Photo consistencies

[darkblue-x]

Looking back, I actually appreciated the photog art I used to produce half a year ago:

Dropbox - darkblue-xoldies.jpg

I think the reason for that was the consistencies between tones and contrast.

In order to not shortchange my possibility of progress however, I had stopped using full-auto on my camera and started shooting raw and putting it into Lightroom.
This is where my consistency has been all over the place.

How to I regain consistency using Lightroom? When do I know when I should actually adjust exposure in LR.
As it stands I'm using LR exposure adjustments far less because I feel it's bringing me closer to the consistency I had before.
I still export into VSCO X Mobile for filters and stuff, but I have a feeling I could probably do the same if not better in Lightroom.

Any experts on this?

 

[KmH]

When do I know when I should actually adjust exposure in LR.

You know by looking at the histogram for the image.
How to interprit an image histogram - Yahoo Search Results

 

[viathelens]

Looking back, I actually appreciated the photog art I used to produce half a year ago:

Dropbox - darkblue-xoldies.jpg

I think the reason for that was the consistencies between tones and contrast.

In order to not shortchange my possibility of progress however, I had stopped using full-auto on my camera and started shooting raw and putting it into Lightroom.
This is where my consistency has been all over the place.

How to I regain consistency using Lightroom? When do I know when I should actually adjust exposure in LR.
As it stands I'm using LR exposure adjustments far less because I feel it's bringing me closer to the consistency I had before.
I still export into VSCO X Mobile for filters and stuff, but I have a feeling I could probably do the same if not better in Lightroom.

Any experts on this?

In LR the first thing you might do to find a balance in your histogram is to set a black and white point, you can do this by looking at the histogram while you move the levers, black to the left and white to the right, and moving the histogram to use more tones in the image; or by holding down the option key while you move each lever and when you get just a little bit of color, black for the Black lever and red-yellow for the whites lever, stop-you can readjust this as needed to meet your vision. These levers control brights and darks and stretch your histogram out. The new version of LR Auto Tone (Tone panel) does a good job with this, too, and also sets other values in the Presence panel now, it did not do that before the current upgrade. Setting a tone curve may help you as well, as RAW comes into the program in a linear fashion, so no tone curve applied. You can start out with a Medium Setting in the Point Curve to see how you like that and learn about the Tone Curve and what it does as you move forward. Another option, prior to doing any editing, is to use Camera Calibration and set a camera profile. In the end, it all depends on what you think your photos should look like. But, any of these things can help you with editing consistency.