Lightroom

[Steve40]

Re: Lightroom

Ron, I would agree with Ian, this is a good conversion, in so far as you have a very clean image with good black & whites. The composition is good too. However the same two things struck me about the slightly blown highlights on the boat and the fact that it appeared slightly oversharpened. TBH I wouldn't worry too much about the highlights, it looks like it was very contrasty light anyway, I would however ease off on the sharpening.

This Lightroom seems to be a great program, I had an earlier Beta version, but decided to leave it till it was released fully

If his handle "Lumix" has anything to do with his camera. I have a Lumix, and this is one of my gripes - they do not handle a very broad range of contrast well. Best to stay away from this type of shots when you can.

PS. My son also has one, same thing with his.

[Archangel]

Re: Lightroom

All very valid points George. I find it easier to analise someone else's work than my own. Strange thing is that at full screen size the first looks just about right, but once re-sized for web it looked over sharpened. Originally I ended up with this version in colour. Not sure now if I prefer the B&W or the Colour.

Ron,

I saw awhile ago this color version in the galleries. Personally and as I said before this photo is from the type of photos that look good in B&W and also in color. I think everything relies in personal preference.

Generally I like colorful photos as life is. Though some of them look nice also in B&W and sometimes even better in B&W than than in color.

If I had to choose color or B&W version for this specific photo, I would keep the color version.

One hint that everybody should have in mind and apart from playing around with photos of color and B&W versions, variations and transformations is:

Memories in life are not only connected with places, themes or scenes...they are also connected with colors, regardless of how pleasing they are.

So there are special types of photos that would look nice in B&W, contrast and tones might look better in some of them than in color, but there will always be partial memorial themes since they lack color.
That for me is the only and most important disadvantage of B&W photos, that B&W photography can never superpass not matter of how many strong fans of B&W photography exist.
Personally I only try to transform to B&W these photos that the scenery or theme they include, is so intense, so I will only loose the minimum from the lack of color.

Ron, I also did some experiment with your B&W version. I wanted to send you my version that shows exactly what I was saying in my previous post, but you have disabled to receive e-mails from other users.
Maybe I will put it up on my private album and send you a message with a link.


Regards

George

[Archangel]

Re: Lightroom

Ron,

Here is a reworked version from me, on your photo, explaining better what I was saying in my comments in the 2nd softer version you supplied.






Regards


George

[Patrick]

Re: Lightroom

Thanks everyone for the rapid response. I nearly pulled this image out when I see it in thread. It did not quite look so sharpened in Lightroom. I have tried to take on board all comments so here is a re-work. Also moved the image up slightly in frame to see if the composition suffered. Hope I've got it about right this time. Lightroom takes a bit of navigating but I will stick with it and see what it's capable of when I know how to use it.

Nice to see someone else playing with Lightroom, it can challenge the user until they grow accustomed to its different thinking, then it makes a lot of sense.

As to the picture, yep it works as a B/W and it does in colour; I do prefer the second version of the B/W to the first version of the B/W (we used to refer to over contrasty pictures as soot & whitewash). Everyone commented on the blown highlights but failed to mention the blocked up shadows, the second slightly lower contrast improves this area as well.
When sharpening I never do it in Lightroom but use a method now done via channels in Photoshop that can allows quite heavy sharpening without the halo effect.

Patrick

[lumix]

Re: Lightroom

Nice to see someone else playing with Lightroom, it can challenge the user until they grow accustomed to its different thinking, then it makes a lot of sense.

As to the picture, yep it works as a B/W and it does in colour; I do prefer the second version of the B/W to the first version of the B/W (we used to refer to over contrasty pictures as soot & whitewash). Everyone commented on the blown highlights but failed to mention the blocked up shadows, the second slightly lower contrast improves this area as well.
When sharpening I never do it in Lightroom but use a method now done via channels in Photoshop that can allows quite heavy sharpening without the halo effect.

Patrick

Patrick I was more than pleased to see a reply from you. I seem to recall that you are also experimenting with Lightroom. I must confess I was really out of order posting a result from Lightroom when I have only been using it a few hours. Main problem was after downloading Lightroom I was too eager to try it and randomly selected an image to play around with. I didn't even think about it's usefulness as a B&W. I was quite impressed with the result so thought I would post it to see what others thoughts were. I have certainly learnt that you can't get away with rubbish on this forum. But it's nice to get so much help and advice. I've take it all on board and will apply same to my next effort. Archangel's re-work of my image has improved it no end and I do appreciate his time to show how it could be further improved. Steve mentioned that Panasonic Lumix cameras don't cope with high contrast. I had become aware of that and I'm currently reducing the exposure to combat blown highlights. The image I used was from an earlier batch that I had not used compensation on. One last thing Patrick. How do you save in Lightroom. The save function is greyed out so I have had to export my image to my documents and then post it from there.

