This week on DTown TV (the show should be up at some point today – or maybe tomorrow) I talked a little about metering when it comes to snow and I briefly jumped into some post-processing talk about what you can do if you have blown out highlights. Below is an example of a photo I have where the snow is, well, pretty blown out as you can see.

When I took this photo I saw a huge portion of my LCD on the camera blinking at me. However, one of the things I’ve learned to do is trust that Lightroom and Photoshop are really good at bringing back highlight detail. Now, of course there’s a bunch of things you can do and a bunch of different ways you can blow your highlights to the point of no return. However, take a look at what moving the Recovery slider about 10-15% of the way toward the right will do (the red highlight warning disappears).

(Click to see a larger version)

That’s pretty darn good considering how much was blown out to start with. I’d even tweak the Exposure down a little as the face was kinda bright to begin with. Moral of the story… if you’re in a sticky exposure situation keep in mind that Lightroom and Photoshop give you a lot of wiggle-room in recovering detail in those highlight areas. You’d be much better off overexposing a little (if you can afford the longer shutter speed) and getting the key area of the photo (the face in this example) bright to start with, instead of trying to brighten things after the fact and risk introducing noise into the photo.

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Obviously there’s been a lot of buzz around lately about Apple’s Aperture 3. I read an article yesterday titled “Five Reasons For Switching from Lightroom 2 to Aperture 3″ by a gentleman named Marco. So I figured I’d take a stab at my own rendition of the “5 things” article (no offense to Marco) and write about 5 reasons to stay with Lightroom.

Let me just get one thing out from the start though. Will this article seem Lightroom biased? You betcha! Because I am Lightroom biased (you’re at a blog called Lightroom Killer Tips if you haven’t noticed). I’ve been using it for over 4 years. I know it like the back of my hand. However, as an expert in the industry I can’t just go around saying “my program is better than yours” without testing the other one. I had a copy of Aperture 3 installed the day after it was announced and have been kicking the tires since then. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

Reason #1: Enjoying the Digital Darkroom (this was reason #1 from Marco’s article)
I’ll go head-to-head with this one because I think Lightroom is better here. One big reason is that in Lightroom (the LR3 beta) we have Collections in the Develop module which keeps me from bouncing back and forth (something I found myself doing a lot in Aperture). And when it comes down to it, the only difference is tabs in Aperture compared to modules in LR. Aside from wishing the Develop module had Folders and Collections in it (like I said, LR3 beta has Collections now), I don’t find myself cursing the modules in Lightroom. If its not a module I need to use then I simply just don’t click on it. And the reason why LR has more modules than A3 has tabs, is because Adobe has located two key areas (slideshow and web) there instead of a menu up at the top.

Reason #2: Camera Calibration, Effects, Collections, Vignettes and other stuff
Remember when Camera Calibration profiles came out for Lightroom? You should because everyone absolutely loved them. It’s one of my favorite panels in Lightroom. But it’s not in Aperture. Lightroom 2/3 beta has better effects when it comes to adding grain and vignetting. And in the article referenced above, he dings Lightroom for not having “Books, Loupe, Light Table and Full Screen Mode”. Books definitely go into the win column for Aperture (see #3 below). But Lightroom does have a Loupe view. Even though its different, it still does the same job. Light Table…. eh, its cool but is it worth switching for? And of course we do have Full Screen mode in Lightroom. Just press the F key.

Reason #3: Printing
This is one of those areas where you can argue either way but I think Lightroom makes a stronger case. Lightroom has custom print templates (in LR 3 beta) and an entire Print module, that you have to admit, is one of the most robust in the industry. Aperture has books but that’s about it. They’re both important. Some portrait and wedding pros swear by Lightroom’s Print module and some folks swear by the great looking books in Aperture. Which is more important? That’s up to you. Personally, I’ll take the Print module in Lightroom. I can still print books elsewhere, but I can’t get Lightroom’s Print module anywhere else. Do I wish Lightroom had both? Yep. But it doesn’t so I have to make a choice.

