Best products from r/Lightroom

Forgive me but I’m going to assume you’re aiming for true to life color accuracy over stylistic or creative intent or “looks” (moody, grunge, surreal, dreamy, vintage). If so, getting your WB and exposure correct is the bulk of the work. What follows is to get you the rest of the way there.

Photoshop or Affinity Photo provide more flexibility to do these types of corrections, and with Lightroom it becomes a matter of deciding what you’re willing to trade for correct skin tones: money, time, or creative intent.

If You Have Money

purchase the x-rite color checker passport. Once you get going with this, you’ll get color accurate photos with little effort on your part.

If you’re anal about color accuracy you’ll need to make sure you have a sample photo of the passport using the same lens, and in the same lighting condition, as the photos you want to correct. It has the benefit of also nailing your WB for you.

Going this route, you’ll miss out on learning how to correct colour yourself. It’s all done for you though so you save time. A lot of time.

If You Have Time

There are recommended ratios of R:G:B values for different skin tones depending on race. The singular best source I’ve found on this is Dan Margulis’ book: Professional Photoshop Chapter 3: Color by The Numbers. Get the physical copy if you’re serious about it. The kindle version doesn’t include the disc and the images are heavily compressed, you don’t get to really witness the techniques he’s applying.

Once you know the color theory you’ll know when to use which panel in Lightroom for your correction.

There’s also a YouTube video by PixImperfect that touches on these skin ratios. The host provides a swatch image with the most common ratios that you can reference.

Creative Intent

The most recommended tool is the Tone Curve, but in LR, it acts on the entire image globally. The curve will adjust the luminance value of each channel but in doing so will affect your hue and saturation. You’ll want to be very precise and adjust the curves with intent. Use this if you need subtle corrections. Photoshop has the added advantage of masking and using blend modes with your curves.

Next is the Camera Calibration panel, this is also global, and will adjust your hue or saturation but preserves your luminance values. This is amazing for creative edits.

By far the most forgiving is the HSL panel. It’s what I use only after I’ve settled on a white balance. This is the one tool I wish was available in photoshop and affinity photo.

A more advanced option would be to use an adjustment brush painted over the skin. The adjustment would use the WB slider and the Tint slider. It may seem like less control but if you know your color theory it gets the job done. Do this if you don’t want to affect the color on other parts of the photo. I use this for portraits of people taken over grass. The skin under the chin, nose and cheeks take on a green tint. I only want to target those areas not the rest of the skin which is usually fine.

Measuring The Values

In the Tone Curves panel you can use the selector/sampler (not sure what’s the official name) to hover over somewhere in the images and see the RGB value as well as where it falls on the curve in terms of luminance. I believe the RGB value under the mouse pointer will also appear below the histogram I just can’t remember how to activate it.

I would sample the skin somewhere between the midpoint and 3/4 up the curve. Anything past 3/4 is the highlight region and every hue starts to converge towards white, skewing your reading of what the actual skin hue is.

I hope this helps.

>You said in order to take advantage of thunderbolt you need a drive faster than usb 3. Are you talking about the drive in the computer or the external harddrive ?

I'm talking about speed of the drive inside the external enclosure. Since USB 3 is fast enough to transfer everything from hard drive speed to SATA SSD speed, paying extra for Thunderbolt is only justifiable by something faster than either of those. Usually means NVMEe SSD, or a RAID of SATA SSDs.

The LaCie 2TB you linked to has a number of Style choices. As far as I can tell, all except the "Thunderbolt SSD" version are simple hard drives. The other choices only have to do with what ports are on the case, not the drive inside since they're all just hard drives. Based on the pictures, the ones that say "Thunderbolt USB 3.0" and "Thunderbolt USB-C" are regular hard drives with two ports or cables on the case, one being Thunderbolt and the other being either USB 3 (type micro B Super Speed) or USB 3 (type C, as on the latest Macs). These connections are more for convenience than speed, since they're not going to make much speed difference with just a hard drive in there.

