Getting Organized - Creative Cloud

[Downrigger]

the implications of having your Lightroom edits stored in a database when (not if) your database becomes corrupted,

Great thread. Agree lack of local application of curves in LR an issue. But I wonder if Mike or someone can clarify - do not your back-ups save you in the event of database corruption (at least up to the point of the back-up)?

[Colin Southern]

do not your back-ups save you in the event of database corruption (at least up to the point of the back-up)?

No - and that's the problem with it.

You may have tens of thousands of image whose data is in the catalog, but chances are that you're only looking at the most recent entries. Along comes a crash / power-outage / whatever crashes/damages the database - but because current work may look OK you'll probably be unaware of damage affecting earlier work - and you back up up thinking "all's OK - now's a good time for a backup" and by the time you realise all is NOT ok then you've over-written all your backup sets.

It gets worse. If you do have a backup that's - say - a year old that has the early work intact then you've just lost all your edits since then.

Some will say they can merge the databases (which I believe is possible), but you're then in a situation where a possibly/probably non-technical person - under stress (having just lost a whole bunch of images) - is then placed in a situation where he's having to do data recovery / reconstruction under duress and I've personally seen situations (more than once) where this leads to even more data loss.

On the other hand, if the edits are saved in the SAME FILE as the image data (a-la DNG) or in a XMP sidecar file - backed up as a set - then it's pretty much idiot proof. It's the classic KISS if ever there was one.

[Brownbear]

Thank you for sharing. Very informative and helpful, and it makes sense to me.

However, I'm still learning to post-process so I'm just going to sit back and read the replies in this thread as this topic is now at a level that I am just going to read and learn from, and at a later date try out in both programs.

By the way, beautiful image!

ACR and the LR Develop module (not Quick Develop in the Library module) are sufficiently identical in function (if not the user interface) that one may safely assume that what one is able to accomplish in one can be done in the other. However, the function you seem to be describing does not exist in either. One cannot select the dog's body and apply a curve to it directly. That will be because there is no curve function within the Local Adjustments - yet. If, however, one were to use the adjustment brush to select the dog's body and raise the Exposure about 2/3 stop, then raise the Shadows and decrease the Contrast sliders approximately equally, the task would be pretty well accomplished. Were you to attempt the feat in PS with a curves layer, you would be forgiven for thinking that the ACR/LR Adjustment Brush is capable of being certainly the more convenient tool and perhaps more competent and subtle, as well. A simple rgb curves layer actually loses a great deal of detail and introduces an unacceptable amount of posterization in the lightest parts of the dog. It would need to be supported with adjustment layers accomplishing the same things I suggested (and used) for the LR Adjustment Brush processing given above. Or thereabouts.

Edited to add: in the images above the dog had already had similar adjustments made in LR with the Shadows slider (and others) in the Basic panel. In the image, which is little boosted for exposure - I nailed the snow - he is very dark.

[Mike Buckley]

If, however, one were to use the adjustment brush to select the dog's body and raise the Exposure about 2/3 stop, then raise the Shadows and decrease the Contrast sliders approximately equally, the task would be pretty well accomplished.

Keep in mind that Christina only explained that she wanted to adjust the mid-tones of the selection. She didn't explain how she wanted to adjust them. So, the result of your explanation of adjusting them using Lightroom may not be the result that she hoped to accomplish.

[Mike Buckley]

No - and that's the problem with it [backing up your Lightroom database].

Exactly.

[Cantab]

...
On the other hand, if the edits are saved in the SAME FILE as the image data (a-la DNG) or in a XMP sidecar file - backed up as a set - then it's pretty much idiot proof. It's the classic KISS if ever there was one.

As a result of comments by Colin and others in the LR thread referred to above, I started saving LR edits in XMP sidecar files, keeping my catalogue backups on a separate internal HD and periodically backing up my photos (with the sidecar files) to an external HD. So here's hoping complete disaster doesn't strike!

[Colin Southern]

As a result of comments by Colin and others in the LR thread referred to above, I started saving LR edits in XMP sidecar files, keeping my catalogue backups on a separate internal HD and periodically backing up my photos (with the sidecar files) to an external HD. So here's hoping complete disaster doesn't strike!

