For the RAW users - a few notes on Adobe Lightroom 5 :-)

 
As I mentioned to Craig and Mike in my 'calendar' thread, I recently added Adobe Lightroom 5 to my photo-editing armoury.
 
Although both the DPP software that came with my camera and my Photoshop Elements 11 (which has the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw - albeit a cut-down version of the one included with its big brother CS6) are very capable of producing excellent results with RAW (and other) files, I was recently tempted by the incredible amount of features offered by the free beta version of LR5.
 
I found it such an incredible piece of software, I bought the full version on the day it was released (and the beta timed out). Now I find myself using it as the first port of call for every RAW file I drag off my EOS's SD card.
 
I thought it might interest those of you photographers who haven't come across it yet to give you a run through of the features LR5 has to offer. If you leave aside the sort of photo manipulation and post-'development' editing that Photoshop and its ilk specialise in, you really have just about all the tools you need to turn a raw 'RAW' file into a finished image.
 
As with most RAW processing software, the original RAW file is never overwritten, and there are all the usual file formats available to export 'finished' images as - you can even export the image as another RAW file, albeit in Adobe's digital negative (DNG) format. A really neat feature is that LR5 allows you save a 'Snapshot' of all the adjustments you've made at any time during the processing so you can flick back and forth - much easier than using Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y.
 
LR5 also has loads of organisational/filing/categorising tools, as well as a Mapping tool (which can be used either automatically with any GPS info in the file's metadata or inserted manually), a Photo-book Creation feature, a Slideshow feature (to which you can add text/captions), as well as tools for printing and uploading to the web from directly inside LR.
 
Anywho, here's a walk through of the 'Develop' Module, where all the good stuff goes on
 
Here's the main screen showing an image in the Before/After=Left+Right view. You can also view the before/after images laid out in Top+Bottom, or Split Screen Left+Right and Split Screen Top+Bottom modes. You can of course just choose to fill the viewing screen with the image as you work on it. All views are zoomable all the way from 'Fit Screen' to '11:1'.
 

 
The left side of the screen contains the Navigator Thumbnail, the (pretty comprehensive) Presets menu, the Snapshots list and the (Edit) History list. The History can be copied and pasted to another image - this is incredibly useful if you have a series of photos taken at the same time under similar conditions. Taking this one step further, once you start editing an image, you have the option to use the 'Sync' button which copies all the (fully selectable/de-selectable) edits and adjustments you've made to any images you select in the Photo Bin. It can also be set to AutoSync where all the edits are automatically applied to all the images in the Bin.
 
All the image editing menus and options are arranged in a pretty logical way (as a rule of thumb, working from top to bottom) on the right of the screen. In the screenshot above, you can see that common sets of features are grouped into different expandable 'Adjustment Panels' (all of which were collapsed at the time).
 
The Panels, from top to bottom are:

• Histogram
• Tool Strip
• Basic
• HSL / Colour / B&W
• Split Toning
• Detail
• Lens Correction
• Effects
• Camera Calibration

 
 
 
 
 
 
Here's a more detailed look at what's inside each of these panels when you expand them.
 
HISTOGRAM:
 

 
This panel also includes the ISO, Lens Focal Length, Aperture and Shutter Speed information of the shot. From this panel, you can also toggle Show Shadow Clipping and Show Highlight Clipping options on and off.
 
Once you move the mouse cursor onto the image you're editing, the details below the histogram change to display the before and after colour tones of the part of the image you're over (as percentages of RGB).
 
 
TOOL STRIP:
 
There are six tools on here:
 

 
When you select a tool, a list of relevant options expands beneath the Tool Strip:

• Crop:

 
 

•  Spot Removal:

 

•  Red Eye Correction:

 

• Graduated Filter:

 

• Radial Filter:

 

•  Adjustment Brush:

 
 
BASIC:
 
The Basic Panel allows you to perform a lot of the 'standard' adjustments, either in Colour or Black & White mode.
 
Here are the sliders for the Colour adjustments:
 

 
 
TONE CURVE:
 

 
You can adjust the curve either by moving the sliders, dragging the curve itself, or even by dragging inside the image.
 
 
HSL / Colour / B&W:
 
When you click on the HSL (Hue, Saturation, Luminance) button, the sliders are arranged into those three categories with a slider for each colour in each:
 

 
In Colour mode, the sliders are arranged by colour, with the HSL controls grouped for each:
 
 
 
Incidentally, if you click on any of the small colour buttons at the top of the Panel, the sliders for that colour are the only ones displayed.
 
The controls for Black & White are of course much simpler:
 

 
 
SPLIT TONING:
 

 
Two-colour effects are possible with this tool, based on changing the tone of the highlights and the shadows. Not really my cup of Rosie, but it works extremely well if you like the effect. You also seem to be able to get some reasonably good colour infra-red film type effects using it.
 
 
DETAIL:
 

 
All the controls you need for Sharpening and Noise Reduction.
 
 
LENS CORRECTION:

• Basic

 
The checkable options are pretty self-explanatory, plus there are four automatic adjustments available:

• 'Level' searches for a main horizontal in the image and rotates to make it level
• 'Vertical' searches for uprights and distorts the image to attempt to correct any perspective errors
• 'Auto' seems to be the most useful/natural, usually finding a good compromise between the Level and Vertical adjustments
• 'Full' can be pretty drastic as it can often completely distort the image to ensure 'maximum' Level and Vertical adjustments are made

 

• Profile:

 
When checked, this setting attempts to correct 'known' defects in whichever lens you select. It's not quite fully automatic, but I've noticed that once I select 'Canon' from the 'Make' drop-down list, LR seems to identify the lens from the metadata and insert it for me.
 
The two sliders also allow manual control of the correction.
 

• Colour:

 
When checked, this helps remove Chromatic Aberration from the image. You can fine-tune using the sliders, and even use the detachable eye-dropper to tool to select the colour directly on the image. From what I can tell so far, it does a pretty good job in automatic mode.
 

•  Manual:

 
 
This offers some incredibly fine control over correcting perspective and distortion errors. I find I use it a lot to fine tune after getting somewhere near with the automatic options.
 
 
EFFECTS:
 

 
The Vignette can be set to Darken or Lighten the edges, and there are three modes available: Highlight Priority, Colour Priority and Paint Overlay.
 
 
CAMERA CALIBRATION:
 

 
Probably very useful, but I haven't used this Panel at all yet.
 
 
Well, there we go, let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know.
 
 

Even though I can't call myself a photographer, when I was going through the training videos I was very impressed with what's now available.  Very cool stuff!
 
Heck, you can even straighten the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

+1 on the Lynda.com videos.  Those are my stand-bys and I've done about three or four dozen titles by now.