Lightroom v7.3 – Some Thoughts

Lightroom v7.3 – Some Thoughts

Well, I’d like to say the past week has been a blast, but Adobe screwed any chance of that happening by releasing version 7.3 of Lightroom on the 3rd/4th.

The week actually started off quite well with me uploading a Raw Therapee basic “get you started’ video:

I created that video primarily to help out anyone who has purchased my latest video training ‘Professional Grade Image Sharpening’ – click this link and get it bought if you haven’t already!

I’d planned to get out and do some photography, and do some serious SEO work on my YouTube channel.

But when I turned my machines on at 6.15am on the 4th I was greeted with some queries from clients and blog/channel viewers about some new fangled update for Lightroom.

Then the CC update panel told me I had application updates for Photoshop and Lightroom, so we clicked update on both.

I’m a bit of a Photoshop junkie, and I always look forward to any update if I’m honest, just so I can go and have a play with it!

But I’ve been a bit ‘meh..’ over Lightroom for quite a while now, for a few reasons.

Firstly, it’s trying to become some sort of pathetic 1 stop shop image processor, catering to the ‘instant gratification brigade’ INSTEAD OF what it’s meant to be – a superb digital asset management program and a raw processor designed to work in conjunction with the KING of image processors – PHOTOSHOP.

Secondly, it’s unique demosaicing algorithm is ludicrously outdated in comparison to C1, Iridient and RT, and its capture/input sharpening controls leave a lot to be desired.  Anyone who has been sensible and bought my massive sharpening training knows exactly what I’m talking about here, as I demonstrate these facts more than a few times!

In point of fact, on the demosaicing front, it’s not as clever as that found in either Canon DPP or Nikon Capture.

But, with a bit of patience and effort, you can strip all the crap background adjustments away, and get back to a relatively neutral starting point; as I’ve discussed many times previously on this blog.

So, once the updates were done, and I’d had a quick look at Photoshop, I fired up the new Lightroom v7.3 – and immediately wished I hadn’t!

Heading over to the Adobe Lightroom Forum I see A LOT of very upset users.

Strangely enough though, heading over to YouTube I see the exact opposite!

But, positive or negative, all the buzz is about the new profiles.

Lightroom v7.3 Profiles

There are tens of thousands of Lightroom v7.3 fan boys out there, plus even more users with a low level knowledge base, who do NOT understand what a ‘profile’ is – and Adobe are using this as a massive marketing tool.

Lightroom v7.3 profiles are simply Lightroom v7.2 PRESETS, re-bundled into something called a profile, and shoved into a different location in the Lightroom GUI.

The subtle difference is this – if you have a preset that gives a ‘certain look’ to an image, when you apply it, the relevant sliders in the dev module move.

But if you have a ‘profile’ that gives the same visual appearance, when you apply it the relevant sliders DON”T move.

A PRESET is a visible, front GUI adjustment, and a PROFILE is a buried, background adjustment.

You’ll see this corroborated by an Adobe Forum Moderator a little later on..

A preset shows up in the control sliders, and you can easily tweak these after applying the preset.

Application of a PROFILE however, gives you no control indication of what it’s done, so you can’t tweak its adjustments because you can’t see them.

Profiles just pander to people who basically want Adobe to process their images for them – harsh, but true.

Presets – for me, the few that I make are simply to save time in applying settings to remove Adobes processing of my images.

But for years there has been a third party after-market revenue stream in preset bundles from certain photography trainers – buy these and your images will look like mine!  So presets too steered their purchasers away from actually processing their own images, but at least those presets were designed by photographers!

Anyway, for those that haven’t seen the two videos I upload to YouTube about Lightroom v7.3 they are embedded below:

 

I was expecting a mixed response to those videos, from the sane and sensible:

lightroom v7.3

Click me – good old Franky!

lightroom v7.3

Click me

to the plain stupid:

lightroom v7.3

Click me – I’m worth a read!

but I wasn’t expecting the raft of these, this is the tamest:

lightroom v7.3

You have to have a thick skin if you stick videos on YouTube, but what the f**k does  a comment like that achieve?