All we need to do now Bruce is convince you to switch to DNG so we can get rid of those pesky sidecar files as well

I should add though that backup is all about risk management; by keeping a separate copy of the catalog on another drive you're doing well, but that only mitigates certain types of risk. Other types include fire / theft / natural disaster etc -- for those you really need to keep a copy off site. Personally, I use a combination of external USB Hard Dive and cloud storage.

[Cantab]

Other types include fire / theft / natural disaster etc -- for those you really need to keep a copy off site. Personally, I use a combination of external USB Hard Dive and cloud storage.

When still working I kept backup copies of documents in my office desk but no longer. So I probably should give further thought to using perhaps Dropbox for cloud storage.

[Colin Southern]

When still working I kept backup copies of documents in my office desk but no longer. So I probably should give further thought to using perhaps Dropbox for cloud storage.

Just be aware that some of those cloud services are oriented more around transferring and sync - not necessarily bullet-proof archival.

My personal choice is Google Drive

[HenkB]

Keep in mind that Christina only explained that she wanted to adjust the mid-tones of the selection. She didn't explain how she wanted to adjust them. So, the result of your explanation of adjusting them using Lightroom may not be the result that she hoped to accomplish.

True enough. But, funny about that: I read her prose as code for "lighten and enhance detail in the dog apart from the scene" and that is how I chose to respond. Given that in the original file the only mid-tones in the dog were his already grey Hitler-moustache muzzle (something I knew but didn't feel it necessary to broadcast), it didn't make sense to me to quibble or be too fastidious in interpreting text.

When I had masked the scene for the dog in PS (with no global exposure boost), the histogram only occupied values from 0 -~50. He's dark, the color of shadow. We used to be able to see our previous coal black dog at night against the road or brush while this one would simply disappear in plain sight. He is much better photographed in overcast conditions; then the values in his fur almost make it to the midtones.

None of this is to suggest that Christina's campaign to learn PS in order to have more control over her images is wrong or misguided. My only observation is that there are tools available to do many of the same sorts of things, not necessarily in the same ways, that offer approximately equal competence but impose a less stiff learning curve. I see LR as a worthy evolutionary successor to PS.

[Brownbear]

My apologies for rolling so many questions into one question and for not being specific enough but when I posted I had a lot of questions in the back of my mind.

With respect to adjusting midtones in either Lightroom or Photoshop, I was actually thinking of some pelican photos that I have with waves, exposed for the bird and just avoiding clipping in the water but it could also be a landscape photo exposed for the land and avoiding clipping in the clouds, and learning to post process to bring out the best in the wave or the cloud by adjusting the midtones, but it could be the highlights or the shadows. And I thought that the best way to do so would be by using the curves tool, in Photoshop because the adjustment could be applied selectively with more precision.

In general what would be the best approach to the above using Lightroom or Adobe Photoshop? I know that if I run the adjustment brush over clouds or water in Lightroom to decrease the exposure to bring out more detail it doesn't look good.

In this video it is suggested that the curves tool in Photoshop offers more precise control over the midtones and the tutorial on Cambridge also suggest the same.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-phot...t-with-curves/

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...hop-curves.htm

And although I remember doing a tutorial in Lightroom that suggests that one should never use the clarity slider on water, this tutorial suggests that the clarity slider in Lightroom is a great tool to add contrast to the midtones (photo of a wave) without noise

http://digital-photography-school.co...hat-does-it-do


Any basic advice on editing clouds or water, selectively in either program?

Thank you.

[HenkB]

Any basic advice on editing clouds or water, selectively in either program?

In both programs the problem is not one of editing but of selective editing. I look at editing problems (PS can produce identical end results by a plethora of paths) as selection problems. The core art of PS is selection. In PS, the major tool is the mask and constructing the mask easily and accurately is the paramount problem. For a pelican on water, in most cases, there will be a clear color differential: pelican/not-pelican. The first tool I would think of using is Select>Color Range... One could then select for the water (which, presumably, is more uniform than the pelican) and, if the purpose is to edit the pelican, invert the mask to reveal the changes only in the parts of the image that display non-water color. The part of this that is critical, though, is isolating the pelican so that the pelican/non-pelican transition is accurately traced and appears realistic after the specific edits are applied to the layer. There is some wiggle room to be had from the Select>Refine Edge… capability. Once the selection is a mask it will be directly editable (opt/alt click the mask) by any tool PS offers including painting with brushes, levels or curves adjustments or other selection tools such as the lariats or wands. The parts you do not wish to include in the layer edits may then be selected and filled with black or, for more nuanced edits, brushed anywhere from light grey (attenuated effect) to black (no effect) in the mask. Once you have the mask (which I regard as real work) then you can start to play with the adjustments.