[Patrick]

Re: Lightroom

Patrick I was more than pleased to see a reply from you. I seem to recall that you are also experimenting with Lightroom. I must confess I was really out of order posting a result from Lightroom when I have only been using it a few hours. Main problem was after downloading Lightroom I was too eager to try it and randomly selected an image to play around with. I didn't even think about it's usefulness as a B&W. I was quite impressed with the result so thought I would post it to see what others thoughts were. I have certainly learnt that you can't get away with rubbish on this forum. But it's nice to get so much help and advice. I've take it all on board and will apply same to my next effort. Archangel's re-work of my image has improved it no end and I do appreciate his time to show how it could be further improved. Steve mentioned that Panasonic Lumix cameras don't cope with high contrast. I had become aware of that and I'm currently reducing the exposure to combat blown highlights. The image I used was from an earlier batch that I had not used compensation on. One last thing Patrick. How do you save in Lightroom. The save function is greyed out so I have had to export my image to my documents and then post it from there.

[Ian]

Re: Lightroom

No one is out of order posting pictures, that is what the forum is for and if you had only been using Lightroom for a few hours then a really well done is called for.

Completely agree with Patrick on this one

This is kind of a repeat of what Patrick said, but it's worth underlining: Lightroom (and the similar Apple Aperture) are 'non-destructive' and do not alter the original file. Instead, a clone of the file is loaded in to the program's workspace and the actions you make to enhance the image are stored in a so-called 'sidecar' file, maybe along with some thumbnail or lower resolution versions of the image.

This means you can repeatedly come back to the same file and build on the changes you made earlier, or even, I believe, go back in time and discard some of the change you made.

In some circumstances, the original file need not even be present, though many image enhancement functions will not be available unless it is. This was from an Adobe Exec comparing Lightroom with Aperture I spoke to at Photokina:


Finally, when you have finished, you can export to DNG (a standardised RAW format), JPEG, TIFF, or Photoshop PSD.

The idea is that the sidecar store of enhancements will be compatible with various versions of Photoshop and the Creative Suite media browser, Bridge, but there have been some teething problems along the way.

Ian

[lumix]

Re: Lightroom

Thankyou Patrick and Ian for an in depth explanation. The sidecar file must be similar to that used by Picasa. This is also an editing programme that dose not alter the original file and allows you to add to or subject at a later date. I find that very useful for doing quick edits and then being able to open the original file in my main editing software. I'm sure I will like Lightroom a lot more once I get to grips with it. Regards the saving bit I'm still puzzled as to why there are save and save as options in the drop-down menu when you click on edit. They are greyed out but must be there for some reason. I shall Google for instructions on this point. This is a good time of the year to be learning as there is not much incentive to charge the camera batteries at the moment.

[rogleale]

Re: Lightroom

Hi Lumix,
The 'Save' option is what you click on to make sure that the current version of what you are working on is not lost if you have a disaster, eg a power cut, an unexpected shut-down, or a slip of the finger. You are advised to hit this after you have made any significant change to the job. This saved project will be updated next time you hit 'Save'.
The 'Save as' option is a signal that you have finished work on the current job, at least for the time being, and you can chose the mode that the project will be saved in, eg jpeg, tiff, etc..
Does that help?

Roger

[Patrick]

Re: Lightroom

Thankyou Patrick and Ian for an in depth explanation. The sidecar file must be similar to that used by Picasa. This is also an editing programme that dose not alter the original file and allows you to add to or subject at a later date. I find that very useful for doing quick edits and then being able to open the original file in my main editing software. I'm sure I will like Lightroom a lot more once I get to grips with it. Regards the saving bit I'm still puzzled as to why there are save and save as options in the drop-down menu when you click on edit. They are greyed out but must be there for some reason. I shall Google for instructions on this point. This is a good time of the year to be learning as there is not much incentive to charge the camera batteries at the moment.

[Patrick]

Re: Lightroom

Hi Lumix,
The 'Save' option is what you click on to make sure that the current version of what you are working on is not lost if you have a disaster, eg a power cut, an unexpected shut-down, or a slip of the finger. You are advised to hit this after you have made any significant change to the job. This saved project will be updated next time you hit 'Save'.
The 'Save as' option is a signal that you have finished work on the current job, at least for the time being, and you can chose the mode that the project will be saved in, eg jpeg, tiff, etc..
Does that help?

Roger

On all my computer's (2 PC's & a laptop) they remain grayed out and unusable whatever I do.

Patrick