Anyway, F**K all that. At the end of the first video I do say that if I find anything out about the new default sharpening amount in Lightroom v7.3 I would let you know in a blog article.

So I headed over to the Adobe Lightroom Forum to beg the question – it only took 10 minutes and an Adobe moderator addressed the question, and a bit more besides.

I’ve screen-grabbed it so please click the image below to read it:

lightroom v7.3

I’m interesting so CLICK ME!

So, the important take-aways are:

nothing has changed

and

part of an effort by Adobe to offer a more pleasing “out-of-the-box” rendering

and

At the ‘base’ level nothing has changed. The demosaicing algorithm is unchanged, MelissRGB is still the default colour space within the UI, and the Adobe Standard profile (DCP) for each supported camera is also unchanged. Likewise, the Camera Matching profiles are unchanged.

and

All of the new Adobe Raw and Creative profiles are built on top of Adobe Standard (i.e. Adobe Standard remains the base profile for all supported cameras). As such, these XMP based profiles apply settings under-the-hood.

Conclusion.

So basically the whole version update is geared SOLELY towards people with a camera who want instant gratification by allowing Adobe techs to process their images for them.

As someone who’s understood the photography process, and watched it evolve over the last 40 years, I count myself as something slightly more than just a fat bloke with a camera.

Forget about all this “I care about my images” garbage – I KNOW what constitutes a technically sound image, and ever since the inception of PV2012, Lightroom has been on a slippery slope towards losing it’s full professional image maker credibility.

Like many others, I still use Lightroom, and I always will.  As I said before, it excels in Digital Asset Management, and it’s Soft Proofing and Print facilities are really without equal.

Have they improved any of those features? In a nutshell, NO.

My monthly subscription has gone up by £25 a year, and for my money I’ve now got even more work to do inside the dev module to make sense of my raw files.  If you’ve lost the understanding of what I mean, go and watch the 2nd video again!

Am I even remotely thinking about dropping my subs and using another application?

I might look like a cabbage, but I’m not one!  My £120+ buys me access to a constantly updated installation of the finest image processor on the face of Gods Earth – the mighty Photoshop.

And for those without the required level of prior knowledge, that privilege used to cost in excess of £800+ plus serious upgrade fees every couple of years.  That’s why there was such ripping ‘trade’ in torrenting and cracked copies!

So overall, I’m quids-in, and I can think of Lightroom as something of a freebie, which makes even Lightroom v7.3 good VFM.

Added to that, I can always open a raw file in RT and get a 16bit ProPhotoRGB tiff file into Photoshop that’ll kick Lightrooms version into the last millennium.

But I can’t help it, I do resent deeply the road down which the Adobe bosses are taking Lightroom.

What they should have done is make CC into an idiots version, and re-worked the Classic CC into a proper raw editor with multiple choices for demosaicing, a totally re-worked input sharpening module, and interface the result with the existing Print, Soft-Proof and DAM.

But of course, that would cost them money and reduce their profit margin – so there’s no chance of my idea ever coming to fruition.

I take my hat off to the guys in the C1 dev team, but C1 is far too hostile an environment for any of those thousands of idiots who love the new Lightroom profiles – because that would mean they’d need to do some actual processing work!

And if C1 is hostile, then RT is total Armageddon – hell, it even sends me into a cold sweat!

But photography has always been hard work that demanded knowledge before you started, and a lot of hard learning to acquire said knowledge.

Hard work never hurt anyone, and when does the path of least resistance EVER result in the best possible outcome?

Never – the result is always an average compromise.

And good image processing is all about the BEST IMAGE POSSIBLE from a raw file.

Which brings me nicely back to my sharpening training – get it bought you freebie-hunting misers! GO ON – DO IT NOW – BEFORE YOU FORGET and before I die of starvation!

sharpening

DO IT!


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Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop CC 2018 tips

Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop CC 2018 tips – part 1

So, you’ve either upgraded to Lightroom Classic CC and Photoshop CC 2018, or you are thinking doing so.

Well, here are a couple of things I’ve found – I’ve called this part1, because I’m sure there will be other problems/irritations!

