Comments on: Simple Lightroom Image Fixing Workflow

By: Studio MK

Studio MK — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 09:39:49 +0000

Nice tutorial. It’s very helpfull

By: Barry Kennedy

Barry Kennedy — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:39:30 +0000

Thanks very helpful , at what stage would you lens correct?

By: haring photography

haring photography — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:28:57 +0000

Do you ever use the selective color slides?

By: LR User

LR User — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:02:01 +0000

Great summary! The order makes perfect sense and it does give a handle on something that might appear daunting to a beginner. Starting with WB after Straightening and Cropping is definitely an option to consider as some commentators have noted.

Here is an idea for those who got these steps nailed down and can at least feel happy with the results of their initial photo adjustments: It is to work entirely on the histogram area with your mouse! Just move the mouse over the histogram from right to left and you get: Recovery, Exposure, Fill light, and Blacks. The goal is – in general – to have a full and balanced spectrum in the histogram. That should take care of the light!

Then take a look at the Colors…

Finally sharpness, and Voila!

By: Mircea Wedding photographer

Mircea Wedding photographer — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:29:00 +0000

Nice basic info for Lightroom users. For professional photographers it’s a must have.

By: Sriram Narayanan

Sriram Narayanan — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:29:55 +0000

Thanks, Bret F, that was very helpful. I have used picasa, but mostly for uploading pictures, but i will try it and see.

By: Bret F.

Bret F. — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 18:52:51 +0000

To Sriram Narayanan – yes, I use Google’s free Picasa to do a quick & effective edit/tag/export workflow for a large government client. Many of the same steps outlined in this article are done with easy-to-find buttons in Picasa – here’s mine: Straighten, Crop, I’m Feeling Lucky, Sharpness, Tag (keywords). Originals are automatically saved to a hidden subfolder, and image searching is fast & easy (if you’ve accurately named & tagged your shots.) Give it a try, I think you’ll like it. Good luck.

By: Bonnie Conley

Bonnie Conley — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:41:47 +0000

Picasa works pretty good and it’s free!

By: Marcin Petruszka

Marcin Petruszka — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:03:27 +0000

Great workflow, very natural and logical. Just wanted to say that the very same workflow is possible and just as easy in Apple Aperture 2.0 (some of the sliders have different names though). So maybe the post could have a more open title (not so LR specific). And one can of course lift all the adjustments made on one photo and stamp those to another photo (or a group of them) in Aperture too.

By: Shana

Shana — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:36:00 +0000

Nice tutorial and it will definitely help those trying to get started in LR. It might be helpful to briefly explain that LR works in the ProPhoto color space, whereas most people convert (at some point) to sRGB for printing, web viewing, etc. Since sRGB is a smaller color space, it is not wise to extend your ProPhoto histogram all the way to the left and right (especially the right) or it’s likely you’ll have blown / clipped areas when you convert to sRGB. I adjust exposure so it looks right to my eye (on my calibrated monitor), then take a glance at the histo to get some feedback there. I always leave some breathing room on the right (unless there’s an area that is supposed to be blown).

I don’t think I would use the alt-click method for adjusting recovery. Recovery removes contrast and too much will result in a very flat image, so I like to watch my image as I adjust the slider in order to understand the effect it’s having (something you can’t do if you’re holding the alt key). To see clipped areas, just click on the right-hand arrow at the top of the histogram, and they will show up in red. If too much contrast is removed with the recovery, I will instead create two exposures – one for my subject and one for the blown areas – then blend them together in Photoshop.

Another important aspect is the camera calibration (last section in LR). This has to be chosen first IME – before any other editing – as it can have a very dramatic impact on the image. I created a preset to set this to camera neutral when I import my images, although I occasionally change it to something else depending on the image.