Understanding the editing process is necessary for every photographer, especially if you’re in the business of real estate photography. You need to know the methods of post-processing so you are familiar with the necessary steps you have to take in order to achieve the output that you need. From the photo shoot down to the post-processing, a professional photographer should Continue Reading
The post How To Edit Real Estate Photos in Lightroom (RAW) appeared first on Photodoto.
The post How to Use the Lightroom Graduated Filter appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Christian Hoiberg.
Adobe Photoshop has always been my software of choice when it comes to landscape photography and post-processing. However, Adobe Lightroom is constantly getting better and I’m able to do a lot of the things I could only do in Photoshop several years ago.
The Lightroom Graduated Filter isn’t a new feature but it’s one that I’ve begun to use more and more during the last years. It’s a tool that can make a huge difference to an image and it’s fairly easy to use. The big benefit is that you can add several graduated filters to one single image. You don’t have to only use one. This gives you more flexibility.
Let me show you how to use the Lightroom Graduated Filter.
The very first thing you need to know about how I use the Graduated Filter is that I never use a hard transition. That means that I don’t drag the filter down and include the top part of the transition. (If you’re not familiar with this tool, any adjustment you make is visible at a 100-50 percent opacity transitioning from the top to middle line and 50-0 percent from the middle to the bottom line)
You don’t want there to be a hard, visible transition that obviously shows the adjustment made to a particular area. Instead, you want a long and smooth transition.
This is done by dragging the graduated filter from top to bottom, then moving it up so that the middle line is at the upper edge of the frame. You can then click and drag the lower line up or down depending on how much of the image you want to affect.
Keep in mind that when you’re using an adjustment as smooth as this, you’ll need to increase the values of the adjustments you’re making. For example, instead of exposure -0.2 you might need an exposure of -1.0 to darken an area.
The main purpose of Graduated Neutral Density filters is to darken the sky in order to capture a well-balanced exposure. This is also the most common use of Lightroom’s Graduated Filter.
I tend to darken the sky a lot in my photography. This helps me guide the viewers’ eyes towards the important part of the image and strengthens the composition. This is quite easy to do and by using soft graduation such as explained above, it can be applied even when there are mountains or other subjects projecting the horizon, without looking strange.
Click and drag the graduated filter such as explained above, and place the middle transition line at the top of the frame. Adjust the bottom line in such a way that the adjustment is added only to the parts you want. Then lower the exposure. Since the transition is so smooth, I often lower the exposure down to -4.0 without it being too dark. Of course, this depends on how dark the original file is; you don’t want it to be completely black afterward.
Color is an important part of the composition and that’s something that many tend to forget. Our eyes are naturally drawn towards the warmer tones but, unfortunately, nature doesn’t always let us capture that in the file. So to further enhance the main subject, I often add a cold tone and desaturate certain areas of the image. These areas quite often include the lower and upper part of the frame.
Using the graduated filter the opposite way works quite similar. The only difference is that you drag from the bottom up instead of top down. Then, just as before, adjust the filter to your likings. I tend to only desaturate and add a cold tone to the very bottom of the frame.
The fourth and final feature is sharpening and increasing the clarity by using the graduated tool. This could be done either to bring out details in a nice cloudy sky or to increase clarity in a vibrant foreground.
I’m generally not a big fan of the Clarity slider so even though I’m still using a soft transition I gently increase the slider; I don’t want to add +100 clarity regardless of how soft the transition is. Increase the clarity gradually by clicking on the number next to the slider and holding shift plus tapping the up arrow until you’re satisfied with the result.
There are many ways to use Lightroom’s Graduated Tool. The examples above are just a handful of ideas what you can use it for.
Truth be told, I use several Graduated Tools at the same time. It’s not uncommon that I use one or two for the sky, another couple for the foreground and perhaps a few more to create a small vignette. In the end, it depends on what you want to do with the image!
The post How to Use the Lightroom Graduated Filter appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Christian Hoiberg.
The post The Secret to Sharing Photos with Lightroom CC appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.
After years of resisting the urge to sign up for one of Adobe’s Creative Cloud plans, I finally gave in. I purchased a subscription to the Photography bundle which includes Lightroom and Photoshop. While initially, I didn’t see a whole lot of benefits to this, I continue to discover all sorts of perks included in the Creative Cloud that I didn’t even think about before I jumped on the train.
One of the best, and also one of the least-talked-about, features has been the ability to share photos publicly right from Lightroom. This feature has been a total game-changer for me and it could re-shape the way you go about getting your work seen by others.
With all previous versions of Lightroom, sharing images involved a few steps and some hoops to jump through. Mostly, this involved exporting images to your computer and then uploading them to social media sites, online photo platforms, or even email them to friends, family, and clients. Unfortunately, this also meant some hassles. Such as having duplicate copies of your shared images (one in your Lightroom catalog and one that you exported for sharing) and having to re-export and share images after you made any changes. The process could also be time-consuming, especially if exporting a large batch of images.
Some social sites like Flickr and Facebook created plugins for Lightroom, but in my experience, those have been somewhat unreliable, and I have used some that were ultimately abandoned by their developers. This meant that relying on these plugins was an exercise in frustration and, more often than not, futility.