Lightroom Classic CC GPU Acceleration problem

If you are having problems with shadow areas appearing too dark and somewhat ‘chocked’ in the develop module – but things look fine in the Library module – then just follow the simple steps in the video above and TURN OFF GPU Acceleration in the Lightroom preferences panel under the performance tab.

Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop CC 2018 tips

Turn OFF GPU Acceleration

UPDATE: I have subsequently done another video on this topic that illustrates the fact that the problem did not exist in Lr CC 2015 v.12/Camera Raw v.9.12

In the new Photoshop CC 2018 there is an irritation/annoyance with the brush tool, and something called the ‘brush leash’.

Now why on earth you need your brush on a leash God ONLY KNOWS!

But the brush leash manifests itself as a purple/magenta line that follows your brush tool everywhere.

You have a smoothness slider for your brush – it’s default setting is 10%.  If we increase that value then the leash line gets even longer, and even more bloody irritating.

And why we would need an indicator (which is what the leash is) of smoothness amount and direction for our brush strokes is a bit beyond me – because we can see it anyway.

So, if you want to change the leash length, use the smoothing slider.

If you want to change the leash colour just go to Photoshop>Preferences>Cursors

Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop CC 2018 tips

Here, you can change the colour, or better still, get rid of it completely by unticking the “show brush leash while smoothing” option.

So there are a couple of tips from my first 24 hours with the latest 2018 ransom ware versions from Adobe!

But I’m sure there will be more, so stay tuned, and consider heading over to my YouTube channel and hitting the subscribe button, and hit the ‘notifications bell’ while you’re at it!

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Good Contrast Control in Lightroom CC

Contrast Control in Lightroom

Learning how to deploy proper contrast control in Lightroom brings with it two major benefits:

  • It allows you to reveal more of your camera sensors dynamic range.
  • It will allow you to reveal considerably more image detail.

contrast control

I have posted on this subject before, under the guise of neutralising Lightrooms ‘hidden background adjustments’.  But as Lightroom CC 2015 evolves, trying to ‘nail’ the best way of doing something becomes like trying to hit a moving target.

For the last few months I’ve been using this (for me) new method – and to be honest it works like a charm!

It involves the use of the ‘zero’ preset together with a straight process version swap around, as illustrated in the before/after shot above and in the video linked below.  This video is best viewed on my YouTube channel:

The process might seem a little tedious at first, but it’s really easy when you get used to it, and it works on ALL images from ALL cameras.

Here is a step-by-step guide to the various Lightroom actions you need to take in order to obtain good contrast control:

Contrast Control Workflow Steps:

1. Develop Module Presets: Choose ZEROED
2. Camera Calibration Panel: Choose CAMERA NEUTRAL
3. Camera Calibration Panel: Choose Process Version 2010
4. Camera Calibration Panel: Choose Process Version 2012
5. Basics Panel: Double Click Exposure (goes from -1 to 0)
6. Basics Panel: Adjust Black Setting to taste if needed.
7. Details Panel: Reset Sharpening to default +25
8. Details Panel: Reset Colour Noise to default +25
9. Lens Corrections Panel: Tick Remove Chromatic Aberration.

Now that you’ve got good contrast control you can set about processing your image – just leave the contrast slider well alone!

Why is contrast control important, and why does it ‘add’ so much to my images Andy?

We are NOT really reducing the contrast of the raw file we captured.  We are simply reducing the EXCESSIVE CONTRAST that Lightroom ADDS to our files.

  • Lightroom typically ADDS a +33 contrast adjustment but ‘calls it’ ZERO.
  • Lightroom typically ADDS a medium contrast tone curve but ‘calls it’ LINEAR.

Both of this are contrast INCREASES, and any increase in contrast can be seen as a ‘compression’ of the tonal space between BLACK and WHITE.  This is a dynamic range visualisation killer because it crushes the ends of the midtone range.

It’s also a detail killer, because 99% of the subject detail is in the mid tone range.  Typically the Lightroom tonal curve range for midtones is 25% to 75%, but Lightroom is quite happy to accept a midtone range of 10% to 90% – check those midtone arrow adjusters at the bottom edge of the parametric tone curve!

