Jakebrake Loc: Broomfield, Colorado

A couple of days ago I received an email from Topaz Labs offering a free addition of their processing software. Well, I downloaded the program and have to say I'm impressed. I absolutely hate post processing, (that's why I don't shoot RAW) as I try to get it right in the camera and would rather be out taking pictures than sitting in front of my computer for hours at a time. However there are times when you do need to crop, brighten or adjust an image. Now having Movi, PSE 12, Corel Pro, Lightroom 6 and now Topaz Studio I think I'm covered for PP when I need it.

Check it out!

http://web.topazlabs.com/downloads/

PS, I consider myself and advanced amateur, and I just got Lightroom 6 yesterday due to all of the positive responses by the knowledgeable hoggers, as well as a couple of books by Scott Kelby. My files and workflow are a mess! Any suggestions on developing a workflow? I usually, after a shoot download the images to my desktop, then my laptop and finally my external hard drive, which I use strictly for pictures. Then review them on my 26' monitor and cull the rejects, then to a PP program for any adjustments I feel they need. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks; Michael

whitewolfowner

Michael, you have no idea what your camera can do until you start shooting RAW and learn lightroom. The best piece of advise that I can offer you is this.

First, take a photos, load them into lightroom and then just start playing with all the controls in the develop mode. See and understand what each does, starting from the top and them working down. You can go back to fine tune any previous one in the process. the second thing is to know that you can "batch process" your photos with lightroom and will save hours on the computer doing this. To do this, start with a group of photos where the subject and lighting is about the same. Take the first photo and fix it the best you know how. I'm on a mac, so this is how you do it on mac's, not sure about PC's. Hold down the shift key (with that fixed photo selected on the bottom bar of photos) and go to the last photo in the group of like kind photos and click on that last photo while still holding down the shift key. You will notice that all the photos from the fixed one to the one you clicked on is highlighted. Now click on the sync button in the lower right hand corner. A window pops up with a bunch of adjustments selected. You can either deselect or select ones you either want or don't want. When you get the settings selected you want to affect all the photos just hit the synchronize button and all the photos selected will have those adjustments applied to them. Now go back to the second photo and make the fine tuning adjustments you want to make on each photo to get it perfected. This one tool is one of lightroom's most powerful tools because after a day of shooting hundreds of photos, you can get them all fixed in a fraction of the time.

My second piece of advise is to not over do the controls. Many overdo them, especially the sharpening tool. The secret is to make the photo look natural, like no adjusting was done on it but at the same time as good as it can be.

It will take time to learn the software (you will probably never stop learning it, just as we are all still learning how to take great photos) but stay with it and you will master it in time. And as your skills get better at the computer, they will automatically improve behind the lens too because you will be learning what to do and not to do in the field.

Jakebrake Loc: Broomfield, Colorado

Thank you for the concise and sage advice on LR. When I purchased the program I also got Scott Kelby's Lightroom CC/6 book for digital photographers which I am studying today. Many of my images SOOC are perfect for my needs and need little to no PP (at least to me), however after reading your post I believe I shall give RAW a try. With winter coming on reducing the days I can shoot, I thought I might get educated and comfortable with a powerful PP program. Topaz was free, so what the heck and I will use LR & try RAW! Thanks again.

whitewolfowner

Your efforts will be greatly rewarded. I promise you. You will feel like you got a new camera.

blue-ultra Loc: New Hampshire

Ditto to what these fine gentlemen have told you about Lightroom. I have been using lightroom since it first released. I have been using Photoshop since 4.5 and find I am using it less and less because of lightroom's power... Try it you will be amazed, oh and of course shoot in RAW!

Bob