Psst…have you heard about Lightroom’s photo-sharing capabilities?
Before I jumped to Creative Cloud, I had several presets that I created to export images for different groups of people. I had a hierarchy of folders in my cloud storage service that I used for sharing, and a headache if I needed to re-share images after further edits. After switching to the Creative Cloud Photography plan, that includes both Lightroom Classic CC and Lightroom CC, I have replaced all of that with a simple click of the mouse or tap of my iPad.
Using the sharing features of Adobe Creative Cloud, you can instantly make individual photos or even entire albums public. Then you get a link to share with anyone you want. You can further customize these features. You can specify whether people with the link can download photos, access picture metadata, and see only pictures that have a particular Flag or Star Rating. The images you share can have comments and likes from viewers, and you can get information on this activity as well.
My favorite part about this type of sharing is that none of your shared images count against your Creative Cloud storage quota. Even if you have the Photography plan with only 20GB of storage, you can share as many photos to the web as you want without using any of that 20GB allotment. This feature does not use your allocated space because Adobe doesn’t share full resolution images with this feature.
You probably wouldn’t want to do this with clients who need high-resolution downloads for printing, but it’s great for getting your pictures seen by many people without any real effort on your part.
If your workflow is dependent on the more traditional Lightroom Classic CC as opposed to the cloud-focused Lightroom CC, you still have access to most of the cloud-based sharing features. You will, however, need to launch Lightroom CC at some point if you want to fine-tune your sharing options. The first step in sharing is to enable syncing. You achieve that by clicking on your name in the top-left corner of the application and choose “Start” under the option to Sync with Lightroom CC.
No need to panic at this point – nothing is going to happen to your photos, and no images are going to be suddenly shared to the cloud or anywhere else. All this does is give you the option to sync photo albums with Lightroom CC so you can edit your images using that program on your desktop or mobile device. It’s not even sharing the actual pictures, just low-resolution preview files. After you make any edits, those changes get automatically synced back to Lightroom Classic CC.
This feature also gives you the option of making your images available publicly on the internet for anyone to view. However, first, you must choose individual albums that you want to sync with Lightroom CC. Right-click on a collection in your Library and select Sync with Lightroom CC.
Doing so doesn’t share the photos publicly, but makes them available to Lightroom CC while also giving you the option to share them with others if you wish. (Note that this feature is only available for traditional photo collections in Lightroom and will not work with Smart Collections.)
After you have synced a Collection with Lightroom CC, you will see a small two-way arrow icon next to its name, and you will have access to additional features when you right-click on it with the Lightroom CC Links option. You can now make the album Public. Once you have completed that step, you can view the photos on the web or get a public link to send out to family and friends.
It is as simple as that! With one click you can get a link to an entire photo Collection, and Lightroom does all the heavy lifting of uploading them and putting them in a clean gallery format. For more options, open up Lightroom CC on your desktop or mobile device.
Because Lightroom CC is built from the ground up to live and breathe in the cloud, it has a more robust suite of tools available for sharing (even though the basics are relatively similar to its desktop counterpart). Whether you have your original images stored in Lightroom CC (or stored in your Adobe Creative Cloud account) or synced from Lightroom Classic CC, the process of sharing them is the same.
To get started, navigate to one of your albums on the left side of the Lightroom CC interface. Right-click on the name of the one you want to share to the internet via a public link. Then choose the option that says Share to Web…
As the saying goes, here’s where the fun begins. After choosing this option, you get presented with a dialog box giving you several options to customize how your photos get shared online. What I like about this is you can specify different parameters for each shared album. See the screenshot below.
In this example, I opted to show only photos with a Pick status that are rated three stars or higher. I’m not allowing any location data to be visible either. The link can be copied and shared with anyone you want, or posted on social media sites. Any changes made to the album are automatically reflected in the shared link as well. So, if you add more images to the album, or change the Flag status or Star Rating, anyone with the link can automatically see the revised images.
If at any point you want to stop sharing the album, you can right-click on the name of the album and choose the Stop Sharing option. If you re-share it in the future, a new link gets generated for you to re-send to friends, family, and clients.
When visitors click on the link to your shared album, they will see a grid with all your images that they can scroll through and click. Icons in the top right corner can be used to play a slideshow or download a ZIP archive of the photos in the gallery if you have that option enabled.
When viewers click on an individual image, they have the option to leave comments or click a Like button. This information automatically syncs with Lightroom Classic CC so you can see it on your desktop.
When you view the link of one of your shared albums, you can also see any user comments and delete ones you don’t want. The one catch with this is that anyone who wants to leave a Like or Comment will need an Adobe ID. It’s a bit of extra effort but helps cut down on spam and other unwanted input from random internet users.
When people leave comments on publicly-shared photos, you can see a yellow icon appear by the Collection name in Lightroom Classic CC. Click the Collection to review the comments.
Finally, you can share any individual picture from an album on the web using its own unique link. Right-click on a single photo to get a unique link for that one image as well as the same sharing options that you have for full albums.
Sharing is a great way to get feedback from clients and see what photos they really like.
The advantages of Lightroom’s built-in photo sharing system are enormous. Not the least of which has to do with user control and privacy.
