A quick break from my Yellowstone Adventure story and images…

Alternative Use of Adjustment Brush in Lightroom 2.x

After listening to the latest Episode of PhotoshopUser TV Podcast (Episode #174 — 23Feb09) I really had my curiosity peeked by a tutorial Matt Kloskowski and some comments he made during this tutorial.  Matt shows in his tutorial a way to use a New feature found in Adobe Camera RAW under Photoshop CS4.   Unfortunate for myself, I have yet to upgrade to CS4 from CS3 because all my resources went into saving for that New Canon EOS 5D MKII!   Then the transmission on the truck went out and cost me more than the retail price of entire Photoshop CS Suite!  The very bad side of this…  Camera RAW in CS3 does Not recognize the RAW images from the 5D MKII… I Need to get the CS4 upgrade for this.  Yet Lightroom 2.2 Has been updated to work with this camera’s RAW files!

OK, Back to Matt’s tutorial and his comments.  During his introduction into this new feature Matt says:

“..it’s kind of neat.  I almost wish that Lightroom worked this way because I use Lightroom more often than I use Camera RAW for this but[ton].  I wish Lightroom worked this way.  If I click the minus button it resets everything else to zero and brings my clarity down to minus 25.”

Original Unretouched Image (cropped)

So initially I was thinking Matt was talking about the way clarity and the adjustment brush worked from within Lightroom.  So earlier tonight I went into Lightroom and opened an image from a recent model I shot during a Valentine’s Day themed shoot.

Now these jpeg image examples shown here have been Cropped Only and have Not had any additional modifications or adjustments made other than this Clarity Brush simply for the sake of this blog entry.  This would not be my final version of this image.  (click on the images to view larger renditions of them)

In the first image you can see some blotchiness in the models skin. There are always some other imperfections or wrinkles creating less than optimal textures across skin.

In the Develop Module within Lightroom, selecting the Adjustment Brush from the panel on the right (default location) you can see the settings I used on this image. I had originally started with an mount setting of -96, but I thought that was a bit much for my liking so I brought it back down until I liked the results.  I am sure every models skin is going to require a different setting, as I’m sure lighting is going to play a factor here as well.

Lightroom Adjustment Brush settings

Using these settings above results in the image below. Sorry I did not provide a side-by-side comparison in this blog… believe me the thought had crossed my mind. But there is a fair amount of noticeable smoothing or softening of her skin. From the Mask Overlay image below you can see I have only made adjustments to her face at this time.

Image After Clarity adjustment applied

Visible Clarity Adjustment Mask

To view this mask you can mouse-over the pin associated with this adjustment action. You can see it in the image on the model’s right cheek.  When I move the mouse off this the mask becomes hidden again.  I am sure there is a way to bring this up to work finer areas, but I’m not aware of it, so feel free to leave me a comment below if you know how to do this.  Camera RAW does allow for this making it much easier to fine tune your make area.  I also don’t know if I can change the mask color to turn my model into an Umpa Loompa?  Obviously, I created this mask pretty quickly as can be seen from the over paint across the eyebrow and lips.  But I was looking to see if this effect feature was functional within Lightroom.  Obviously (one would hope anyhow right?) I would be more careful in preparing an image for final presentation.

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Re-listening to Matt’s Words…

I have since gone back, and re-listened a few times to that portion of that podcast episode, especially to transcribe Matt’s quote above exactly.  I think he may actually have been referring to the way clicking on the button functions and resets the other settings, vs. the way the adjustment brush with clarity works within Lightroom.  But I still found this to be quite an interesting test and comparison that I still completed this blog entry and published it anyhow.

Alternative Tool Options

Are there other means of softening skin within Photoshop?  Sure there are, and most of them have some sort of price tag associated with them.  From less than a hundred dollars to several hundreds.  In searching for something that works well for my taste and style of work I have trialed a few of these.

– Nik Software Dfine 2.0 – I briefly tested the demo version of this plug-in the 1st-half of 2008.  I was pretty pleased with it’s results and flexibility at the time.   $99.95 directly, but I found this available at Adorama for $79.

– Imagenomic Portraiture 2 – I also checked out the trial version of this plug-in during early 2008 and was more pleased with this tool.  Although I did have a few issues with this on the Mac at the time, and I did receive a quick response via E-mail… I don’t recall the issue being resolved completely to my liking at that time.  This plug-in was quite costly at $199.95.  But I guess if you are doing this type of work full time and being paid for or making money at it, that would be an easier amount to justify then.

