It has been said that the legendary photographer Ansel Adams' greatest strength was not in the powerful and aesthetic compositions of his photographs, but his skill in the darkroom. Contrast filters, burning and dodging, exposure settings – all of these things can take a regular image burned into silver halides and make it a breathtaking work of art. The digital revolution has changed the definition of a darkroom from a lonesome makeshift closet bathed in red light and nauseatingly pungent chemicals, to a chair in front of a computer. Even with the ease the digital lifestyle affords, we still have a need for a digital darkroom workflow. Enter Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, our well-loved software company’s answer to unique photographer and filmmaker demands, not to mention rival company Apple’s Aperture.
Lightroom is a software tool specifically designed for digital photographers - specifically, photographers who shoot a high number of photographs and work in RAW format. It gives options that even the high and mighty Photoshop cannot offer, and can quickly take your picture from an average or even poorly taken photograph to something that can amaze your clients without adding gray hairs to your head.
Do understand, that there is no substitute for a good photographer. If you don’t know what makes a good picture, then Lightroom will do little to help you; but if you understand even the basics of photography you
will find that Lightroom will become an essential tool that every photographer – amateur to seasoned professional will heavily rely on it to bring outstanding quality.
Ease of Use
Lightroom does a wonderful job of making your job easy even if you are editing 1,000 photos or 10. The structure of the workflow is so basic you can immediately begin working right after you can install the program.
Importing is a breeze, and from there you can keep or dump any pictures from the library. From there you can make a set of changes and apply them to all your pictures in a single click. All of the changes you make in Lightroom are non-destructive. You have to go out of your way and try very, very hard to permanently mess up one of your pictures.
Lightroom’s workflow is broken down quite simply: you move from left to right through the five modules: Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web. In all likelihood you will probably work in no more then three of these modules during a sitting. The commands are very easy and straightforward and there aren’t an intimidating amount of buttons or sliders.
