Lightroom Post-processing Workflow

I've only recently been really getting to grips with using Lightroom. And I'm not overly familiar with the Adobe Camera RAW engine either, having used Silkypix mainly for K10D and now K-7 RAW conversion until a recent rebuild of my PC.

- Within the LR develop module, how do you use the detail/sharpening tool? Is it best to consider this as 'input' sharpening? And then use USM or one of the other photoshop sharpening tools for (creative) output sharpening?
- How do you find the LR output sharpening tools? Or do you go over to Photoshop when anything extra is needed? That's what I'm still doing.
- Are other PentaxUsers running any self made or default import actions to certain develop settings? Care to share what those are? At the moment I'm just zeroing everything to the 'as-shot' setting and working from there.

Any other tips/tricks that users find they are doing to most/all of their RAW conversions?

One thing that I have found to be really easy to use are the lens finging/aberation controls - dead handy to dial out any purple finging!

Thanks!

when using the sharpening tools press the alt key on windows or the squiggle key on a mac, this will whiten the screen & show you the parts thst are affected. there is an excellent tutorial on youtube search "lightroom 3 sharpening"

i always use the noise reduction, clarity & vibrancy +10-15. But on import i only add keywords & metadata.

It depends on how you used it.

With most shots I use lightroom as an input device to get a good starting point for a photo when i work with them in Photoshop.

With snapshots for the family I often use lightroom also as final device to get the photo completely ready.

For tips and tricks this a good site http://lightroomkillertips.com/

Thanks Stefan. That's pretty much how I have been using LR up to now, just wondered if I was missing anything, especially with the sharpening in the develop module...

If i'll work on it in Photoshop i only sharpen it a little, most of the time I even just used the default settings.
What i mostly do is try to fix the exposure the best i can and get the colours right for the rest sharpening, noise reduction and things like contrast, levels, curves is all done in photoshop.

I just love to work with layer blending modes and things like that and i've some handy plugins in photoshop that i used so I don't spend much time on photos in Lightroom because of that.

I find LR3 is enough for all my editing needs these days. With the exception of using Silver Efex pro for B&W's or Color EFex pro for the odd pic mash up.

If you mean the sharpening in the LR export dialog then I use it all the time. Even the high setting is quite smooth. My default export max size is 1400x100 jpg and the high setting works great with this


I have created LR presets for CA for my various lenses that require it. After import I filter the shoot per lens using the metafata fitler in grid view, Select all and apply the preset as a develop setting. Works a treat.

Funny don't seem to have that function in my copy of LR3

Seriously, I must play with the CA tool etc. Does anyone really understand all the different controls in the new noise reduction and sharpening tools?

Andy

ROFL - it was getting late!!!

I understand most of them. I must say the new NR in LR3 is very good indeed, but as always overdoing it makes a pic look like a really bad plastic looking VHS recording.

The CA tools are great. just find apic with some high contrast in the corners and play

Thanks Smeggy - will definitely have a go. With the NR tools, I can see improvement as soon as I move the Luminance slider, but am not sure what the 'detail' and 'masking' sliders are doing
Andy

If you zoom in to 100%, you will see the changes you make more easily, especially around sharp high-contrast borders.

The 'Alt key' works for all of the sharpening tools, so try that so that you can see what the BW mask shows you.

As to CA, the best way to find out is to work on an image which has, say, dark branches or leaves against a bright sky for eg. Look carefully at the edges of such objects, especially if they are near the image borders.

You may find either purple fringing, or alternatively some red/green or blue/yellow shadows there. The CA sliders help to reduce these (less effectively so with PF in my limited experience), and generally do a fairly reasonable job.

Masking slider in noise reduction?

The masking slider under sharping, mask out the flat parts so that only the edges gets sharpened.

under noise reduction, detail boost detail and contrast boosts contrast.
Pretty straight forward.

Sorry Stefan - you are right! My mistake
Andy

Yup!

I suspect detail on NR does the same as masking in sharpen, i.e it restricts NR to the smooth areas to avoid edges being softened.

Contrast does nothing on my version of LR Lightroom version: 3.2 [692106]

so maybe a bug?

Smeg - it might be that your image is not sufficiently noise-affected for that control to work. This is a quote from LR 3 on-line Help:

"In the Noise Reduction area of the Detail panel, adjust any of the sliders. The first three sliders affect luminance noise. The last two sliders affect color noise.
LuminanceReduces luminance noise.

Detail - Controls the luminance noise threshold. Useful for very noisy photos. Higher values preserve more detail but may produce noisier results. Lower values produce cleaner results but may also remove some detail.

Contrast - Controls luminance contrast. Useful for very noisy photos. Higher values preserve contrast but may produce noisy blotches or mottling. Lower values produce smoother results but may also have less contrast.

Color - Reduces color noise.

Detail - Controls the color noise threshold. Higher values protect thin, detailed color edges but may result in color speckling. Lower values remove color speckles but may result in color bleeding."


Andy - the best thing you can do is use all of the sliders you can, all the while watching the impact this has on your image/s (preferably at 100% or greater zoom). That worked well for me.