Following a link from Matt Kloskowski's excellent Lightroom Killer Tips blog, I discovered that I could get a free 30-day trial of the new Adobe Photoshop CS4. I don't use PS very often, having only an old copy of CS. In fact, I can get pretty much all of what I feel I need in Lightroom. However, if the interface is better (as it's said to be), I might just go for it.
Some of the options for manipulating B&W images and for sharpening are just so much more advanced - and therefore more difficult to use well... As a student of the Open College of the Arts, I can befit from a hefty student discount, so that may just tip the balance!
I'll report on progress (when I have some!). Just to complicate matters, I start a new job on Monday, as a Practice Manager in a Primary Care practice. This is a new departure for me, but will no doubt please my bank manager. There is so little work out there at the moment that some proper, full-time paid work is most desirable. I plan to keep my PR and consultation consultancy work running in parallel, and indeed to make some use of my experience in the new job. I also hope to still have time to blog and take pictures once the dust has settled...
Showing posts with label Adobe Lightroom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adobe Lightroom. Show all posts
Saturday, 15 November 2008
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Lightroom Presets
Looking back to my last post, I see that I was worried about stickiness in the sliders in Lightroom 2.1 Release Candidate. I'm happy now to update this and say that the issue went away: most likely transient conditions on my below-optimum PC. I really must upgrade my RAM!
One of the most common requests we seem to get over on the Flickr Adobe Lightroom group that I co-admin seems to be about develop presets. Second only to requests about Colour Management that is. I suppose when you've been using a piece of software fairly intensively for nearly two years, it's diifcult to remember how complex it can be for someone coming to the package fresh. I was reminded of that vividly yesterday when I was struggling with setting up additional external editors - despite following the instructions on the LR Forum, I just couldn't see what I was supposed to do. It was a real "Kickself" moment when I realised what I was failing to do...
Develop presets, however, are more annoying, because some people are charging significant money for what is really not a lot of work. As with so many things, of course, if it's worth it then it's worth the money, but it does hack me off that people want to go down the paid-for route, rather than trying to understand what the sliders do and work out their own solutions. There are vast quantities of free presets out there at the touch of Google, and they can show - vividly - what happens when you push such-and-such a slider this way or that, giving a sound basis for your own efforts.
When I started out with LR I downloaded loads of presets, but I now hardly use any of them. The exceptions are a set of WOW black and white presets, and, currently Sean McCormack's excellent "Dragan" presets. Both are used as a basis for further work rather than as the finished product. Sean has also produced the only presets I've ever paid for - a handy set of "instant" settings for the new LR2 grad adjustment. Definitely worth the 5 Euro cost for the time and trouble it's saved me! I look on it as the price of the couple of pints I'd have happily bought Sean for saving me all that effort to work thru and systematically make up Grad settings in different hardnesses, levels and divisions.
As for other paid for presets - like the ones I saw today that cost no less than $70 (or $150 for three different sets), for goodness sakes look aorund first and see what's out there, free, before flashing the credit card.
Here's an example of Sean's (free) Dragan presets in action: the image is from a photo trip to Kensal Green Cemetery in London with the Olympus UK E-System User Group in August 2008.
One of the most common requests we seem to get over on the Flickr Adobe Lightroom group that I co-admin seems to be about develop presets. Second only to requests about Colour Management that is. I suppose when you've been using a piece of software fairly intensively for nearly two years, it's diifcult to remember how complex it can be for someone coming to the package fresh. I was reminded of that vividly yesterday when I was struggling with setting up additional external editors - despite following the instructions on the LR Forum, I just couldn't see what I was supposed to do. It was a real "Kickself" moment when I realised what I was failing to do...
Develop presets, however, are more annoying, because some people are charging significant money for what is really not a lot of work. As with so many things, of course, if it's worth it then it's worth the money, but it does hack me off that people want to go down the paid-for route, rather than trying to understand what the sliders do and work out their own solutions. There are vast quantities of free presets out there at the touch of Google, and they can show - vividly - what happens when you push such-and-such a slider this way or that, giving a sound basis for your own efforts.
When I started out with LR I downloaded loads of presets, but I now hardly use any of them. The exceptions are a set of WOW black and white presets, and, currently Sean McCormack's excellent "Dragan" presets. Both are used as a basis for further work rather than as the finished product. Sean has also produced the only presets I've ever paid for - a handy set of "instant" settings for the new LR2 grad adjustment. Definitely worth the 5 Euro cost for the time and trouble it's saved me! I look on it as the price of the couple of pints I'd have happily bought Sean for saving me all that effort to work thru and systematically make up Grad settings in different hardnesses, levels and divisions.
As for other paid for presets - like the ones I saw today that cost no less than $70 (or $150 for three different sets), for goodness sakes look aorund first and see what's out there, free, before flashing the credit card.