In LR or ACR I would be tempted to go at it a bit differently. Again assuming there was a clear color differential between the pelican and the background, I would adjust the settings in the Basic panel to optimize the pelican. Then, for my first attempt to tame whatever may have happened in the background that i consider unfortunate I would simply try to manage the luminance and saturation of the background (in the HSL panel, using the targeted adjustment tool) to a satisfactory point. If this didn't answer then I would go to the local adjustments and cobble something together from the various tools. Then, if it were necessary further to enhance something about the pelican, the adjustment brush could be deployed in any or all of the available modes to accomplish the task.

Clouds are not much different. I find most of the time that cameras record dark clouds bluer than I recall having perceived them in the field or wish to have them portrayed. For this, if addressing the color temperature of the capture does not fully address the problem, the HSL panel will. Another trick with clouds, at least for landscapes, is the Graduated Filter. This wouldn't necessarily help if the subject were in the sky. Presumably the problem would be that, like my dog photos, the sky is bright and needs to be reined in while the underside of the bird is dark and needs to be enhanced. In such an instance, you might tame the sky and clouds with a Graduated Filter while enhancing the bird's belly with the Adjustment Brush.

The lovely thing about LR is that, no matter what witch's brew of conflicting edits you may apply, Lightroom simply adds up all the edits to come up with a result which it will then apply to the image. It's doing this all the time - that's the genius of the software: it shows you what it will look like without changing a single pixel in the underlying original file - ever! So, even if one applies one edit that blows out a detail, it is trivial to dial the effect back in another, more specific edit since, in fact, there are no interim stages, an edit is just a number in a list and the detail was never blown out unless, of course, you exported it in that condition. When you export, LR only publishes the resulting sum of edits. You can manage the same feat in PS with masks. Each program has its own strategies. I am equally comfortable with both but, for files not in need of serious rescue work, still find LR faster and easier to use.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Hendrik for a very informative and helpful reply. There is a lot of information here for me to digest all at once so I'm going to print this and use it as a reference for learning and practicing on a photo in Lightroom and also in Adobe Photoshop.

I'm still learning my way around Lightroom and I do like the program because it is simple and easy to understand, but I still have a lot to learn about Lightroom too and this is very helpful.

Yes, selecting things is extraordinarily difficult to do well.

Thank you.

In both programs the problem is not one of editing but of selective editing. I look at editing problems (PS can produce identical end results by a plethora of paths) as selection problems. The core art of PS is selection. In PS, the major tool is the mask and constructing the mask easily and accurately is the paramount problem. For a pelican on water, in most cases, there will be a clear color differential: pelican/not-pelican. The first tool I would think of using is Select>Color Range... One could then select for the water (which, presumably, is more uniform than the pelican) and, if the purpose is to edit the pelican, invert the mask to reveal the changes only in the parts of the image that display non-water color. The part of this that is critical, though, is isolating the pelican so that the pelican/non-pelican transition is accurately traced and appears realistic after the specific edits are applied to the layer. There is some wiggle room to be had from the Select>Refine Edge… capability. Once the selection is a mask it will be directly editable (opt/alt click the mask) by any tool PS offers including painting with brushes, levels or curves adjustments or other selection tools such as the lariats or wands. The parts you do not wish to include in the layer edits may then be selected and filled with black or, for more nuanced edits, brushed anywhere from light grey (attenuated effect) to black (no effect) in the mask. Once you have the mask (which I regard as real work) then you can start to play with the adjustments.

In LR or ACR I would be tempted to go at it a bit differently. Again assuming there was a clear color differential between the pelican and the background, I would adjust the settings in the Basic panel to optimize the pelican. Then, for my first attempt to tame whatever may have happened in the background that i consider unfortunate I would simply try to manage the luminance and saturation of the background (in the HSL panel, using the targeted adjustment tool) to a satisfactory point. If this didn't answer then I would go to the local adjustments and cobble something together from the various tools. Then, if it were necessary further to enhance something about the pelican, the adjustment brush could be deployed in any or all of the available modes to accomplish the task.

