I wouldn’t say there’s a “preferred” profile for Sony cameras (or any other camera); it’s more a matter of taste and preference. You can think of the different profiles as different flavors of color and contrast, and you might prefer one for a certain image, and another for a different image.

Having said that, I think Adobe Color is a…

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Well it is a tradeoff; a wider lens to show the landscape is going to make the comet smaller, but the foreground can potentially add a lot to the photograph. As for stacking, I’ve never done that with an image that’s just sky, but it should work with Starry Landscape Stacker or Sequator. But I’d try just running a single image through Denoise…

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You want skies to be as dark as possible. It helps that we’re just past the full moon, so the moon won’t interfere with comet viewing in the evenings as much.

Otherwise photographing the comet is similar to photographing the Milky Way – similar settings, etc. The only difference is that I would rather use slightly shorter shutter speeds with…

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I have a lot of experience with it – it’s awesome. The only caveat is that it works best with photos that have been properly exposed in the field. In other words, you’re better off pushing up the ISO to get the right exposure in the field, rather than using a lower ISO, then trying to lighten the image later in Lightroom. Doing the latter…

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Yes, you can only choose one preset under Apply During Import. Either preset includes the neutral settings for both the Tone sliders and the curve, so you only need and want one. You can also import without any preset, and apply the preset later in the Develop Module (by just clicking on the name of the preset in the Presets Panel).

I’m glad you enjoyed the course Julia!

Yes, adjustment layers are non-destructive, but bringing the image into Photoshop as a Smart Object adds the additional flexibility to adjust the settings of the raw file itself – in other words, what you did in Lightroom before bringing the image into Photoshop. Just double-click on the Smart Object in…

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Yes, I would think so. Things are laid out differently, but the tools all work the same way.

Well since I never use the cloud version I might not be able to help much here. You probably can’t add your copyright notice upon import in the cloud version, but I think you can do so after import by clicking on the little information icon in the lower-right corner. I think you can select multiple images and add the copyright to them all at once.

You’re welcome Lisa.

Rabbit hole indeed! I’ve received a lot of questions about linear profiles since Tony Kuyper wrote about them last year. I’ll have more to say about them at some point, but for now, I would say I like using linear profiles because they offer a truly neutral starting point, while the standard profiles don’t.

However, there are some drawbacks.…

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The recording of yesterday’s Lightroom Q&A webinar is now available here:

Lightroom Q&A, April 2nd, 2022

Thanks to everyone who attended! It was great to see you all there.

Doug, sorry I wasn’t able to get to your question in yesterday’s webinar. It’s a bit hard to give you an answer without seeing examples of what you’re talking about. You could upload examples here (JPEGs), or we could discuss this in our next session.

Since you mentioned using a gray card, another thing you could try is using ColorChecker Passport to make a custom profile under the specific lighting conditions you’re shooting in. Might get you a little closer.

Joe, sorry I wasn’t able to get to your question in today’s webinar, but I’ll try to answer here.

This is a complex issue, and there probably isn’t a perfect solution. First, do I understand that you’re taking photos of flowers, then holding the flowers next to your monitor to compare the color? Or maybe making a print, and then comparing…

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Good question Glenn. My own experience tells me that Lightroom computes the net change when adjustments overlap. For example, if I push up the Whites slider in the Basic Panel to clip whites, then use a local adjustment to darken those blown-out areas, I have no trouble bringing back detail there. But I reached out to a friend at Adobe to…

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On Saturday, April 2nd, at 10:30 a.m., I’ll conduct a live Lightroom Q&A webinar, where members of the Education Center can ask any Lightroom-related question – and I’ll do my best to answer it!

You must register in advance to attend live. Click this link to register for the…

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George, sorry I missed this question while I was in Death Valley. Steve, thanks for chiming in.

I haven’t owned a desktop computer in at least 15 years, so I don’t much to say about iMacs. But I will say that if you travel much you might consider using a laptop as your primary computer, rather than getting another desktop. Current laptops are…

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I think it’s going to be difficult to lighten the mountain that much and keep things looking natural. The cloud is the main focal point of this image. The mountain can just be a silhouette – not black, but with a little bit of detail. It’s all about the cloud. Be careful – some parts of the cloud have gotten a bit hot.

The recording of yesterday’s Lightroom processing demonstration webinar is now available here:

Lightroom Processing Demo, February 19th, 2022

Thanks to everyone who attended! It was great to see you all there.

Registration is now open for my next live Lightroom Processing Demonstration webinar this Saturday, February 19th, at 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time. In this webinar I’ll take an image from a member of the Education Center and show how I would process it.

This webinar is only available to Education Center members (like you), and you must register in…

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Okay, glad you figured it out! Let us know if you run into any other issues.

Thanks for your question Lisa. I’ve been using Lightroom for all my processing with most images for many years now. Mostly I use Photoshop for image blending of some sort. Not composites, but manual exposure blending when Lightroom’s HDR Merge doesn’t give me the results I want, blending a light-painting frame with a frame for capturing…

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Suzy, I just want to say that even though I didn’t pick this to use in my Lightroom processing demo, I really like the photo. Very pretty.

