More Queen Anne's lace and Lightroom learning

[Katy Noelle]

#1



#2



#3



#4



I'm starting to find my way around LR more easily. I'm still confused about the noise - especially in the B&W - is this the grayscale conversion or me? They were shot at ISO200. Also, they just don't seem bright enough.

What do you think, please?

[jiro]

On #4 I think you have pushed either the green and the yellow slider on the b&w conversion a bit low when you tried to darken it causing the noise to be elevated and be seen. If you use LR on your b&w conversion process, you can actually use the white balance slider, fill light, recovery, and even the camera profile to affect your conversion and come up with something unique. If you only use the B&W MIX sliders during the conversion, you are limited on how you can play with the image. Hope this helps, Katy.

Here's one quick work on #4 using all the sliders available for me in LR 3 on the b&w conversion.

[ScoutR]

Katy, I find that when I do a greyscale conversion in LR the luminance noise gets reduced to zero, have a look and see if you can crank that back up. Not sure but it's worth a try

Wendy

[Katy Noelle]

Thanks, Jiro, this does help. Honestly, now, I'm looking at them and wondering what I was thinking! but

If you use LR on your b&w conversion process, you can actually use the white balance slider, fill light, recovery, and even the camera profile to affect your conversion and come up with something unique. If you only use the B&W MIX sliders during the conversion, you are limited on how you can play with the image. Hope this helps, Katy.

I did know this, though. and, I think you're right about pushing the green - I think that I had some reasoning...sigh - back to the drawing board.

[Katy Noelle]

Katy, I find that when I do a greyscale conversion in LR the luminance noise gets reduced to zero, have a look and see if you can crank that back up. Not sure but it's worth a try

Wendy

You know, I was fiddling with that but it didn't seem to be making a difference. However, I'm realizing that, even though the slider moves smoothly with no hesitation, it takes a moment, sometimes, for the change to show up in the photo. Only a quick moment, though. I must be impatient. (Unlike iphoto - everything was always "catching" when I tried to move it.)

[Katy Noelle]

Here's one quick work on #4 using all the sliders available for me in LR 3 on the b&w conversion.

Much nicer, Willie (um....of course!) I should say, too, that I have LR 1 - my computer is too old for 3. However.... I'll work on them some more. It helps to see this. Isn't it funny how, all of a sudden, where I had a good idea of what I wanted in iphoto - I can't see clearly what i've got in LR? Why, I wonder? What's the difference?

[Donald]

This might be what Willie is referring to when he writes about the 'B & W MIx Sliders', but Michael Freeman, in 'The Comnplete Guide to Black & White Digital Photography' (which has been my photographic bible) refers to the 'Black & White' dialog in Photoshop and Lightroom.

Apart from his couple of pages on Silver Efex Pro, the whole of Freeman's book is focused on the use of this dialog for B & W conversion work.

So, why did I buy it? Because the ideas and concepts are unioversal. And it is possible to translate Adobe-speak into other languages - e.g. DxO and GIMP and indeed, Silver Efex Pro.

So, if you wanted to get serious about B & W work with Lightroom, I'd hunt out a copy of Freeman.

[jiro]

...Isn't it funny how, all of a sudden, where I had a good idea of what I wanted in iphoto - I can't see clearly what i've got in LR? Why, I wonder? What's the difference?

Give yourself some time. Learning a new software is a bit confusing. When I tried using Lightroom the first time (using the 15-day trial period) I always want to take a coffee break! Hahaha! I can't make it work the way I want it to. Later, when I READ THE HELP FILES, then I learned how to work WITH IT and not fight it. I know you can do it, just give yourself some more time and go easy on your old computer.

[Clactonian]

Sound advice Willie, and it's so worth persevering.