Lightroom: questions, answers, tips, and how to's

[olli]

Via David Kilpatrick I came across a very useful guide to ACR 6 (which corresponds to the Develop module in LR3).

 

[Tord S Eriksson]

I am still in the iPhoto stage, slowly evolving into RAW photography - I do have Bibble, Aperature, Lightroom, Capture One (free version with my Sigma tele zoons) and Phocus (Hasselblad's free RAW converter/program), and GIMP, which also can handle RAW, if not perfectly! And various programs that came free with the various cameras: Pentax, Olympus, Sony, Nikon, to mention a few!

Any easy way from iPhoto to ...??!

 

[olli]

My advice Tord - pick one and stick with it. You'll never have time to learn all of those programmes well enough to get the best out of them.

 

[BBW]

I've made this a sticky because it's a good general thread about Lightroom.

If you use the Search function within this forum, you'll also find other handy threads regarding Lightroom.

 

[Taneli]

Latest LR update seems really interesting.

Denoise AI and even more mask AI settings!

Have not tried it yet, anyone tried and compared to Topaz?

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/whats-new.html

 

[Taneli]

I tested on a very noise pic (ISO 18000) I did before with Topaz Denoise AI.
Seems to be some bug putting a blue tone. It is on every pic I have tried (like ~10 pics from three different brand of cameras).

 

[olli]

I played around with this a little tonight comparing it to Prime in DXO PureRAW 2 using a 3200 ISO file from my Sony RX100. With all sharpening turned off in both LR and PR2 the DXO output is a little crisper. Adding in the DXO lens module sharpening it is noticeably better. (Since sharpening in DXO is lens specific this may not be true for all lenses.) Boosting sharpening on the LR processed file using LR's sharpening tools to try to match the PR output resulted in sharpening artefacts. It's a good first effort from LR and I expect they will develop and improve it, but for now it won't replace PR2 for me. Also, on my somewhat elderly laptop LR took 6 minutes to process the file while PR2 took 2 minutes. That's quite a significant factor if you don't have a bang up to date high end set up.

For me the more significant update this time round is being able to use curves with masks.

 

[olli]

Here are some 100% crops from the image I was experimenting with. From top to bottom:

1. Original unprocessed file with all default LR sharpening removed.
2. File processed with LR denoise and all default LR sharpening removed. (When using denoise LR automatically applies 'Raw Details' which can't be turned off)
3. File processed with DXO PR2 with lens module sharpening off.
4. File processed with DXO PR2 with lens module sharpening on.

1. Original unprocessed file.

Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

2. File processed with LR denoise and all default LR sharpening removed.

Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

3. File processed with DXO PR2 with lens module sharpening off.

Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

4. File processed with DXO PR2 with lens module sharpening on.

Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

 

[lokatz]

I just wrote a broader comparison report today, pegging LR's new NR engine against Topaz, DxO, and ON1 with test images from three different bodies. Full report is here: Denoising Software Comparison - This Beautiful Planet.

Hope some of you will find it useful.

 

[Ad Dieleman]

I played around with this a little tonight comparing it to Prime in DXO PureRAW 2 using a 3200 ISO file from my Sony RX100. With all sharpening turned off in both LR and PR2 the DXO output is a little crisper. Adding in the DXO lens module sharpening it is noticeably better. (Since sharpening in DXO is lens specific this may not be true for all lenses.) Boosting sharpening on the LR processed file using LR's sharpening tools to try to match the PR output resulted in sharpening artefacts. It's a good first effort from LR and I expect they will develop and improve it, but for now it won't replace PR2 for me. Also, on my somewhat elderly laptop LR took 6 minutes to process the file while PR2 took 2 minutes. That's quite a significant factor if you don't have a bang up to date high end set up.

For me the more significant update this time round is being able to use curves with masks.

Agree. I may use Lightroom's Denoise every now and then, but not routinely because I hate to have large files added to my catalog. Curves option in masking is just a great addition, have used it already for quite some pictures I took lately. And previews browsing is indeed faster than before. All in all quite the update after the bomb they dropped with AI masking.

 

[olli]

I just wrote a broader comparison report today, pegging LR's new NR engine against Topaz, DxO, and ON1 with test images from three different bodies. Full report is here: Denoising Software Comparison - This Beautiful Planet.

Hope some of you will find it useful.

Interesting write up. I tried the trial version of DXO DeepPrimeXD on a few files (via PureRAW) but didn't consider it a sufficient improvement over DeepPrime to be worth the $80 upgrade fee. My experience with it was that at default settings it 'over-recovers' or 'over-sharpens' detail (I'm not sure exactly how it works so I'm not sure exactly what it is doing.) I though this was particularly noticeable with faces. I found that it worked best with the default setting turned down, which partly negates any advantage over DeepPrime.

I'm hoping that Adobe will fine tune their offering and provide some options for fine tuning how its applied, and will ultimately make DeepPrime redundant (for me.)