I hope you find this post useful folks, and don’t forget to watch the video at full resolution on my YouTube Channel.

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Latest Lightroom news from Adobe

Latest Lightroom news from Adobe

LRCC2015splash

I’ve been teaching the latest version of Lightroom for the majority of this past week; mostly without a hitch. All-in-all, I’ve seen Lightroom 6/CC 2015 v2.1 working without any problems on 7 different machines; though these were all Macs running OSX 10.10 Yosemite so I can’t comment on PC or the dreaded El Capitan 10.11 OSX version.

I know lot’s of folk are still having problems with the existing release, and that a roll-back to v1.1.1 is still proving their option; but seeing as I manage to get v2.1 working without a hitch I suspect folk are not tidying up their systems before installation as much as they could – remove all traces of Lightroom and do a fresh install.

BUT…………yep, there is always one isn’t there!

Thousands have been moaning about the new, very different, and I have to say rather annoying Import Dialogue..

So the Latest Lightroom news from Adobe is that we can expect another update sometime very soon that will give us the old style import options back – WooHoo!

Tom Hogarty of Adobe made the announcement about 9 hours ago – you can read it here

Tom has been doing a lot of ‘back-pedalling’ and apologising to users on mass this week for the lack of beta-testing of the v2 release, and the new import dialogue options, or rather the lack of them.

He’s obviously never heard the old adage “if it ain’t broke DON’T fix it” !

Personally, I think Eric Chan should be put in the overall “Lightroom Head-Honcho” position over at Adobe – I doubt very much if this shit would have been allowed to happen if it had been so.

Adobe roughly means “house of mud” – mmmm………let’s hope it stops raining soon ehh boys!

For Mac users – I’ve still not upgraded to El Capitan 10.11 OSX.  If anyone has, and has managed to keep Lightroom CC 2015 v2.1 running, please can they let me know in the comments below.

Photoshop Save for Web

Save for Web in Photoshop CC – where the Chuff has it gone?

“Who’s moved my freakin’ cheese?”

Adobe have moved it……..

For years Photoshop has always offered the same ‘Save for Web’ or ‘Save for Web & Devices’ option and dialogue box:

save for web,Photoshop CC 2015,colour management,save for web and devices,export,quick export as JPG,export as,export prferences,Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe,

The traditional route to the ‘Save for Web’ dialogue in all versions of Photoshop prior to CC 2015.

But Adobe have embarked on a cheese-moving exercise with CC 2015 and moved ‘save for web’ out of the traditional navigation pathway:

save for web,Photoshop CC 2015,colour management,save for web and devices,export,quick export as JPG,export as,export prferences,Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe

Adobe have ‘moved your cheese’ to here, though the dialogue and options are the same.

If we take a closer look at that new pathway:

save for web,Photoshop CC 2015,colour management,save for web and devices,export,quick export as JPG,export as,export prferences,Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe

…we see that wonderful Adobe term ‘Legacy’ – which secretly means crap, shite, old fashioned, out dated, sub standard and scheduled for abandonment and/or termination.

‘THEY’ don’t want you to use it!

I have no idea why they have done this, though there are plenty of excuses being posted by Adobe on the net.  But what is interesting is this page HERE and more to the point this small ‘after thought’:

save for web,Photoshop CC 2015,colour management,save for web and devices,export,quick export as JPG,export as,export prferences,Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe

That sounds really clever – especially the bit about ‘may be’……. let’s chuck colour management out the freakin’ window and be done!

So if we don’t use the ‘legacy’ option of save for web, let’s see what happens.  Here’s our image, in the ProPhotoRGB colour space open in Photoshop CC 2015:

save for web,Photoshop CC 2015,colour management,save for web and devices,export,quick export as JPG,export as,export prferences,Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe

So let’s try the Export>Quick Export as JPG option and bring the result back into Photoshop:

save for web,Photoshop CC 2015,colour management,save for web and devices,export,quick export as JPG,export as,export prferences,Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe

Straight away we can see that the jpg is NOT tagged with a colour space, but it looks fine inside the Photoshop CC 2105 work space:

save for web,Photoshop CC 2015,colour management,save for web and devices,export,quick export as JPG,export as,export prferences,Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe

“Perfect” – yay!…………NOT!