Clouds are not much different. I find most of the time that cameras record dark clouds bluer than I recall having perceived them in the field or wish to have them portrayed. For this, if addressing the color temperature of the capture does not fully address the problem, the HSL panel will. Another trick with clouds, at least for landscapes, is the Graduated Filter. This wouldn't necessarily help if the subject were in the sky. Presumably the problem would be that, like my dog photos, the sky is bright and needs to be reined in while the underside of the bird is dark and needs to be enhanced. In such an instance, you might tame the sky and clouds with a Graduated Filter while enhancing the bird's belly with the Adjustment Brush.

The lovely thing about LR is that, no matter what witch's brew of conflicting edits you may apply, Lightroom simply adds up all the edits to come up with a result which it will then apply to the image. It's doing this all the time - that's the genius of the software: it shows you what it will look like without changing a single pixel in the underlying original file - ever! So, even if one applies one edit that blows out a detail, it is trivial to dial the effect back in another, more specific edit since, in fact, there are no interim stages, an edit is just a number in a list and the detail was never blown out unless, of course, you exported it in that condition. When you export, LR only publishes the resulting sum of edits. You can manage the same feat in PS with masks. Each program has its own strategies. I am equally comfortable with both but, for files not in need of serious rescue work, still find LR faster and easier to use.

[Mike Buckley]

My only observation is that there are tools available to do many of the same sorts of things, not necessarily in the same ways, that offer approximately equal competence but impose a less stiff learning curve. I see LR as a worthy evolutionary successor to PS.

I don't remember ever seeing that put so eloquently, especially the last sentence.

[Colin Southern]

I see LR as a worthy evolutionary successor to PS.

Um, that doesn't make any sense; they're two parallel products with only a small degree of overlap.

[Mike Buckley]

Um, that doesn't make any sense; they're two parallel products with only a small degree of overlap.

One product came before the other, hence, his reference to "evolutionary successor". Each product has its own target market. And as you mention, the two products have only a small degree of overlap, which explains why they have their own target market. Thus, Hendrik's comment makes perfect sense to me.

[Manfred M]

I see LR as a worthy evolutionary successor to PS.

Sorry to disagree, but I Lightroom and Photoshop are aimed at completely different target audiences. There is some limited overlap; specifically the develop module and the print module. Lightroom's capabilities here represent a small subset of what can be accomplished in Photoshop.

Evolutionary successor, no. Lightroom is in no way a successor to Photoshop. It follows a completely different and divergent development path.

[Mike Buckley]

It seems to me that some of us have one idea of what an evolutionary successor is and others of us have a very different idea.

Lightroom is in no way a successor to Photoshop. It follows a completely different and divergent development path.

Those two thoughts are not mutually exclusive in my mind; it's possible in my mind for Lightroom to be the evolutionary successor to Photoshop while following a completely different and divergent development path.

[Manfred M]

It seems to me that some of us have one idea of what an evolutionary successor is and others of us have a very different idea.



Those two thoughts are not mutually exclusive in my mind; it's possible in my mind for Lightroom to be the evolutionary successor to Photoshop while following a completely different and divergent development path.

Mike - Evolutionary successor would tend to indicate a level of superiority of over the predecessor that will lead to the eventual obsolescene of the predecessor; and this is simply not the case. There are things that Lightroom does that one cannot do in Photoshop and some things that one can do in Photoshop that Lightroom will never be able to do.

I'm simply stating the obvious; ACR / Lightroom are non-destructive, parametric editing tools and there are simply limitations to what can be done with this approach. Photoshop (other than ACR) is a pixel based editing tool, and it has capabilities that are going to be difficult, if not impossible to duplicate with a parametric editor.

I think there are parallels to the old film / print days; Lightroom is a bit like the mini-labs, that were really quite good for mass production prints. If you wanted high quality one-off prints, you went to a custom lab that produced the high end work; much like what Photoshop does. Parallel, but certainly not evolutionary paths.

[Mike Buckley]

Mike - Evolutionary successor would tend to indicate a level of superiority of over the predecessor that will lead to the eventual obsolescene of the predecessor

You're apparently referring to a context that software engineers use that I'm ignorant of. Thanks for explaining that.

There are things that Lightroom does that one cannot do in Photoshop

I'm surprised to learn that. What are some examples?