Lightroom 3 - WOW!!

[dt86vyss]

Just finished installing my Lightroom 3 upgrade, I upgraded from V2.6. Let me say... WOW!! I am sooo pleased with it. One particular feature i love is the 'Noise Reduction'. Because i use the kit lens and dont have the greatest DSLR Body, my images are offen let down by a noisy background. With Lightroom 3 i am able to illiminate around 90% of noise in seconds.

As im still finding my way through all the new features of Lightroom 3, it'd be awesome if others who have also upgraded could help by pointing out some of their positive experiances with the software. Share the Love!!

[flash]

I must admit I dont use lightroom much but probably should, I still have the old version 2.6, photoshop does everything for me, I have just been offered an upgrade from cs2 to cs5 for around $300, i think I will go that way!

[etherial]

Yes I agree Daniel, LR3 is great. I really like the improved noise reduction and sharpening tools. The other big winner for me is the watermarking on export. I have set up a heap of presets and found it very easy to use. I haven't noticed much of a speed improvement over LR2.6 though. The new import screen is ok as well; and the camera calibration for correcting distortion is great.

[dieselpower]

The watermarking was what won it for me. I really wanted to do watermarking without having to go through an external application or multiple export processes. The availability of Flickr and Facebook uploaders was also a winner.

I'm still only finding my feet with it but am quite impressed - I can do basic edits to most of my images to a state where I'm happy to upload them without touching another app, and I'm still not doing everything Lightroom is capable of. I only wish that it had a levels adjustment like photoshop as that's the one thing that I miss the most.

[kiwi]

It does have levels adjustment, it's just called tone curve.

[dieselpower]

Kiwi - can you use it to adjust individual channels?

[kiwi]

dunno, how do you mean ?

[joeyvaldezjr]

Same here! The watermarking and flickr uploading is very useful. I did not know you can also upload it in facebook though. Need to learn that.

[dieselpower]

dunno, how do you mean ?

In photoshop if you add a levels adjustment layer (this is different to the curves adj layer but I believe you can do it with curves as well), you can either adjust RGB (the default) or choose the individual channel that you wish to change - with the D50 I was using for a while I often had to drop out the midrange blues using this method - saturation was fine but the levels were slightly skewed. I occassionally do it with the D90 if I feel the balance of a certain colour is a bit over. I'd like to be able to mimic this in LR by being able to use the tone curve over just the blue channel, for example.

Same here! The watermarking and flickr uploading is very useful. I did not know you can also upload it in facebook though. Need to learn that.

I don't use the built-in flickr uploader. I use the flickr uploader written by Jeffrey Friedl - it allows smart collection-like publishing, full sync with flickr, automatic addition to sets and groups (though the group function isn't working for me). He also has a facebook (and many other) plugins. http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies is the place to get the goodness!

[kiwi]

ahh ok, you can individually manage all the colour levels through individual channels for each colour via a saturation slider, not quite what you describe but probably achieves a similar outcome.

[dieselpower]

Thanks Kiwi - not quite but might have the same effect (maybe). Will have a play and see how it compares to doing it in PS.

[piXelatedEmpire]

The NR is greatly improved in LR3, so much so that I don't need to move my images into Photoshop for this any longer, which is excellent. I like the Flickr integration as well, very useful.

[ryshhh]

Sorry for teh n00b question. Is there a way to get a simple border in LR3? Ive been looking around but cant find an option?

[OwenS]

Sorry for teh n00b question. Is there a way to get a simple border in LR3? Ive been looking around but cant find an option?

Do you mean for print or for web? Depending on which just go to the appropriate tab and it should have border options.

[ryshhh]

For web. Cant seem to find it still. Unless I'm blind! haha

Thanks for the reply anyway, I'll have another look.

[dieselpower]

It's in the tabs along the top (Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, Web). Click on the Web tab and about halfway down the tool panel is a section to add borders. Similar on the print tab.

[campo]

Sorry for teh n00b question. Is there a way to get a simple border in LR3? Ive been looking around but cant find an option?

there's a default preset in LR3 i believe that uses the effects/vignette at the maximum to give a solid border with rounded corners.

From memory, i believe Scott kelby's LR2 book also shows another technique to get a border, using the watermark/logo feature and a transparent image

[kiwi]

if you want "proper" borders as you export jpegs use lr/mogrify plugin

[Top]

The noise reduction is possibly the best on planet!

[ryshhh]

Thanks guys! LR3 rocks!