{"id":1391,"date":"2010-09-11T15:24:38","date_gmt":"2010-09-11T23:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/11\/lightroom-tutorial-camera-specific-presets\/"},"modified":"2019-11-18T20:52:55","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T04:52:55","slug":"lightroom-tutorial-camera-specific-presets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/11\/lightroom-tutorial-camera-specific-presets\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightroom Tutorial – Camera Specific Presets"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

I\u2019m a landscape photographer who likes to do it all himself.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want my camera making decisions for me.\u00a0 That\u2019s one reason why I shoot RAW.\u00a0\u00a0 And I don\u2019t want Lightroom doing it either.\u00a0 Lightroom has default presets that it applies to your photographs when you import them.<\/p>\n

To make things interesting, I shoot with two cameras (three if you count my iPhone).\u00a0 My main camera is a Canon 1Ds Mark III and my don\u2019t-leave-home-without-it camera is a Canon G11.\u00a0 These cameras have widely different characteristics to say the least.\u00a0 Lightroom applies the same default preset to files from both cameras when they are imported.<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if you could set up separate presets for each camera and set them up the way you like them.\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s exactly what you can do.\u00a0 In fact, you can go a step farther than just undoing the Lightroom defaults.\u00a0 If there\u2019s something you always do to every file you can create presets specific to each of your cameras and apply all the adjustments you want.<\/p>\n

This all started with release 2.2 when Adobe gave us the ability to tell Lightroom what specific adjustments to apply to images for each of your cameras.\u00a0 You control this feature in the Presets tab in the Preferences window (Edit | Preferences > Preset).<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a> To create general camera-specific presets make sure the check boxes for Make defaults specific to camera serial number<\/strong> and Make defaults specific to camera ISO setting<\/strong> are both turned OFF<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Now make sure you\u2019re in Develop<\/strong> mode and open an image from the camera you want to define the default settings for.\u00a0 I\u2019ll use the G11 for this example.<\/p>\n

Lightroom Default Settings<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Lightroom applies its own default settings.\u00a0 Under Basic<\/strong> it sets Blacks<\/strong> to 5, Brightness<\/strong> to +50 and Contrast<\/strong> to +25.\u00a0 I prefer setting Blacks<\/strong> to 0 and leaving Brightness<\/strong> and Contrast<\/strong> as they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Basic\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Lightroom Default<\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n

\"Basic\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

My G11<\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Lightroom also sets Point Curve:<\/strong> in Tone Curves<\/strong> to Medium Contrast.<\/strong>\u00a0 I prefer Linear<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Tone\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Lightroom Default<\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n

\"Tone\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

My G11<\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

These settings give me more control over black point and overall image contrast.<\/p>\n

Camera Specific Settings<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Moving on down to Detail<\/strong>, this is where I like to do capture sharpening.\u00a0 We know that sharpening is the last thing you do before printing, frequently referred to as Output Sharpening.\u00a0 But because of the geometrical arrangement of the pixels in our camera sensors they introduce a small amount of image softening so capture sharpening is also very important.<\/p>\n

The Detail<\/strong> settings allow you to do two things \u2013 capture sharpening and noise reduction.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The LR defaults for both are very general.\u00a0 The Sharpening<\/strong> defaults are Amount <\/strong>25, Radius <\/strong>1.0 and Detail <\/strong>25.\u00a0 (I\u2019m not going to make any Noise Reduction<\/strong> changes for now.)\u00a0 As a landscape photographer I prefer capture sharpening that is a bit stronger and edgier.\u00a0 So I changed the settings to Amount<\/strong> 50, Radius<\/strong> 0.8 and Detail<\/strong> 35.\u00a0 This is a good balance for the sharpness I\u2019m looking for in my work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Detail\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Lightroom Default<\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n

\"Detail\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

My G11<\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Lightroom 3 offers a very powerful adjustment that corrects for distortions caused by our lenses such as barrel and pin cushion distortions and vignetting.\u00a0 It is called Lens<\/strong> Correction<\/strong>.\u00a0 With this control you can specify your camera Make<\/strong> and Model<\/strong> and LR will apply the appropriate adjustments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Lens\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Lightroom Default<\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n

\"Lens\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

My G11<\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

One final adjustment I like to make is in the Camera Calibration <\/strong>section.\u00a0 This is often overlooked because, well, it\u2019s been pretty difficult to figure out in the past.\u00a0 But with LR 3 Adobe has made that job a lot simpler.\u00a0 Now the control has a Process<\/strong> adjustment with which you can select the older process LR applied back in 2003<\/strong> or the current process 2010 (current)<\/strong>.\u00a0 The other control is Profile:<\/strong> that contains a drop down menu.\u00a0 You can use the Adobe Standard<\/strong> setting or select a profile that is more specific to your camera.\u00a0 I prefer Camera Neutral<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Camera\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Lightroom Default<\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n

\"Camera\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

My G11<\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Once you get everything set up it\u2019s time to save these settings as your camera\u2019s default preset.\u00a0 While still in Develop<\/strong> mode click Develop | Set Default Settings\u2026<\/strong>.\u00a0 Lightroom displays a dialog box for your camera.\u00a0 Click Update to Current Settings<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Update<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s it.\u00a0 If you have more cameras you can repeat the process for each.<\/p>\n

The next thing to try is to Make defaults specific to camera ISO setting<\/strong>.\u00a0 I plan to make presets that automatically increase the amount of noise reduction as the ISO increases.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve shown you the settings that I use.\u00a0 These are the settings I feel are appropriate for a landscape nature photographer.\u00a0 Your settings may very well be different.\u00a0 But the fact remains that this is a cool way to import your photographs and apply a consistent set of initial adjustments.\u00a0 You can create whatever starting point you want and then take it from there.<\/p>\n

Join me on an upcoming workshop.\u00a0 Click here for more details.<\/a><\/p>\n

To see more of my photographs click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

(4321)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a landscape photographer who likes to do it all himself.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want my camera making decisions for me.\u00a0 That\u2019s one reason why I shoot RAW.\u00a0\u00a0 And I don\u2019t want Lightroom doing it either.\u00a0 Lightroom has default presets that it applies to your photographs when you import them. To make things interesting, I shoot … Continue reading “Lightroom Tutorial – Camera Specific Presets”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,273],"tags":[58,47,274],"class_list":["post-1391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-how-to-articles","category-lightroom-how-to-articles-articles","tag-adobe","tag-lightroom","tag-tutorial"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-mr","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1391"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4603,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions\/4603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}