Read my post before this one. Replace all words that are "Photoshop" with "Lightroom."
Now that we got that out of the way, let's begin.
A few months back, I heard about Adobe Lightroom. Let's just say, I didn't care for it during the time. I have Photoshop and it's all I needed. Then I came across one of my Flickr contact's images -- a "before and after" photo which was done with just a few clicks on Lightroom. My jaw dropped as I wondered in amazement. What he was able to achieve in Lightroom for a few seconds would probably take a few minutes in Photoshop. Right there and then, I became interested and almost immediately got myself a copy of Lightroom. That's right, again, buy a legal copy of Lightroom. The tag is about US$299... but don't fret, if you want to try it before buying, a free trial is available on Adobe.
To cut the story short, I now use Lightroom with almost every other picture I post at my Flickr. Being Photoshop's baby brother (or sister), as expected, it's got power. Lots of it. Although you might find it hard to get down to the per-pixel level, global image adjustments with Lightroom are easy as operating sliders for your computer's volume control. If you want a quick and dirty way of improving the impact of your photos and does not have the time to tango with Photoshop, Lightroom is for you.
As an example, let's begin with an image I took a few years back while we were on our way to Barangay Laiya, San Juan, Batangas. It's a picture of the South Luzon Expressway with a generous heap of clouds above.
Pretty decent right? It thus makes you wonder if any adjustment to the sky is even needed at all. Well, I wanted the blue sky to appear as if a polarizer was attached to the camera. Polarizers darken light skies, thus, the contrast between the sky and the clouds is increased. Polarizers can also reduce or eliminate reflections on glass. Need more info about polarizers? Click here.
On to the exiting part which only took about a minute in Lightroom. I moved a few sliders
The sky, specifically the blue, is more saturated and contrast is increased. To see the differences better, here's a cutaway
The original image occupies the left side of the frame while the edited on is on the right.
Here's the trick in Lightroom:
In the Develop module, leave all sliders alone except for the following:
1. Recovery : 100
2. Clarity : 100
3. Highlights : + 25
4. Lights : - 25
5. Saturation (Blue) : + 15
That's all there is to it! :)
Parting shot:
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