A couple of Lightroom Questions

[jenships]

Hi,

I am sorry if there is already a thread about this but I am still working the forum out and trying to find my way around.

I have Lightroom and love it, but still only have the very 'basics' and have kind of been winging it.

A few things I am wondering...

Could someone please explain what 'plugins' and 'presets' are and how to install new ones? I have no idea about plugins and would love to know how to use them. I know what presets are but I am not sure how to install presets from websites etc.

I would also love it if people could share their 'approach' to Lightroom. For me, I:
1)Import the photo
2)Crop if necessary
3)See if there are any presets that suit the photo (preview)
4)If there is, I will use a preset and do some 'tweaking'. If not, I start at the top of the editing bar and work my way down, making changes as necessary.

What do other people do? Do you have a clear idea of what you want before you begin editing, or do you just 'wing it' and experiment until you like the final product? Do you always edit in a particular order (ie crop first, then exposure, then vignetting etc etc) or does it depend on the photo?

I am just interested in people's approaches.

Thanks, I look forward to hearing your responses :)

[jerryph]

There are books and videos and blogs and websites dedicated to using LR... to do that here is beyond the scope of the ability to post here... but to answer a few of your questions:

Plug-In's are small apps that extend the functionality of LR. Presets are just what they sound like... changes that can be replicated consistently from photo to photo with the press of a button.

Proper use of LR makes it easier for me to post process many pictures faster over a shorter amount of time. One of the biggest time savers for me is the ability to click on a picture, shift-click on another picture a hundred pictures down and sync all settings from the first picture across all the others in one shot.

The way that I work:
- copy all my RAW files to the PC (LR can do this but I do it anyways)

- apply a camera preset to all my pictures as they are being imported

- I cull the whole set by giving pictures I want to keep 3 stars or higher

- I then filter for shots with ratings of 3 stars or higher

- do global adjustments like white balance and minor exposure setting changes across sets of pictures

- export and work on shots that need extra work or special effects in CS3

- finalize compositional aspects (crops/rotations)

- sharpen using the proper method based on the final use of the picture (print, screen, etc...)

- export to full sized JPG

- Using another program, I then resize to web friendly sizes and add watermarks to the jpgs to upload to the website that I want it to be on.

Obviously it gets a little more involved if I want to add a little custom work or make individual changes to a shot, but that is the basic idea of how I work.

Using this basic method, I have done as many as 2400 pictures over the course of a single weekend without pushing myself too much. One thing that I can say... if you learn the keyboard shortcuts for LR, that alone can increase your productivity by at least 40% over using the mouse alone.

[verikos]

- sharpen using the proper method based on the final use of the picture (print, screen, etc...)

Jerry (or anybody?) - when you say the 'proper method', is this something that is available out there on the net via blogs/tutorials etc or is it something within Lightroom that you have to learn?

I shoot in RAW format and use Lightroom 2 for pp work. My question is: How much sharpening should you apply to each photo? Does it depend on the type of photo i.e. people/landscapes/macro etc? Or is every photo different and must be sharpened accordingly? It's quite time-consuming too!:(

[Pat]

Hi Denise. Here are some sharpening tuts (http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=ie7&q=lightroom+2+sharpening+tutorial&rls=com.microsoft:en-ca:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7ACAW_en&redir_esc=&ei=RUDMS_2ZBIeM8wTi8qzWBA) for lightroom 2.
Sharpening is a bit of a misnomer. You can't, and don't, actually sharpen a photo in post production. What happens in "sharpening" is an increase in contrast beteen adjacent pixels of a value and range that you select with the shapening sliders. The increase in contrast fools the eye into seeing a sharper image.
The trick to sharpening is to sharpen as much as you can get away with. :)
You'll know you've gone too far when you see "fringing", or "haloing" appear. And when sharpening individual photos, you'll want them at full size (1:1) or greater onscreen.
Also, in Lightroom, a touch of "Clarity" will help enhance detail.

[verikos]

Thanks Pat. You raised a good point about 'fringing/haloing' and the 1:1 ratio. I found some interesting articles on the link and when I get the time (!) I'll sit down and look into it. Thank you again.
Denise

[jerryph]

There is no one amount of sharpening that is perfect for all pictures, also when exporting do not forget that this is a time in LR when one can add a 2nd payer of sharpening. If you over-sharpen in post processing and sharpen again upon exporting, this can cause fringing and haloing. What I also meant by proper method, is that there are different methods for sharpening a picture based on it's use (screen or print) and/or the kind of paper it is going to be printed on.

If you do a google on sharpening, there is a lot of info available on this. :)

[verikos]

There is no one amount of sharpening that is perfect for all pictures, also when exporting do not forget that this is a time in LR when one can add a 2nd payer of sharpening. If you over-sharpen in post processing and sharpen again upon exporting, this can cause fringing and haloing. What I also meant by proper method, is that there are different methods for sharpening a picture based on it's use (screen or print) and/or the kind of paper it is going to be printed on.

If you do a google on sharpening, there is a lot of info available on this. :)

Thanks Jerry. I didn't realize that exporting actually involved sharpening. I usually export using 'Burn full-sized JPEG'. I will take that into consideration. Thanks once again.