Let’s open in with an internet browser……

save for web,Photoshop CC 2015,colour management,save for web and devices,export,quick export as JPG,export as,export prferences,Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe

Whoopsy – doopsy…!  Looks like a severe colour management problem is happening somewhere……..but Adobe did tell us:

SFW4

Might the Export Preferences help us:

save for web,Photoshop CC 2015,colour management,save for web and devices,export,quick export as JPG,export as,export prferences,Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe

In a word……..NO

Let’s try Export>Export As:

save for web,Photoshop CC 2015,colour management,save for web and devices,export,quick export as JPG,export as,export prferences,Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe

Oh Hell No!

If we open the original image in Photoshop CC 2015 in the ProPhotoRGB colour space and then go Edit>Convert to Profile and select sRGB; then select Export>Quick Export as JPG, the resulting image will look fine in a browser.  But it will still be ‘untagged’ with any colour space – which is never a good idea.

And if you’ve captioned and key worded the image then all that hard work is lost too.

So if you must make your web jpeg images via Photoshop you will only achieve a quick and accurate work flow by using the Save for Web (Legacy) option.  That way you’ll have a correctly ‘tagged’ and converted image complete with all your IPTC key words, caption and title.

Of course you could adopt the same work flow as me, and always export as jpeg out of Lightroom; thus avoiding this mess entirely.

I seriously don’t know what the devil Adobe are thinking of here, and doubtless there is or will be a work around for the problem, but whatever it is it’ll be more work for the photographer.

Adobe – if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it !!

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Lightroom Dehaze

 The Lightroom Dehaze Control

I’m getting a bit fed up with seeing countless folk raving about this new dehaze slider control in Lightroom, ACR etc.

dehaze,lightroom,Andy Astbury,WildlifeinPixels

The control itself can be found at the bottom of the Effects panel in the Develop module in Lightroom CC 2015, and at the top of the ACR FX tab.

Yes it’s certainly useful, but I have yet to see anyone illustrating its bad points – so Uncle Andy has made a video: if you are reading this in email, click this link to watch the video https://www.wildlifeinpixels.net/blog/lightroom-dehaze/

I do tend to waffle a bit in videos so apologies for that…!

You might want to click the YouTube icon bottom right corner and watch this video at a larger size.

I’m not saying that the dehaze control in Lightroom and ACR is crap – far from it.  But I am strongly advising that you deploy it with some caution, especially when images contain small fine edge detail.

Under these circumstances, positive value dehaze control adjustments can have disastrous effects on fine detail.  You might not be aware of these ‘on screen’ but send the image to A2 print and you could be in for some tears.

I’ll be doing another video on the dehaze control shortly, showing some of the positives that I see in it.

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Lightroom CC 2015 Crash Fix.

***Attention – if you are looking for help with the problems associated with Lightroom CC 2015/Lightroom 6 version 2.0 – October 2015 – then please go to this latest post page HERE and scroll down the page for the Temporary FIX.  This Lightrom crash fix/rollback method applies to both Mac & PC users***

Lightroom CC 2015 Crash & Performance Issues – (first release).

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There are a great many folk out there experiencing crash or freeze problems with the new Lightroom CC 2015.

The biggest problem, and the one that has effected me, is random crashing in the Develop Module, and a ‘jittery’ crop rotation tool.

If you have suffered from this then you will most likely have an ‘not too new’ nVidea GPU – or so it would appear.

Lightroom CC 2015 makes use of the graphics GPU acceleration on your computer, and this is ‘turned ON’ by default upon installation of the application.

But it seems that older nVidea chipsets are causing some quite considerable speed reduction problems, to the point where the application can run out of ram and basically crash.

Adobe are supposed to be creating a fix (according to the forums) but you can get around the problem really easily.

