Initial RAW Processing

Facebooktwitterlinkedin

Today’s Question: Why is Lightroom better than Camera Raw for pre-Photoshop processing?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Lightroom is not “better” than Camera Raw when it comes to processing the initial RAW captures before performing additional work in Photoshop. In fact, both will produce the exact same results.

More Detail: This question was in response to a question from an Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter last week, in which I discussed the percentage of images I send to Photoshop from Lightroom. What I was really addressing there was how important Photoshop is for processing my images. Recently, with improvements in Lightroom, I’ve found that I’m using Photoshop less and less.

The context of my answer related to the fact that I use Lightroom to manage my library of photographic images, and therefore I use the Develop module in Lightroom as the initial basis of optimizing the appearance of my photos.

That said, if you are not a Lightroom user, then you could substitute Adobe Camera Raw for Lightroom in terms of initial processing of your RAW captures. Both Lightroom and Camera Raw share the same processing engine, so you will find the same adjustment controls with both, and you can expect the same results with both assuming the same settings for all adjustments.

So, when it comes to overall image quality and the specific results you can expect, you can think of Camera Raw (in Photoshop) and the Develop module in Lightroom as being equal. The only real question is what workflow makes the most sense from an organizational standpoint, which in turn will impact your workflow for optimizing your photos.

Bridge to Lightroom

Facebooktwitterlinkedin

Today’s Question: I’m interested in using Lightroom, but after years of using Bridge as an entry into Photoshop, I like and much prefer to maintain the file system I’ve set up in Bridge for my images. How do I do keep the Bridge file system while using Lightroom?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can absolutely maintain the organizational structure and workflow you’ve defined in Adobe Bridge after you transition to Lightroom. You just need to make sure that you stop actually using Bridge once you switch to Lightroom.

More Detail: Many photographers seem to misunderstand the role Lightroom plays in your workflow, in large part because Lightroom employs a catalog rather than serving as a simple image browser.

The first thing that I think photographers should understand about Lightroom is that the Lightroom catalog is simply a reflection of your existing folder-based organizational structure. Lightroom also enables you to view (and update) the metadata you may have added through other applications such as Bridge.

The process of transitioning from Adobe Bridge to Adobe Lightroom is incredibly simple. Let’s assume you have stored all of your photos on a single external hard drive with a folder structure that suits your needs, and that you’ve been using Adobe Bridge to browse those images and update the metadata as appropriate.

To get started with Lightroom you could simply import all of your photos. With a new catalog in Lightroom you can choose the Import feature. Then set the source of the import to the external hard drive, and make sure the option to include all subfolders is enabled. With the “Add” option set at the top-center of the Import dialog, you can then click the Import button to initiate the process.

Once this import is complete your entire library of photos can be viewed within your Lightroom catalog. The entire folder structure for those photos will be visible in the Folders section of the left panel in the Library module, and all of the metadata for those photos can be found on the right panel in the Library module.

The important thing at this point, however, is to stop using Adobe Bridge altogether, and instead use Lightroom as the starting point for every task you need to perform with your images.

If you want to make sure you completely understand Lightroom, including help on configuring Lightroom to best suit your needs, you might be interested in my bundle of video courses on Adobe Lightroom, which you can find here:

http://timgrey.me/atgmess

Photoshop Frequency

Facebooktwitterlinkedin

Today’s Question: Perhaps this is just a curiosity, but I wonder what percentage of your images you send to Photoshop versus processing completely in Lightroom.

Tim’s Quick Answer: At this point in terms of image optimization the majority of my photos are processed exclusively within Lightroom, with fewer than ten percent being sent to Photoshop for optimization. Put simply, with each new update to Lightroom I’m finding less need to employ the power of Photoshop.

More Detail: As many of my longtime readers know, I’ve been a big fan of Photoshop for a very long time. Many may have noticed that it also took me a little while to fully embrace Lightroom as the cornerstone of my workflow. As the Develop module in Lightroom has improved over the years, I’ve also gradually shifted my workflow to focus more on Lightroom and much less on Photoshop.

