Lightroom-News.com

Just released recently from HDR Soft is a plug-in that allows you to export photos from Lightroom directly to Photomatix Pro and automatically reimport the processed tone mapped HDR image back into the Lightroom catalog. To use this plug-in you will need to download and purchase the latest version of Photomatix Pro which includes the export plug-in and instructions on how to install in Lightroom for Mac and PC. Here is an initial test I carried out that shows how the plug-in works in Lightroom after installing.

Source: Photoshopnews.com

This is a cross-posted Photoshopnews story in which I have tried to unravel the question of how should you set the shadow output levels when editing an image in Camera Raw. You will find that the exact same principles apply when working in Lightroom.

Some image editing habits become so ingrained that it is hard to unlearn them when newer ways come along and make the old favorite methods redundant. An example of this is the subject of setting the output Levels in Photoshop for the print output. For many years Photoshop users were taught to set the output levels for the shadows at a slightly higher value than 0,0,0, even though (as you will read here) it has not been necessary to do so for quite some years now. Then came along Camera Raw and Lightroom and some photographers have been agonizing over how to set the output levels for an image when there is no output levels control in Camera Raw or Lightroom. Hopefully the following article will help shed some light on how Photoshop is still able to manage the output levels for you and why the solution is really a lot simpler than you would think.

Read the full story…

Later today, Friday 9th November, you will be able to download a public beta of Naked light, a new program that looks rather interesting in that it appears it will offer quite a few of the non-destructive features that people have been asking for in Lightroom. There is no information on the site to say who is behind the program’s development, however we do know that it will only run on Apple’s Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. But not only are the requirements Apple only, the site’s graphics, the interface design, the tightly controlled pre-release marketing, even the countdown time clock. Everything here does look very ‘Apple’…

From the Naked light website:

Public beta arriving Friday, November 9th, 2007.

The emperor has new clothes. Introducing Naked light. Non-destructive image editing. Node-based compositing. Live filters. High-end tools. And infinite resolution. It’s image editing, re-invented. Take the tour.

Last month I wrote a tutorial feature on how to use Bridge as a front end to Lightroom. Staying on that theme, there are a few more drag and drop tips you might like to be aware of such as drag and drop opening. This is not a standard Lightroom feature, it is more of a unofficial workaround and as such, not everything will work as expected. For example, you can’t drag and drop virtual copy photos from Lightroom and you need to pay special attention to the warning about opening images that have unsaved metadata via a drag and drop.

A little while back we posted a story linking to an article on the Luminous Landscape website (Do curves throw you a curve?) in which author Mark Segal offered some interesting perspectives on the nature of curve adjustments in Camera Raw and how these compared with traditional RGB composite curve adjustments made in photoshop. In this feature article for Lightroom-News I have concentrated on analyzing the difference between Tone Curve adjustments made in Lightroom and Photoshop curves. I show you here a method for testing curve comparisons between the two programs and some observations on how and why they differ.

Source: Luminous Landscape
Author: Mark Segal

The Luminous Landscape website has posted an essay by Mark Segal, who is a member of the Applied Color Theory List (ACTL), on the subject of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) tone curves. This essay offers a detailed analysis of how the tone curve adjustments that you can apply in Camera Raw or Lightroom compare to the traditional approach of using RGB composite curve adjustments in Photoshop. Over on the ACTL list, Dan Margulis has suggested that it is better to use Camera Raw adjustments to make minor corrections only and use Photoshop Curve adjustments to make the major tone edits. Dan has also argued that in some cases ‘opening the range in Camera Raw actually damaged the image to the point where it was no longer possible to get a good result without excessive effort…’ In response to this claim, Mark has tested his own hypothesis, which is that Camera Raw adjustments applied to a raw capture in Photoshop ACR or Lightroom are not any more destructive than Photoshop and if anything, tone and color edits are easier to make in ACR, but Photoshop edits are still very useful for minor tone and color edits on a rendered raw image.

To access the PDF document and join the discussion you will need to read the full story on the Luminous Landscape website.

Adobe has posted new white papers and primers available as PDF downloads. The PDFs are available from the Digital Imaging Solutions for Pro Photographers page (scroll to the bottom) and from the More Papers and Primers page.