PP Through Lightroom 3 (Mac)

[kirbym2]

Hi Everyone. I currently shoot with a D7000 in RAW, and complete my PP through Lightroom 3 and Photoshop if necessary. I don't really understand the mechanisms behind RAW conversion through Lightroom. When I get a desireable result through Lightroom, I'll export in JPG format. When I go to get these photos printed, the colours come out flat, washed out, lacking any vibrance. The odd thing is, when I save the image, it looks great. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I have my camera set to Auto WB, occasionally I'll adjust this through LR if necessary. Are there settings I need to adjust in the camera, in LR, in Photoshop? Should I be converting my RAW images to TIFF instead of JPG. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

 

[kirbym2]

To add to this... in reading some other posts, I'm wondering if the colour settings are right. Because I've become accustomed to doing it, I always process through LR, then select the image to "edit through PS." I do this even if no further processing is required. In PS I will save as a JPEG file at Level 10. What setting colour setting should I have in place (sRGB, ProPhoto, etc)? How do I know what the RAW colour setting is on my camera? I know it's probably an easy answer to simply say just shoot in JPG, but I don't want to lose too much creative control. That said, are there some standard adjustments you would make with any RAW photo (WB, Saturation, Clarity, etc)? Would really appreciate any insight.

 

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

For printing you need to be in sRGB. Some labs can handle other colorspaces and some printers at home can handle others, but most local labs lke walgreens, costco, walmart etc. all use sRGB. Common rookie mistake.

Also, for the record the only thing that "completes my PP" is my wife.:lmao:

 

[kirbym2]

Love a sense of humour

Should my RAW setting on the D7000 be 12 or 14 bit when working with Lightroom 3/Photoshop CS5. If I'm understanding, I should have LR set to sRGB... is it possible that opening again through CS5 is causing the issue? I'll check my colour setting for Photoshop as well... I'm assuming that BOTH should be sRGB?

Thanks!

M

 

[KmH]

Lightroom's working color space is ProPhoto RGB, and it can't be changed. But, you can assign sRGB as the output colorspace.

Using the 14-bit color depth gives 16,384 gradations of tone per color channel (there are 3 channels: red, green, and blue - RGB). The 12-bit color depth gives 4096 gradations of tone per color channel.

However, 14-bit files are larger MB wise, than 12-bit files. (not MP).

I recommend you get the book Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS5

CS5's Camera Raw edit rendering engine, and Lightroom 3's edit redering engine are the same thing - ACR 6 (Adobe Camera Raw 6), so the one book shows you how to edit using either Camera Raw or Lightroom.

Lightroom's main function is image database management, not Raw image data converion and editing.

Lightroom 3 is intended to be used in lieu of Photoshop Bridge, not Camera Raw.

JPEG and sRGB is what the web uses, and as mentioned what most print labs want, because of the smaller files size they need to store. Some labs can print JPEG or TIFF files in the Adobe RGB color space. Check with your lab.

Commercial photography users often want 16-bit TIFF files on a disc, so their art department people have plenty of editing headroom, and options for what media types they can use.

TIFF files can be a lot bigger than JPEGs because TIFF is not a lossy, compressed file type.

 

[kirbym2]

Awesome feedback. Thanks so much. I've found LR so easy to work with, especially when dealing with multiple photos, and I'll typically complete wb/tone adjustments here. I still can't wrap my head around why the image looks so different on my camera LCD compared with what I initially see in LR.

Would you recommend doing all my edits in PS, and not bothering with LR at all? Do I need to make adjustments to my camera?

I'll definitely order the book, but you seem to have a good sense about this type of thing.

Thanks in advance!

M

 

[KmH]

You cannot see a Raw image on your camera's LCD, because it's just data - 111001010110010101100100101010010101001011101100010101010101000001111 - not an image.
A JPEG basic is embedded in the Raw file, and that JPEG Basic is what is shown on the camera LCD. (the histogram is also from the the JPEG Basic, not the Raw capture)

Like all JPEGs the image is edited by the camera. Plus, the rear LCD is to small, and of insufficent quality to be used for critical, image quality assessment.

On the rear LCD you can verify framing, composition, and by zooming into the LCD display you can check focus accuracy, but that's all.

None of the camera settings like color space, sharpness, contrast, and saturation affect the Raw file, but they do affect the JPEG displayed on the rear LCD. So your Raw file and the rear LCD should look different.

You can go into the camera settings and make sure the contrast, saturation, and sharpness settings area all set to neutral, or you can adjust them to make the LCD dispalyed JPEG look more like you Raw file does, pre-edit, in Lightroom.

Camera Raw can deal with multiple photos, just like Lightroom can. Like I said CS5 Camera Raw and Lightroom 3's editing feature are the same thing.

In CS5 you can host Camera Raw from Bridge, or from Photoshop. Camera Raw hosted by Bridge can be doing batch edits, while you are editing other photos in Photoshop.