Preliminary Analysis…

So Overall I like the Camera RAW Feature that Matt demonstrated in this tutorial.
Obviously now I am going to want to revisit this with Photoshop CS4 and that version of Camera RAW…

For those of us unable to afford or justify spending funds on plug-ins, especially in these economic conditions, this functionality works great.  The visible masking alone is sweet.  My initial test here was only from Lightroom.  Results compared to what Matt shows in the podcast are not as nice as when done from Camera RAW.  Maybe I just need to use a few more sample images and compare results that way.  Another advantage of the Camera RAW method is you can edit with the mask being visible.  As mentioned above, I don’t think this is possible from Lightroom.  Of course this just adds another reason why I need to save more lunch monies and purchase my upgrade to Photoshop CS 4.0!

All Images Copyrighted © 2009 michael T. sedwick
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I clearly read my share of techie and non-techie book. 
From time to time one of these books I would recommend to folks.  With the age of Blogs among us now, I thought I would try my hand at reviewing a book I purchased for a number of reasons.  I have been a devout Adobe Lightroom user since it was in it’s early pre-release beta days.  Earlier this year when Release 2.0 came out, I quickly updated, and converted over my 1.x catalogs.  Back when Lightroom was first being released, some folks from Adobe got together with a number of adventurous photographers, took a trek across and about Iceland.  For some reason at the time, I was less enthusiastic about that book, or Iceland.    But when I heard that Adobe and more photographers were embarking on another adventure for the release of Lightroom 2 and where and whom was going… I was interested in this new book to be coming out in the future. Well, the Future is here!  When I returned from my business trip out to the Denver Metro area for 6-weeks, I dropped by my favorite local book shop to play catch-up.  There on the New Arrivals shelf were Two copies of the new book ‘Photoshop Lightroom 2 Adventure‘ by Mikkel Aaland From O’Reilly.  As I mentioned this book appealed to me for number of reasons.  A major interest was the fact that they worked on this Adventure across Tasmania.  One place I had, and still regret today not visiting while I was working down in Australia for 8-months.  Especially since I was based from Melbourne while I was there.  Tasmania for those that are not really sure, is an Island off the Southern tip of Australia. Other interests include Everybodies favorite Tech Geek Leo Laporte, who along with writing the Forward for the book, was the Adventures Special Media Guest.  Frederick V. Johnson from Adobe (TWIP Fame and more…) had a hand in this Adventure as well.  Other photographers of note whose works and such I was also familiar with included: Bruce Dale, Katrin Eismann, Jeff Pflueger, Marcus Bell along with many more.   These are just a few of the photographers from the adventure group whose work I am aware of.

This book covers Lightroom 2.0 from the ground up so any one new to using Lightroom could benefit from this.  But there is more than enough new or changed items with this release that even for someone fairly versed in Lightroom 1.x will find useful knowledge between the covers.  Not only do they teach us about these new Lightroom pointers, but they share bits and pieces of the Adventure throughout. And they have put this book together well in my opinion.  After introducing the primary functional parts of Lightroom, the book begins walking through defining functionality as one would use the program in practical daily activities.  From real life activity of reviewing a Days Shoot, to a pretty good discussion on Black and White conversion including a dialogue about when to use it.  This was another reason I really like this book.  While it does work through using the various modules, almost every item discussed it backed up with a screen-shot detailing the object at hand.  Many of these screen-shots have highlighted portions related to the text.  They also cover using this program together and interacting with Adobe Photoshop CS3. The print module and Slideshow module are covered in good depth as well.   There was an interesting chapter on what they called “Developer Recipes”, where 8 of the photographers walk though custom Developer Module set-ups useful examples to polish off your images. I thought this was a nice addition.

One of the sweet parts of the book is the Adventure images around Tasmania.  There are images included throughout the book from the photographers on this Adventure Journey.  There was a funny looking one which seems to be of Leo Laporte with a night cap and PJ’s on a plane in-flight.  I’d love to see that image in a larger size!   But this book is full of wonderful images from this trip.  The scenes from around this wonderful island not only show off the beauty of this beautiful state, but the varied talents of the photographic team that made up this adventure.  Additional Images available on the O’Reilly digitalmedia site: Tasmania Adventure Team Galleries

As an individual who travels a fair amount and takes my Photography with me.  I use Lightroom pretty heavily as part of my workflow these days.  This book is written from a Photographers perspective by photographers.  It is written at a level that does not talk down at the reader, but explains features and issues in an easily readable style.  I can whole heartedly recommend this book for any photographer looking to start using Adobe Lightroom 2 or just looking to brush up on all the new and updated features of this program.
Maybe they can seek me out as a “Special Guest” on their  Adventure???

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