Another reason why I love Lightroom

Today I found another reason to really love the program. I have a new client and we did rather extensive shoot the other day, ending up with about 500 images. The way she likes to work is to complete the shoot, have me do rough crops (no pp yet), and then we sit together at my computer and sort through everything that I did not remove because the certain aspects (focus, lighting, eyes blinking, etc) of the shot are not in place.

We shot nearly 500 images and had 450 or so to sort and make decisions as to quality. By using the flags (Pick, Unflagged, Rejected), star ratings and the color assignments it was easy and convenient to group images and then use the filters to only look at what we wanted.

It made the process so simple and was a pleasure to sit with her (the client) and sort images. Of course, knowing the program and using keyboard shortcuts made it fast and she never had to think about the computer or me mousing around with menus and modules.

She also loved the interface of Lightroom and how I could present images (grid or single image) in different formats, run a slideshow and export jpg's to give her a CD for review.

I'm totally thrilled with Lightroom.

I'd agree. I would never dream of previewing with a client with Photoshop but Lightroom has a simple enough looking interface to make it possible. I did a small wedding a few weeks back and did all the first pass selections and crops in Lightroom with Bride and Groom present and they were then thrilled to be able to take away a web album on DVD.

I'm new to lightroom and i've only really used it for creating web albums so far but this feature is something i'm going to take a look at tonight! Sounds ideal for what I need, i currently sift through them all in windows image viewer then move them to another folder if they are good enough to pp.

chris.bailey wrote in post #3523441
I'd agree. I would never dream of previewing with a client with Photoshop but Lightroom has a simple enough looking interface to make it possible. I did a small wedding a few weeks back and did all the first pass selections and crops in Lightroom with Bride and Groom present and they were then thrilled to be able to take away a web album on DVD.

Exactly. It works very well when you have a client sitting right there and they want to review images. I also found that as we were picking rejects, if the client mistakenly rejected one it was a simple as un Undo to unflag it as a reject, or if it wasn't the last thing I did it was easy to use F6 to bring up the filmstrip and quickly locate the image. It doesn't get any easier.

CraigDouglas wrote in post #3523878
I'm new to lightroom and i've only really used it for creating web albums so far but this feature is something i'm going to take a look at tonight! Sounds ideal for what I need, i currently sift through them all in windows image viewer then move them to another folder if they are good enough to pp.

Hi Craig,

Like all programs, you do have to take the time to really learn it, its features and keyboard shortcuts. Do yourself a favor and really woodshed the program before working with a client. Clients pick up very quickly when you're not sure or fumbling with features.

Why the long wait - Adobe's Bridge allowed you to do essentially the same thing a year ago

Hi Palladium,

Keep in mind that if you had standalone Photoshop CS there was no bridge. Personally I don't think that Bridge is as cool and doesn't present itself in the way Lightroom does.

Robert,

I upgraded to CS3 from CS2 but haven't used it yet so I don't know how much Bridge and ACR have been improved. I am mainly using Bridge to sort and then convert to TIF files for stitching or pp. In fact, the current version of Bridge/ACR works okay for me now. I don't show raw images to clients (of friends) in Bridge so that interface isn't very important to me. In addition, I don't usually convert directly to jpg in bridge. I am considering Lightroom but am not sure it will do much for me over what Bridge/ACR does. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.

IAT,
Jeff

HI Jeff,

I'm not familiar enough with Bridge and ACR to really speak about its strengths or weaknesses but from what I've seen it's not so much what you can or can't do in terms or post processing your images and converting to jpg or other formats for print or the web. The issue for me is really workflow. The way Lightroom works and flows is more intuitive than PS or ACR. Lightroom is attractive to me because of the start to finish workflow and although most of us that use LR are still popping images into PS for various reasons, the beauty of lightroom, espcially with the new LR 1.1 is that you don't have to leave the program and more people are choosing to work within LR. The database, search and sort, keyword, metadata, EXIF, etc. make it easy and fast to find anything you want and that powerful database is not in Photoshop/Bridge/ACR.