The recording of yesterday’s Lightroom processing demonstration webinar is now available here:

Lightroom Processing Demo, January 8th, 2022

Thanks to everyone who attended! It was great to see you all there.

Good question. I would say yes, you should select everything for an import preset, including Masking. This assumes that when you make the preset you’re using an image with no masks, so when you import with that preset there won’t be any masks in the new images. But just be aware that if you apply that preset to an image that you’ve worked…

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Thanks!

Mort, I’m not sure whether this is the processed or unprocessed version of this, but I’d like to see both.

DJ, could you please upload a processed version of this as well?

Thanks for finding that Kathy! 🙂

In looking back at that image, I made it with a rented Canon 6D when my main camera was in for repairs. So I didn’t have a custom profile for that camera, and probably compensated by making some tweaks in the Calibration panel.

So this brings up a couple of additional points. First, if you like a certain profile…

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Well I don’t remember doing that for any of the images in those videos! It’s not something I do often. Shifting the Red, Green, or Blue Hue sliders in the Calibration panel can sometimes help if you can’t get the hues of certain colors to look right using the usual methods, like by changing the profile, or adjusting the Hue sliders in the…

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First of all, I’m glad you found the masking videos helpful!

As for the legacy ACR profiles, I’m not sure if you’ll be able to find them in the Profile Browser. For my older Canon 1DS Mark II photos, I can find the ACR 4.4 profile in my Favorites in the Profile Browser, but not in the Adobe Raw or Profiles sections. I’m not sure if I added…

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Glad you like the Masking panel Jerry. I don’t have any insight into Adobe’s plans. Note that you can adjust the Detail settings with any masks you make, though not curves or Color Mixer (Color Grading?).

Thanks for getting things started here Graham!

On February 19th at 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time I’ll be doing another live Lightroom processing webinar, where I’ll pick an image from a member of the Education Center and show how I would process it.

This webinar will only be available to people who are members of the Education Center. And if you can’t attend live, I’ll record the session and post…

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Thanks Jerry – I’m glad you like the new videos. The “timely” part is largely due to being able to work on pre-release versions of Masking, which was a great help. There’s a lot to learn. And yes, “better integration with the text” would help. I’m working on that, but it will take awhile. 🙂

If you’re enrolled in The Essential Step-by-Step Guide course, I just updated the ebook to reflect recent changes in Lightroom – especially the Masking Panel. There are no new major additions to the content except the videos about the Masking Panel, but I’ve added minor changes to sections that discuss the local adjustments. The screen shots…

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I’ve just added my three-part video series about Lightroom’s new Masking Panel to both courses: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide and Advanced Techniques. Just go to either course and scroll down the Lessons on the left-hand side and you’ll find a new lesson called “Lightroom’s New Masking Panel.” The videos are exactly the same in each course,…

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Yes, everyone will get notified when it’s available.

Gary, as Chris said, it’s common and normal for a print to look dark compared to the same image on a monitor, even if the monitor is calibrated correctly. That’s just the difference in the mediums. There’s no magic cure other than to adjust the file to make it lighter when printing. Often the biggest difference is in the shadows, so I might…

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Interesting question Jerry. I mostly use Snapshots for teaching purposes – as in the Cottonwoods and Aspens photo. Snapshots allow me to easily correlate a certain step in the ebook with the corresponding state of the image at that point, or I’ll use a Snapshot to go back and show people before-and-after versions of an image after…

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Happy Thanksgiving to you Paul!

I’m not sure if you’ve watched the “Enhancing Fog” video yet, but in that I explain how I use Clarity and Dehaze to affect fog images, and I use the same redwood photo as one of the examples. In that photograph I used a little negative Clarity to soften the image slightly, and give it a more ethereal look. On…

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Thanks for the suggestion Paul. As this point it’s pretty difficult to remake all those videos, but I’ll keep that in mind for future videos.

As for the Radial Filter, I almost never use it. I know a lot of people like it, and that’s great – whatever works for you. With the Radial Filter I can make an adjustment within an oval. With the…

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First of all, I recommend starting by setting a black point and white point only with low- and medium-contrast images. With high-contrast images I recommend starting by setting a compromise Exposure value, then pulling down Highlights, pushing up Shadows, tweaking Contrast, and maybe, after all those other steps, tweaking the Blacks and…

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Of course! Glad that helped.

Sorry for the delay in replying Paul – but anyway, good question!

The Hue slider is new, and I’m still getting used to using it. But 95% of the time I still prefer using the Color Picker. The Hue slider is a good choice if you want to completely override or replace a color, but usually I’m after something more subtle – tweaking the hue, rather…

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Unfortunately you can’t use any of Photoshop’s retouching tools directly on a Smart Object. You can create a new blank (transparent) layer above the Smart object, and use the Spot Healing Brush in Content-Aware mode on that blank layer. If you check “Sample All Layers” in the Tool Options bar at the top, then Photoshop will use the Smart Object…

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Paul, first, thanks – I’m glad you’re enjoying the new course.

I actually don’t use Texture that much. Sometimes I use it for things that actually have a fine texture, and almost always with a local adjustment, rather than using it globally. I use Clarity much more often (though in moderate amounts). I just don’t like the look produced by…

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Great – I’m glad you were able to access the course Paul.