When you share pictures on social media sites, your images and personal data get mined and used for advertising. However, no such activity takes place when using Lightroom shared albums. You control exactly what you share, and can remove images at any time. Deleting your images from the internet is as simple as clicking the Stop Sharing button.
Here are a few scenarios to help you see where photo sharing may be beneficial:
I took a lot of photos at a Petting Zoo birthday party my kids were invited to. Instead of uploading them to social media, I just shared a link to the album with parents and enabled downloads.
The more I use these sharing features, the more I have come to appreciate them. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to my old workflow again. Moreover, I hope this is useful for you and would love to hear any thoughts you may want to share in the comments below.
The post The Secret to Sharing Photos with Lightroom CC appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.
The post How to Customize Your Lightroom Workspace for Better Workflow appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.
Although it is sometimes overshadowed by its powerful cousin Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom is a robust post-processing program in its own right.
Lightroom is designed with simplicity in mind, however, it still offers a lot of options and can be confusing to new users.
This article assumes you have a basic familiarity with the appearance of the various panels in the Lightroom, and gives you some tips on how to customize your Lightroom workspace for better workflow and productivity.
The Lightroom Workspace in Grid View
Lightroom is organized into seven Modules: Library, Develop, Map, Book, Slideshow, Print, and Web.
You can find these modules in the uppermost right-hand corner of your screen. This panel or bar is called the Module Picker.
Each of these modules contains a set of tools that work specifically within that module.
For example, if you want to design and print contact sheets of select images from a shoot, you would navigate to the Print module, where you would find the required tools to do that.
You will find, however, that there are some modules that you rarely (or even never) use.
Most users of Lightroom spend the majority of their time in the Library and Develop Modules. Therefore, Lightroom gives you the option to hide these modules from view if you wish.
To set up which modules you would like to remain visible, right click on the module panel to bring up a pop-up menu:
The panels that are visible are noted with a checkmark. To make the module invisible, simply click on it to uncheck it in the menu.
For example, I never use the Book and Slideshow modules, so I have those checked off in my own Lightroom workspace.
The missing modules are still available under the Window menu; you can use keyboard shortcuts to open them.
Keep in mind that if you do this, Lightroom will automatically add the missing module back to the Module Picker.
In the above image, the following are noted:
A. Library Filter bar
B. Image Display area
C. Identity Plate area
D. Panels displaying photos
E. Filmstrip
F. Module Picker
G. Panels for working with metadata, keywords, adjustments
H. Toolbar
There are four panels in each of the Lightroom Modules. Only two panels – the Module panel and Filmstrip panel – appear in all of the different modules in Lightroom.
For example, the Library module has a top Module Panel, the Navigation panel is located on the left-hand side. The right-side panel is mostly for Metadata, while the bottom panel is where the Filmstrip appears.
Develop Module has Develop and Preset panels instead of Navigation and Metadata.
Tabs are small panels inside of panels.
Below are the various tabs in the Develop panel in the Develop Module in Lightroom:
You can customize your workspace to display only the panels you want.
If you don’t use a panel often, you can hide it form view: Control-Click (Mac) or Right-Click (Windows) on any panel header in the group and choose the panel name.
You can also change the screen display to hide the title bar, menus, and panels.
Choose -> Window -> Screen Mode, and choose an option from the drop-down menu.
When in Normal, Full Screen with Menubar, or Full Screen Mode, press the F key to cycle through them.
If you’re on a Mac OS, note that Full Screen mode and Full Screen and Hide Panels mode both hide the Dock. If you don’t see the Minimize, Maximize, or Close buttons for the application, press the F key once or twice until they appear.
Press Shift-Tab and then the F key to display the panels and menu bar.
To dim or hide the Lightroom Classic CC workspace, choose -> Window then -> Lights Out, then choose an option. Press the F key to cycle through the options.
You can brand your Lightroom with the logo of your photography business through the Identity Plate Setup.
It’s not going to impact your workflow in any way, but this is a cool customization you can make to appear more professional when working with clients and utilizing tethered capture.
To access the Identity Plate Setup click on a Mac -> Lightroom and choose -> Identity Plate Setup from the drop-down menu. For Windows, go to -> Edit and choose -> Identity Plate Setup.
Under Identity Plate, choose -> Personalized and Custom.
Click on -> Use a Graphical Identity Plate and then -> Locate File to navigate to wherever you have your logo saved on your computer.
However, if you don’t have a logo, you can still customize the text that appears in Identity Plate by changing the font, size of the font, and the color of the module names.
A customized workspace can help you improve your workflow and therefore efficiency when working in Lightroom.
Hopefully, some of these tips will help you navigate Lightroom a bit more easily and has given you some ideas on setting up the interface in the way that works for you.
The post How to Customize Your Lightroom Workspace for Better Workflow appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.
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Nemeio is a portable keyboard that uses e-ink technology to allow for complete customization for any app you want to use it with, including Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and other image or video editing apps.
The keyboard features mini-displays in each of the 81 keys, so users can create specific key-layouts for any app they are working with and switch between them using the Nemeio companion software. Icons can be dragged and dropped in the latter’s virtual keyboard and then immediately show up on the real one.