The Thunderbolt SSD option is priced much higher because it does have a SATA SSD in it.

While they both use hard drives, the LaCie is priced higher than the WD/Seagates mostly because of the fancy case. The $60 drives are marketed as backup drives and are probably not very fast; they only claim up to 120MB/sec. They are not intended as primary fast storage for photo/video work. But the LaCie is aimed at professionals who capture photo/video out in the field and need to offload it from their cards and edit. The LaCie is a ruggedized case, shock and water resistant while the $60 drives come in a simple enclosure that you absolutely would not want to drop or get wet. You would be able to safely use the LaCie on assignments where you would not want to use the $60 ones.

If you are always going to leave the little drive on the safety of your desk, go ahead and buy the $60 but don't expect it to be fast. If you buy the LaCie with a hard drive in it dont expect it to be much faster, and if it is never going to move from your desk then you wasted money on the ruggedized case.

If you want an external drive that takes full advantage of Thunderbolt speed, it is going to have to be something like the Envoy Pro EX. It contains a similar NVME SSD to the one inside a MacBook Pro, so the spec sheet says it is capable of speeds up to 2600MB/sec. That is well beyond what USB 3 can deliver, and ridiculously faster than what the LaCie spec sheet says (510MB/sec for SSD and a poky 130MB/sec for hard drive), so the Envoy really does need Thunderbolt. But they are priced accordingly for that level of performance and I won't be able to afford one any time soon.

I know you are trying to buy something fast and so that goes back to the Samsung T5 I already mentioned before. It has a good SATA SSD and a fast USB 3 type C port, so it is a middle ground between the cheap slow hard drives and the super fast unaffordable SSDs. And it ought to serve Lightroom well enough. Notice that you can get a 1TB T5 for a lot less than a 1TB LaCie Rugged, that's because the T5 is a regular non-rugged case if that's all you need.

If high capacity and low budget are too important then you have to forget about SSD and just get a nice cheap 2TB USB 3 hard drive. If you get one with a 7200RPM hard drive inside it will be a little faster than the usual 5400RPM, but still nowhere near as fast as any SSD.

Buy a color calibrator, or do it very crudely (if you are selling prints I would not do this) and hold your phone next to your MacBook and use the basic software adjustments like contrast, gamma, and rgb settings to match it. A proper color calibrator will ensure your photos are accurate and as even as they can be across all screens. Some of the higher end ones even allow camera and printer calibration. Once again, unless you are just shooting for fun, id STRONGLY recommend actually buying a proper calibrator like these:
Datacolor spyder5PRO or the spyder5elite

x-rite colormunki display or the x-rite idisplay PRO

Thanks for the info! I just wanted to clarify and make sure I’m understanding you.

So I have a MacBook Pro 2016 so it should have the NVME SSD right ?

You said in order to take advantage of thunderbolt you need a drive faster than usb 3. Are you talking about the drive in the computer or the external harddrive ?

lacie 2 TB

So I was looking at this 2 TB harddrive with thunderbolt. It’s 169

Versus the usb 3.0 2 TBs that are like 60 bucks from WD or Seagate.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FRHTTIU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_-f6aBbHKYWEEV


I’m trying to figure out which I should buy .

I buy bare drives like the previous link because they're cheaper and don't depend on proprietary hardware/software so a failure won't cost me too much. You can use a cable like this one that converts SATA to a USB connection. A laptop will provide enough power over USB to run SSDs and 2.5" HDDs, but I don't use a tablet, so I can't say if that'll work as easy. Search around and see what you find and TEST before you leave. I understand that a tablet might allow for less weight, smaller bags and such, but I personally find a laptop to be much more useful.