Here's an example of Sean's (free) Dragan presets in action: the image is from a photo trip to Kensal Green Cemetery in London with the Olympus UK E-System User Group in August 2008.
Monday, 22 September 2008
Lightroom 2.1
Adobe have produced a "release candidate" version of Lightroom 2.1 for download.
While the release of an upgrade is no surprise, given the numerous difficulties reported by some users (but strangely, not by all), this is the first time I can recall that Adobe have published what in effect is a "dress rehearsal" upgrade/ update.
Most of the issues reported have to do with slow running in some conditions, particularly with the new Gradient and Adjustment Brush tools - probably the most significant new feature for many users, myself included. What strikes me as odd is that although my PC is fairly new (18 months old), it only has 1Gb of RAM, and I have had - to date - no issues at all with Lightroom (LR) 2.0. There have been reports of problems related to Nvida graphics cards - and yet I heard today from a forum contact running Nvida who has had no problems whatever. One problem that Adobe have acknowledged is that LR1.x catalogue keywords are not importaing cleanly, although their knowledge base includes a SQL script that appears to have fixed the problem for me (without me really understanding SQL, I hasten to add - I just followed the instructions and it worked...)!
Whatever the problem(s), it has no doubt been a major embarrassment for Adobe, who earlier this year had - in effect - to recall LR1.4 as it was catastrophically buggy for many users. They issued a revised version (LR1.4.1) fairly quickly and no doubt some Adobe intern had a serious ear-bashing or worse. Given the reasonably lengthy Beta trial of LR2.0 it's all the more surprising the bugs weren't picked up before release.
Interestingly, one of the problems reportedly fixed in LR2.1 is some issues with handling Olympus's proprietary RAW file version - ORFs. Strangely, this is news to me, and not something that I've seen raised as an issue on any of my Forums or Flickr Groups. Again, 2.0 has been fine for me.
Having given it the weekend for other people to download 2.1 and trial it, I downloaded and installed my copy this morning. Worryingly, I have noticed some "stickiness" with some of the adjustment sliders that didn't exist with 2.0. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is a transient issue. Just to be on the safe side, I've run a catalogue optimisation as recommended by various users. Fingers crossed. I had big problems with one of the LR1.x versions, which were only resolved by the release of new version, so I hope this is not one step forward and two back.
While the release of an upgrade is no surprise, given the numerous difficulties reported by some users (but strangely, not by all), this is the first time I can recall that Adobe have published what in effect is a "dress rehearsal" upgrade/ update.
Most of the issues reported have to do with slow running in some conditions, particularly with the new Gradient and Adjustment Brush tools - probably the most significant new feature for many users, myself included. What strikes me as odd is that although my PC is fairly new (18 months old), it only has 1Gb of RAM, and I have had - to date - no issues at all with Lightroom (LR) 2.0. There have been reports of problems related to Nvida graphics cards - and yet I heard today from a forum contact running Nvida who has had no problems whatever. One problem that Adobe have acknowledged is that LR1.x catalogue keywords are not importaing cleanly, although their knowledge base includes a SQL script that appears to have fixed the problem for me (without me really understanding SQL, I hasten to add - I just followed the instructions and it worked...)!
Whatever the problem(s), it has no doubt been a major embarrassment for Adobe, who earlier this year had - in effect - to recall LR1.4 as it was catastrophically buggy for many users. They issued a revised version (LR1.4.1) fairly quickly and no doubt some Adobe intern had a serious ear-bashing or worse. Given the reasonably lengthy Beta trial of LR2.0 it's all the more surprising the bugs weren't picked up before release.
Interestingly, one of the problems reportedly fixed in LR2.1 is some issues with handling Olympus's proprietary RAW file version - ORFs. Strangely, this is news to me, and not something that I've seen raised as an issue on any of my Forums or Flickr Groups. Again, 2.0 has been fine for me.
Having given it the weekend for other people to download 2.1 and trial it, I downloaded and installed my copy this morning. Worryingly, I have noticed some "stickiness" with some of the adjustment sliders that didn't exist with 2.0. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is a transient issue. Just to be on the safe side, I've run a catalogue optimisation as recommended by various users. Fingers crossed. I had big problems with one of the LR1.x versions, which were only resolved by the release of new version, so I hope this is not one step forward and two back.
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Lightroom 2.0
I've probably mentioned before that I'm a big fan of Adobe Lightroom. For anyone who shoots RAW (and almost anyone serious about photography should) and uses a PC, it's an invaluable tool for processing and cataloguing images. The big problem with digital is that you end up shooting lots more, as there's no constraint as there is with film. I estimate I shoot about 10 times the quantity of images that I used to in film days - and that's with very infrequent use of "continuous" mode. I have no idea how many frames the guy with the white-lensed Canon EOS1Ds that I saw on the boat to the Farne Islands the other day got thru just getting there - it sounded like tearing cloth...
