{"id":2353,"date":"2012-02-17T07:16:59","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T15:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/?p=2353"},"modified":"2019-11-23T19:24:26","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T03:24:26","slug":"lightroom-tutorial-workflow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2012\/02\/17\/lightroom-tutorial-workflow\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightroom Tutorial – Workflow"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are about as many definitions of \u201cfine art photography\u201d as there are people who call themselves \u201cfine art photographers.\u201d\u00a0 For many of us, fine art photography is an expression of our view of the world.\u00a0 Much of what we see in the world is captured in the images we capture in the field.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not the whole story.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because the true expressive quality of our photographs comes to life in the post processing \u2013 the digital darkroom if you will.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Workflow<\/h1>\n

Working on an image (if you can truly call it \u2018working\u2019) is best done and leads to the best results if you have a structure, an order in which you do things.\u00a0 It\u2019s good to have a starting point, a consistent way in which you you begin.\u00a0 I often think of the first adjustments you make to your photograph as like the opening book in chess.\u00a0 There are a set of standard moves that all chess masters begin with.\u00a0 There are more than one set of moves but the first five to ten moves are recognizable.\u00a0 It\u2019s when you get into the game that the play becomes more free form.<\/p>\n

I have a set of opening adjustments that I almost always perform, a post processing equivalent of the opening book.\u00a0 It\u2019s not until I get further along that the decisions of what to do next become more free flowing.<\/p>\n

In addition to the opening book my workflow has a general structure to it.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a rigid structure.\u00a0 I don\u2019t hold off a type of adjustment because it\u2019s not time to make it.\u00a0 But in general I make the adjustments in the following order:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Tonality<\/li>\n
  2. Hue<\/li>\n
  3. Saturation<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I\u2019ll dive into each of these in more detail below.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019ve heard some advocate a totally free-form workflow.\u00a0 See want needs to be fixed and fix it. Then see what needs to be fixed next and fix it.\u00a0 And so on.\u00a0 While this workflow works, I prefer a little more structure than that although the structure is more along the lines of guidelines than rules.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019m not going to get into the details of how to make the adjustments I describe in the following sections.\u00a0 That will come in subsequent posts.\u00a0 What I want to provide is an overview of my workflow.\u00a0 Of course you are free to try it out, see what works for you and adapt it in any way you choose.<\/p>\n

    Preliminary Steps<\/h2>\n

    There are often some mechanical steps that are best performed first.\u00a0 These consist of removing dust spots, aligning horizontals and verticals and cropping.<\/p>\n

    Dust spots are annoying blotches in your images that result from pesky dust that gets on your sensor when you change lenses.\u00a0 They are apparent when you shoot at the higher f\/stops and show up in the sky or other areas that don\u2019t have a lot of detail.\u00a0 Lightroom\u2019s spot removal tool is perfectly suited for the job.<\/p>\n

    The crop tool in Lightroom pulls double duty.\u00a0 Not only does it crop your image but it can be used to straighten horizontals and verticals.\u00a0 The horizontal alignment tool within the crop adjustment rotates the whole image.<\/p>\n

    I like to remove spots and adjust the horizontals and verticals first.\u00a0 Then I make a virtual copy of the image before cropping and proceeding with the rest of the workflow.\u00a0 The reason for the virtual copy is that quite frequently I need to start over.\u00a0 So if I\u2019ve been working on a virtual copy I can just create another virtual copy from the original and begin again.\u00a0 But when I start over I don\u2019t[ want to have to redo the spot removal and straightening.<\/p>\n

    Tonality<\/h2>\n

    The lightness, darkness and contrast of the image is referred to by many terms \u2013 brightness and contrast, luminosity and tonality.\u00a0 I prefer \u2018tonality\u2019 so I\u2019ll use that.\u00a0 It\u2019s the term painters use.\u00a0 But luminosity as in HSL (Hue, Saturation and Luminosity) is for all practical purposed the same thing.<\/p>\n

    We can adjust the overall brightness or darkness of our image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \"big_sur_120116__SM39479-4-2\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"big_sur_120116__SM39479-3-2\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

    We can also adjust the image\u2019s contrast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \"big_sur_120116__SM39479-8\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"big_sur_120116__SM39479-7\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

    I start many images the same way.\u00a0 I set a white point using the Exposure adjustment.\u00a0 That\u2019s a tiny area of the image that is pure white.\u00a0 Next, I set a black point using the Blacks adjustment.\u00a0 You guessed it. That\u2019s a very tiny area of the image that is pure black.\u00a0 Next I adjust the mid tones until the overall brightness of the image is pleasing.\u00a0 I use the Brightness adjustment for this.\u00a0 And lastly I tweak the contrast using the Contrast adjustment.\u00a0 Many people would advocate using Lightroom\u2019s Curves adjustment for contrast adjustments and I understand their point.\u00a0 I\u2019m just not a big fan of the Lightroom Curves.\u00a0 I prefer the Curves in Photoshop.<\/p>\n