Yeah I would try importing directly from your camera. If it uses Mini USB, I have this cable and it works great:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XZC1RTI/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I also have this SD card adapter and it works perfectly:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KXWIHZY/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I keep active projects on 2.5" laptop solid state drives I put in cheap SSD enclosures (like these ). I work off these and keep them around as 'warm' storage.

For cold storage I have large (4TB) spinning hard drive externals, which works but isn't so safe. I should really move to some Raid system.

In general this works for me and is pretty cost conscious :)

I did a little research into it a while back but then stopped when I began traveling. The tricky part is that new controllers can be pricey, and used controllers on Craigslist all tend to be slider. BUT, I did find a few decent candidates.

8 dials for $85

16 dials for $220 (admittedly they do look super pretty)

And I have no idea where I'd map them all (or even how many of them could be mapped), but 32 dials for $150.

On the software side, there should be some free control-mapping apps out there, but I don't have any links off hand.

I don't know about the mini, but I use this : https://www.amazon.com/Behringer-BCF2000-BEHRINGER-B-CONTROL-FADER/dp/B000CZ0RJ2

And life is good. :)

I learned lightroom from these two books:

http://www.amazon.com/Lightroom-Streamlining-Digital-Photography-Process/dp/047060705X/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

http://www.amazon.com/Vision-Voice-Refining-Photoshop-Lightroom/dp/0321670094/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310770515&sr=1-9


The first one give you all the nuts and bolts. It's so important to figure out how you want

• Set up catalogs
  
  
• Name your files
  
  
• Convert to DNG or not
  
  
  
• Other neat stuff
  
  
  The second book is more about the artistic side. (the author also has a great blog)
  
  
  Good luck!
  
  
  

Awesome. Thanks again for your insight. Is this similar to the card you're talking about? https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Support-Graphics-03G-P4-6160-KR/dp/B01KUADE3O/ref=pd_lutyp_simh_1_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01KUADE3O&pd_rd_r=DPFGJHYC1Z197AE7VR1B&pd_rd_w=QvYdg&pd_rd_wg=RvfyD&psc=1&refRID=DPFGJHYC1Z197AE7VR1B

Check out YouTube tutorials for sure, that's where I learned the most. Also Tony Northrup's book is probably the best print resource.

Adobe Lightroom Classic CC Video Book https://www.amazon.com/dp/0997950528/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_gt8XBbGB1F66F

I use a midi controller with a bunch of faders and knobs (specifically this one because it's small and has bluetooth) and customized them with Midi2lr. Set the levels to knobs and faders, next/previous/flag/rating/labels/etc to different buttons and you're ready to rock.


I can do 90+% of my editing on it, it speeds everything up, and it feels fucking fantastic.

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Title | Best Gaming Laptops for $1000 - Which Ones to Buy? Which to Avoid?
Description | Dave2D comparison of the best gaming laptops in 2017 that are cheaper. Comparing build quality, gaming performance, speakers, keyboard, trackpad, battery life. Dell 7567 - http://amzn.to/2oRD5aD Acer VX15 - http://amzn.to/2oUML4R Lenovo Y520 - http://amzn.to/2qp2p8S HP Omen - http://amzn.to/2pHrz6y Asus GL553 - http://amzn.to/2puG5xL MSI GE62 - http://amzn.to/2perqpU Sabre 15 - http://amzn.to/2oRnZSy Individual Reviews: Dell 7567 - https://youtu.be/ZQFn1Z-x9DQ Acer VX15 - https://youtu.be/f-...
Length | 0:09:29






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I started with Scott Kelby's Lightroom book. He does a great job explaining how to use Lightroom based on what you're trying to get done.

I don't believe you can calibrate the phone, but you can calibrate your laptop using something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Datacolor-Spyder5PRO-Designed-Photographers-Designers/dp/B00UBSL31Q

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Photoshop-Lightroom-Digital-Photographers-Voices/dp/0133979792 This taught me everything I know! You need to click "Library>Previews>Build Smart Previews" it'll say something about build 1 or build all, click build all and it should do it.