MicrostockGroup

There may be a few people out there who want a copy of Adobe Lightroom, but don't yet have it (I suppose!). I noticed that Amazon have a one day sale on Lightroom 3 for $119 instead of the more normal $199.



Steve

I'm having trouble pasting the link - for some reason, the post won't allow the full link. Here is one that works: http://www.backyardsilver.com/2011/05/adobe-lightroom-on-sale-at-amazon/

It is the mainstay of my processing. You import all the images into the program (whereas Bridge is just a file viewer), and then you can properly set white balance, exposure, contrast, clarity, saturation, add gradients to darken the sky, add vignettes, reduce noise etc. I only go into Photoshop if I need to do some complicated cloning to get rid of a brandmark, or a power line. I then add the keywords to the files that are going to be uploaded (you can flag the good files with an easy ranking system), add titles and descriptions, and all that gets saved to the metadata in the file. I then export the images as JPEGs of the correct size (it resizes on export if required) and then do my normal uploads.

I don't use these features as much, but there is a pretty good web site creation module, a print module to create contact sheets etc.

Hope this helps. I did a long version of how I use Lightroom on my blog if you want more detail. http://www.backyardsilver.com/2011/03/my-work-flow-for-stock-photography/

Steve

I grabbed it too; great deal.

Allsa - check out this tutorial; there are many more on u-tube that will give you an idea of what to expect.

Basic Develop module workflow : Photoshop Lightroom 3 Essential Training from lynda.com

I found these short videos helpful.

Lisa

Good question. I think the main things that changed were an improved auto correction module for lenses (similar to Photoshop CS5 where the program automatically corrects for distortion and color aberrations. They also improved the noise reduction a lot, such that I rarely use the plugins I have in Photoshop. Then they added a "publish" feature that keeps a distant web site synchronized with a collection in Lightroom and included Flickr, SmugMug and Facebook. When you create this publish link, any changes you make in Lightroom are automatically carried over to the distant site and any comments are downloaded into Lightroom. I think they improved the Raw engine as well, but that may be in your version.

Better image watermarking, better support for tethering and the import process was improved.

All in all, it was a reasonable set of upgrades!

Hope that helps

Steve