Lightroom: how to use it, help and more

[JimNYUK]

Hi BB
Since joining the forum a few weeks ago I have been following many threads but your question struck a chord with me. My problems began when I moved from film to digital and it quickly became apparent that I needed some way to catalogue all my image files. For me this was the primary requirement simply to keep track of a rapidly expanding collection. I tried out quite a number of different solutions none of which seemed to be entirely satisfactory. Then along came Aperture and Lightroom almost at the same time.

I finally settled on Lightroom but as far as I am concerned both LR and Aperture are excellent. What appealed to me most was the fact that I could catalogue, convert RAW to jpeg and make minor adjustments (colour temp', exposure, cropping etc all in one piece of software. I have Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac (I think it was free with my E-P2) but haven't used it much - although I may in time.

Your suggestion of a thread for LR, Aperture etc is a good one. I've been using LR since it's first Beta but probably only understand 10% of it's features properly. (Being a Forum newbie I'll leave it to others to start this).

Thanks to everyone for their input on this thread, it's given me food for thought i.e Nik plugins for LR.

Jim.

 

[BBW]

Jim, thanks so much for your post and I appreciate knowing I'm not alone out here!

I think you are the perfect person with your great introduction here to start a new thread devoted to Lightroom so that's what I'm going to do for you right now. I am 100% sure that it's going to be very helpful. Look at all the help I've gotten with Aperture already and now I have a place to ask for specific help and most likely get it. So here you go Jim and everyone else who is out there interested!

 

[BillN]

There are some good videos on the Abode site

Maybe a good place to start

http://www.adobe.com/support/photoshoplightroom/

 

[JimNYUK]

Help.

I've started converting all my RAW files to DNG when I import into LR and thought maybe it's a good idea to set the E-P2 to RAW+small jpeg. I've discovered that I can have LR convert and import each file as either a single DNG which includes the jpeg or as separate DNG and jpeg files.

It seems to make sense to have the DNG/jpeg combined otherwise they show up as two versions of the same image in the catalogue, taking up twice the screen space. This is where I'm at. But. How do I access the jpeg file? Also. if I make any changes to the DNG are they reflected in the associated jpeg?

I would appreciate any help.
Jim.

 

[rst]

... It seems to make sense to have the DNG/jpeg combined otherwise they show up as two versions of the same image in the catalogue, taking up twice the screen space. This is where I'm at. But. How do I access the jpeg file? Also. if I make any changes to the DNG are they reflected in the associated jpeg?

If I remember correct in the import properties you have the option to import both, jpg and raw file as separate files or (if you do not put a check on the option) only one file is imported, which is the raw file. So this would mean that changes would not reflect in the jpg file since it is just not referenced by Lightroom.

But anyway, I think having the same adjustments on both the in-camera jpg and the raw file does not make sense. Lightroom does not simulate the in-camera raw conversion which produces the jpg file, so your raw in most of the cases will look quite different in Lightroom as compared to the in-camera jpg. Simple example, put your camera to produce b&w jpg files. What does a whitebalance adjustment of the raw file (which is in color) mean to that b&w jpg?

Cheers
rst

 

[JimNYUK]

Many thanks rst. I need to do more investigation. I was assuming that when I import to LR, the import and conversion to DNG was embedding the jpeg into the DNG file.

In Preferences>Import, I have deselected "Treat jpeg files next to Raw files as separate photo's". This results in only a .DNG file but it is a larger DNG file size than when I have that option selected. I assumed that the larger file size was because the Jpeg was maybe embedded somehow into the DNG file.

I will look into the file size difference a bit more and post my results here if I can find anything more. In the meantime if there is anything else you can add I would be very grateful for the help.

By the way, I hadn't realised that selecting B&W in camera would only produce a B&W jpeg and that the RAW file would be still be in colour.

Jim.