Open up Lightroom CC 2015 and go to your Lightroom preferences:

Lightroom CC 2015, crash fix, speed fix, slow down fix, clone tool,heal tool,crop tool fix, Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe,Creative Cloud,Photography Package,bug fix,Lightroom,Photoshop

On the preferences panel you’ll see a new tab called ‘Performance’

Lightroom CC 2015, crash fix, speed fix, slow down fix, clone tool,heal tool,crop tool fix, Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe,Creative Cloud,Photography Package,bug fix,Lightroom,Photoshop

You will see a checked ‘tick box’ for Use Graphics Processor – UNTICK IT, close the preferences panel and restart Lightroom CC 2015.

I’m on a mid-2009 Mac Pro running 10.10.3 Yosemite and a bog standard (for the day) nVidea Geforce GT120 512Mb graphics card.

Lightroom CC 2015 was slower than Lr5 on this machine, it would crash, the crop tool occasionally looked like it was a ‘motor neurone’ sufferer, and the heal/clone tool was harsh, pixelated and quite slow.

Turning OFF GPU acceleration has seemingly cured all my woes, and now it runs as smoothly as Lightroom 5 did but with the Photomerge options and other benefits of Lightroom CC 2015.

On that same performance tab there is a ‘system info’ button you can press that’ll give you the specifications of your machine and Lightroom installation:

Lightroom CC 2015, crash fix, speed fix, slow down fix, clone tool,heal tool,crop tool fix, Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe,Creative Cloud,Photography Package,bug fix,Lightroom,Photoshop

The word ‘Passed’ next to the Open GL support means nothing, and if you you click the ‘Learn More’ link on the performance tab of Lightroom preferences it’ll take you to THIS PAGE on the Adobe support website.

On that page you will see this:

Lightroom CC 2015, crash fix, speed fix, slow down fix, clone tool,heal tool,crop tool fix, Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe,Creative Cloud,Photography Package,bug fix,Lightroom,Photoshop

Now this explains A LOT!

Running a standard (sub 2K) 24″ monitor with sub 1Gb of VRAM, even with updated driver support for Open GL 3.3, means you are running at a resolution of 1920 pixels long edge and in effect you will not really benefit from Lightroom CC 2015 GPU acceleration in the first place.

I’m also running Lightroom CC 2015 on a mid 2011 27″ non-retina iMac with a horizontal resolution of 2560 pixels and an ATI Radion HD 6770M 512Mb graphics chipset.  This machine hasn’t crashed as such, but is certainly better run with the GPU acceleration turned OFF too.

Here is a very rough test you can do:

  1. Open a FULL RESOLUTION image in the Develop module.
  2. Pick up the Heal/Clone tool and set it to Heal with the opacity & feather controls to 100%
  3. Paint a random stroke on the image, and while painting, look carefully at the white edges of the stroke – are they smooth and feathered, or harsh and slightly granular?
  4. If they are the latter the go and turn OFF GPU acceleration and repeat the process – you will see the edges of the stroke look much better.
Lightroom CC 2015, crash fix, speed fix, slow down fix, clone tool,heal tool,crop tool fix, Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe,Creative Cloud,Photography Package,bug fix,Lightroom,Photoshop

Click to view LARGER

So, think of it this way; Adobe have put a facility into Lightroom 6/CC 2015 that makes use of very latest up to date computer graphics systems AND it’s ‘active’ by default.

If you run a new iMac 27″ Retina then you are running 5120 pixels on the long edge – that’s 5K graphics, and the new GPU acceleration will help you.

If your system fails to meet the operating criteria then having the acceleration active will cause you problems.  The severity of the problems you experience will be proportional to how ‘out of date’ your graphics are; so TURN IT OFF !

I can’t speak about installations of Lightroom CC 2015 under the Windows operating systems, but looking at the forums it seems that the same sort of problems exist for PC users.

A friend called this morning saying that the default installation ran smoothly and at warp-speed on his new retina macbook, but was noticeably slower than Lightroom 5 on his desktop PC – same problem, same fix.

Crash and slow-down problems with Lightroom CC 2015 are not OS problems – they are GPU VRAM/RAM problems, so don’t waste your time defraging hard drives and running system ‘junk checks’ if Lightroom 5 ran well.