To be sure, I still employ Photoshop for difficult challenges. Of course, as I’ve improved my photographic workflow over the years, I have fewer and fewer “difficult” images. But there are situations where I need the additional power of Photoshop to make the most of a photo.

For the most part the reasons I employ Photoshop are to perform sophisticated image cleanup and to apply precise targeted adjustments. While Lightroom includes tools for both of these tasks, they are not as powerful or flexible as what is available in Photoshop.

As much as I love the power of Photoshop, and as much as I love exercising incredible control over my photos, I also appreciate having a workflow that is as streamlined as possible. Therefore, since I use Lightroom as the foundation of my workflow, I try to leverage Lightroom for as much of my work as possible. I only employ other tools when there is a clear advantage beyond what Lightroom is capable of.

Why Unsharp Mask?

Facebooktwitterlinkedin

Today’s Question: You said, “in some cases it may be preferred to use the Unsharp Mask filter instead” [in yesterday’s Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter]. Why would you ever choose Unsharp Mask over Smart Sharpen in Photoshop?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The primary reason you might choose to use the Unsharp Mask filter rather than Smart Sharpen in Photoshop is to avoid adding the appearance of noise in smooth areas. While the Smart Sharpen filter is relatively “smart” in this regard, it is lacking the Threshold control that is available with the Unsharp Mask filter.

More Detail: I often describe sharpening as a process for adding contrast where contrast already exists. For example, texture in a photo is created by variations in pixel values. Sharpening involves enhancing those variations to create greater contrast and therefore a stronger appearance of sharpness.

While that sharpening effect is generally a very good thing, it can also cause smooth areas to appear a bit noisy. Even smooth areas will generally have some degree of variations among individual pixel values, and sharpening will exaggerate that fine texture to some extent.

The Smart Sharpen filter generally does a pretty good job in this regard, but it can still fail to protect smooth areas as much as is possible with the Unsharp Mask filter.

As a general rule I use the Smart Sharpen filter in Photoshop to apply sharpening to my images. However, when the image includes very smooth areas (such as a clear sky) that I want to preserve, I’ll scrutinize those areas when previewing the Smart Sharpen effect. If the result is problematic, I’ll cancel and switch to the Unsharp Mask filter.

With the Unsharp Mask filter, increasing the value for the Threshold setting will prevent the sharpening effect from being applied to areas with very minor variations in tonal values. In most cases a value of around 8 or so for Threshold will mitigate the sharpening effect adequately in smooth areas. You can start there and fine-tune as needed so that sharpening is applied where it is needed but does not create problems in smooth areas of your photos.

Color Shift from Sharpening

Facebooktwitterlinkedin

Today’s Question: Is it true that sharpening can create color artifacts in photos? If so, is there a way to avoid this issue in Photoshop?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, sharpening can create artifacts similar to color noise. You can compensate for this issue in Photoshop by using the Fade command in conjunction with the Luminosity blend mode.

More Detail: There are actually a couple of approaches you could use to prevent or compensate for the appearance of colored artifacts caused by applying a sharpening filter to an image. For example, some photographers convert the image to the Lab color mode and then apply sharpening to the “L” (luminance) channel.

In general I find it is simpler and easier to use the Luminosity blend mode in conjunction with the Fade command. This command can be used immediately after you have applied sharpening.

The first step, of course, is to apply sharpening to your image. I generally recommend the Smart Sharpen filter in Photoshop for this purpose, but in some cases it may be preferred to use the Unsharp Mask filter instead.

Once you’ve applied the desired sharpening to the image, go to the Edit menu and choose the Fade command. Note that this menu item will include the name of the filter you just applied, such as “Fade Smart Sharpen”.

When you select the Fade command, the Fade dialog will appear. The “normal” use of this command is to reduce the strength of the effect you most recently applied. In the case of sharpening you would generally not want to use that option, and so you would keep the Opacity setting at the maximum value of 100%.

