Lightroom 3

[Matt Timmons]

Just got Lightroom 3 and am totally satisfied with the features that it brings, especially the noise reduction. Some of you might know that I use lightroom for the lion's share of my processing, and only go to PS for the heavy stuff. Some of the main features now are plug-n'-play tethered shooting (not needing any other software), watermarking, built in lens correction profiles, and generally some cool improvements that are specific to the needs of professionals. I saw a demo of the noise reduction technology at Photoshop World in Florida back in March and was blown away. No need for any additional plug ins anymore, it's good out the box. I thought I would include a demo of my own that I shot today for you guys to check out.

I cranked up the ISO to 12,800 and shot at f4 @1/1250 to get it as noisy as possible (without going to extremes with black background, etc, just a simple vitamin bottle on the counter). It's shot on the smallest RAW size, and I reduced the image for web, but no other processing. Here's a 100% section of the image (sorry for the large sizes, I just wanted to maintain legible detail).

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c67/mattr1/before100.jpg

And here's the same thing with just the noise reduction slider up to 80% in Lightroom 3.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c67/mattr1/after100.jpg

And the full before/after shots, resized for web.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c67/mattr1/bottle-before.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c67/mattr1/bottle-after.jpg

So if anyone is curious about processing software and what the pro's use and all that, there's a few choices out there, but I'm seeing more and more professionals using Lightroom because it measures up pretty well to want anyone using pro-line DSLR's (or smaller) need. Got my recommendation! :)

[Corey Jenkins]

WOW! Thats some crazy noise reduction with a serious amount of detail saved. I had the beta for lightroom 3 for a while, mainly just for tethering, maybe I'll have to upgrade some time.

[Peter]

I'm using Lightroom 2, but was testing beta 3, more or less for archiving, tagging photos and as a RAW converter. I set the basic color adjustments there. But I do retouching at PhotoShop of course. I also set the ACR calibration at the Lightroom.

Do you guys use ColorChecker Passport? I’m currently using the Gretag Macbeth Colorchecker. Well. It gives some results, but I’m not always satisfied. Now I’m thinking of buying the passport version of it.

One thing I don’t like at the Lightroom is the colorspace (ProPhoto RGB) that it uses. I always have to convert the photos to my monitor profile when I switch to PhotoShop.

At the L3 beta I really liked its Flickr sync.

[Matt Timmons]

I dont use any color checker, just profiled monitors. Set the white balance in the shot, then do any remaining color balance in LR by eye (or don't care if I'm processing to B&W or color tones of choice). I use Prophoto RGB colorspace all the way until web or print.