Sunsetpar Loc: Texas

Good afternoon, fellow Hedgehogians. On May 27, 2023, I posted a Topic entitled "Am I Too Old", requesting your thoughts on whether I should shoot RAW or JPEG (or both) on my upcoming trip to Brazil, and, whether I should, or could, learn Lightroom before my trip. I received so many positive and informative responses! I want to thank each of you who responded and offered advice and encouragement. I read them all, and decided, yes, I would attempt to start shooting RAW + JPEG, and would start to try to learn Lightroom for post-processing. So I got the firmware updated on my Nikon D500 (so I could use CFExpress cards), purchased a Lightroom Classic (LrC) plan, and set out on this rather daunting adventure. I have divided my time between working on camera skills and post-processing. With my camera, I am focusing on challenging light conditions and implementing some of the suggestions I received from you. With-post processing, I focused on setting up my first Catalog in Lightroom Classic, and importing the RAW "practice photos" I have taken these last few days. This morning I took some photos of birds that were fishing along the shore of our lake, and backlit against the morning sun (near my dock). It was time to take these photos and attempt to process them in the Develop module of LrC. When I was finished, the rather dim lightbulb in my head was shining a little brighter! Now I get it! Not in the technical sense-- I have barely scratched the surface and have a long road ahead before I am even minimally competent in Lightroom Classic. But now I completely understand why so many of you encouraged me to shoot in RAW, and use post-processing to address low light and exposure problems with my photos. Below are a couple of before and after examples from this morning. The first is a photo of an Egret that I took this morning. The second photo is the result of my very first attempt at post-processing. After working on the Egret photo, I pulled out hummingbird nest photo I took on May 29, 2023 and did a little post-processing with positive results. These are the third and fourth photos. So, I have a little over two months before I leave for Brazil, and I am so excited about the prospect of shooting RAW and post-processing the photos in LrC when I get back. I am so grateful for your generosity (sharing your experience and knowledge) and encouraging words...thank you again! Tom McCoppin, Lake McQueeney, Texas

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Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Good show!

Sinewsworn Loc: Port Orchard, WA

Looks like you are on your way!

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Final hummingbird (?) looks good. Consider some of the ideas presented in these posts. It looks like a lot of image detail was smoothed away in the noise processing of this image, and yet there's still a Luminance noise grain in the background. These posts below give ideas on how / why / where to move off the auto-selected parameters.

Also, change your camera calibration in the Develop Module from Adobe Standard to Camera Standard. You'll get more color saturation into the results. Just change the value on any of these examples, and re-export and compare the difference.

Basics of noise processing

Basics of Lightroom Sharpening

jack schade Loc: La Pine Oregon

That's a great start.

jack

Sunsetpar Loc: Texas

Thank you CHG_CANON! I sincerely appreciate your thoughtful and informative replies-- I have found them very encouraging and helpful! Tom McC

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

Great start! Hope you enjoy the journey!

R.G. Loc: Scotland

It looks like you've made a good start with basic editing. You can leave the fancy stuff till later.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

MrBob Loc: lookout Mtn. NE Alabama

As R.G. said above, with RAW you can ALWAYS return at a later or MUCH later date and do post processing as your skills and tastes evolve...

brentrh Loc: Deltona, FL

Ansel Adams told me years ago “when I take this photograph I am half way there. Now I must post process it to bring out the highlights and subdue others”

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Now that you have Lightroom set up and are using it, something you might find useful are "virtual copies". These allow you to try different things on a single image. You can make as many as you like... And since LR doesn't actually apply the changes to the original file, can always change any of the virtual copies or delete them, as you see fit. For example, you could try a black & white version of that egret... or sepia toned. Or you could try some different crops, to see what you like. And to keep from cluttering up your work space, you can go into Lightroom "preferences" and tell it to stack all the versions of an image, only unstacking them when you want to compare them side by side with each other. Again, all these are merely previews of how the image will look, should you choose to export it.

To make a virtual copy of an image, simply right click on it and a menu will pop up. One of the choices on that menu is "Create a virtual copy".

Inn fact, another thing you might want to explore is the "right click". Many places in Lightroom a right click on your mouse will call up a menu. It can help you relocate a file that was moved and is now greyed with a question mark out in LR. Or you can use it to have LR do a RAW conversion and export the file to another software for additional work.

There also are numerous "keyboard shortcuts" in LR. These are single keystrokes that will cause an action. For example, pressing "L" once will "turn the lights down", dimming all the screen except for the image. Pressing L a second time will "turn the lights out" so the image is the only thing on an otherwise black screen. Pressing it a third time brings you back to the normal view of the image and workspace. These can be useful when you want to see the image in isolation, without the distractions of the background. ("L" doesn't need to be capped, I just did so here for clarity.)

LR is a powerful tool. Most of LR is intuitive. But there are a lot of "hidden features" to learn about over time. Get one of Scott Kelby's or Victoria Bampton's books and start working through it a little at a time. Some stuff they tell you about will be invaluable... other stuff you may never need or use. Sooner than you think, working in LR will be second nature and easy.

One "tactic" while learning to work with RAW files is to shoot RAW+JPEG. That way you can compare the two versions. Eventually you will find that many of your post-processed RAW files are better than the JPEGs... that's when you realize what you've been missing, not shooting RAW.

Finally, is your computer monitor calibrated? For accurate image editing, it should be. Calibrite and Datacolor both offer various kits of hardware (colorimiter) and software ranging from basic to fancy. See to your workspace lighting and any color influences, too. We used to do on-site printing at events and were having trouble with prints that consistently had a tint.... the problem was the color of the pop-up tarp over our work space! We changed to a white or off-white tarp and the problem was solved. I also got some black 1/2" foam core and made a shade for our monitor.

Have fun!

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Well done! Enjoy the post processing ride!

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

Post shots are superb 🥇🥇💎🥇🥇

Sunsetpar Loc: Texas

Thank you Alan! I experienced that today when I adjusted the exposure of the backlit Egret...it was amazing, and made me understand exactly why many of you encouraged me to shoot RAW! Tom McC