JRadier From Netherlands, joined Sep 2004, 3952 posts, RR: 55 Posted (1 year 10 months 3 weeks 2 days 16 hours ago) and read 1310 times:
For a lot of people it is still unclear what Adobe Lightroom is and what it can do. I opened this thread to explain and show what Lightroom can do for your workflow and as a discussion point. Apple Aperture can do much of the same but is different in setup. As I'm a PC owner and Aperture only works on Mac I can't compare the two.
First of all, what is Adobe Lightroom?
Is it a replacement of Photoshop? No
Can it do everything Photoshop can do? No
Can it replace Photoshop in an airliners.net workflow? No
Then why should I use Lightroom? Good question!
Recently a fellow photographer and I were discussing our image storage strategies. He told me that he was looking for photo's of the first KLM 737. As he was using a folder based strategy (make a logical folder layout and dump the RAW's in there) and he had tens of thousands of images it took him quite a long time to locate the images he wanted. I think a lot of people are nodding their heads in agreement right now. I have used this strategy as well but I found it hard and un-workable especially as the number of images grew. When I got home I started looking for photos of the same aircraft he had been looking for (granted, my database is 'only' fivethousand-something images big). I started Lightroom and from that point it took me around 10-15 seconds to find the images I wanted. Quite a difference! All I had to do was type in the registration in the 'Find' field and hit enter.
This shows one of the major points in Lightroom but it goes on beyond that. Lightroom is what Adobe calls a 'workflow tool'. This basically means that it covers the whole process from just after shooting until your final product (a jpeg image, a print, a slideshow, a web gallery etc.). It does all the things from getting that RAW (or jpg) image until your final output. For airliners.net this is not totally true as Lightroom does not have output sharpening (what you use USM for) and I don't like it's resize funtion in the Export module as much. For this the intergration with Photoshop is excellent.
But the editing is not the only thing Lightroom is good at. Lightroom is basically a library for your photo's. You can keep them all in one place, give them keywords so you can find them easily (as I told you before), make collections, browse by lens used, or shutterspeed (and many more). I could rave on about the endless possibilities but I think that showing you works a lot better.
I made an overview of my Lightroom workflow for another forum some time ago in version 1.1. The current version is 1.3 which contains some changes but in general it is the same. Just for the smartasses amongst us, yes I did only have a keeprate of 12 out of 52. I personally blame it on me trying to pan and weeding out the doubles. My workflow:
When I get home from shooting I copy my RAW files off my CF-card or imagetank onto my harddrive. This is devided into /airport/year, so in this case they go into the folder /AMS/2007. When you import the photo's this is used in the Lightroom library as shown on the left. I set my preferences to 'Import photos at their current location' (first red block) which leaves the photo's in the folder they are in. I also add a copyright notice to my metadata (2nd block). The third thing I do is make 1:1 previews (new since I made these screenshots). This basically makes an internal jpeg file (full size) which you can view almost instantly. If you don't do this it has to render the preview every single time which takes quite some time. This can be compared to a preview in Bridge.
After that I will go check for every photo if it stands up to my quality wishes (both zoomed in and zoomed out). If the image is of a good enough quality I will 'pick' the image (white flag, shortcut P) and give it a colour (red, yellow or green) to indicate the quality. If a photo does not live up to my standards I reject (black flag, shortcut X) the image.
It happens fairly often that you shoot 2 almost identical photos and you want to keep only one (what's the benefit of keeping both?). Instead of switching between the 2 trying to find out which is better you can compare (shortcut C) them in Lightroom. This places them side-by-side and links them, so that when you drag one photo the other keeps the same position. This way it is really easy to find out which one is better.
When I've judged all photos I filter my photos for picks only in the filmstrip so that I can start keywording my photos. There is no point in keywording rejects as I will delete them later. I do keep my rejects at this time for example to find a registration that isn't visible on one of the shots I want to keep.
Next I start keywording my photos. Because I have quite a few in the database already I get suggestions which makes life a lot easier. At this time I just add the registration, type and operator as keywords. All keywords are parent>child relationships (as can be seen on the left), so I just have to add 737-406 (KLM's customer code) and it pops up if I search for a 737-400.