I'm also not trying to see anyone on Lightroom. For some it's just not the answer or best solution for their needs. It just happens to be the ultimate solution for my needs.

jdkeck wrote in post #3526320
Robert,

I upgraded to CS3 from CS2 but haven't used it yet so I don't know how much Bridge and ACR have been improved. I am mainly using Bridge to sort and then convert to TIF files for stitching or pp. In fact, the current version of Bridge/ACR works okay for me now. I don't show raw images to clients (of friends) in Bridge so that interface isn't very important to me. In addition, I don't usually convert directly to jpg in bridge. I am considering Lightroom but am not sure it will do much for me over what Bridge/ACR does. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.

IAT,
Jeff

Download the trial version of Lightroom and evaluate it for yourself is the best thing you can do. You mention stitching for instance that will still require CS3. Lightroom is a great tool for Developing photos, but what it can not do is create them (i.e. stiching, layers, masks, heavy cloning and healing, etc.). If you just like to fine tune your shots without using selective edits Lightroom is your program. Otherwsie, stick with CS3.

I'm a brand spanking new Lightroom user, but this rocks.

Agreed Mike. Obviously when I talk about start to finish I'm also talking about the seamless integration between LR and PS. I love that I can choose an image in LR to edit, open it in PS, create layers, masks, run actions, etc. and then close and save the file right back into LR as a copy with all the changes that you can go back to at any time without having to keep folders of Masters and then copies or edits. I just think LR handles that aspect very well.

In2Photos wrote in post #3526488
Download the trial version of Lightroom and evaluate it for yourself is the best thing you can do. You mention stitching for instance that will still require CS3. Lightroom is a great tool for Developing photos, but what it can not do is create them (i.e. stiching, layers, masks, heavy cloning and healing, etc.). If you just like to fine tune your shots without using selective edits Lightroom is your program. Otherwsie, stick with CS3.

Thanks for the response. I use a dedicated stitching applicaton, Stitcher 5, for that portion of my work flow. The stitched image then goes to PS. I was curious what Lightroom may be able to do for me that Bridge/ACR can't do or do better, as far as getting RAW images converted to TIF, named, etc.

I was hoping I could take advantage of the experiences of those who are using Lightroom.

Jeff

jdkeck wrote in post #3526582
Thanks for the response. I use a dedicated stitching applicaton, Stitcher 5, for that portion of my work flow. The stitched image then goes to PS. I was curious what Lightroom may be able to do for me that Bridge/ACR can't do or do better, as far as getting RAW images converted to TIF, named, etc.

I was hoping I could take advantage of the experiences of those who are using Lightroom.

Jeff

That is just it Jeff, Lightroom and CS3 share the same RAW convertor, ACR 4.1. Neither one gives you an advantage really as they have the same tools. Only the interface is different. Lightroom incorporates a few other goodies like slideshows, web galleries, and a IMO a better handling of keywording, ratings, metadata, and collections. It also allows you to compare multiple files but I think Bridge in CS3 does this as well.

One of the things that I really like about Lightroom is that during import from my CF card it copies and converts my files to DNG to my hard drive, renames them, copies the originals to a specific folder, applies a preset, adds my copyright info, and adds keywords before I ever view the shots in Lightroom. Bridge doesn't do this but not everyone likes this workflow.

Hi Mike,

Can you tell me why you convert to DNG?

TMR Design wrote in post #3526724
Hi Mike,

Can you tell me why you convert to DNG?

Sure.

Back in the day when I used Bridge/CS2 I would edit my CR2 files and have XMP sidecar files hanging around. One day I made a bunch of edits. Then I went to Windows Explorer and moved a bunch of files around (I had set it to show thumbnails so that I knew what each image was). I don't recall if I had turned on Show Hidden Files (because XMP files are not visible if this is off), but when I moved the CR2 files the XMP files did not go with them (they would have in Bridge). I then renamed the files in Bridge and all my edits were now completely unattached to their files.

This was completely a workflow error but one that made me switch my workflow to DNG which wrote all edits to the DNG file instead of having XMP sidecar files. I lept this workflow when I switched to LR even though LR uses a database because if I ever need to write the edits to the files for some reason I don't have XMP files to worry about again. I never use DPP (in fact it isn't even installed) so DNG works with LR and CS2.