Guest Post By Olivia Fulmer--Lightroom Resources

We are so fortunate to have Olivia from OliviaIrene Photography back with us again this week to further discuss Lightroom.  If you missed her previous post where she provide tips and insights into her workflow, you should definitely check it out here.  This time around she is giving us some helpful resources to get you on your way.   Thank you so much Olivia for this very informative post.  I think I've got a little studying to do!

Last month, Kristina asked some of KK Groupies if we would be willing to write a guest post for her Moms Who Click blog, and I sort of, tentatively raised my hand and asked in a quiet voice, “Can I do a post about before/after edits using LR and what I’m learning?” (Secretly, I was hoping she would say, “NO! ARE YOU CRAZY?” but she didn’t. She said, “Yes! Sounds great.“ So now I’m stuck! But here goes.

Back in October I did a series of posts with before/after edits using Lightroom 4 and a little Photoshop CS6.  You can see some of them here and here. I think I ended up with about 15 posts, not 31, but who’s really counting and keeping score? I learned more about both programs. And I’m still learning.

I’ve used LR for several years as an organizing tool. I used it mostly for importing images from my camera card, and I would do a few of the most obvious adjustments, mostly adjustments for white balance, exposure. Somewhere along the way, I learned that if you clicked on those little triangles at each end of the histogram and turned them “black,” then you had the image within the “correct” ranges for exposure, blacks, highlights, etc. 

After a bit of playing with some sliders, I used the Ctrl-E shortcut and opened the images in CS6 to finish my editing by making additional adjustments in levels, hue/saturation, contrast, etc., running creative actions, or applying textures and veils and whatnot.

Now, after taking Kim’s Roundtrip Lightroom class, I’m learning even more.

But what I really want to do is share some of the resources that have been most helpful to me. These are not necessarily in any kind of order of preference, but just some that I go to for reference, instruction, and help:

Gavin Grough, The Photographer’s Workflow: A Practical Guide to Digital Post Production Using Lightroom 4. This e-book has been extremely helpful in setting up LR and establishing a workflow. His process has ten steps divided into two parts: planning and implementation. From this book, so far, I’ve taken away the importance of labeling, flagging, and naming files and folders. I still have a lot to learn. Included with the book are a set of 30 presets (still getting the hang of them) that are useful in the editing process.

Sean McCormack, Essential Development: 20 Great Techniques for Lightroom4. If you haven’t discovered David de Chemin’s wonderful library of ebooks at www. craftandvision.com, you need to go there NOW! Where else can you buy quality photography guides for $5.00 each, and even get a couple free ones? I’ve just dabbled in this book, but from this book, I took a better understanding of how the histogram worked. Now, it has become one of the first tools I use when I process a photo in LR.

Kim Klassen’s Round Trip class. Kim’s class is wonderful—it is down to earth, easy to follow and basic. She introduces the student to the basics of LR beginning with organization. Now that is one of my pitfalls with LR (and with Bridge when I first used it). Now, I think I have a system that works for me:  I import images into a folder for the year by DATE. Right now, I’m “reorganizing” my catalog by moving files into subfolders by MONTH. So my structure looks something like this:

>2013 (the year)

>January 2013

       >20130101

       >20130102

etc.

Each LR teacher will give you their system for organization, but you simply have to work out the best system that works for you.

David du Chemin also has a book where he takes you through his Lightroom process (and for the life of me I cannot find the book or think of the title!) His philosophy is that when we edit, we do not necessarily edit for “correctness” but for “vision”—our  mental picture of what we want the final product to be. That, more than anything else, has guided me whenever I edit. I edit until it looks the way I want it to, the way I want it to tell the story.

Guest Post--Lightroom Workflow From Olivia Fulmer

Today you are in for a treat.  We have a guest post from Olivia Fulmer of OliviaIrene Photography.  Olivia, is going to walk you through a workflow using Lightroom.  You will see how she edits a beautiful still life image from start to finish.  If you have been thinking about using Lightroom or are already a fan, this is a great tutorial that shows you the power of this editing tool.  Thank you so much Olivia for putting this post together for us, I certainly learned a trick or two!


A Lightroom Workflow

l began using Lightroom when it appeared in beta form. Or rather I experimented with it in beta form, but didn’t start using it until LR 2 came out. Since then, it has become a regular part of my workflow. However, I did not have the patience, nor the mentors to really dig into LR to learn its secrets.

Today, I’m going to share a little bit of my workflow using LR 4.

I use LR to import images from my CF card to the computer. This is an expanded Import screen, but essentially, I choose the source and the destination:

I’ve begun important my files as dng (digital negative) files, and it does take a long time if there are a lot of photos. You can also leave the files in camera raw format as well.

Now that the images are in the LR catalog, the fun with LR begins.

This image is pretty much SOOC (straight out of the camera); the only addition is the watermark. I use the Develop Module of LR to begin.

First I check the histogram. In this case, I did pretty well in-camera! The two triangles at the ends of the histogram will indicate where there is some clipping in the shadows, blacks, highlights, or midtones, as well as in the RGB color channels.

Because there is nothing at the right side of the histogram, I may want to pull the histogram to the right some more to see what happens. The image does seem “brighten” a little, and there is no clipping, so I’ll leave it alone, but as you can see from the image below (histogram 2), there is a “well” in the middle of the histogram; the darks and lights have more data than the midtones.

Histogram 2

I’m going to play a little with midtones by scrubbing the mouse in the middle of the histogram. I want to try to even out the tones. I pulled the shadows to the right, making sure that the triangle on the left stayed black. Then I pulled the highlights to the right, making sure that the triangle to the right stayed black. I’m still not quite sure this is what I want, so I’m going to play in the middle with the exposure. I try to keep the triangles black, and just adjust until it “looks right” to me.

My next step is to play with eye dropper and see if I can get my whites whiter without lightening the image too much. The daisies are white, as is the background behind the flowers. I chose to use the flowers to set my white balance.

Right now, I’m pretty satisfied with my basic edits. I made a few adjustments to clarity (which acts something like sharpening and contrast combined), vibrance, and saturation.

My next edit comes from David du Chemin. I admit that curves baffle me, so anything that makes curves easier to use suits me. One of du Chemin’s first edits it to change the point curve preset to medium contrast. Usually this is enough for me!

Next I often click the Enable Profile Corrections under the Lens Corrections section. And next I’ll just click through the Camera Calibration Profiles.  For this image, I thought Camera Faithful looked best to me, so I’m choosing it.

There, I’m finished with my Lightroom Edits.

Before                                                      After                                                                  

The workflow is simple:

1. Begin with the histogram, and either scrub the mouse over the various regions (blacks, shadows, exposure, highlights, whites), or use the corresponding sliders.

2. Adjust the white balance, either using the eye dropper to choose a neutral (18% gray) or white area, or by using one of the White Balance presets.

3. Play with the curves adjustments, either by using the graph or by choosing a Point Curve present.

4. Adjust for Lens Correction.

5. Select a Camera Calibration preset.

You can also crop in LR and use other creative presets, but I think my workflow gives you a pretty clean edit.

From here, I will import into CS6 for additional edits and enhancements, possible adding some texture or text.

I’d love to see some of your edits using LR as well.