After that I only select the rejects (so the ones that didn't make the cut) and delete them. For me there is no point in keeping sub-par images.
Of course I want to edit my images so I go to the development module (D). In here you can do all the things you can do in Adobe Camera Raw (the Raw plugin in Photoshop) and some more.
One of the extremely helpfull tools in Lightroom is the TAT or Target Adjustment tool. This is available in 3 tabs, namely Tonecurve, HSL (Hue, Saturation, Luminance) and Grayscale. This tool makes it possible to click in a photo and drag to make changes in just one colour (for example). In this case I put it on the red of the reversers and drag it up (while in saturation mode) to make it stand out more without influencing other colours. You can see this on the right. Want to make the yellow taxiline more visible without increasing overall saturation? No problem!
Next up, rotation/crop. Rotation can be done with a slider, but it is a lot easier to do it rotating by hand. You get a nice grid so rotating is a lot easier than in photoshop. With cropping you get a rule of thirds grid (am I saying something that might scare the screeners? ). And as with every edit step in Lightroom, you can all undo it. LR just saves the steps you make, not the actual changes. If you would grab your RAW file from the folder it would be there the same way it went in.
After this you're basically done so you can export your photos (from the library module) to photoshop. It is possible to automatically open the photo in photoshop so all you have to do is resize it, sharpen it and save it. One of the other options is to make a web gallery. It is even possible to upload it directly from Lightroom as can be seen below.
The thing I haven't stressed enough in this walkthrough is that it is so easy to do everything in one place. I often find myself browsing through my older photos I haven't seen in a while, edit them, go back to browsing etc.
I hope this gives a bit more insight into the possibilities of Lightroom which is absolutely an amazing program. It does not replace Photoshop (or the other way around) but it makes it so much easier to work your way through your photos. If something is not clear, that's what this thread is for.
Jurgen
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and ther
Dvincent From United States, joined Jan 2007, 1227 posts, RR: 9 Reply 2, posted (1 year 10 months 3 weeks 2 days 16 hours ago) and read 1297 times:
Great guide, Jurgen. I too am a user of Lightroom and use a similar workflow. I might write up some things about the various tools (such as the S-curve which a lot of people don't understand) in this thread. Hopefully that won't be stealing your thunder at all.
I agree that the resize on export is rubbish. If you use lightroom you should always export as full size into Photoshop and do any resizing in there.
Its input sharpening is the same as Adobe Camera RAW which works in a different way than might be expected of output sharpening but is still crucial to the process. It removes bayer matrix gaussian blur, which is caused both by the interpolation of the bayer matrix as well as antialias filters. This is not the same as the USM you apply to images when you're ready to post on a.net, though it works in a similar fashion. So don't make the mistake of setting the sliders to 0, which won't do you any good.
New England Airports! Sony Alpha a700, Sigma 50-500, Tamron 70-200 f/2.8, Tamron 17-50, Minolta 100-200 f/4.5.
JRadier From Netherlands, joined Sep 2004, 3952 posts, RR: 55 Reply 4, posted (1 year 10 months 3 weeks 2 days 15 hours ago) and read 1270 times:
Quoting Dvincent (Reply 2): I might write up some things about the various tools (such as the S-curve which a lot of people don't understand) in this thread. Hopefully that won't be stealing your thunder at all. Smile
Please write it. This thread is intended to share knowledge.
Quoting Diezel (Reply 3):
You were very convincing last weekend during that 2500km drive. And seeing the examples now makes me want to try the program.
Quoting Diezel (Reply 3):
A for me very important question is: will you be able to judge the sharpness of the images?
A question with a very simple answer: YES. You can see the whole photo zoomed in just like in Photoshop etc. The screenshot with the Jet2 shows this. That is the photo zoomed in, the complete photo can be seen in the screenshot where I delete the images.
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and ther
However, I was wondering if you could tell us more about the keywording structure you use for aviation photos, and whether you find it is better to set up collections or use keywording hierarchy?
JRadier From Netherlands, joined Sep 2004, 3952 posts, RR: 55 Reply 6, posted (1 year 10 months 1 week 3 days 11 hours ago) and read 1052 times:
David,
first your question in the email. You asked me how to import captions from Canon Zoombrowser EX into Lightroom. I am not familiar with the way Zoombrowser stores the captions so I'm afraid I can not answer your question at this time. Perhaps anyone else?
