Lightroom 6

[Second Hand Pat]

Hey guys, bought a stand-alone version of Lightroom 6 and will be here today. Any suggestions on materials for getting started with it?

[rickztahone]

My only suggestion is to come up with a filing method right now before you get it and stick with it. Lr serves as a great organizer, but you have to know how you want things organized first

[Second Hand Pat]

My only suggestion is to come up with a filing method right now before you get it and stick with it. Lr serves as a great organizer, but you have to know how you want things organized first

Ricardo, guessing I should start with one folder and have everything under that so I can point lightroom to the folder?
Pat

[DiscusOnly]

Ricardo, guessing I should start with one folder and have everything under that so I can point lightroom to the folder?
Pat

Pat

In my quick setup with the cloud version of LR, I decided to use and external hard drive to set up the catalog. Initially, I though I would be able to use the cloud space I had but it doesn't work that way. I opted to use an external hard drive because I plan to use this on multiples machines.

[Second Hand Pat]

Van, I am planning on the same. Also found this video as a quick start. It does not directly answer my questions but a bit of experimenting on my part should suffice.

[Discus-n00b]

You also need the space to organize. You know one of my biggest complaints about lightroom? It wanting me to constantly back stuff up or catalog whatever before I close. But I'm one of those people that already have a system so it's nothing for me to do it myself. Not sure if you can turn it off or not, I hardly use the program myself. I haven't found to much I can't do in just photoshop especially if I am not trying to batch process. I could stand to dig a bit deeper into LR though as I don't know it like I know other programs. I use it for timelapse as well, but again....batch processing. Once learned I can see LR being more efficient, so I will pay attention to this. Whenever I need tutorials I tend to start on youtube Pat, sorry I can't point to anything specific atm.

[SMB2]

Pat, there are so many good series of video tutorials. Here are a few:
Scott Kelby http://kelbyone.com/

Anthony Morganti https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bECi...XKEMQmjseqic1J

Julieanne Kost http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/lightroom-training-videos

Phil Steele http://www.steeletraining.com/lightroom-course.htm

These will get you started! Some are subscriptions but you get continuous course updates as new things come out.
Spend time learning about setting up your Catalog, library and workflow. It will save you a lot of effort down the road. Processing is fun and it's easy to learn the basics, but organising your images is key.
Let me know if you have questions.

[Second Hand Pat]

Thanks Stan,

I already found Anthony's quickstart video which is linked above. I worked thru some of that tonight and played with some osprey pictures from my Maryland trip. Appreciate the additional links and I am sure I could have questions as my progress thru the learning curve.

Pat

[DiscusOnly]

You also need the space to organize. You know one of my biggest complaints about lightroom? It wanting me to constantly back stuff up or catalog whatever before I close. But I'm one of those people that already have a system so it's nothing for me to do it myself. Not sure if you can turn it off or not, I hardly use the program myself. I haven't found to much I can't do in just photoshop especially if I am not trying to batch process. I could stand to dig a bit deeper into LR though as I don't know it like I know other programs. I use it for timelapse as well, but again....batch processing. Once learned I can see LR being more efficient, so I will pay attention to this. Whenever I need tutorials I tend to start on youtube Pat, sorry I can't point to anything specific atm.

In my Lr cloud, there is an option for catalog that may be what you are looking for.

[SMB2]

You can set Catalog backups in LR as well. But all you are backing up in the Catalog is the locations of your images and any data to adjustments made. You are not backing up the images themselves. The Catalog contains no images, so the backup takes a few minutes at most.
I back up after every session.

[Second Hand Pat]

I am loving LR and really like the history aspect where you can go back and find where you added something you do not like. I am playing with a picture of an old white barn located at the Sotterley plantation in Southern rural Maryland. The picture was taken on an overcast day just after a rain. So the sky was overcast and the grass was glowing green from the rain. Here is the original picture

DSC_1390_orig

and the changes made following Anthony Morganti quick start video linked above and referred in Stan's post.

DSC_1390_after

[SMB2]

Nicely done, Pat. (You are shooting in RAW?)
Love the way you opened up the foreground trees. Nice control of the whites and bringing out the roof.
Perhaps a slight crop to lessen the foreground and take out the building on the left keeping the original (as shot) dimensions. May not work, just curious.

[rickztahone]

Very nice Pat. I was worried that your first edit may be an over the top "cooked" edit. It is very typical in new users. I am so glad to see you didn't and actually used it like it is supposed to . Great job Pat!

[Second Hand Pat]

Thanks Stan and Ricardo

Ricardo, I know exactly what you mean by "overcooked". I actually hate that look.

Stan, I am shooting in RAW and making my edits on the RAW file. Is this a little better. I think the dark area in the foregound left should be cloned out.

DSC_1390_after

[Second Hand Pat]

Original

DSC_1142_orig

After. Only a little crop as the bird zoomed in pretty much falls apart. Perhaps a little overcooked Ricardo?

DSC_1142_after