    There are usually more tonality adjustments to make but I generally start this way.\u00a0 Other tonality adjustments I use frequently are Recovery (to recover blown highlights), Fill Light (to open up detail in shadow areas) and the Luminance adjustment in HSL (to lighten or darken a specific color).<\/p>\n

    The adjustments I\u2019ve described so far are global \u2013 they affect the entire image.\u00a0 Lightroom has some capabilities for making local adjustments with the Gradient Filter and Adjustment Brush.\u00a0\u00a0 I use the Gradient Filter more than the Adjustment Brush.\u00a0 I prefer Photoshop for the kinds of local adjustments the Adjustment Brush is designed for.<\/p>\n

    With the tonality adjustments pretty much done it\u2019s time to move on to the second step in the workflow \u2013 Hue.<\/p>\n

    Hue<\/h2>\n

    Hue refers to the color of the image.\u00a0 There can be an overall color cast to images.\u00a0 For example, the images you take on an overcast day, during twilight or in the shade will have a decidedly blue cast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \"big_sur_120116__SM39479-3\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"big_sur_120116__SM39479-2\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

    Lightroom is unsurpassed in it\u2019s ability to adjust Hue.\u00a0 In fact, I much prefer to adjust Hue in Lightroom rather than Photoshop.<\/p>\n

    Color casts are often cool or warm.\u00a0 Cool colors are the blues and greens.\u00a0 Warm colors are the yellows and magentas.<\/p>\n

    The primary hue adjustments in Lightroom are Temperature and Tint.\u00a0 Temperature adjusts the yellows and blues.\u00a0 Tint adjusts the greens and magentas.<\/p>\n

    I also like to adjust the hue of a single color.\u00a0 For example, I may find the sky is too cyan so I\u2019ll use the Hue adjustment in HSL to make it more blue.<\/p>\n

    Lightroom comes with a White Balance dropper.\u00a0 In images like the one above where you have white waves you can use it to set the Temperature and Tint.\u00a0 This can be very effective in at least giving you a good starting point for your final Hue tinkering.<\/p>\n

    Saturation<\/h2>\n

    The final adjustment is saturation.\u00a0 This is the intensity or purity of the color.\u00a0 The extremes of saturation are overly vivid colors or no color at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \"big_sur_120116__SM39479-2-2\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"big_sur_120116__SM39479-4\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

    Lightroom has some nice adjustments for Saturation.\u00a0 I rarely use the Saturation adjustment as it affects all colors equally.\u00a0 The Vibrance adjustment tends to saturate the less saturated colors without oversaturating the more saturated ones.\u00a0 I like Vibrance.<\/p>\n

    But my preferred method of saturating is to saturate individual colors using the Saturation controls in the HSL adjustment.\u00a0 With it I can increase or decrease the saturation of one color at a time.<\/p>\n

    The reason for putting Saturation at the end of the workflow is because the Tonality and even the Hue adjustments can affect saturation.\u00a0 So it makes sense to do those adjustments first and see where you end up saturation-wise.\u00a0 Then you can go from there.<\/p>\n

    <\/h1>\n

    <\/h2>\n

    Summary<\/h2>\n

    So there you have it \u2013 the overall approach I take to post processing.\u00a0 To recap:<\/p>\n

    Tonality adjustments<\/strong> \u2013 Set a white point and black point, adjust the mid tones and contrast and then tweak the shadows and colors.<\/p>\n

    Hue <\/strong>\u2013 correct any overall color casts or color casts of individual colors.<\/p>\n

    Saturation <\/strong>\u2013 Increase the intensity and purity of individual colors.<\/p>\n

    \"big_sur_120116__SM39479-9\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    We go into workflow in more detail in our photography workshops so come on out and join us.<\/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

    (2851)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    An overview of a very effective Lightroom workflow.<\/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":[4,273,363],"tags":[368,128,367,266,25,365,47,364,13,163,366,127,46,1358],"class_list":["post-2353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to-articles","category-lightroom-how-to-articles-articles","category-workflow-2","tag-brightness","tag-color","tag-contrast","tag-exposure","tag-fine-art","tag-hue","tag-lightroom","tag-luminance","tag-photography","tag-post-processing","tag-saturation","tag-tonality","tag-workflow","tag-workshops"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-BX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353","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=2353"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4670,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353\/revisions\/4670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}