If an image needs heavy composite work to swap a sky or clip out a subject, of course it’s Photoshop to the rescue. But what about the creative editing of tones, color grades, dodge and burn, HDR, sharpening, etc.? Can we really work in Photoshop to prep and go back into Lightroom and get good results?
Adobe Camera Raw is the solution for nondestructive editing from Lightroom to Photoshop using Smart Objects. This is useful for Lightroom to Photoshop, but what about Photoshop actions into Lightroom? Adobe’s recent improvements give us the ability to create Custom Color Profiles in Camera Raw, so we can flex our creativity with Photoshop actions and Custom Color Profiles by exporting Look Up Tables, or LUTs. This is a massive overhaul for Photoshop that makes our Lightroom workflow even more powerful.
When winter hits, being a photographer can bring a lot of challenges. Not just the obvious cold weather and clients who want to spend as little time outside as possible, but everything is dead except the pine trees. Especially in the Midwest where beautiful mountainous backdrops are rare. Not to worry. Sometimes we have to get creative when ideal lighting doesn’t show up—not only with our photography, but our editing too. In this article, I show you how to edit color for the season.
There are lots of opinions on what’s beautiful and natural, and how to make brides look their best. In this article, we are going to dive into touching up skin in Lightroom Classic. No, we aren’t going into Photoshop and won’t have frequency separation or the ability to recreate pores after we soften. Let’s focus on Lightroom and what’s already at our disposal. Trust Lightroom—it makes editing simple.
I continually try to push creative image editing to its limits. There are so many ways to tweak an image, to get that dialed-in look and feel that you envisioned when you photographed it. Since the change from Camera to Color Profiles in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom, the creative possibilities expanded and became so simple to use, adding them to the Basic panel and allowing users to adjust the amount it’s applied.
You know that feeling you get when you finish a shoot and realize how many hours you now have to work in post? Wouldn’t it be nice to just import in Lightroom, click a few presets and export files? That’s the point of Lightroom’s efficiency, but there is some additional finessing required to ensure your images are consistent while maintaining your look and feel. Here are 10 tricks to help you get through this grueling season and edit faster.
Now that Adobe has launched four patch updates for its latest Lightroom apps, we are seeing the essential Lightroom features pour over from the desktop to the mobile app. Lightroom is supposed to make editing simple, and this is exactly what you get from the mobile Lightroom CC. From your shoot to your sofa, you can edit accurately on an iPad.
As creatives, it is in our blood to break out of the box and try something new. If you are not pushing yourself and developing your photography, where’s your growth as an artist? In this article, I give you the tools to try something new and pack a punch with your images. We will dive into corrective adjustments and how to direct your viewer. These are the basics you may already be doing today, but we are going to mix things up a bit.
Those who long for Lightroom like myself but have been looking for a better all-in-one solution need to add ON1 Photo RAW 2018 to their arsenal. Why should you switch this close to wedding season? My answer always comes down to time: the time it takes to finish shooting a job, time to fully process edits, time the client wants their images, time I get with my family, time to sleep. I want to keep my processing time at a minimum without my clients seeing a drop in quality.
Of all the editing tools at our disposal, not all of them make sense for every task. Lightroom is not the end-all/be-all program—even though I use it for almost everything. It’s important to try out other programs, especially when you want to push the envelope and unleash your creativity. To bring out structure and details in an image, I have always relied on plugins like Macphun Intensify (recently renamed Skylum Intensify). With the release of Skylum’s Luminar, I can now edit with all the tools I need in one place. Once I have finished selecting my best shot of the shoot, I am ready to launch Luminar and get working. Let’s get set up and familiar with Luminar to get a better feel for how we can attack this image.