Test Driving LightRoom2

[Ciscley]

I upgraded to Windows Vista several months ago and am just now getting around to purchasing a compatible photo processing program. I'd always used Jasc PaintShop Pro to good effect, but no longer on a student's budget, I thought I'd look into finally getting the Adobe suite. I downloaded a trial version of LightRoom just to see how much functionality I could get with it alone.

I photographed a friends wedding last weekend and it feels like everything that could go wrong, did. I can barely stand to look at the photos much less edit them, so I started surfing DPS (aka procrastinating) and voila, here I am.

So here's my first B&A post. Feel free to edit the photos - if posted in the thread. And don't worry about being gentle.

The original image straight out of the camera and the LR2 edited image.

Cloned out my "assistant" picking her nose.
Soften skin graduated filter over the entire image.
Exposure Adjustment brush just over the bride's face.
Severe crop.
Fill light.
Post-Crop Vignette.

Suggestions for other features in LR2 to try?

[ressalg]

Beautiful job... the final product is definately a keeper. I don't think (without seeing the before picture) that anyone would even know your nasally inclined assitant was even there.

I use Photoshop CS2 and really like it. However, I'd only ever dabbled with other software before and nothing too high end. I figured it's kind of the standard but a lot of people seem to use a mixture of programs.

[Quo Fan]

Nice edit.

In a word about what to try, EVERYTHING. Dive in and try all the editing tools. Play around with them and see what they will do. If you like something, back out and do it again, so you will remember what you did to get that effect. Try one thing at a time so you don't get confused. You have 30 days to figure out if you like the program. Put that time to good use.

[Trevinla]

Lightroom is great! It is amazing how much yu can do with what was planned as a work flow tool

In addition to all the hard work you do to a pic, try downloading some free presets and experimenting with them. There are some fun ones and some that I can't imagine anyone using...

[kirbinster]

The only program that I use more than Lightroom is Internet Explorer !!!

[shutterbud]

Superlative job, Ciscley, especially on lighting up the bride's face and your flawless execution of the background wall.

[AgBeard]

A great way to try out the features in LR2 is to create multiple virtual copies of the same photo & try a different feature with each copy. The copy barely uses any disk space as only the 'settings' are saved in the database catalog. You could then create a collection to store them in for easy reference.

[Ciscley]

Ooh, Great tip, AgBeard. I'll have to try that with some of the presets that Trevinla mentioned.

[wunterb]

I've been using LR2 for quite some time and am thoroughly comfortable using the software. It's great for organizing photos and editing; I haven't used Photoshop or any other editing tool since I installed LR2. So that would get off on the right foot with LR2 I purchased "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom2 Book for Digital Photographers" by Scott Kelby. I found this book extremely helpful in building a foundation for using LR2; its saved me a lot of time fumbling around trying to determine which features do what. Other books may be just as helpful. Learn how to organize photos and create a workflow and I think you'll be very satisfied with LR2.

[Trader]

I am not sure if LR2 has it but in CS4 we have Shadows/Highlights adjustments and it can do wonders for a shot like this. I usually stay with 50% or less, anything higher adds too much noise to the image. Hope that helps.