Quoting F14 (Reply 5): However, I was wondering if you could tell us more about the keywording structure you use for aviation photos, and whether you find it is better to set up collections or use keywording hierarchy?
I'll explain this in 2 steps. First I'll explain why I use keywords instead of collections, afterwards I'll tell you more about my system.
Why keywords and not collections?
The answer is very simple, because that is what they are made for!!!
The answer to this question is perhaps the best by first explaining the possibilities of adding photo's to collections. This can only be done by dragging the photo(s) over the collection. When you get a lot of keywords or in this case collections (which you will, believe me) it becomes a major pain in the a** to look for the right collection, drag the photo over it, and that 3 times for every photo (I use Airline, Aircraft Type and Registration).
Keywords on the other hand are a charm to work with. Don't get me wrong, it still takes a lot of time, but the more you have in the database the faster it goes (as opposed to collections which is the other way around). One example of this is shown in my startpost. Once you type (=fast) a keyword it automatically gives you the remaining options. Even if it doesn't, typing is so much faster. And if a keyword is not yet there I can quickly add it by typing (as an example) 737-406>737-400 which places the keyword 737-406 under (as a child) 737-400.
Another smart thing is the keyword set (which I don't use) which reside directly under the keyword entry field (hidden in my screenshots). Here you can have 9 keywords per set visible (and you can store multiple sets). These can contain your most shot airlines for example. This means you don't have to type them but you can hit the button and it's added. Easy as pie. Actually now that I type this I wonder why I don't use this myself!
Reason is probably because I use method number 3, the spraycan. With this you can 'spray' keywords onto your photo's like you would do with paint. It works very basic. You add a keyword in the provided textfield and after that you click on every photo that needs that keyword. This adds a white border to the photo (in grid view) so that you can see which photos are tagged with the keyword. If you make a mistake, just click it again and the keyword disappears. I use this to tag photo's with the airline as they are often quite a few the same (so I can just scroll through the photo's and add keywords).
Last option to add keywords is drag photo's to the keywords or the other way around. This is very time consuming but it is possible.
My keywording system
At this moment I add 3 types of keywords to my photos, Aircraft type, Operator and Registration. I've set them up in a way that is easy for me and gives me enough options to search for and to keep it organized. My 3 keywordsystems:
Aircraft Type
>Airliner/General Aviation/Helicopter
->Manufacturer
-->Type
--->Subtype
---->Final Subtype
I keep my General Aviation and Helicopters apart so I can specifically search for those.
Operator
>Airlines/General Aviation/Manufacturer/Military
->Continent
-->Country
--->Airline name
Example:
->Europe
-->Netherlands
--->KLM
Apart from the airline names I have "Untitled" as an option which is listed under 'Airlines'. I use this if there is no title on the aircraft and often in combination with the owner/operator keyword. General Aviation has a nice list of General Aviation operators (and 'Private') without countries. Manufacturer only has the name of the manufacturer as a keyword. Military has a list of keywords in the following format: 'Country - Department', for example 'Germany - Air Force'.
Quoting Tappan (Reply 7): p.s It is meant to be used in conjunction w/ photoshop. Check out the "edit in photoshop" button.
You seriously use that? You're the first I meet. I hate the way it clutters my RAW folders and I dislike it coming back into LR in a stack. I just export my photo's and then have them open in Photoshop. Got to keep originals and edits separated.
Jurgen
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and ther
Chris78cpr From United Kingdom (England), joined Feb 2004, 2706 posts, RR: 57 Reply 9, posted (1 year 10 months 1 week 2 days 12 hours ago) and read 983 times:
Jurgen, is it possible for you to create a PDF file of your workflow? I'd like to save it for future reference if i get Lightroom.
Thanks,
Chris
Canon 5D2 + 1D2 with other bodies and lots of L glass.
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From Netherlands, joined Sep 2004, 3952 posts, 
). And as with every edit step in Lightroom, you can all undo it. LR just saves the steps you make, not the actual changes. If you would grab your RAW file from the folder it would be there the same way it went in.
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