Reason #4: Noise Reduction
This one definitely goes in the win column for Lightroom. I ran quite a few images through the noise removal settings in both programs. Aperture doesn’t even come close in my opinion. Here’s an example of an image I tested with both the Lightroom 3 beta and Aperture 3. You have to click on it to see it larger to see what I’m talking about though. This image was taken hand held off of a cruise ship in Hawaii as we watched the lava flow. I cranked the ISO up so high that it was lit up like a Christmas tree with noise. As you can see, the Lightroom version has two things going for it. 1) The noise removal is noticeably better and the edges are more crisp as opposed to blurred in the Aperture version and, 2) It retained more of its color even after cranking up the Color Noise removal setting pretty high.

Basically, when it comes down to reading the raw data and doing something useful with it (demosaicing, sharpening, and noise removal), my money goes to Adobe. You’ve gotta realize that being the best at raw processing has to rank up pretty high in Adobe’s priority list. I’m not so sure where it would rank with Apple.

Reason #5: This isn’t an “I’m in the mood for…” game
I’m going to directly disagree with #5 from his list (supporting competition) and say ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, NO WAY! As a consumer, your (and my) job is not to support competition. It’s to support the best product out there and to reward that product by opening your wallet. Your job is to pick the best tool for your job regardless of whether there’s 10 companies that do the same thing or none. Here’s something to chew on. This isn’t a game. Your photography workflow shouldn’t be “sure, I’ll use Lightroom today but maybe Aperture tomorrow”. There’s always going to be features in one program that you like better than another. It happens in every aspect of our lives. Ever buy a car one year only to find out the next year’s model (or a competing model you looked at previously) has something really cool you wish you had? Do you go out and trade your car in for a huge loss and get the new model? Some of you do I’m sure. But it’s surely not economical to do so, and it takes a lot of your time, energy, and money to play that game. The rest of us, are happy enough with our existing car and we work with it. Your goal is to pick the program that works best for you at the time you’re looking for one, and then stick with it. Whether you’re a working pro or an avid hobbyist, nobody has the time to play the “switcharoo” every 18 months.

Reason #5.5 (this is just a joke): Did Aperture Really have to copy the Cyanotype preset from Lightroom?
I mean, of all the presets to copy from Lightroom, they picked Cyanotype? Does anyone even use that preset? I can think of no better reason to just stick with Lightroom, because at least they were the first to use that horrible effect as a preset

Final Thoughts
If you’re a current Lightroom user, you’re among the group of the most used photo management/processing software in the world. There’s a reason why when you do a search for buzz, news, tutorials, presets, etc… on Lightroom vs. the same for Aperture, you find much more about Lightroom. It’s an awesome program and like anything out there, will just get better with time. Be happy with it. If your curiosity just has to get the best of you then by all means, download the free trial of Aperture and give it a try yourself. Maybe you’ll switch. If that’s the right thing for you then go for it. Just don’t do it because it’s new and different. As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments (just be nice)

This week’s video came from a question I got recently about exporting hi-res and low-res versions of your photos at the same time. While Lightroom won’t let you do it exactly like you’d want with 1 trip to the Export dialog, you can still workaround it pretty easily and get the same results. By the way, I mentioned Photoshop World and my HDR Pre-conference workshop earlier in the video. Here’s the link if you want to find out more. Enjoy.

Click here to download the video to your computer. [Right-click and choose the "Save As" option]

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It’s inevitable. Every time I teach a seminar or workshop I have some one approach me with a catalog problem. It’s usually gotten so bad for them that they’ve sworn off Lightroom by this point because of it. Unfortunately, my advice isn’t something they want to hear but it’s really the best advice I can give them – Start from scratch in Lightroom. Sometimes it’s just more work to try to go back and fix things. That being said, here’s 4 signs that it may be time for you to start from scratch in Lightroom. Before you get mad at me though, I’ve also included links to videos that I’ve done over the past couple of years that talk more about organization and catalog management in Lightroom. They also talk about how to move photos into other catalogs so starting from scratch isn’t really starting from scratch – you’ll still get to save your settings. So I’m not just telling you to start from scratch but hopefully leaving you with a little bit of information on how to make your Lightroom life easier.