 

Lightroom CC 2015 Launch Hang Problem?

Lightroom CC 2015, crash fix, speed fix, slow down fix, clone tool,heal tool,crop tool fix, Andy Astbury,Wildlife in Pixels,Adobe,Creative Cloud,Photography Package,bug fix,Lightroom,Photoshop

If you are experiencing launch hang, splash screen hang or crashing of the application on launch then GO HERE where you’ll see the instructions in the image above.

Kyle Bailey kindly sent me a solution/fix for a windows crash fix if you literally can’t uncheck the graphics acceleration check box:

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, Andrew, but I couldn’t untick the graphics processor box –Lightroom would crash when I tried. I just spent a couple hours with tech support and thought I’d share our solution:

Close LR first. Open device manager, double click on display adapters, right-click your graphics card (mine was AMD Radeon), choose install drivers, browse system, pick from list. Make NOTE of which is currently active, then change it to standard VGA. It may prompt you to reboot, but don’t do it.

This will make the screen look crazy, but don’t worry! Now, open LR, untick the graphics box, and close LR.

Finally, go back into device manager and change it back to the original driver and viola. Next time you start LR, the box will remain unticked.

Cheers for that Kyle.

 

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HDR in Lightroom CC (2015)

Lightroom CC (2015) – exciting stuff!

New direct HDR MERGE for bracketed exposure sequences inside the Develop Module of Lightroom CC 2015 – nice one Adobe!  I can see Eric Chan’s finger-prints all over this one…!

Andy Astbury,Lightroom,HDR,merge,photomerge, merge to HDR,high dynamic range,photography,Wildlife in Pixels

Twilight at Porth Y Post, Anglesey.

After a less than exciting 90 minutes on the phone with Adobe this vary morning – that’s about 10 minutes of actual conversation and an eternity of crappy ‘Muzak’ – I’ve managed to switch from my expensive old single app PsCC subscription to the Photography Plan – yay!

They wouldn’t let me upgrade my old stand-alone Lr4/Lr5 to Lr6 ‘on the cheap’ so now they’ve given me two apps for half the price I was paying for 1 – mental people, but I’ll not be arguing!

I was really eager to try out the new internal ‘Merge’ script/command for HDR sequences – and boy am I impressed.

I picked a twilight seascape scene I shot last year:

Andy Astbury,Lightroom,HDR,merge,photomerge, merge to HDR,high dynamic range,photography,Wildlife in Pixels

Click to view LARGER IMAGE.

I’ve taken a 6 shot exposure bracketed sequence of RAW files above, into the Develop Module of Lightroom CC and done 3 simple adjustments to all 6 under Auto Synch:

  1. Change camera profile from Adobe Standard to Camera Neutral.
  2. ‘Tick’ Remove Chromatic Aberration in the Lens Corrections panel.
  3. Change the colour temperature from ‘as shot’ to a whopping 13,400K – this neutralises the huge ‘twilight’ blue cast.

You have to remember that NOT ALL adjustments you can make in the Develop Module will carry over in this process, but these 3 will.

Andy Astbury,Lightroom,HDR,merge,photomerge, merge to HDR,high dynamic range,photography,Wildlife in Pixels

Click to view LARGER IMAGE.

Ever since Lr4 came out we have had the ability to take a bracketed sequence in Lightroom and send them to Photoshop to produce what’s called a ’32 bit floating point TIFF’ file – HDR without any of the stupid ‘grunge effects’ so commonly associated with the more normal styles of HDR workflow.

The resulting TIFF file would then be brought back into Lightroom where some very fancy processing limits were given to us – namely the exposure latitude above all else.

‘Normal’ range images, be they RAW or TIFF etc, have a potential 10 stops of exposure adjustment, +5 to -5 stops, both in the Basics Panel, and with Linear and Radial graduated filters.

But 32 bit float TIFFs had a massive 20 stops of adjustment, +10 to -10 stops – making for some very fancy and highly flexible processing.

