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A good system for photo files and quick edits, but it’s not Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro Photo X2
I recently attended a day-long, Adobe LightRoom workshop taught by Matt Kloskowski, the education and curriculum developer for the National Assn. of Photoshop Professionals. Matt says Lightroom is essential for today's digital-photography workflow.
Digital photography is critical to design and workflow processes, thus photo file keeping is both crucial and difficult. A photo has no value if it can’t be found.
The Lightroom training session -- Adobe Lightroom 2 -- was presented by Oldsmar, FL–based Kelby Media Group (Kelbytraining.com), a company that also offers online training, books, CDs and DVDs.
Prior to this workshop, I didn’t care for Lightroom. An earlier version wouldn’t work with my laptop’s Vista OS, and I’m not a patient person. Generally, I use both Photoshop and Corel’s Photo X2, to crop and tweak color, but I believe good photographs happen in the viewfinder. My photographer/geek wife adores Lightroom. She deftly uses it to catalog and edit photos.
The catalog (filing) feature is a primary attribute, so consider Lightroom if you manage numerous digital photos.
Lightroom has a dashboard-type interface. Everything is on screen or can be accessed from the main screen’s right or left side. A left-side, slide-out panel provides finding and filing tools; the right-side panel reveals editing tools. Also, the software doesn’t place photos; rather it accesses them from wherever you’ve filed them. This offers an immediate advantage, because downloading photos into Photoshop from Microsoft-based files isn’t fun.
The initial imports are low resolution, to speed the loading process — they convert to full resolution when you select “Edit.” The software also helps you separate your best photos and discard the bad ones, something most of us don’t do.
It also has unlimited undos. Photoshop doesn’t.
You can convert camera raw files to Adobe’s DNG (digital negative) format during the import process. Adobe created its DNG to counter camera manufacturers’ stream of raw formats. Its reasoning? A manufacturer could change its format, or close its doors. A shooter who converted to DNG has an ongoing resource. DNG is open format; thus, anyone can write to its specifications.
Raw gets much attention, but it’s not necessary for everyday shots. Unless you’re planning a gallery print, JPEG works fine, although I convert my JPEGs to TIFF as soon as possible, to avoid the condensing.
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