4 signs it’s time to start from scratch:
1. You started using Lightroom and just started importing your photos from all over your computer and external hard drives (basically where ever you could find them at the time). You were excited right? I don’t blame ya. But there was no real organization to the process and now its a mess – you feel like you’re constantly seeing little question marks telling you the file can’t be found and you have no idea where your photos really are.

2. You eventually got the hang of this “catalog” thing but only after you’d imported thousands of photos in haphazard ways. So now your catalog is half organized and half chaos. Almost like #1 above but not quite as bad – but still bad.

3. You started using Lightroom 2 and created a new catalog to import your photos into because you were afraid to commit and upgrade your catalog at the time. But eventually you upgraded your Lightroom 1 catalog to Lightroom 2. Now you have 2 catalogs and don’t really know why or which one you like more. All you know is that there’s 2 and you wish there were one.

4. You have 2, 3 or more catalogs in Lightroom because some one told you to create multiple catalogs. Now you hate it and find yourself really only using 1 catalog most of the time but don’t know what to do about the others you created. Or worse yet, you’ve imported photos from those other catalogs into the main one you like so now they’re in two places.
(note: I’m not saying multiple catalogs is a bad thing. I’m only suggesting that having multiple catalogs and not using them them is)

As promised, here are a few videos that talk more about catalogs, and folders, and organization and all that fun stuff:

• Lightroom Folders and Hard Drives

• Moving Between Laptop and Desktop

• Merging Multiple Lightroom Catalogs

• Organizing Photos By Date (and why not to)

• Moving Existing Folders

• Where to store your photos in Lightroom

Finally, do me a favor and leave a comment with your thoughts on the topic. What kind of catalog issues/problems do you have (if any)?

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Here’s a neat little tip I use a lot so I hope you will too. If you want to export some photos and use the same export settings you used the last time, you can bypass the Export dialog and just go to File > Export with Previous. Better yet, memorize the keyboard shortcut Cmd-Option-Shift-E (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E), and it will automatically export the photos using your last settings. Like I said, its a little tip but it’s one I use all the time. Thanks and enjoy your weekend!

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Its time for another round of Lightroom Q&A’s. Keep the questions coming.

Q. When I export images sometimes I choose to export to a custom size (640 x 480) for web viewing. The problem is that the images that were shot using a vertical orientation are exported as 360 x 480 instead of 480 x 640. Is there a way to export a ‘mixed’ group of photos to a custom size yet retain the original aspect ratio?

A. That’s because by setting 640 x 480, you’ve essentially set a max size for the height of the image at 480. So it couldn’t do 480×640 because that would be going against what you’ve set as a max height. So if you want 640 to be the max width and 640 to be the max height, then set both width and height to 640. Lightroom won’t give you square images (640×640) but rather use 640 as a max setting for each side.

Q. Do I have to leave the Develop preset file on my desktop after I import it? Or is it saved in another location?

A. I gotta admit, I’m surprised this questions hasn’t been asked before. I always point people to downloading the presets to their desktop and then importing them from there. So do they live on the desktop then? It does, after all, make a little sense that they would but they don’t. When you import them into Lightroom they actually get copied to Lightroom’s preset folder. So its safe to delete them from your desktop.

Q. Are you going to do a bootcamp for the Lightroom ACE Exams at KelbyTraining.com?

A. Probably not. There haven’t been many of requests for it. But hey, things can change.

Q. This one came from a post about the Lightroom 2 Exam Aid, the other week. “If I’ve gone through the Lightroom classes on Kelby Training and have read Kelby’s Lightroom 2 book… would the Exam Aid still be a benefit or would it be fairly redundant”?