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The Nemeio can also be set to change its layout automatically with the app you are using. For example, you could use a standard keyboard layout while typing emails or writing a letter. Once you open Photoshop the keyboard would then automatically change to a different layout with editing shortcut icons.
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The Nemeio comes with a brushed-metal body and measures only 12x7x0.43-inch (30.5×17.8×1.1cm), making it easily portable. It can connect to any device with Bluetooth keyboard support.
The Nemeio is not quite available yet but shipping is expected some time this year. Pricing could be an issue, though. Engadget reports the keyboard could cost somewhere between $ 300 and $ 500.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
The post 10 Tips to Make Lightroom Classic CC Run Faster appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.
Lightroom is an excellent program editing and managing your image files. When it comes to organizing and developing your photos, Lightroom can’t be beaten. However, there are times when it slows down; like when it renders previews. To address this, here are ten tips that will make Lightroom Classic CC run faster.
Let’s start with the simplest tip: update Lightroom regularly.
Word is that Adobe has been working diligently behind the scenes on improving the performance of Lightroom, so it’s important to keep it updated.
To check for updates, click on -> Help in the top menu bar in Lightroom and then click on -> Updates to install them.
Lightroom continually updates the catalog file, but eventually, the data structure can become less optimal.
Lightroom has an “optimize catalog” option you can enable to improve performance.
To access this option, go to Lightroom -> Preferences and click on -> Performance.
Then click on -> Optimize Performance.
Set up Lightroom to back up on a regular schedule, and set it to optimize the catalog following the backup.
You can backup as often as you like. Ensure you always have the latest backup in case your Lightroom catalog becomes corrupt.
Be sure to discard previous backups to keep them from slowing down your computer.
More on this in a bit.
Lightroom stores your catalog and preview files on your main hard drive by default.
To check where the catalog and previews files are stored, go to Lightroom -> Catalog Setting (Mac) or -> Edit -> Catalog Settings (PC).
The Catalog name is an .lrcat file and its location can be found under the -> General tab.
The preview file is an .lrdata file and it is stored in the same location.
If your computer’s main hard drive is running low on space, Lightroom will slow down, as will any other programs that you’re running simultaneously, like Photoshop.
Your main hard drive needs at least 20% free space for Lightroom to run optimally.
Keep in mind that Lightroom can actually be one of the reasons you’re running low on space!
If you have Lightroom set to back up your catalog every day or every time you close it down, that can result in a lot of space being taken up by backup files.
Delete all of these backup files except the last couple of backups you have made.
It’s important to have the latest backup in case your Lightroom catalog becomes corrupt, but that is all you really need.
DNG is short for Digital Negative. It’s a RAW file format created by Adobe.
When you convert a file into DNG, Lightroom ads Fast Load Data to the file, which results in a partially processed preview that allows Lightroom to render faster previews in the Develop module.
Adobe claims that a DNG file with Fast Load Data can load up to eight times faster.
Another benefit of converting to DNG files is that they are smaller files than other RAW formats and take up 20% less space on your hard drive.
You must enable this Fast Load Data under your Lightroom Preferences tab.
Go to -> File Handling and check off Embed Fast Load Data. Make sure you have DNG selected as the file extension.
The panels in the Develop module are organized according to a suggested workflow.
Adobe also recommends that adjustments in Lightroom follow a certain order to maximize performance. They are as follows:
Whenever you make an edit, Lightroom applies it and calculates the previous adjustments that have been made. The more adjustments you apply, the more Lightroom slows down.
This helps keep track of your edits but slows down your system because Lightroom is calculating adjustments as you edit.
I personally stick to this order, except that I start by adjusting my white balance.
I also leave detailed edits for Photoshop. For example, as using the spot healing brush repeatedly can slow Lightroom down significantly. You are better off using this tool in Photoshop, which is also more precise.
Also, editing your images in the order they appear in your Lightroom filmstrip can have an impact on speed.
Lightroom caches images for faster performance in the Develop module.
It will automatically load the next and previous images in the filmstrip below your photos in the memory.
In the screenshot below, the active image is highlighted with a lighter grey background. The images on either side have also been loaded into memory for quick access.
Lightroom offers several preview settings for your images.
Although there are differing opinions as to which is the optimal preview setting, I suggest building standard previews on import.
This will slow down the import process, but it will make the Library module more responsive when you review the imported images. Lightroom renders the previews from your SSD, rather than building them from the RAW files.
Make sure your previews are set close to the width of your screen.
For example, I work on a 27-inch iMac with a 5120 x 2880 built-in retina display. This means my display should be set at 5120 pixels.
To make this adjustment, go to the -> Catalog Settings and choose -> File Handling.
Choose the previews size under -> Standard Preview Size.
Lightroom has a Preview Cache, which is stored with your Catalog file and used in the Library view.
It also has a Camera RAW cache, which loads the image date when you’re in the Develop module.
The default size for this is 1GB, which slows down performance due to Lightroom swapping images in and out of its cache while you’re editing.
I suggest setting the Camera RAW cache to 20 or 30GB.
To set this option go to your Lightroom -> Preferences and click -> Performance.