However, in this case you do want to change the behavior of the sharpening filter you used, so you can change the blend mode to “Luminosity” using the Mode popup. This blend mode will cause the sharpening filter effect to only adjust the luminance values in the image, not the color values. The result is to mitigate any color variations that may have been introduced by sharpening.

The color variations introduced by sharpening are generally at the individual pixel level, and are not typically too extreme. However, for an image that is being printed at a large size, or for which sharpening creates visible color variations that appear as color noise especially along high contrast edges, the color artifacts can be a problem. Fortunately, the Luminosity blend mode applied through the use of the Fade command provides an excellent solution.

Independence from Lightroom

Facebooktwitterlinkedin

Today’s Question: I shoot in RAW, use Lightroom to edit my photos, but don’t want to be dependent either on my Lightroom catalog or even on the Lightroom application to access my photos. I import my RAW captures into Lightroom, make my desired edits, and then export both JPEG and DNG files (checking the “Embed Original Raw File” and unchecking the “Use Lossy Compression” options when exporting the DNG file). I then delete the original RAW file.

I can now print from or make additional edits to my image using the DNG file on any computer in any application that supports the DNG file format without needing to access either my Lightroom catalog or even the Lightroom application, and I am dependent neither on my Lightroom catalog nor even on the Lightroom application.

So if I decide tomorrow to never use Lightroom again, or if Adobe decides suddenly to discontinue Lightroom, I can continue to access all my images in any application that supports DNGs.

Should I abandon this process, and act more normally?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I recommend changing your workflow to make the most of all Lightroom has to offer while at the same time ensuring that your workflow is not completely dependent on Lightroom. I also don’t think it is necessarily a good idea to delete the original RAW capture files.

More Detail: I assume you are creating JPEG images to provide a “backup” copy of images that includes the adjustments you’ve applied within Lightroom. I don’t think this is necessary, and including this step in your workflow greatly increases the time and storage space required to accommodate those additional image files. I just see this as unnecessary clutter, in other words. If you get to the point that you can’t (or won’t) use Lightroom in your workflow, you could create copies of all existing images with a single export process at that point.

I’m also not entirely comfortable deleting the original RAW capture files. That is part of the reason I have not adopted the Adobe DNG file format as part of my workflow. But if you prefer to convert to DNG files and delete your originals it is reasonably safe to do so as long as you have confirmed that the DNG files are readable and have been backed up securely.

Frankly, if you’re not going to use Lightroom as the foundation of your full workflow for managing your photos, it might make more sense to find some other software you’re more comfortable with. However, I do think it is smart to avoid becoming too dependent on Lightroom.

Fortunately, with Lightroom it is relatively easy to adopt a workflow where you can leverage what Lightroom has to offer without creating a situation where it is very difficult to transition away from Lightroom at a later date. Photographers who adopted Apple Aperture for their image-management workflow, for example, can greatly appreciate the challenge involved in transitioning away from one software tool to another.

I recommend that you define a workflow that revolves around standard metadata fields, and then saving metadata updates to the image files themselves.

For example, instead of using collections in Lightroom as a key foundation of your organizational workflow, you might want to employ keywords. That way the keywords you add can still be available to any other image-management software you might use at a later date.

To save metadata to the image files on the hard drive, you can select all images in your Lightroom catalog and then choose Metadata > Save Metadata to Files from the menu. You can also have metadata updates saved to your files automatically by turning on the “Automatically write changes into XMP” checkbox in the Catalog Settings dialog (found on the Lightroom menu on Macintosh or the Edit menu on Windows).

My overall strategy involves retaining the original capture format from the camera, using a workflow that focuses on updating standard metadata fields (such as star ratings and keywords) rather than Lightroom-specific features (such as pick/reject flags and collections). I save the metadata to the files automatically, and also try to maintain an awareness of the current state of software so I can anticipate any issues that might require me to alter my workflow.