Anyway, Lightroom (LR) gives the best way I've found yet of sorting thru images, cataloguing them, tagging them and evaluating them. I was a user way back in the v1 public beta days, bought it as soon as it was available, have upgraded religiously, experimented with the public v2 beta, and finally loaded the new v2.0 version last week. It's worth every penny of the £69 for the upgrade with some important new tools, including a localised adjustments brush and a graduated filter.
There's a run down of what's new on Matt Kloskowski's excellent "Lightroom Killer Tips" blog ( http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/ ). Also see here: http://www.photoshopuser.com/lightroom2/features.html
On Tuesday (Aug 12), Matt drew attention to some really useful presets (templates for adjustments in LR) for grad filters produced by Sean McCormac. Sean is a regular contributer to the Adobe Lightroom Flickr Group I co-admin ( http://www.flickr.com/groups/adobe_lightroom/ ), and extremely knowledgable. His comprehensive set of filters cost just €5 (plus VAT) and are a huge timesaver (see http://lightroom-blog.com/2008/07/lrb-graduated-filter-presets.html ). In fact, I notice that one of my co-admins, who quite rightly objects to people ripping the unknowledgable off for presets that they can easily make themself, has also downloaded them.
Adobe have posted a really useful video tutorial on the "Develop" module - where the above changes are located - here: http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/?id=vid0386
I couldn't realistically do photography without LR (I suppose other tools are available, but not necessarily on a PC platform). The more you shoot, the more you need it. The following image is an example. Not much changed, except tweaks to exposure, contrast and saturation, plus sharpening, but take my work for it that the image would have been pretty dull without it - and processing probably took less than five minutes!
Anyway, Lightroom (LR) gives the best way I've found yet of sorting thru images, cataloguing them, tagging them and evaluating them. I was a user way back in the v1 public beta days, bought it as soon as it was available, have upgraded religiously, experimented with the public v2 beta, and finally loaded the new v2.0 version last week. It's worth every penny of the £69 for the upgrade with some important new tools, including a localised adjustments brush and a graduated filter.
There's a run down of what's new on Matt Kloskowski's excellent "Lightroom Killer Tips" blog ( http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/ ). Also see here: http://www.photoshopuser.com/lightroom2/features.html
On Tuesday (Aug 12), Matt drew attention to some really useful presets (templates for adjustments in LR) for grad filters produced by Sean McCormac. Sean is a regular contributer to the Adobe Lightroom Flickr Group I co-admin ( http://www.flickr.com/groups/adobe_lightroom/ ), and extremely knowledgable. His comprehensive set of filters cost just €5 (plus VAT) and are a huge timesaver (see http://lightroom-blog.com/2008/07/lrb-graduated-filter-presets.html ). In fact, I notice that one of my co-admins, who quite rightly objects to people ripping the unknowledgable off for presets that they can easily make themself, has also downloaded them.
Adobe have posted a really useful video tutorial on the "Develop" module - where the above changes are located - here: http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/?id=vid0386
I couldn't realistically do photography without LR (I suppose other tools are available, but not necessarily on a PC platform). The more you shoot, the more you need it. The following image is an example. Not much changed, except tweaks to exposure, contrast and saturation, plus sharpening, but take my work for it that the image would have been pretty dull without it - and processing probably took less than five minutes!
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Read. The. Instructions.
Or at least take notice of what you read!
We spent Sunday at Fingringhoe Wick, an Essex Wildlife Trust nature reserve on the Colne estuary near Colchester. Lovely, springlike day and ideal for bird photography with my new Sigma 135-400mm (bought in December, but haven't been able to use it because of vile weather and falling downstairs - the latter a topic for another post).
Carried away with enthusiasm, I clicked away merrily with the lens at f5.6 and 400mm, varying the FL a bit to shoot things a bit bigger than the curlews, oystercatchers, redshanks, various geese and other birds zooming about.
Result, when I processed the results in Lightroom yesterday, major disappointment! All the images were softer than I would have liked, despite trying various software tweaks, including running through some software I'm trying called "Focus Magic". It was only later that I recalled reading advice about the 135-400mm, suggesting that it had to be used stopped down to around f8 at full zoom. B****r! A traditional case of letting excitement using a new toy get in the way of trying to obtain the best possible images. What is particularly irritating is that I actually had enough light to stop down to f8 and still keep a realistic shutter speed and ISO, especially as the lens was mostly supported on a bean bag perched on a sandwich box or the hide window.
The end result is that although we had a pleasant day's birdwatching, seeing around 30 species, most of my images are pretty rubbish. I haven't had time to look through the others yet, but I suspect the others will suffer as the above has. I suppose that I've learned a valuable lesson, but I should have remembered what I read!
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