Set your desired maximum size RAW cache Settings.
Lightroom keeps track of the edits you make in the Develop module in its catalog. If something happens to this catalog, you can lose all your data.
Lightroom can be configured to write the develop setting data into an XMP file. This a small file that contains the edit information and is written to your computer’s hard drive in the same place as your original RAW file.
The problem is that writing changes into this file can really slow your computer down.
I suggest disabling this feature and make sure that you always have a current backup instead.
Lightroom allows you to look up image address based on the GPS data, or the ability to search for faces.
However, allowing these options to run in the background can slow Lightroom down. So it’s best to pause them while you’re actually editing your photos.
You can start them up again if they’re relevant to your editing process.
For example, as a food photographer, I don’t use these features so I have mine set permanently on “pause”.
To access these features, go to where your name appears in the top left-hand corner of the Lightroom interface and click on the arrow beside it to access the drop-down menu. Choose -> Pause.
When it comes to archiving, organizing and all-around management of your photos, Lightroom is an amazing program.
Hopefully, these tips help you get the most out of the program and speed up its performance so you can spend less time editing and more time shooting!
The post 10 Tips to Make Lightroom Classic CC Run Faster appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.
The post How to Edit Landscape and Nature Photos with the Lightroom Gradient Tool and Range Mask Features appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.
Lightroom has always had a rich set of tools to allow photographers to get the most out of their images. However, until recently the ability to edit landscape and nature photos was a bit lacking.
While, global adjustments, like changing white balance and exposure have always worked great in Lightroom, fine-tuning edits can be problematic. Recent updates have seen incredible improvements to the Filter tools in Lightroom. An added tweak called Range Mask makes all the difference for photographers who need complete control over the precise implementation of their edits.
The three most common ways to edit specific parts of an image in Lightroom are through the use of the Graduated Filter, Radial Filter, and Adjustment Brush. If you want to smooth the skin on your portraits, increase the saturation of your skies, or change the color cast of your clouds these tools can be just the ticket. But what if you have a tree that sticks up into the sky or an uneven horizon dotted with buildings and power lines?
The usefulness of the filter tools is somewhat restricting when you want to limit your edits to particular sub-parts of a picture. Until recently the Auto-Mask option was the best way to confine your edits to certain colors or locations within an image. Landscape and nature photos are especially tricky because of the uneven edges and jagged borders that exist between sections of the photo that need editing. However, the Range Mask option solves almost all of these issues with ease.
To illustrate this, I’m going to walk you through the editing process of the following image. My brother Andy took it while he was on a tour of the swamps in Louisiana, USA, with his family last summer. The initial image has a nice composition but feels dull and uninteresting, which is a far cry from the real experience.
One change to punch things up is altering the white balance of the sky to bring out the bright blues and make the image more vibrant.
The first step is to click over to the Graduated Filter panel. Dial in a white balance that skews more towards the cooler end of the spectrum and reduce the exposure just a bit. Next, click and drag from top to bottom on the image to put the filter in place.
The sky is now a rich blue, however, a big problem becomes evident: the color cast of the trees has changed too. This result is not what I want. Clicking the Show Selected Mask Overlay button in the bottom left corner under your image reveals that the graduated filter has been applied to everything including the trees as well as the sky.
Fine-tuning a tool such as the Graduated Filter, used to involve a series of steps. These steps included brushing out the mask in places you didn’t want it in combination with the auto-mask feature. It worked, but results were often a little sketchy. They also required a great deal of tweaking and fine-tuning. That’s not to say the brush option is useless-far from it! I have an example later in this article that shows how useful it can be.
However, all this has changed in recent versions of Lightroom. You can now use the Range Mask to apply any of the three filter tools to specific parts of an image based on lightness or color similarity.
The default value for Range Mask is Off, but with one of your Filter adjustments selected you can then choose to enable Range Mask for Color, Luminance or Depth.
For this image, I’m going to use the Color option, though Luminance works great in many nature and landscape photos as well.
With Color selected, you can either click and drag on your image to select a range of colors or can click multiple points by shift+clicking. This selection is where the mask gets applied. I find that shift+clicking generally works better, although your mileage may vary depending on your editing goals and the type of picture you are working with.
You can click up to five spots on the image to refine your color selection. Use the slider in the Range Mask panel to fine-tune things further. This slider hones the edges of your Range Mask. If you find that the border between the edited and unedited portions of your image is a bit stark, adjusting the Amount slider will help mitigate this issue.
The result of this one Gradient Filter, along with the Range Mask, is an image that is already much improved from the original.
Looking at a 100% crop of a portion of the image reveals just how precisely the Gradient Filter has been applied thanks to the Range Mask. Here is a portion from the top-right of the original unedited image.
Here is the same portion with the Gradient Filter applied, using the Range Mask to apply the Filter to only selected color ranges. In this case, the color of the sky.
Notice how precisely the edits were applied, and how intricate the edges around the tree leaves are. This illustrates why the Range Mask option is so useful for landscape and nature photos. There are many tricky edges and small parts of the image that can take a very long time to fix without it.
Another way to use the Range Mask is with the Luminance option. This option only applies the mask to the brightest or the darkest portions of the Gradient, or other Filter, that’s applied.
