Lightroom allows for a couple of easy ways to create a Black and White. You can do a simple desaturate of the color channels or go gray scale. Either way, after you’ve got the image the way you want it. Take one more step and play with the White Balance slider. You can coax a slightly different look out of an image.
Photo on right is before White Balance adjustment
Back in the day before the Boob Tube. There were two ways to see what was going on in the world. Watching travelogues and news shorts at the local movie theater. Occasionally, TCM will show them between movies. The other way was the photo journalism in Life Magazine. Arthur Rothstein, Dorothea Lange, Alfred Eisenstaedt, and Frank Capra are well known for their photographic work in Life.
Now you can access the Life Magazine archives thru Google. If you consider this the high tech imaging platform of it’s day, it’s a great resource to study composition.
In front of the Hawaii Convention Center is a bronze statue that symbolizes the welcoming spirit of the Hawaiian people. I was there for Scott Kelby’s Lightroom Power Tour last December and took this picture at the end of the day. Which was a mistake because the light wasn’t strong.
To improve the image I utilized the presets available in Lightroom. Finally, I settled on a Split Toning that added a little warming to it. I’d originally thought to make it B&W but I like the green tinted glass of the Convention Center in the background.
NAPP is promoting the next Photoshop World in February in Boston with a Top Ten List of reasons why you should go.
Here’s Number Ten
On Saturday Sea Life Park Hawaii | Oahu, Hawaii had a coming out party for five Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles. Sea Life Park has been maintaining a breeding colony and releases a few young ones every year. About two years old in this case. Even though they’d been raised in captivity these boys were ready to hit the swell while waiting in a temporary corral on the beach. The turtles weren’t light either. Weighing about 60 lbs each. They don’t reach full maturity until 25 years old. Hopefully these guys will lead long lives (upwards of 80 to 100) and will continue to grace the shores of these Islands.
Pa’i ki’i Imagery
Pa'i ki'i Imagery 
Why I am grateful for Lightroom
Tags: ACR, Adobe, Bridge, CS, DSLR, kiteboarding, Kitesurfing, Lightroom, Maunalua Bay, Maxxum 7, Maxxum 7D, Photoshop, PSD
In March 2005 I upgraded to the Maxxum 7D from the Maxxum 7. I made the leap to a DSLR. I looked forward to taking as many pictures as I wanted and only printing the ones I wanted. I quickly learned it wasn’t quite that simple.
Photoshop CS and ACR allowed me to process my RAW images. However, ACR was clunky in it’s ability to help me review and pick the best images. It’s one thing to take alot of pictures. It’s another to find the best of them. Then after finding them, I had to go into Photoshop to complete the process. So an 8 meg RAW file turns into a 10 or 20 or more PSD file. It was all so ungainly and not a great encouragement to go out and take alot of pictures so I could learn to make better images.
Then out of the blue Adobe announced the beta program for Lightroom. As soon as I started to use it. I knew this is what I’d been waiting for. Easy to learn and quick to use.
Why do I write about this? For the past several days I’ve been going back thru my pictures from the first year of using my DSLR. Beyond the obvious bad images. I never culled my pictures for the marginal ones. It was too tedious with Bridge-ACR-PS workflow. LR is soo much faster. Plus I can easily work with a marginal image. Play with the WB. Work in B&W or Split Tone. Easily make a creative crop. With the latest version of LR you can do selective adjustments that before required using PS.
Now I go out and take hundreds of pictures knowing I can quickly distill it down to just the ones I want. All keyworded and organized into collections that I can upload to my website.
For the average JPEG Point and Shoot user LR is more than you’d want to pay for a software program to process your images. However, if you’re making the transition to a DSLR add Lightroom to your purchasing plans. You won’t regret it. If you’re a MAC user than you’ve also got Aperture to consider. Either program will allow you to effortlessly examine your images. Learn what worked and improve yourself thereby. Helping you to present your best to the viewing public.
Kitesurfers in Maunalua Bay