In this article I will touch on the subject of "primary processing of photos in Lightroom" - what it is for (but in fact it is simply necessary), how it works, what to expect from it and what not to expect.
For the most impatient I can immediately summarize:
this is the removal of explicit (and removable) jambs, cropping, color correction, lightness, white balance, etc.
It would be more correct to call it “conversion” and not processing.
Well, now more.
You clicked the "shutter" button and took a picture. To get a finished photo there are two ways:
The black and white drawing of the scene is projected by the lens onto the camera's matrix, and at the moment the button is pressed, the matrix makes an "impression" of this drawing. Further, according to the program previously provided by the manufacturer in the camera, this “cast” is converted by the camera itself, taking into account what profile you have chosen, preferences and other settings, into a ready-made JPEG file. Everything! Is done. The file can be uploaded to the social network or sent to friends in WhatsApp. Very quickly, very conveniently, without unnecessary gestures, without problems with the programs and skills to work in them and in general with graphics and photos. Click the camera has already made the finished file. Very user friendly. But on the other hand: each frame is different shooting conditions, a different object, placed in different ways, a different composition, different background, different lighting, different reflexes, and a whole bunch of different things that it’s impossible to even have all the myriads of shooting conditions 10 templates, not that one. But the user for the instagram will come down. Why are there a pattern processing mirror camera will come down. Most users even arrange the camera processing pattern in the smartphone) But we are picky guys, we are not users, we are Photographic Operators), so we choose a different path:
In the same way we make a frame, but we don’t allow the camera to do anything with the “matrix impression”. In such a pristine form, we take this raw file in a raw file format that weighs 10 times more and opens only in special converters programs and is already working not with the fact that the camera is there, but with what the matrix saw. Only when the camera is displayed, it gives the settings and the raw one is displayed as the camera WOULD YOU WANT TO PROCESS but did not process it, but only shows the current cast with the current settings, which we can change ourselves, as it would be better from the point of view of the photographer. Very roughly speaking and giving a primitive analogy, in the first case, the User wanted to buy a car and was given a finished car but very averaged and made according to some general pattern, and in the second case - the Engineer was given the key to the warehouse of millions of parts and drawings on which any car can be assembled . And here I myself am twisting the Lightroom’s pens with all the settings of the photo in order to remove the shoals, highlight its merits, or bring it to this form in order to carry out further deeper processing in Photoshop (but this will be discussed in the next article).
ALL my photos undergo mandatory “development” - conversion in Lightroom with preprocessing. I do this for two reasons:
First of all, a photo needs to be properly cropped so that everything it needs fits, cut off all unnecessary things, and harmoniously arrange all objects in the frame. Adjust light levels of all frame elements. where it is necessary to lighten, where it is necessary to tidy up the opposite. Adjust the colors in the frame. maybe something to subtract. adjust white balance. It is not necessary to make it true, it is possible to add warm on the contrary, to emphasize the scene, or vice versa - to make the morning brighter. If noises come out, do something with them. And so on.
Secondly, photographing in Marmaris has its own characteristics: just like everywhere in the south, it is a bright sun. And in most cases, people photographed on a background bathed in bright sunshine are themselves in the shadow (well, not in the sun) or have harsh shadows from the nose or eyebrows on the face, or a picture "opposite the sun" because with the sun right in your eyes - such brightness people do not stand up and begin involuntarily to squash and shut their eyes. So we have 2 problems:
we have a very high probability that white objects glittering in the sun or walls will be simply “knocked out” by overexposure and instead of a white cap you will get a white hole. To do this, in the camera settings, we set the underexposure for the image to be dark. So the brightest places will not be spoiled by "clipping"
the picture is already dark, and people in the shadows or details in the shadows will be completely black. So all this must be greatly clarified, and see how much noise has come out, so that the noises also clean up in these places.
As you can see - if you trust this to the camera - she herself can’t cope with it. Therefore, the initial processing in Lightroom is very important. That is why, even within the same photo session, I cannot maintain a single style, because there are very different shooting conditions, not that all photos are stamped with one factory preset.
And now examples:
This is how the camera saw it. And if I fotkal immediately in JPEG or did not conduct the initial processing in Lightroom it would turn out like this.
As you can see - the exposure was adjusted to the brightest place on the frame - the cover of a white flashlight. Accordingly, everything in the shade is very dark and must be “pulled out”.
But this is already a processed version: the lighting has become uniform, cropped off, cutting off unnecessary unnecessary fragments of the walls and the floor. The overall color has become warmer.
but everything would be hard and ugly to look like if we entrusted everything to the camera and told her to raise her face’s lightness level. As you can see, the camera can only either undershoot or fly. Processing and development in the lightroom is a delicate and very necessary tool.
It is the same here. Dark scene. You do not need a lantern in the corner and an electric meter billboard in the frame.
The main subject of shooting is emphasized with a soft light and unnecessary details are removed from the frame.
The most important thing is not to bring it to the point of absurdity, when the face is glowing unnaturally, and around it is a dark background, just because the object "had to be lightened." Everything should be harmonious and within the limits of realism. And each frame requires its own individual settings when converting.
Then you yourself will notice the difference.
This is all - primary processing in Lightroom. It helps to remove the shoals (if they are over and they are removed, and then there is a complete marriage) and harmoniously frame them. - i.e. cut off all unnecessary and harmful. Such processing will remove the most grossly flawed frames of photo shoots. That she can. But to continue adding beauty, glamor and other retouching, we need a deeper, more laborious and time-consuming photo processing in Photoshop, about which our next article with examples from the same photo shoot