The overall idea here is the same, but the implementation is a tad different. Instead of selecting colors where you want the Range Mask applied, you use the Range sliders to concentrate the mask on the lightest, darkest or mid-range parts. One of the most useful things here is the Show Luminance Mask box which gives you a real-time preview of where your mask application. This helps you as you are adjusting the sliders.
Here’s an image I shot while hiking in the mountains near Seattle. It’s not bad, but a few edits would help improve the picture. Edits may help it look a little closer to how it appeared when my wife and I were tromping around in the wilderness that day with my cousin.
I want to bring out the color in the foreground trees in this image. A Graduated Filter with Luminance Range Mask is perfect in this scenario because the edits can be applied just to the darker portions of the image. With the filter in place and the mask tweaked to be applied only to the darker parts, I can ensure my edits are going to show up just where I want them to by checking the Show Luminance Mask option.
As demonstrated above, the Range Mask is extremely useful for nature and landscape photographers. It applies the Graduated Filter to just the right portions of the image and not the entire picture evenly. If you want to customize your Graduated Filter further, click the Brush option (not the Brush Adjustment Tool) and proceed to add to, or erase, the Filter wherever you want.
In this case, I’d like to remove the Graduated Filter from the lake in the foreground. Even though I can tell from my Luminance Mask overlay that it’s not being applied too heavily to that area, removing all traces of it with the brush will help me get the exact picture I want.
The end result is a photo with much warmer green tones in the trees and a lake that reflects the blue sky above, which is just the look I was aiming for.
Hopefully, these examples give you an idea of how powerful the combination of Graduated Filters and Range Masks are for nature and landscape photographers. I’m always eager to hear from the DPS community. Have you found this particular tool useful? Are there any other tips you’d like to share about using the Lightroom Gradient Tool and Range Mask? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
The post How to Edit Landscape and Nature Photos with the Lightroom Gradient Tool and Range Mask Features appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.
In September 2018, Zeiss announced the ZX1, a fixed-lens, full-frame camera that has onboard Adobe Lightroom CC integration. Yesterday, Zeiss shared a two minute video that gives the world its first hands-on look at the ZX1 and its onboard editing abilities.
Throughout the video, portrait photographer and photojournalist Sabrina Weniger walks around the streets of Little Tokyo in Düsseldorf narrating her experience with the ZX1 and the features she most enjoys about it. Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t hit on the negatives.
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In addition to her overall positive thoughts on the camera, Zeiss shares a glimpse of the camera itself, including the 35mm F2 lens and the massive 4.3-inch touchscreen display that’s used to compose, view and edit photos using the onboard Lightroom. The video also details the onboard version of Lightroom CC in action, as she edits a portrait captured inside a small shop right on the rear display of the camera.
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Nothing new is necessarily learned from the video, but it’s the first time Zeiss has shown off the camera in action before its yet-to-be-determined launch date said to be in the first part of 2019.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
The post How to Boost Your Creativity with Lightroom Presets appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Stacey Hill.
There are many divisive points in the photography world – brand versus brand, film versus digital, and minimal editing versus Photoshop. The one that seems to have a fervent dislike is the use of Presets in Lightroom. Find any post on presets and people line up in the comments to judge and criticize anyone who uses them. People get told they are lazy, that their images all look the same ala Instagram filters and so on.
Up to a point they are right – anything overused becomes a short-lived fad. If all you ever do in your editing is use canned settings and don’t learn even the basics, then I agree with them.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that applying a Preset (or a filter) makes a bad photo better, but hopefully, Instagram has taught us better by now. Instead, think of Presets as tools to help you automate your process, make you faster and more efficient at editing.
Still, there’s a lot of potential and possibilities that presets offer us. Let’s explore that idea!
(Note: While this article specifically addresses Creativity with Lightroom Presets, the same principles apply for any other program that allows presets, including Photoshop Actions)
This is the same image as the header but this features a preset which deepens the green tones and desaturates the image, toning down the yellow. I like this much more than the original which is true to life.
You can spend hours on editing just one image if you want to. However, most of us don’t have the luxury of that much time. Nor do customers want to pay that much for their images.
My recommendation is you should do a basic edit for each image to suit its requirements. However, if you want a specific look or a consistent style to your images, imagine how much more time you have with just being able to click a preset to finish it off?
Some images take more time to edit. You can allow extra time for those images by utilizing presets on the easier ones.
Of the two images below, the top image is an unedited RAW File, while the second image is a processed image using Presets.
Why do people judge you for doing something that is easy? Does everything have to be complicated and involved? Can’t it be fun too?
Not everyone has time to fully understand and master every setting and option within Lightroom (or any other program). Presets can allow you to quickly and efficiently apply complex effects.
It’s also fun to experiment with new styles.
If you have a shoot where the subject/light/tones are all similar, you can achieve a consistent finish for the final image by applying a preset. You can also make one specifically to suit the shoot if required.
Besides, if you have done a series of tweaks to your image, do you remember exactly what you did and what the settings were? Do you remember everyone to add to lots more images manually? Yes, you can write it all down or pull it out of the ‘history,’ but there’s no need.
