Category Archives: Lightroom

Adobe’s masterpiece for processing and cataloging

Lightroom masking in v15

Lightroom, Photographs

Extraordinary.

I’m one of the crowd that detests Adobe’s subscription model for its many photography applications, having paid to own Lightroom many years ago only to find that Adobe made sure it refused to work on the Mac Mini M4, forcing me to ‘upgrade’ to the subscription version with its predatory pricing. So much for lifetime ownership.

However, giving credit where it’s due, the masking and highlight recovery capabilities of v15, the latest upgrade, are extraordinary. These are best illustrated by the image I took of Marion Campbell in 1977 in the Outer Hebrides island of Harris, off Scotland’s northwest coast.

Back in 2008 I wrote:

I have been trying to process this snap for thirty years. Every decade it gets better as processing technology improves. Oh! if only I had had a fill in flash with me. Anyway, I now have the burned out highlights largely recovered and some vestige of detail in that wonderful, craggy face.

And that effort was tortuous indeed, requiring much work in Photoshop.

Now, with Lightroom v15, the process has become an order of magnitude easier. A while back I had re-‘scanned’ my early Tri X film images using the Nikon D800 and a Micro Nikkor lens. Definition is as good as you will ever get from a film scan, and far faster than using a flat bed scanner with its mediocre results.

Still, the ‘scanned’ image does not look great. After importing the image into LR and straightening things up, with some added tweaks on the sliders I had a half decent image but one which still has horribly burned out highlights from the window behind Ms. Campbell’s head:



The unprocessed film scan from the D800.

Adobe claims that v15 of Lightroom uses AI – doesn’t everyone claim AI as the magic sauce today? – in helping with masking, so I had a go using the dropdown box which gives several masking options:



Masking options.

I chose ”Select Subject’ and LR did a great job of doing just that, allowing me to add contrast and vibrance to the face. Next I added another mask, this time choosing ‘Select Background’, which LR accurately did, and had at it with the Highlights slider, for a truly exceptional result. A third mask using the ‘Brush’ this time allowed me to paint in her blown out hair with another tweak on the Highlights slider and here is the result which took less time to do than to write about:



The final result.

So finally, 48 years later, I have the displayed image which, until now, has resided in my mind’s eye.

Why, I’m almost feeling good about that Adobe subscription ….

Adobe +50%

Lightroom

Yes, a 50% price rise!

The crooks at Adobe are at it again.



50% price hike.

The rest of the letter goes on in tedious detail about how Adobe is the greatest public benefactor since Social Security and generally claiming sainthood. It’s so puke worthy I am not publishing it here.

When I was using my Mac Pro I had ‘lifetime’ ownership Lightroom for a single purchase. When security enhancements – which Apple refused to apply to that fabulous machine (shock news!) – ceased to be available I had no option but to upgrade to a modern Mac Mini M4. Naturally, Adobe saw to it that my Lightroom ‘owned’ application ceased working at the same time, forcing me to sign up to their $9.99 monthly subscription.

I passed on Photoshop, buying a lifetime ownership of Affinity – and that looks like it’s about to adopt a subscription model soon as well. Affinity does most things Photoshop can, though there’s a bit of a learning curve involved.

I write ‘forcing me’ as I have yet to find an application which competently combines LR’s excellent processing and cataloging features, but now I will get serious about doing some research of alternatives.

Meanwhile I have signed up for one year with the crooks at Adobe at the existing $10 monthly rate, and earnestly hope this is the last time I ever pay them:



Automated file import in Lightroom

Leica, Lenses, Lightroom

6-bit coding comes into its own.

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.

My earlier piece on 6-bit coding of Leica M-mount lenses concluded with the following codes for my four lenses:




Lightroom stores lens correction profiles, which correct for vignetting and distortion, for the first three. Strangely the Tele-Elmarit is missing.

While 6-bit coding corrects for edge color effects in-camera, there is still a need to apply lens corrections in LR or LRc for the best results. Ordinarily this is done manually, frame by frame, a very laborious approach. You have to check the lens maker and then choose the correction profile from a very long list, one frame at a time. Not good.

Here is how to have Lightroom do that automatically when the files are imported. Even if the imported files were made with more than one lens, the correct profile will be applied to each, along with chromatic aberration correction. Here’s the process.

Take a picture with each of your 6-bit coded lenses and import those into LR or LRc. