Archive for the ‘Lightroom’ Category
With Lightroom 3 Beta already out, we’ve seen a number of great new features including better import/export, improved noise reduction, print and slideshow coolness and more.
With a great feature base in place, there’s certainly always room for improvement, though. The following are a few features I would like to see in future versions of Lightroom.
Tethering
Tethered shooting allows you to connect a USB cable from your camera to your laptop and, while shooting, have the images show up instantly on the computer.
Lightroom sort of supports this today using watched folders. It does require, though, other software to transfer the pictures from the camera to the computer. I’d really like to see all this integrated into Lightroom as one full package.
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I was in a recent DALPUG user group meeting and the topic of Lightroom vs. Aperture came up. Specifically, someone mentioned that they were a bit tired of how slowly Aperture released updates to support the RAW files of new DSLRs from Canon, Nikon, etc.
I’ve always generally been okay with how fast Ligthroom supported new cameras, but the discussion got me thinking about how fast both these tools support new cameras.
The following are the results of my research. You can scroll to the bottom of the post for a bit more information on how I collected the data. As you can see, it isn’t exhaustive, but it is composed of over 30 models, primarily from Canon, Nikon and Sony.
While this may not guarantee how fast Lightroom and Aperture will support the RAW files from your new camera in the future, it is interesting to see how fast they’ve done so in the past.
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It’s a big place out there on the web. We certainly appreciate you stopping by Lightroom Secrets for some Lightroom goodness! But, if you still want more there are several excellent resources.
Monthly (or so) we feature a Lightroom related site. Check the Featured Site section in the sidebar. There is also a list of Interesting Sites for you to explore. Give them a look. Perhaps you will find another site to add to your list.
Another excellent source is Alltop. Alltop aggregates sites in a wide range of topics. Here’s how Alltop describes what it does:
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Hi, I’m Brian. I hail from Denver, Colorado and as previously announced, I was able to talk my way into being a contributor to this fantastic blog.
Not surprisingly, I love Lightroom. I’ve used it since the first public beta and haven’t put it down since. It’s the best workflow tool for professional and amateur photographers alike. Period.
So, on this, my maiden post, I thought I’d briefly share the top 5 reasons why I (and you should if you don’t already) use Lightroom. I look forward to future posts where I can continue to share my knowledge and passion about Lightroom and photography.
Reasons to Use Lightroom
Reason 1: The Adjustment Brush
This is my single favorite feature. If you aren’t familiar with it, it allows you to apply affects (exposure, clarity, color, etc.) to just parts of the image. It was new in version 2 and is, by itself, worth every penny they charge for Lightroom. In version 1 I would open nearly 50% of my final photos to apply local sharpening and other adjustments. With the addition of the adjustment brush that number shrunk to 5-10%.
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Lightroom Secrets is pleased to welcome a new contributor, Brian Reyman! You can’t have enough Lightroom tips, tricks, tutorials, or news! Brian will stop by from time to time with his insights into Lightroom.
Brian lives and breathes Adobe products and loves using pretty much all of them. He was recently named an Adobe Community Professional for Lightroom! As an Adobe Certified Expert in Lightroom and User Group Manager for the Denver Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop User Group, Lightroom is at the top of the list!
When not shooting and using Lightroom (or other Adobe products), Brian is an IT professional living in Denver, Colorado. You can find Brian enjoying time with his great wife & kids or out playing sports or shooting (pictures of course) in the Rocky Mountains.
Welcome Brian!
The start of a new year is always a time to think about change and improvement. One common resolution is to get more organized. In this age of digital media it is even more critical that we keep track of our digital assets. Lightroom has many features to help you organize your images.
Organization can come in many forms and at many levels. You can organize your images at the drive level (by using a system of folders, subfolders, and file naming conventions) and/or at the metadata level in Lightroom. You must first decide what organizational workflow fits for you. There are many websites and books devoted to this topic. You should do a little research before embarking on this adventure.
The best website I can recommend to you to delve deeply into industry standard organization practice is dpBestFlow.org from the American Society of Media Photographers and funded by the Library of Congress. The site is full of suggestions and videos. Get ready to spend some time there!
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I was again honored and humbled to learn that I have been named an Adobe Community Professional for 2010. Thank you, Adobe!
Several of my digital cohorts have also been named as Adobe Community Professionals. Congratulations to Sean McCormack (Lightroom), Geoff Walker (Lightroom), A.J. Wood (InDesign), Chris Tarantino (Photoshop), and J Schuh (After Effects)! Well deserved my friends!!!
Lightroom has many many features but there are still things it cannot do out of the box. Luckily, Adobe anticipated this and provided an SDK (Software Developer Kit) to allow third party developers to create plugins that can enhance Lightroom’s feature set. If you’ve ever come across the need for a third party plugin then changes are you already know Jeffrey Friedl.
Jeffrey is on a very very short list of people whose names come to mind when you say Lightroom Plugin. He is one of the most prolific plugin developers for Lightroom. An excellent photographer in his own right, Jeffrey develops Lightroom plugins as a hobby! And the Lightroom community is certainly grateful for it!
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Digital photography has come a long way in the last few years. Few today would argue that digital cannot stand as film’s equal. In many cases the technology now surpasses film. Not only do we have a digital substitute for film, we also have digital substitutes for most physical filters. Between the built in tools in Lightroom and the many sets of plugins available there are really only two physical filters needed today.
The effects of a polarizing filter cannot be reproduced digitally. Yes, there are a few digital polarizing effects which attempt to approximate some aspects of a polarizer. But only a physical polarizer present between the subject and the sensor can remove reflections and deepen the sky’s shade of blue. You can get close with digital effects but it’s much more work that just putting that filter on the lens.
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