Datasheet

10
CHAPTER 1: WORKFLOW FOUNDATIONS ■
you even apply some quick adjustments to get them closer to matching your original
vision. As you start to decide which are your favorites, you apply star ratings to the
images. As you prepare to move on to the next step of the workflow, you might filter
the images so you’re looking at only the four- and five-star-rated images from the
current photo shoot.
Wanting to spend some time making your favorite images from the shoot look
their best, you move to the Develop module. Here you apply tonal and color adjust-
ments to individual images as you examine them closely. This work goes pretty quickly,
as you can use the filmstrip display to select individual images and then use the various
sliders to apply adjustments to each image.
At this point you’re ready to share your images. Lightroom provides plenty of
options to you in the Slideshow, Print, and Web modules. Perhaps you immediately
jump to the Web module so you can take your best images from the current photo shoot
and quickly post them to an image gallery on your website. This is a simple matter of
selecting the images, selecting the template, and uploading the result to your website
because you have already entered your server information in the settings. Next you
might create a slideshow, literally in seconds, so you can show the best images to your
clients or friends. Next you might create a set of prints from the images so you can
share those with clients. In total you probably spend about five minutes creating a web
gallery, digital slideshow, and prints of the best images from the shoot. The only real
time involved here is waiting for the printer to create the printed output, thanks to the
efficiency of the Lightroom workflow.
How I Think about Lightroom
Lightroom is a completely new software application. Obviously, Adobe built upon a huge amount
of experience from the work they’ve done on Photoshop and other applications. But with Light-
room, they had the luxury of starting from scratch.
Lightroom contains many indications of its ties to the past. In many ways it includes the features
you’ll find in the various components of Photoshop, which you’re probably already familiar with. As
I have said, the core features of Lightroom are contained in some form in Bridge and Adobe Cam-
era Raw, as well as the various adjustment and automation tools found in Photoshop. In fact, at
some very basic level you can perform just about every task you might otherwise perform in Light-
room by using Photoshop. So why would you use Lightroom?
My answer lies in how I actually think about Lightroom. Although it contains many of the features
you’ll find in Photoshop, the major benefit is that Lightroom was created from the ground up with
workflow in mind. Although Photoshop improves significantly with each new release, each new
release is an update to an existing product that requires a certain amount of continuity in the user
experience. With Lightroom Adobe was able to start from scratch, making decisions based on what
was best for the photographer rather than what made the most sense in the context of Photoshop.
continues
19195c01.qxd:19195c01 2/21/07 9:11 PM Page 10