A. Here’s the thing about Adobe ACE Exams (I’ve taken many so I can fairly say this). They tend to test you on what they WANT you to know about a product, rather than what you know about a product. Now I’m not bashing the tests. They have to be complete. You need to know your stuff, but as authors (of books and DVDs) we don’t have to be complete. We feel our job is to try to distill Lightroom down into what we think you need to know. Otherwise, we’d create a reference book which we don’t. So going through some one’s book or DVD means you’ve learned their workflow and what they use – but not everything. That’s where you’ve got to download the free exam bulletin from Adobe and at least look through it. If at that point you feel you need more help, then I’d turn to the exam aid.

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A Guest Post by Pye of SLRLounge.com.

Introduction

If you have been anywhere near the photography world in the past couple years, I am sure you have heard of HDR by now as there have been countless tutorials floating around on how to create HDR images using 3 bracketed exposures in programs like Photomatix and Photoshop. However what if you don’t have your tripod or if you are shooting a scene with moving subjects, yet you still want to create an HDR type shot? Well, good news, it is possible.

This tutorial will teach you how correct and produce a single RAW image into an HDR-like masterpiece using only Lightroom! That’s right, Photoshop skills are not even needed for this tutorial.

Before you get started, you can download the RAW image used in this tutorial by clicking here.

Image is provided courtesy of Lin and Jirsa Photography.

Shooting the Image

Before we get into the actual post production steps, let me quickly give you a background of the image and how it was shot. I always shoot in RAW format simply because it provides vastly more tonal information than the compressed JPG format. What does this mean? It means that we can do much more to the image in post production before the image quality degrades. Your ability to alter Color Temperature, Exposure, Brightness and Saturation is much more limited with JPG files in comparison to RAW files. Bottom line, if you are trying to create an HDR look from a single image, you MUST SHOOT IN RAW.

What you see below is the RAW file directly from a Canon 5D Mark II. The crucial component for shooting a single shot image that is going to be turned into an HDR shot is to shoot it so that you are not clipping any shadows or blowing any highlights. This typically means that you are going to be anywhere from 1-2 stops under exposed in order to save most of the highlights and still keep detail in the shadows.

When you are getting used to this process, it is wise to take a few different shots of your scene at different levels of exposure in order to get the hang of just what level of exposure you need. If the shot is too bright, you will have no details left in your highlights, where as if you shoot the shot too dark, then you are going to create too much noise brightening the shadows.

Image Metadata (Canon 5D Mark II, EF 17-40mm F/4L USM @ 40mm, 10 seconds, F/11, ISO 100)

RAW files will always look dark and murky from the camera since there is no post production applied to the image. Keep in mind that the camera LCD preview will apply some post processing settings to the image when you are previewing them, so I recommend that you turn on your highlight alert to make sure you didn’t blow your highlights or clip your shadows. You will notice that the shot above is exposed so that we can still see color in the sky, while still seeing most of the detail in the shadows under the dock.

If you haven’t already done so, download the image and load it into Lightroom. The RAW image you see above is “zeroed out” meaning that every Lightroom slider is set to 0. Lightroom will typically apply default settings to each image, so you want to make sure your image is zeroed out as well, otherwise it will look differently.

Processing the Image

Step 1) Brightness +80 - The first thing I typically do when processing an image is to typically dial in an approximate Brightness level so that I can see the correct effect when applying other adjustments. I am going to start with +80 as a baseline, however, I will revisited the Brightness to make sure it’s correct once our Contrast/Black levels are adjusted. During brightening I am paying more attention to the brightness levels of the darker areas than the sky and water since I can burn those down later.

On a side note, I always resort to using Brightness before Exposure. Reason being that Exposure affects highlights more than shadows and mid-tones, while Brightness adjusts all of the tones equally. You should now see something like the image below.