Of the two images below, the top image is an unedited RAW File, while the second image is a processed image using Presets.
You can easily create your own presets in Lightroom and save them for using repeatedly. Alternatively, you can create one that only works for a specific shoot. Presets are also available to buy pre-configured for all kinds of different finishes.
Once you have applied the preset, you can continue to edit and refine the look. Depending on the settings, you can stack multiple presets on top of each other for a unique outcome.
There are many different ways to use and apply presets, and you can get a sophisticated outcome quickly and easily even when you may not fully understand all the capabilities of the software.
For your editing functions, the primary use for Presets is in the ‘Develop’ module. However, you can create presets that apply to Metadata, or when you Import or Export images. This process can help you apply copyright information or customer information to images, or quickly change the export settings depending on requirements. For example, print versus web use.
Of the two images below, the top image is an unedited RAW File, while the second image is a processed image using Presets.
Presets are not a magic one-click fix. Each preset reacts differently with individual images. It is essential to understand the basics of your program because some editing is necessary.
However, if you only want to use presets, no one is going to stop you. Do you want to make that choice though?
Can people tell if you are not entirely in control of your editing software? Yes. In general, experienced people can tell.
That said, I strongly recommend that everyone should have a solid understanding of the basic features their editing program has so they know enough to be able to edit without relying on presets. If you are using presets, you should understand how you can further tweak and improve the effect.
Please note that not all presets are created equal. Some are better designed and, when applied, provide a more polished effect.
Of the two images below, the top image is an unedited RAW File, while the second image is a processed image using Presets.
One of the most powerful things Presets can do is take us out of our comfort zone and show us new possibilities in the way we edit images. Humans are creatures of habit, so once we find the comfortable place that we can generate images of acceptable quality, we are likely to settle in there.
Maybe we don’t know everything the program can do? Perhaps we don’t understand how we can apply this feature here on top of that function there. For example, how many people fully understand Split Toning?
What if we didn’t need to understand absolutely EVERY function and feature in our software? Maybe we simply don’t have the time. What if we could understand enough to be able to use the necessary bits and then use the knowledge someone else has created to add that extra dimension to our editing?
What if we CAN try a new look with one click? Maybe a purple-toned one, then a matte-finish one, and a black and white one? We can compare a whole heap of different processes.
Maybe by trying out Presets, we can learn more about the software’s capabilities? Perhaps it can give us more confidence to shoot in a different style, taking advantage of the new editing prospects.
In the screenshot below it shows the final edit of the clematis flower (Before and After images featured above).
As you can see, after Import, the next step is ‘Paste Settings.’ This is where I have copied the Preset and some adjustments made on a previous image in the shoot.
A further 19 steps have been taken to enhance and finalize this image to achieve the desired outcome.
Could I have stopped after the first ‘Paste Settings?’ Absolutely.
Was it the best that image could have looked? Not in my opinion. So, I spent the time I had saved using a preset to do further fiddly little tweaks and refinements.
This winter landscape of frost-crusted rocks, icicles, and what I can assure you was freezing water, was already quite blue-toned. The blue tone was due to the 10-stop filter I used to achieve long exposure on the water.
I liked how the blue tone emphasized the cold crisp winter feel so I decided to use it to set the whole mood for this image. A blue-toned, slightly matte finish preset helped boost that aspect of the process. It added more brightness on the whites, deepened the shadows a touch and added a bit of clarity for extra crispness.
I could have completely changed the color space to natural daylight, but seeing this blue tone inspired me to follow that direction further. I knew I had a preset that would do interesting things to the blue tones and it worked better than expected.
Of the two images below, the top image is an unedited RAW File, while the second image is a processed image using Presets.
I tend towards darker, moody edits. So, using Presets for an image helps me see different possibilities quickly. With a few clicks, I can assess what is suited to a high-key edit, a desaturated, matte edit, a neutral, natural edit, or perhaps black and white one.
Sometimes I strike gold and end up with something delightfully unexpected (like the green currants at the top of this article). It never fails to amaze me how much scope Lightroom has to do things I don’t fully understand yet. However, using presets has taught me a great deal, and I am slowly unpacking them, figuring it out and beginning to make my own Presets now.
Lightroom (and other editing programs) offer a lot of functions and scope for editing your images. Many people don’t have the time to learn all the features and capabilities in detail. It can be frustrating when you are learning how to use it.
Presets give you access to features within the software without needing to know exactly how to implement them manually.
Using Presets allows even novice users the ability to be creative and experiment with different styles and looks to their editing. More experienced users can create their own presets, or utilize purchased ones in their editing process. They save time and can make your editing process more efficient as well.
Presets offer you the opportunity to try a style that is different to what you typically create. Alternatively, perhaps you want to dabble and see how an image turns out with a range of edits. Using Presets can also help you learn more about the program by showing more of its capabilities.
While Presets can be overused, or not used to best effect, they also offer many advantages. Provided they are used as part of your process, and not as a magic solution, Presets can be a valuable tool.
Finally, playing with them is fun. Being able to experiment safely and easily with one click of a button gives you the latitude to be brave while considering new editing styles.
