Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

Chapter 38 ■ Two Featured Products 437
options with a chance to alter the filename template; requires file settings such as Format
(JPEG, PSD, TIFF, and DNG), Compression (None, LZW, and Zip), Color Space
(sRGB, AdobeRGB 1998, and ProPhotoRGB), and Bit Depth (8- or 16-bit). But there
is more—don’t forget Image Settings, with resolution in pixels per inch or centimeter;
or Output Sharpening (surely this was done earlier?). But you’re not finished yet: you
really need to fill in the Metadata fields, perhaps include some keyword information in
XMP, and maybe add a copyright watermark. There is also a Post-Processing option that
thankfully defaults to Do Nothing, other options being to open the image in Photoshop
or another application, burn the image to a disk, or pay a visit to the Export Actions
folder for further, automated instructions.
Develop Mode
When you move to a different module, both the left and right panels change with new
sets of tools and indicators. In the Develop module, the informational left panel has a
scrollable History that records every action you apply to an image. If you click on any
History item it returns the displayed image to that particular state. The History list is
like an unlimited, random-access undo, which exists alongside a number of presets that
let you see what the image looks like with standard tone-curves applied. Lightroom can
display instantly any one of hundreds of versions of an image because it stores just the
instructions for generating the image on-the-fly from its cached preview.
One of the most useful features of the Develop interface is the Before & After display
that shows side-by-side and split views of two versions of the image in the central viewing
area. Note that you can copy the settings of the After view to the Before view, thus
giving you a new starting point with which to compare your working image. Lightroom
offers special buttons beneath the displayed images to do this, in both directions. If you
find yourself with two wrong versions you can always use the History list to go back a
few steps.
The Develop module’s right panel is divided into sections: Basic, Tone Curve, Color
Adjustments, Split Toning, Detail (noise reduction, chromatic aberration, and sharpening),
Vignettes (lens corrections, post-cropping), and Camera Calibration. Many photographers
say they can do 95% of their correction work in the Basic section at the top
without resorting to the tools lower down.
In the Basic panel are white balance with eyedropper selector tool, color temperature
presets and sliders, as well as everything you need to set white points and black points,
recover highlights, simulate an increase in the fill light, and adjust brightness and contrast.
Two other sliders allow you to adjust saturation and “vibrance,” the latter being a
control that boosts primaries without affecting skin tones. If this vibrance adjuster seems
familiar to some photographers it is because it came to Adobe via the acquisition of
Pixmantec, the developer of Rawshooter, and now appears also in Photoshop’s Camera
Raw plug-in as well as Photoshop’s Image>Adjustment menu in CS4.