

There's gotta be some in here who do - if only they could just pry their eyes away from all the other intriguing threads for a moment to assist you.

 

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[Galene]

I didn't even know there was a Lightroom version. Hubby has Photoshop in his laptop but I've never bothered installing it, too complicated for my liking.
I'm quite happy with Microsoft Photo Editor (which came with Office2000), Ulead Photo Express 4.0, MGI Photo Suite 8.1 and Paint Shop Pro... these last three are free versions that came with cameras that we've bought.

 

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[Chiaroscuro]

I love it - an excellent tool for me. I shoot a lot of photos in both work and private settings, and using lightroom has made some things a bit easier indeed

 

[Deviant_Angel]

What are you planning on using it for?

I love lightroom. I'm a pro-shooter and had the beta version before they released the software; as soon as I can afford it I'm buying the full version. It's an excellent tool for sorting, archiving, adding meta data, and adding keywords to your images. I prefer it to Bridge (I use the whole cs2 suite). It's also got quick, easy to use development tools if you dont have time to take your files into photoshop. All around an excellent tool.

 

[Lochai]

I'm curious if anyone here is using Adobe Lightroom and if so, what do you think about it?

I was using the beta version from the start as wel as Photoshop CS3 beta.

Lightroom is a godsend! I love it. I shoot maily raw & this is a great conversion tool. It saves space as well if you shoot a lot of images. i have over 500 gigs of raw images & lightroom does alterations without increasing file size. It stores the changes you make in a sidecar file & if you choose to open the imag in PS it then creates a new file for you.

If you are looing for a professional way to organize, metadata & manipulate pro images, you can't go wrong with Lightroom...

 

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[Deviant_Angel]

I was going to use it to edit, organize, and archive my photos. I really like the development tools. They seem a lot handier than Photoshop. I have a manual coming in the mail written by Scott Kelby, it's been over a month getting here.

That's exactly what it's for - Lightroom makes archiving, indexing and keywording SO much faster. As far as adjustments/developing, I 'd only use it if you just don't have time for Photoshop. Have you taken any Photoshop classes?

Look up Julieanne Kost also - she's a photographer that helped develop Lightroom. I went to one of her seminars when the software was still beta; she breaks the software down into a quick and easy workflow.

What file format are you using? I shoot raw and convert to tiff or jpeg depending on the application (tiff for prints, jpeg for my website). The only difference I've noticed is that you import files into Lightroom and export out again when you're finished with them; the originals stay in the original folder.

 

[Lochai]

There are a couple of different ways to save.

One is to use the "Edit In..." under photo where you have a choice of creating a TIFF or PSD file, editing the original jpg or editing a copied jpg.

...or you can use the export file under file to batch save jpgs that are resized.

The third choice is to export a web page...

I really like what I see so far, It seemed at first to be harder to save a file in a different format, but I think I've got that figured out. I wish my manual would arrive. Mainly I'd like some pointers on shortcuts and how best to increase my productivity.

 

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[Ekserb]

I am not a professional and usually shoot TIFF or SHQ and convert to JPEG. I do have a gig of memory and can shoot in RAW. What do you recommend? I am using an Olympus C-8080 Wide Zoom.

I used to use an Oly C5050 and I recommend you shoot RAW or at least RAW+JPEG (if your camera has that capability) for everything. You won't notice the difference in the files that come from the camera, other than the fact that they are larger files and require more storage space on your hard drive. The benefits of shooting RAW come in the editing phase.

RAW files are 16-bit (well, technically, most are 10- or 12-bit, but digital editing software treats them all as 16-bit) and they can sustain a lot more damage from tweaking the highlights and shadows during post-processing. An 8-bit RGB image has 256 levels of brightness for each pixel in each of its three color channels. Even a 10-bit channel has over 1,000 levels of brightness for each pixel (12-bit has over 4,000 levels!). That means you can adjust the levels to a much more severe degree before you can see any of the banding associated with digital images.

If your shots are all exposed perfectly and your subjects are lit well with no unwanted highlights or shadows, you can shoot JPEG all day and never need a RAW file, but most scenes aren't perfect and sometimes even the best shooter will slightly over- or under-expose a shot. Or maybe you want that additional editing overhead to add some special processing when you get back to the computer. It's times like these when you will appreciate the bit depth afforded by shooting RAW.

For anyone who thinks they may want to advance their photography in the future, I still recommend capturing RAW+JPEG and then store the RAW files somewhere safe. You can always keep the JPEGs in whatever cataloging software you want to use, but having the RAW files is like keeping the film negatives in storage - you can always go back and make new prints from those negatives whenever you want.

 

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