Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/03/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi Daniel, FWIW, here is the workflow I used to post my recent Val gallery (http://www.nathanfoto.com/Val/): 1) Copy the DNG files (that is what the Ricoh GRD produces) from the card to the laptop 2) Import that subdirectory into Lightroom 3) Use Lightroom's Library module to go through the images and delete the obvious losers (I used to do this step in separate software such as Photo Mechanic or ACDSee--no longer necessary) 4) Create a separate Collection called Val d'Isere and assign the surviving images to that collection 5) Make my adjustments as needed: conversion to grayscale, levels, cropping, colour noise reduction etc. I have the sharpening set to 50 on Lightroom's 0-100 as the default. Seems to work well. 6) For the few images that needed spotting (yes, I know, it should not be necessary with a fixed-lens camera, but somehow a few of the images had what looked like a smudge visible in blue sky), I opened Photoshop CS2 from within Lightroom and used its much superior Healing Brush tool. 7) At this point, I had around 90 images in my Val d'Isere collection. I exported all these files to a separate subdirectory, as TIFF files that contain all the adjustments I had made. I then created another collection (as a sub-collection of Val d'Isere) called "For web" and assigned the 28 images that I wanted to post to the web to that collection. 8) Working in the "For web" collection, I wrote the captions in the Library module, and then used the Web module to create the gallery that I posted. Lightroom's default size is 450 pixels, which is too small, so I used 750 pixels instead. One click on Export, and the gallery is ready for uploading a couple of minutes later--this is where Lightroom really shines. This workflow is probably more difficult to describe than to actually perform. I am totally sold on Lightroom as the tool for processing digital images, which is the vast majority of what I shoot these days. I do agree that with scanned film, which will typically need lots of spotting, Lightroom is not the tool of choice--as you say, if you end up opening Photoshop for every image, then you might as well work in Photoshop all the way. But let us keep in mind that this is version 1.0 of the software, and I hope that the spotting tools will be improved in future versions. As you can probably tell, I really, really like this software :-) Nathan dlr@dlridings.se wrote: > Well, Nathan said it could be done ... > > So I've tried Lightroom with RAW files, but how would it work to use it > for my scans. > > I took a roll yesterday (IIIf, 50 Elmar, Fortepan 400, Calbe 49 (Atomal)). > > I scanned it this morning and moved the raw scans (around 40 mb each) over > to a little disk that I then connected to my laptop. > > Instead of "exporting" I chose "upload" and Lightroom uploaded (by ftp) to > my server instead of exporting the whole set to a local drive (whereupon I > would need to upload with FTP). > > http://www.dlridings.se/lightroom/2007v12/ > > Quick, unjustified crticisms : spotting (cloning and healing) is there, > but you'd rather do it in Photoshop. > > I haven't sharpened them (do they look ok?) > > I am using a laptop whose screen I am not used to (not calibrated). I've > just done things by working against the histogram. > > Daniel > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > > -- Nathan Wajsman Almere, The Netherlands Opportunistic Image Acquisition General photography: http://www.nathanfoto.com and http://www.greatpix.eu Picture-A-Week: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws Seville photography: http://www.fotosevilla.com Stock photography: http://www.alamy.com/search-results.asp?qt=wajsman http://myloupe.com/home/found_photographer.php?photographer=507 Prints for sale: http://www.photodeluge.com Blog: http://www.fotocycle.dk/blog SUPPORT FREEDOM OF SPEECH, BUY DANISH PRODUCTS!