P&P Workflow: #9

Lightroom 1.1 Edition
by Jason D. Moore

Before:
Taken of my fiancee, Kim, at her parents' house in Bainbridge, NY on 6/23/2007 at 3:24:59PM (EST). Taken with available light, no flash. By the way, I used my future mother-in-law's cream-colored shirt as a reflector to cast the side light on Kim and Buddy. It just happened that way as she was sitting in the sun off camera which offered a nice soft light.

• Nikon D200
  Program Mode
  56.0-200.0 mm f/4.0-5.6 lens
  1/100 at f/5.0
  ISO 400
  Focal Length 62mm
  RAW

In Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.1 (Develop Module):

• Basic:
  White Balance: (Set to Auto in the camera and adjusted to:)
  -Temp: 4941
  -Tint: -13
  -Exposure: -0.24
  -Recovery: 0
  -Fill Light: 11
  -Blacks: 19
  -Clarity: 27


• Saturation:
  Purple, Magenta: -100


• Detail - Sharpening:
  -Amount: 120
  -Radius: 1.0
  -Detail: 76
  -Masking: 0



• Lens Vignetting:
  -Amount: -100
  -Midpoint: 22

After:

Now, I'm not totally up to speed on all the new features and improvements in LR 1.1 but after just playing around with it, I must say that, at the very least, the sharpening is way beyond what it once was. Clarity adds some midtone contrast and it really added some depth.

There was one small thing I noticed so far that I'm not sure I like. When you are cropping, you do have the ability to constrain the aspect ratio or not. However, in this version, the icon isn't as obvious as to whether or not the aspect ratio is locked. The yoke on the lock is either up or down which isn't as quickly identifiable as locked or not as the older icon.

But all-in-all I like what I've seen so far.

*If you would like to contribute to the P&P Workflow, please email Jason.