The post How to Boost Your Creativity with Lightroom Presets appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Stacey Hill.
Photo: Jye B
As humans, we relate to and love to capture photos of other people. Be it family, friends, strangers in street photography or professionally in a portrait studio.
Model/Actor: Patrick Walsh, Jr.
However, we don’t always have time to sit in front of a computer at home or in an office to edit our work. With the fantastic creation of Adobe Creative Cloud, you can now sync your Lightroom library to all your devices. You can create and edit images directly on your mobile phone or edit images created in any fashion, including in a studio. You can edit them in Lightroom Mobile on the go via laptop, tablet or smartphone.
While editing portraits, Lightroom Mobile, like its desktop counterpart, has many tools available to help take a snapshot of a great portrait. While it is helpful to explore every tool in the toolbox, here are ten key tools for editing portraits using Adobe Lightroom Mobile.
Whether it’s midday outdoors and your image is a little overexposed or its a bit overcast and your image is a little underexposed, the exposure tool in the Lightroom Mobile app is a quick fix to brighten or darken a photo to your liking arbitrarily. In the image below, the mirror image of my subject was a little bit dark, so I bumped up the exposure just a little. Doing so lightened some of the shadows in the subjects sunglasses so that you could see his eyes better. It also helped to show more detail in the black coat.
In this case, bumping up the exposure helped bring out details.
Adding contrast to an image creates more emphasis between light and dark colors in an image. However, sometimes contrast needs to be subtracted because too much can make similar tones can blend and lose definition. In the image below, I lowered the contrast to enhance the detail in my subject’s coat. Adding exposure in the first step brightened the subject as well as the mirror image. Although, it brightened the subject a little too much. I also dropped the highlights to put less focus on the brightest parts of the subject’s face.
Taking away contrast can show more detail. Taking away highlights can lessen the glare.
You can utilize the ‘Shadows’ tool when sculpting to a face or body is required, or you can remove them to show more detail. In the image below, while I did bump up the exposure a little bit, I also took away shadow to show more of my subject’s eyes through the sunglasses. You can now see the irises and catchlights in the eyes. It has also lightened some of the lines on the face too.
Removing shadow can sometimes reveal more detail.
One of the most amazing Lightroom Mobile tools recently introduced is the ‘Healing’ tool. This tool allows you to correct things on portraits such as blemishes. In the image below, I tried to preserve the model’s natural moles and birthmarks while only removing unwanted blemishes using the Healing brush.
Before and after images using the Healing Brush in Lightroom Mobile.
Sometimes you may capture an image where the white balance is a bit off. It could be too warm or too cold. The ‘Temperature’ slider under the ‘Color’ tab for ‘White Balance’ allows you to cool or warm an image. The below-left image was too cold, and the skin appeared gray. So, I boosted the warmth using the Color Temperature slider from 4400K to 4768K, giving a more natural color to the skin.
You can cool or warm an image using the ‘Temperature’ slider for ‘White Balance’ under the ‘Color’ tab.
The ‘Clarity’ tool has a very magical effect when it comes to editing portraits – especially of women. If you have a portrait with harsh shine on the skin or the pores are extremely visible, softening the ‘Clarity’ helps to blur out some of those imperfections subtly. It can make skin appear smoother, as in the image below.
Softening Clarity can subtly blur out some imperfections and make skin appear smoother.
In portraiture, a sharp image is key. An essential portrait element to be sharp is the eyes, or at least the eye closest to the camera. Sometimes you may need to sharpen your image in Lightroom Mobile to achieve this.
Sometimes sharpening is necessary to get key features, like the eyes, crisper.
After sharpening, zoom in to check for unwanted noise in your image. If there is unwanted noise, Lightroom Mobile has an entire ‘Noise Reduction’ section under the ‘Effects’ tab that you can use to minimize noise in your portraits. The Noise Reduction tool is also helpful in smoothing out any highlighted rough skin.
The Noise Reduction tab helps get rid of noise and smooth out the rough skin under highlights.
The ‘Presets’ tab is a fun tab. There are several sub-menus under Presets with a variety of readymade one-click settings you can quickly apply to your portraits. As examples, I chose two from the ‘Creative’ sub-menu under Presets to apply to the original image below-left.
Left to right: Original image, Soft Mist, Aged Photo.
The last tool you may find you need while editing on-the-go is the ‘Crop’ tool. Sometimes we have too much in an image, whether by accident or on purpose, knowing we can edit it later. Lightroom Mobile allows you to select the area of an image you wish to keep. Using your fingers, you can drag the borders to where you want them placed, as per the image below.
Using Lightroom Mobile, drag borders with your fingers and click the checkmark to finished when cropping images.
Lightroom Mobile grants photographers many tools to edit on-the-go. You can take a regular capture and make it an extraordinary image. Take a few images, use the various tools of Lightroom Mobile, and learn how they can be adjusted more toward your vision. You’ll find the convenience of Lightroom Mobile second-to-none, with results being similar to those of a desktop computer.
Have you used Adobe Lightroom Mobile? What are your experiences with it? Let us know in the comments below.
The post 10 Key Tools for Editing Portraits Using Adobe Lightroom Mobile appeared first on Digital Photography School.
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