Step 2) Contrast +100 – I love my landscapes to really pop and so I love using a lot of Contrast in my shots. I am always careful to make sure the shot doesn’t look faked, but even at +100, I don’t think it’s too much. You should now see the following.

Step 3) Blacks +7 – Now, I am going to dial in my Blacks to make sure the blacks in the scene are truly black versus a dark shade of grey. During this part you want to be careful not to clip (lose detail) too much of the shadows in the scene by taking your Blacks too high. If you press “j” you can see which areas are clipped as they will be highlighted in blue as shown below where blacks are set to +17.

Well, its preset day and I’ve got one that’s been asked for quite a bit since I started making presets. It has to do with a “grain” effect and it deals with the new Grain setting in Lightroom 3 Beta. BUT WAIT!!! If you’re not a LR3 Beta user don’t worry. The preset itself still looks cool and still works in Lightroom 2 (it just doesn’t apply the grain). Depending on the photo, the settings still bring out a little graininess in the image so its not a total loss. Anyway, take a look at the before and after by clicking below. It definitely is a nice effect with or without grain and I think it looks good on portraits as well as all the other wedding stuff (shoes, dress, table settings, rings, etc…).

To install:
1) Unzip the preset zip file on to your desktop
2) Go to the Develop module. NOTE: YOU MUST BE THE DEVELOP MODULE
3) Go to the Presets panel on the left. Right click anywhere in it and choose Import.
4) Select the .lrtemplate files you unzipped in Step 1 and click Import NOTE: DO NOT IMPORT THE ZIP FILE

• Click here to download the preset.
• Click here to see a sample of the preset.

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The ultimate battle ensues for the top drawer in my toolbox: presets versus actions. What’s the difference and what are the pros and cons according to Elizabeth?

First the basics: Presets are Lightroom’s way of applying many changes to a photo in one click. They can be made by you for a way in which you commonly treat a photo and would like to apply your own recipe in one click. Alternatively, they can be the recipes of other photographers which you purchase from them as .lrtemplate files to import into your lightroom catalogue of presets. Even better, some photographers give their presets away for free! Keep reading for those.

Photoshop’s one-click version are called actions and they work in the same way. Scroll through the effect names, choose one and click. You then see your photograph go through a makeover in a split-second. Again, you can record your own action sequences or buy them as .atn files from other photographers.

I prefer LR presets. I’m a control freak (big time) and I want to have complete, effortless control over every last pixel of my work. I appreciate the foundation that presets can lay in my editing process, but I never click once and move on. I always then play with the sliders to make every last element of my photo exactly what I want it to be. With actions, I feel that I lose control and unless the one click produces exactly what I had in mind (it never does), I don’t prefer to use them. The few times I’ve used actions, they always end up being from Florabella because she makes them work with a variety of layers which you can then tweak. But still, I don’t feel that I have enough control.

So what actions/presets do I love? My first love came from the ‘Lightroom Killer Tips’ website. Matt gives utterly amazing LR tutorials and gives his presets away for free. He even invented a preset extractor program which extracts LR setting from photos on Flickr and that is free as well. Genius! For actions, I use Florabella. She is the love of my textures life and also makes smashing actions. Another place for free actions and presets is CoffeeShop. For presets, my loves are Rebecca Lily and One Willow’s ‘Retro Candy’ presets with delicious names like ‘cotton candy’.

Hi all. A while back I created a video on the non-Lightroom (but still very important) topic of calibration using a hardware calibration device. From what I can gather out there, a lot of photographers have heard the message loud and clear – use a hardware calibration device. I don’t really care which one, just use one. However, from being out on the road I have seen a bit of confusion surrounding what type of calibration you need. There’s monitor calibration to create a color profile for your screen, and there’s printer calibration to create a profile for your printer. Which do you need? Watch the quick video I created to see.

Click here to download the video to your computer. [Right-click and choose the "Save As" option]

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