Lightroom Controls

ohkphoto

Snow White
For those of you who use lightroom, can you share which development controls you use the most and which ones you prefer to stay away from for whatever reasons?
 

ohkphoto

Snow White
In the lightroom develop panel, under the histogram are the control sliders for exposure, recovery, fill light, etc.

(Adobe Lightroom 3.2)
 

Fen

New member
with you now...

In the 'Develop' tab, tend to use most of the 'Basic' tools apart from 'Presence' and occationally the 'Tone Curve' tools. The rest of them hardly get used.

Use the 'Crop' and sometimes the 'Graduated Filter' when needed.
 

karlyh

New member
I'm glad you brought this up. But first I gotta say, I'm guilty of not reading instructions/tutorials/help before just jumping in. I haven't had LR long, but long enough to get an idea ... very basically.. of what does what, for me. I say 'for me'.. because everyone may use one or more of the tools differently for their own reasons and the effect they're looking for. Anyway, it seems I'm using most of the tone tools.. liking the 'light' control on some night shots of London I've just came home with.. seems to work great at bringing up the lights. I try out the 'auto' options just to see what it gives me, for better or worse..... but usually go with 'as shot' instead and then tweek at will. I wanted to reply to this because I'm curious about 'masking'.. what is it? I've used the slider on this and don't see anything happening enough to figure out what it may be doing.
Also 'split toning' (toning? or tuning?.. I'm not looking at it right now) I don't fool with that... not sure totally of its function. Sometimes I'll go to Lens correction but mostly out of curiousity, hardly ever applying it though. My favorite is the 'clarity' tool... I love the subtle effects of either sharper/shadowy... or soft almost oil painting effect..
The 'Effects' and 'Camera Calebration' .. not a clue. If someone knows what I may be missing out on with those... please let me know. I know I really should at least read the 'help' menu..lol
 

jdeg

^ broke something
Staff member
Depending on the shot I've been using the crop tools, lens correction, and in some cases the auto tone and white balance. Most of the time I'm one or more of the presets.
 

Eduard

Super Mod
Staff member
Super Mod
Depending on the shot I've been using the crop tools, lens correction, and in some cases the auto tone and white balance. Most of the time I'm one or more of the presets.

That is what makes LR so great - how flexible it is to your individual workflow. Since I've upgraded to version 3 and the lens profile feature, I've never used (or even installed) presets! Too funny.

My process is usually as follows - but this is maybe appropriate for 75% of the time. Usually I'll have an idea what I might want to fix first (crop, white balance, etc.) and I'll start there. Not all steps are taken everytime but this is the sequence that I generally follow.

1. Review histogram.
2. Review lens correction. Adjust as necessary.
3. Determine if color is correct. If not, adjust white balance.
4. Determine if the image needs to be lightened or darkened. Adjust Exposure, Recovery, etc.
5. Tweak tone curve if needed.
6. Apply graduated filter and/or spot adjustments.
7. Determine if the image needs to be cropped.
8. Determine if the image needs sharpening.

Hope this helps!
 

ohkphoto

Snow White
Thank you for the replies. Eduard, your post on the workflow really helps. The more I work with lightroom, the more I understand that a good photo does not need a whole lot of tweaking. I use an expodisc for WB and find that I rarely have to adjust that. I use the tone curve and some minor spot adjustments with the brush. The controls I absolutely stay away from are, brightness, contrast and saturation, and camera calibration. They tend to really mess up the color. I also find that the presents tend to be a little too much.

Best Regards
 

ohkphoto

Snow White
I'm guilty of not reading instructions/tutorials/help before just jumping in. I haven't had LR long, but long enough to get an idea ... very basically.. of what does what, for me. I say 'for me'.. because everyone may use one or more of the tools differently for their own reasons and the effect they're looking for. Anyway, it seems I'm using most of the tone tools.. liking the 'light' control on some night shots of London I've just came home with.. seems to work great at bringing up the lights. I try out the 'auto' options just to see what it gives me, for better or worse..... but usually go with 'as shot' instead and then tweek at will.

This is exactly how I learn about new software . . . no time for tutorials and instructions! Just jump in and experiment. Your idea of using the auto tone to see what happens is good. I usually just move the sliders to both extremes to see what happens.

Best Regards
I wanted to reply to this because I'm curious about 'masking'.. what is it? I've used the slider on this and don't see anything happening enough to figure out what it may be doing.

In a nutshell, you "mask" something that you don't want to apply an effect to. In other words, you eliminate the part of the pic you mask from the filter or whatever you're doing to the pic. I think masking is limited in lightroom, so if I need to do serious masking, I go to photoshop.
 

Eduard

Super Mod
Staff member
Super Mod
I use an expodisc for WB and find that I rarely have to adjust that.

I have an ExpoDisc but for some reason seem to be using it less when I should be using it more. Bad habit or relying too much on LR? I do find myself using the LR graduated filter more to "punch" up the sky which might be another symptom. :confused:

Have you used the Lens Corrections feature? I'm liking it - a lot. I offload my images using Downloader Pro instead of LR, then import into LR. I haven't found the setting to have Lens Correction applied automatically or else I'd set it.
 
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