Flipping Part of an Image

Facebooktwitterlinkedin

Today’s Question: In Photoshop, is there a way to copy a portion of the image, and then “flip it” (left to right) for pasting elsewhere in the original image?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, indeed. You can simply create a selection of the desired area, create a new layer based on a copy of the selected area, flip horizontally or vertically with the Transform commands, and then use the Move tool to move the new layer into the desired position.

More Detail: It is quite easy to duplicate a portion of a photo and then flip that new layer and move it into a new position. One common use of this capability is a “mirror image” technique, which can be quite interesting. You can see a sample image I created using this technique on my Instagram feed here (be sure to follow me!):

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKSZZ0OA3l3/

The basic process is very straightforward. Start by creating a selection of the area you want to duplicate and flip. In the example image above, that would involve a rectangular selection of one-half of the image. You can then copy the selected pixels to a new layer by choosing Layer > New > Layer Via Copy from the menu (or by pressing Ctrl+J on Windows or Command+J on Macintosh).

To flip this new layer you can simply choose Edit > Transform from the menu, followed by either Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical based on the direction you wish to flip. With the sample image linked above the Flip Horizontal command was selected.

You can then use the Move tool to move the new layer to a different location within the image. In the case of the “mirror image” technique, for example, I would have selected and duplicated the right half of the image, flipped the layer horizontally, and then moved the new layer to the left half of the image. But of course you could move the new layer to any position you’d like within the image. If for any reason you need to drag the new layer to a position that falls outside the existing image area, you can simply choose Image > Reveal All from the menu to enlarge the canvas so you can see the entire image area.

For readers who subscribe to my Pixology magazine, you can find more details about this technique in the article “Step by Step: Mirror Image”, featured in the August 2016 issue.

End of the Nik Collection?

Facebooktwitterlinkedin

Today’s Question: I remember the time that you were very happy with Nik Software, and recommend it with pleasure. I want to sign up for a Photoshop Creative Cloud subscription. Info on the web informs me that difficulties will rise using Photoshop CC and the Nik plug-ins. Can you tell us whether we should be concerned that the Nik Collection will stop working with Photoshop?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I think there is most certainly a reason to be concerned that the Nik Collection will no longer function well in the near future, and to begin looking for alternative solutions if you are currently using any of the tools in the Nik Collection.

More Detail: The Nik Collection is a set of software and plug-ins that were originally released by Nik Software, which was acquired by Google in 2012. Originally the suggestion was that there would not be any future updates with new features, there would be updates to ensure that these software tools continued to function with operating system and host application updates.

However, more recently Google has updated the page for the Nik Collection (https://www.google.com/nikcollection/) to indicate that no future updates of any kind will be released. The existing Nik Collection (which is still available as a free download) will only function properly with Mac OS X through version 10.10, Windows through version 8, and Adobe Photoshop through version CC 2015.

I have run into some minor issues with several of the software tools in the Nik Collection, and suspect those problems will only increase with future updates to Photoshop and the operating systems.

I will be providing more details on recommended replacements for the various tools in the Nik Collection. In the short term I know many photographers are particularly interested in options for creating high dynamic range (HDR) images. I have found that Adobe Lightroom’s built-in feature for HDR assembly works very well, and that Aurora HDR 2017 is also an excellent solution. Keep in mind that Aurora HDR 2017 is currently only available for Macintosh users, but Macphun Software has indicated that a Windows version will be coming soon.

I will provide more recommendations in the future related to replacement recommendations for the Nik Collection.

Catalog on Two Computers

Facebooktwitterlinkedin

Today’s Question: I purchased a new laptop for travel and teaching. I want to use the same Lightroom catalog and images on both machines [laptop and desktop]. What do you recommend?

Tim’s Quick Answer: In this type of situation my recommendation would be to keep both your Lightroom catalog and your photos on the same external hard drive. You can then open the catalog from that external hard drive on whichever computer you’re currently using to work with your images.

