LR3 Video Tutorials

[Mark D Segal]

For me it's more important what type of pants the video presenter is wearing.

Hi Phil, to change the subject, I was just on your website and simply wanted to recognize your photographic vision displayed there - the Morocco sets in particular.

[JimAscher]

Rather than starting a separate thread (which I will resort to only if I get no useful responses to this added posting) which if any of the Video Tutorials would prove most useful for someone (like myself) who wishes to develop Lightroom expertise for the processing of black-and-white photos.  I suspect there's no clear choice.  I do have the Alsheimer Black and White book as well as the Kelby Lightroom 3 book.  But I believe that for myself a video run through would be more useful.

[Mark D Segal]

The Reichmann-Schewe download (Lightroom 3 video tutorial) from this site's web store I think is the best Lightroom resource of its kind. That said, there isn't much to creating a great B&W rendition in Lightroom. Go to the HSL panel, select B&W and play away. Each colour slider changes the luminosity of the colour group underlying its grayscale area of the image. "Slide to taste". Or start with any of the large number of B&W Presets in the left side panel of the Develop module. You'll learn by doing how to make very pleasing B&W images in little time.

[JimAscher]

The Reichmann-Schewe download (Lightroom 3 video tutorial) from this site's web store I think is the best Lightroom resource of its kind. That said, there isn't much to creating a great B&W rendition in Lightroom. Go to the HSL panel, select B&W and play away. Each colour slider changes the luminosity of the colour group underlying its grayscale area of the image. "Slide to taste". Or start with any of the large number of B&W Presets in the left side panel of the Develop module. You'll learn by doing how to make very pleasing B&W images in little time.

Thanks, Mark.  To date I've been using Photoshop Elements with Silver Efex Pro, so I'm familiar with pre-sets (in SEP) and in fact rely on them extensively.  (I've been told that I can also use SEP with Lightroom as a plug-in, but haven't yet been successful in managing that.)  With my interest in trying Lightroom as my primary black-and-white processing software, I was interested in gaining the extra  aesthetic flexibility that might be available to me there without using pre-sets (although pre-sets are certainly easier, and do establish an advanced starting point for later refinement of an image).  In the books I've been reading, while I find they are occassionally beautifully written, I often find their instructions somewhat opaque.  As a lawyer, who values written precision, I am often frustrated and confused by these texts.  Anyway, your advice is good.  Again, thanks.  Jim

[Mark D Segal]

Jim, if you are after written precision in a Lightroom 3 book, look no further than Martin Evening's "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book". Good as it gets and very complete. And yes - the presets should be viewed as an "advanced starting point"  - good way of approaching it.

[JimAscher]

Jim, if you are after written precision in a Lightroom 3 book, look no further than Martin Evening's "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book". Good as it gets and very complete. And yes - the presets should be viewed as an "advanced starting point"  - good way of approaching it.

Mark:  I looked up the book on Amazon, read the reviews, glanced at the table of contents, and it does seem exactly what I now need to supplement the Kelby book.  I've ordered it.  Many thanks.  I did however weigh the possible advantage (or disadvantage) of applying my money instead to a video tutorial.  But I'll try the Evening book first, and maybe later on decide to go the video route. Thanks again.

[Christopher Sanderson]

Rather than starting a separate thread (which I will resort to only if I get no useful responses to this added posting) which if any of the Video Tutorials would prove most useful for someone (like myself) who wishes to develop Lightroom expertise for the processing of black-and-white photos.  I suspect there's no clear choice.  I do have the Alsheimer Black and White book as well as the Kelby Lightroom 3 book.  But I believe that for myself a video run through would be more useful.

If your focus is Black&White, you owe it to yourself to download and try Capture One which seems to my eye, to be a far more sophisticated and effective approach to B&W than is Lightroom

[Schewe]

...which seems to my eye, to be a far more sophisticated and effective approach to B&W than is Lightroom

Oh, really? Why?

Note: I'm not discounting the new B&W functionality of C1 6.x but to "my eye" LR still has some advantages such as 8 vs 6 color color adjustment channels and the TAT which makes adjusting "tweener" colors much easier. I also like the highlight/Shadows split adjustment in Split Tone.

[Christopher Sanderson]

perhaps I am guilty of overstatement 

It is a matter of personal preference

I really like the look of C1's conversions. judge for yourself at theintuitivelens.com.

Also C1's ability to apparently 'vectorize' B&W allowing large blow-ups is pretty impressive

[Schewe]

I really like the look of C1's conversions. judge for yourself at theintuitivelens.com.

Uh huh...and I already discussed this with the guy wrote wrote that blog post here. Seems he left Lightroom's tone control at default which, well, really impacts the color to B&W conversion.

[Christopher Sanderson]

shoulda known!   

[Schewe]

shoulda known!   

Gotcha...

:~)

Again, I like what C1 has done with the B&W conversion and split tone they added...still some things needed though to catch up or surpass Lightroom's color to B&W functionality. Either tool is capable...but LR is still a bit more advanced.

[Yaïr Melamed]

I watched few samples and this guy is definitely the best. Simple straight forward, deductive. Great Teacher. Thanks.
Yair

[Philmar]

Hi Phil, to change the subject, I was just on your website and simply wanted to recognize your photographic vision displayed there - the Morocco sets in particular.

Thanks for the kind words!! I just saw them (the kind words) now. I still am uploading photos from my trip. Sadly my day job is interfering with my 'RAW processing with LR' time in the evenings.

I am a recent migrant to LR after years of using ACR. As far as using LR to create B&W images, what I love about LR is it's ability to save various types of monochrome B&W presets (such as a sepia tone, a cyanotype, a cream tone, various duo tones, a high or low contrast version of each ect.) and quickly apply them to other files so as to get a quick feel as to which treatment is preferred. Then you can use the preset as a starting point to tweak to that file's taste using color adjustment channels ect. It is much easier to preview a file with various presets in LR than in ACR.