Some questions for Lightroom users

Steve Kelly

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I’m considering getting Lightroom for my photo editing needs.
I’m a budding noob amateur home photographer, only doing this for a hobby.
I only have a digital compact at the moment, an Olympus XZ-1, which has the ability to shoot RAW.
I have Photoshop CS3, and I just got the Nik collection. So that’s ok for my JPG-editing needs (old photos).
I’m quite sure, from the little I’ve read so far, that to get the best out of my end product, I’m best off using the RAW image for my base pics to edit.
(and since I’m addressing this to Lightroom users, I’ll assume that you agree with that. I dont want to get into the RAW vs JPG debate here), so going forward I plan to shoot RAW, and go from there.

I’ll outline what I want to be able to do, and then you it would be great if you could let me know if LR does it all:

- Standard adjustments... RGB Levels/Balance/Curves, Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation, Shadows, Exposure (I know that it does this one! :))
- Standard mouse tools... Crop, Slice, Healing tools?, Brush, and all the other things I’ve never used! (but might one day, once I learn the tools)
- Filters? any effects come with LR?

- I have Nik collection, I’m sure I’ve read that I can use these 2 together. You can confirm this is if you like! :) (and tell me how wonderful they work together)

- Key requirement - I want to be able apply the adjustments to the pic as a whole, and also to specified areas/parts of the picture (I dont know how to do this in PS, but it’s the mainest thing I’m keen to learn how to do).
So does it have a tool where you can highlight/select an object (automatically upon clicking, maybe?!), where you point in the right direction, and it auto figures out the object’s outline and highlights it for you... and then from there, either make adjustments to that part(s) within the highlight, or alternatively, to everything-but, the thing that you’ve highlighted. Hope this makes sense.
Best/easiest example of what I mean is... you know those pics where most of the background is in black and white, but certain objects in the pic are in colour, something highlighted, like a flower, or a car, or a pair of lips!. I’m sure there’s a name for that type of image, but I don’t know what it is.
I want to be able to do that. Not necessarily the black n white thang, but just make adjustments to certain parts of the pic.
It may be as simple as a horizontal (ish) line the whole width of the pic, to separate the sky fromthe rest, for adjustments. Or it could be everything but the sky.
Or it could be something more complex, like a person, etc.
Is this possible in LR? is it simple enough to learn/master?

- So for any edits from opening a RAW file, these are saved in a separate file, right? and then when you’re done you export to JPG, I assume? and the RAW file always stays untouched? Are there any limitations here, as to how much editing you can do? layers, and such forth?

I’ll leave it at that for now.
I do know that there are tutorials available, as do I know that I can get the trial version. But I thought that before I went through all that (only to potentially find disappointment at the end of it), I thought I’d ask you lovely helpful people first on my main key questions.
Plus I haven’t got much spare time next week, so I only want to start up the trial when I’ve got time to actually trial it!

Thanks folks :thumbsup:
Sorry for the epic...

Steve.
 
Nik software is by far the easiest and best results for what you want in my experience.

Im using it in combination with apple aperture but it would be the same as a plugin with light room.
 
Nik software is by far the easiest and best results for what you want in my experience.

Im using it in combination with apple aperture but it would be the same as a plugin with light room.

Thanks dude. I had a quick look at some LR tutorials and I'm sure it does all I need.
I'll probably DL the LR5 beta and have a play with that.

One other question, I've only just switched on RAW shooting, so all my pics from last few years are in jpg. Now I know this is probably blasphemy, but for any old jpgs I wanted to edit, could I edit them in LR? (I know it's for RAW, primarily)
 
Thanks dude. I had a quick look at some LR tutorials and I'm sure it does all I need.
I'll probably DL the LR5 beta and have a play with that.

One other question, I've only just switched on RAW shooting, so all my pics from last few years are in jpg. Now I know this is probably blasphemy, but for any old jpgs I wanted to edit, could I edit them in LR? (I know it's for RAW, primarily)

Yeah of course. LR is not primarily for RAW's, it's a photo processing suite with very good RAW support.

It will happily edit jpg's, bmp's, TIFF's etc etc and do it very well.

Once you 'get' Lightroom, honestly nothing else comes close to it's workflow and speed of edit.
 
Cheers.

Yeah just downloaded LR5 beta, getting started is a bit overwhelming when you're just used to managing your files with Windows Explorer! but yeah, as you say, once I get it, I'm sure it'll be all I need and more.
 
It gets very easy, I would say to get the Scott Kelby book about lightroom, makes it a little easier to deal with it.
 
...also plenty of tutorials on youtube
 

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