Creatively Creating Mood with Lightroom

I have been using Lightroom since the first beta launch way back in the day… I didn’t like it much when it first came out for various reasons. But needless to say those reasons dissolved away when Lightroom 2 came out in the summer of 2008, but I did not go back to Lightroom until late 2008 when I started on the Big Picture project.

We are now on version 2.6 and version 3 is currently available on beta and it wasn’t until around the middle of last year that I truly started to appreciate the power of this software and I am really excited about the revisions that will be added to the 3rd version of software. But it was only the other day that I was able to make a subtle, but significant change to my workflow that I notched things up a gear.

You see I was never really into using collections before now. I was a folders kinda guy! I would make sure that my image folders were neatly arranged so that I never lost an image but I did lose something else. Creativity! What do I mean? Well by sticking to an evolution of my tried and tested digital workflow. I was missing out a big part of how Lightroom works creatively and it wasn’t until the middle of last year that realised there was a better way of working by using collections and in particular collection sets.

But, I was locked into my existing workflow until the end of 2009, where by I could back everything up and start a fresh. Last Saturday was the first day I got out to take some shots in 2010. It was just for an hour and I thought I had better capture some of the snow before it went away. I need not have worried. It has hung around and only got a bit thicker!

So in the screencast above I thought I would demonstrate how Lightroom can be used creatively and you will also get a glimpse of how I am now working in an organised but creative manner with collections and collection sets.

You will be seeing a lot more of Lightroom in 2010. Its going to be the cornerstone of a lot of what we will be doing in the studio as well as Adobe Photoshop of course. Don’t worry though if you only have Adobe Bridge CS4. Much of the same can be done there as well. Maybe with not the same style and finesse. But you will be not too far away. As for Lightroom well, I am over the half way point in creating a training series that covers the essentials and a heck of a lot more… It will be interesting to see which way our new poll swings.

Finally…

If you haven’t already watched the new screencast. Get the popcorn on. Its over 20mins long and covers more of the creative aspects of using Lightroom. As well as non-destructively recovering details in the sky that the RAW file had captured but were not seen by the initial preview. This is a good example of why you should shoot RAW, if you are not already doing so… Enjoy! >

Related screencasts & articles.

• Happy 4th Birthday, its time for a Spring Clean! Thu 08 Apr 2010
• Creating a Lomo Effect with Photoshop Fri 09 Oct 2009
• 4 Photo Sequence Canvas Print Mon 14 Sep 2009

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