1/17/2013

An Easy Way To Learn Lightroom By Amy Renfrey

By Amy Renfrey


Lightroom is a superb program. I've been using it for the past few years. In this tutorial I am going to provide you with some Lightroom support, tips and tricks and let you know where you can look at a Lightroom video tutorial I have made for you.

So what's so great about this program? The fact is that this is a very easy program to use. It's geared for photos rather than graphics and effects, as Photoshop is. Photoshop is a wonderful program but if you would like to do swift edits on light, better exposure, colour hue and other colours and tonal range manipulations only then Lightroom just may encourage you.

First we need to understand that Lightroom has five major tools and a variety of panels that consist of sliders. The sliders are various controls that enable you to transform features of light and colour up or down. These features can increase or reduce the intensity of light and colour within your image. The tools are situated at the top of the panels; crop, spot removal, red eye removal, graduated filter and the adjustment brush. Each one of these tools plays an important part in retouching and manipulating the light within your photo.

Let's check out Lightroom's primary tools:

Crop tool: The crop tool puts a grid over the top of the photograph. You then move the edges in to crop your photo. You can shift the edges in close to your subject. You can tilt your scene, turn it various ways and even make your horizontal a vertical one in its place.

The spot removal tool is like the clone tool in Photoshop. Once you click this tool, your curser turns into a small circle. Whatever is inside this circle is an area that's copied. You can position this circle over any area of the photo. Whatever is inside this circle means it now gets copied over the top of any area want to choose. Imagine cutting out a section of paper and putting it over the top of something else. That's kind of how it works.

The graduated filter tool is ideal for making skies really blue. You can select this tool and click on the upper part of the photo of your photo. Simply "pull down" the mouse in the direction of the center. This is like pulling down a partially transparent blind over the top of the photo. You can darken the selection of the grad filter to give blue skies that "picture postcard blue". This tool is best for beach and landscape photography. It works any way you click and drag the grad filter. It works from the top down, the bottom up and from the sides inwards.

The red eye removal tool is a handy tool for red eye. In portrait photography we can find that the flash generates red spots off the back of the retina. It is caused by a directional light from the flash. To combat this, it's a good idea to bounce the flash off the ceiling, or use a tool to help you diffuse the light. If you can't do this, and it does create red eye, then this application can help.

Next the adjustment brush is a useful little thing indeed. The adjustment brush is perfect for choosing individual components of the photo and making adjustments to them. Let's say you have a landscape photo. You are quite proud of this photo but feel the trees are under exposed in the background. Simply select the adjustment brush, go over the region of the trees (just as you would painting) and then lessen down the exposure.

When you choose the adjustment brush, another panel will display. This panel is asking what you would like to do inside the range of the brush. In other words, you can darken, lighten, change hue, sharpen, boost colour, etc. This is such a handy little tool due to the fact it does not affect the rest of the photo, it simply affects the area you go over with the brush.

It's exactly like creating a painting with oils or water colour. When you want to do something to an area of the photo, just choose the adjustment brush. You will have a number of options to alter an area of the photo in any way you like.

Next we have the history panel. This panel is to the left hand side of the workspace. (A workspace is simply the screen and layout.) Every time you create an edit within Lightroom, whether it is making use of the adjustment brush or alter the white balance, this panel records it. This is ideal for when you want to go back to a particular point. For example if you transform the photo to blue, then green, then red you may think "I don't like the way the photo is now, how do I get back to the point when the photo was blue?" You will find that the "undo" feature only works up to a particular point. Where the history panel can take you back as far as the launch of the photo editing process. It is a very handy panel indeed.

Lightroom is a wonderful tool for photographers. It can help you do a mixture of enhancements. Photo editing is a huge part of photography. Lightroom is easy and uncomplicated, and will allow you to do that editing with less fuss. Everything is laid out before you. If you have ever come across Camera Raw you will discover that these are similar programs in their functions and tools.




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