Using Lightroom with PSP

[StarMan]

Hi all,

I have Lightroom 2.0 but have not figured out if it belongs in my workflow yet. How do you find yourself using it in creating shows? I've developed a process that relies on PSP, Photoshop, Bridge and a system of folders directly accessible through MS Explorer. I would like to hear what great and wonderful things it does for you. Getting harder to teach the old dog...

Thanks,

Richard

[sbuckel]

Lightroom has one major role for me in creating a slide show of my own photos and that is to export the images to a folder that I will use for the slide show. I create a collection that is specific for a show.

For me LR is much faster and easier than bridge and I think I can sort and edit a shoot and do the initial file optimization in about one third the time I used to use with bridge. I up graded to LR3 recently and it is even faster for me.

HTH,

Scott

[StarMan]

Scott,

Thanks for reading and your comments. I can see how LR would work well with my own shoots, but am wondering how to use with customer's photos. I can see where I might receive a series of slides that all need similar tweaking re: color, contrast, etc., and so I could process them as a group in LR. Are there other ways to approach customer images in LR?

Thanks again.

Richard

[debngar]

Hi RIchard,

First off, if you can afford to upgrade to LR3, do it. It's fabulous for the improved noise reduction feature alone!

I do 99% of post processing and managing of images within LR. Images only see Photoshop if they need heavy cloning or a special touch/effect.

If you have images in several different folders in LR you want in a show, create a collection with a show name or whatever. Inside each original image folder, highlight images you want in the collection and drag them there. Repeat with other images in the remaining folders. This doesn't actually move any images, just is a virtual collection. Highlight all the images in the collection and export full size jpgs at 300 ppi to your ProShow Producer show folder.

I've never bothered to install the ProShow LR plug-in. Looks like it allows quick global application of some things for fast, less personalized portfolio shows but I don't typically use ProShow that way. I would like to know from anyone else that uses the LR plug-in what additive features it has for work flow, else I don't think I'd ever use it.

Once you start using LR, you may find it becomes THE tool for your entire work flow and the other things may get less use as the time goes by.

You cannot rely on LR to fix a bunch of different images from a customer in a batch with one swoop that were taken on different days, years, with different lighting conditions, because some are lighter, some are darker, etc. They will not all come out as you anticipate. This feature works well on a group of images taken in a controlled environment with the similar lighting and exposure, fixing one then applying those settings to the similar photos captured in the same conditions. Hope that makes sense.

[StarMan]

Hi Deborah,

Thanks for reading and all the helpful comments! I'm scanning Amazon for my upgrade to LR2 and maybe a CS5 upgrade to my CS3. I have an old untended bank account I may liquidate for this very purpose.

The virtual organization features appeal greatly to me, if I can get a good handle on how catalogues work. The noise reduction is of great interest, especially for my many high ISO astrophotographs.

Thanks again for the recommendations!

Richard

[debngar]

If you are an NAPP member, I think they offer a discount on Adobe purchases (15%?). But that purchase has to be done via the NAPP website. So instead of the LR3 upgrade being $99 I think it gave me 15% off on that which makes it well worth the upgrade. There are a few annoying bugs in it but still I'd never go back to using only Photoshop CS for editing - instead I'm using CS for the icing on the cake you might say.

[sbuckel]

If you are a NAPP member you can get the upgrade for $84.99 which is what I did.

Actually, I did not mention this in my earlier post but I have three catalogs. The biggest and most important is the one that houses my images, the second one is stock imagery that I have from many varied sources that include scrapbook like things, frames, and RF photos that I have used in the past. The third one is the one I use for client work. I include client digital photos, scans I did for them, and more recently photos of their photos. They do not get much as far as metadata as they are tagged only by client name as a keyword. I have found that using this catalog allows me to do the little optimization that I do and it is convenient for me as I use LR very frequently these days. Also, my old family photos are in this catalog as well.

For archive reasons the images for each of these catalogs are on independent hard drives that are backed up in an automated fashion. Client photos have only one back up as well as the stock catalog (the second one I mentioned) while my image hard drives have two hard disk backups as well as DVD backups.

I hope that gives you some ideas,

Scott

[sbuckel]

Also, you may want to consider buying Topaz Labs DeNoise for your astrophotos, it works very well and a lot cheaper than PSCS5 if the only thing you want is the new noise reduction, actually LR will have the same Noise reduction as PSCS5.

I have not done a head to head comparison between PSCS5/LR3 and Topaz DeNoise but I have used both as they are both great.

Scott

[jimalee]

I've never bothered to install the ProShow LR plug-in. Looks like it allows quick global application of some things for fast, less personalized portfolio shows but I don't typically use ProShow that way. I would like to know from anyone else that uses the LR plug-in what additive features it has for work flow, else I don't think I'd ever use it.

Once you start using LR, you may find it becomes THE tool for your entire work flow and the other things may get less use as the time goes by.

.

Debbie,
I agree 100% that LR3 is a great aid in building collections and then exporting for the show. I do have the Proshow LR plug-in installed, but would only really try to bang out something generic with it. I don't see a lot of value if you are already familiar with LR3 and have our exports and presets all set up. I know that you can add transitions and stuff with the plug-in, but I don't do it that way. My workflow is very similar to yours. I get all of the images ready to go in LR3, then export them to a folder and and I am ready to start my show work. Most of my images require lot's of color control and LR gives me that.
I can't image doing photo work w/o LR. Most of my post-processing is done there unless I need CS5 layers or masking. My feeling is that photo work should be done in LR3 or CS5 and show production should be done in Producer. I can't image trying to do clean up adjustments such as white point, brightness, etc. in Producer. But I am lucky to have those programs and I can see where they might be useful to some.
I do all kinds of photo work with shows just being one type of output. But my workflow is the same.
1. LR3
2. CS5 if needed
3. Final production i.e. either Producer, print media, digital media, web, etc.

Jim

[richichi]

I do 99% of post processing and managing of images within LR. Images only see Photoshop if they need heavy cloning or a special touch/effect.

1. LR3
2. CS5 if needed
3. Final production i.e. either Producer, print media, digital media, web, etc.

I'd have to agree with Debbie & Jim
Lightroom is my main image editor these days especially with all the neat features in LR3
These are my Fav 3 - 1) Tethered Capture 2) Custom Watermark 3) Custom Picture Print Packages
There are many more reasons to use LR3 like they said but this is my 2 cents.

[StarMan]

Thanks for all of these helpful comments. I am going to clean out an old account and see about upgrading my LR2 and CS3. Wish me luck!

Richard/Starman