Now the, what’s a ‘better’ file type than pixel-based TIFF?  A RAW file……

Andy Astbury,Lightroom,HDR,merge,photomerge, merge to HDR,high dynamic range,photography,Wildlife in Pixels

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So, after selecting the six RAW images, right-clicking and selecting ‘Photomerge>HDR’…

Andy Astbury,Lightroom,HDR,merge,photomerge, merge to HDR,high dynamic range,photography,Wildlife in Pixels

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…and selecting ‘NONE’ from the ‘de-ghost’ options, I was amazed to find the resulting ‘merged file’ was a DNG – not a TIFF – yet it still carries the 20 stop exposure adjustment  latitude.

Andy Astbury,Lightroom,HDR,merge,photomerge, merge to HDR,high dynamic range,photography,Wildlife in Pixels

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This is the best news for ages, and grunge-free, ‘real-looking’ HDR workflow time has just been axed by at least 50%.  I can’t really say any more about it really, except that, IMHO of course, this is the best thing to happen for Adobe RAW workflow since the advent of PV2012 itself – BRILLIANT!

Note: Because all the shots in this sequence featured ‘blurred water’, applying any de-ghosting would be detrimental to the image, causing some some weird artefacts where water met static rocks etc.

But if you have image sequences that have moving objects in them you can select from 3 de-ghost pre-sets to try and combat the artefacts caused by them, and you can check the de-ghost overlay tick-box to pre-visualise the de-ghosting areas in the final image.

Andy Astbury,Lightroom,HDR,merge,photomerge, merge to HDR,high dynamic range,photography,Wildlife in Pixels

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Switch up to Lightroom CC 2015 – it’s worth it for this facility alone.

Andy Astbury,Lightroom,HDR,merge,photomerge, merge to HDR,high dynamic range,photography,Wildlife in Pixels

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Lumenzia for Wildlife

The Lumenzia Photoshop extension

Yet more on the usefulness of the Lumenzia Photoshop extension, the short cut to great looking images of all types and styles.

I had an email from client and blog follower David Sparks after my last post about this useful mighty Photoshop tool.

He sent these before and after rail shots:

20141002-_D4S6303

Before adding Lumenzia. Click for larger view.

After adding Lumenzia

After adding Lumenzia. Click for larger view.

difference

Comparison overlay – see how the left side of the image has that extra presence – and that’s just with the click of a couple of buttons in the Lumenzia GUI. Click to view larger.

Here is what David had to say in his email:

Andy, here is a before and after.  Processing was much, much faster than usual, using Lumenzia.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention….I’m working my way through your Image Processing in LR4 & Photoshop + LR5 bundle and enjoying it very much.

And as my friend and blog follower Frank Etchells put it:

Excellent recommendation this Andy. Bought it first time from your previous posting… at just over £27 it’s marvellous :)

What gets me puzzled is the fact that these Lumenzia posts have had over 500 separate page views in the last few days but less then 3% of you have bought it – WTF are you guys waiting for…

Get it BOUGHT – NOW – HERE

UPDATE: Greg Benz (the plugin author) has launched a comprehensive Lumenzia training course – see my post here for more information.

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Colour Editing in Photoshop

Colour Editing in Photoshop using the Channel Mixer

I’ve just uploaded 3 video lessons on THE BEST way to do selective colour changes in Photoshop using the Channel Mixer.

This is a far better and more accurate way to change the colour of something whilst maintaining all its original tonality, and it is vastly better than the commonly touted Hue saturation method.

HueSat doesn’t do the job with 100% fidelity, and you are very limited in the colour choice.

Using the Channel Mixer method you can effectively make every single colour in the Pantone colour spectrum simply by using Pantone/RGB conversion figures.

If you watch the videos on YouTube it may take a minute for the HD play option to activate.

Part 1 is here:

Part 2 here:

Part 3 here:

The demo file can be downloaded on the link below:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/87066369/Caterham.psd.zip

There are many instances where you might want or need to change the colour of an object in your image, and this is exactly what the Channel Mixer exists for; not for creating crappy black and white conversions as some crackpots think.

Give it a try for yourself by downloading the file and following along with the videos – the file has the path built into it, put these paths are simple to make with then pen tool.

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