More Detail: Lightroom does not offer a native solution for effectively working with your full catalog on more than one computer. That includes the inability to store your catalog on a network storage location, preventing you from being able to access the catalog from multiple computers on a network.

Some photographers have employed an online synchronization service such as Dropbox (https://www.dropbox.com) to make a catalog available on more than one computer. While this can most certainly be a workable solution, I do have concerns about the potential for synchronization failure, and of course this type of approach would require that you have access to an Internet connection in order to synchronize the actual files you’re working with.

As a result of the various limitations related to working with a catalog across two computers, I recommend simply keeping the catalog itself on an external hard drive along with the photos being managed by that catalog. You can then connect the external hard drive to whichever computer you want to work with currently. Within Lightroom, you can then open the catalog directly from the external hard drive, so that you’re always working with the actual catalog files (without the need for synchronization), and you always have your photos readily available as well.

The only potentially significant drawback to this approach of storing the Lightroom catalog on an external hard drive is degradation in performance. Most external hard drives are slower than a comparable internal hard drive, and there are also latency issues that can further degrade performance. For some photographers this reduction in performance is reason enough to work with only a single computer for Lightroom. For example, I keep my Lightroom catalog on my laptop, so that I always have access to the catalog whether I’m at home or traveling with my laptop.

Metadata Mismatch Mistake

Facebooktwitterlinkedin

Today’s Question: I get a message about metadata confusion in Lightroom when I work on the image in both Lightroom and Photoshop without closing and reopening the image. I don’t know which choice to check, Import Settings from Disk, or Overwrite Settings. Would you please explain these two choices and the benefits of each?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The solution here is actually to never open an image directly from Photoshop or otherwise update the metadata outside of Lightroom. If you ensure that all tasks related to your images are initiated within Lightroom, you won’t experience this data mismatch in the first place. Resolving the issue for images that have already been impacted requires making a decision about which updates to keep versus discard.

More Detail: If you update metadata for an image outside of Lightroom, the result will be a mismatch between the metadata stored with the image and the metadata in your Lightroom catalog. Even opening a RAW capture directly in Photoshop will cause adjustment metadata to be updated. Updates made outside of Lightroom will not be reflected in your Lightroom catalog, causing a mismatch and potential confusion, as well as the risk of lost data.

For example, let’s assume you add a keyword in Lightroom. If you have enabled the option to automatically save metadata out to the actual files on your hard drive (or you have manually saved that metadata) then you can see the updates in other software. So, for example, the new keyword you added would be visible if you browse the image with Adobe Bridge.

However, if you add a keyword with Adobe Bridge, that keyword will not be visible within Lightroom, because Bridge can’t add the keyword to your Lightroom catalog. Lightroom can recognize when the metadata in your catalog doesn’t match the metadata in the image file on your hard drive, and alert you of this mismatch.

To resolve the issue for images that were processed outside of Lightroom, you’ll need to decide which updates to keep and which updates to discard. For example, if you added “Bridge” as a keyword from Adobe Bridge and you added “Lightroom” as a keyword from within Lightroom, you can’t retain both keywords. You’ll need to choose whether to keep the metadata from the file on your hard drive (“Bridge” in this example) or to keep the metadata within Lightroom (“Lightroom” as a keyword in this case). In this example, one of the two keywords will be lost when you choose an option.

If you choose the “Import Settings from Disk” option in the metadata mismatch dialog, then the Lightroom catalog will be updated with all of the metadata contained in the image on your hard drive, overwriting the metadata for that image in the Lightroom catalog. If you choose the “Overwrite Settings” option, the metadata from your Lightroom catalog will be saved to the image file on the hard drive, overwriting the metadata that was there. In either case, of course, the metadata mismatch will no longer exist.

As noted above, the real solution is to avoid this problem in the first place. Once you start using Lightroom to manage your photos, it is critical that you initiate all tasks related to your photos from within Lightroom. This will ensure that your Lightroom catalog always remains up-to-date.