Keep it Simple With Lightroom 3
If you are someone who is editing mass quantities of images and you need to power through your workflow quickly, you would probably benefit greatly from Adobe’s Lightroom 3.
Lightroom has been around for a while, but version 3 is fully loaded with all sorts of unique and powerful features. While you may be only using Photoshop to a small portion of the programs actual potential, Lightroom makes it easy to quickly and efficiently edit your images. The controls are simple, and once you get to know your way around the program, it is simple to make minor corrections or major ones using nondestructive editing. The noise reduction is also very good, so you can clean your high ISO images.
One of the best things about Lightroom are the customizable presets, and while it is great that they are easy to use, the best part is how easy it is to create your own custom ones! Once you have created your own custom preset, you can import photos with your own custom settings and use that as a starting point for your editing, or as a final edit.
The one thing that I don’t like about Lightroom is that the lack of support for layers, and how it can be tough to edit specific parts of the image when required. However there is very good integration with Photoshop, so you can always pull the image into Photoshop to do finite editing work. Since the two programs are well integrated, you can easily send an image between the two programs.
With all of the features available in Lightroom 3, I now find myself using Photoshop less and less. By cutting down on my overall editing time, I now have more time to get out and shoot!
Mark Wikkerink is teaching a comprehensive 3 Part Course in September for $129.95 and a basic Crash Course for only $45.95. The full version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is $299.95 and if you already have an older version of the program, the Upgrade is $114.65.
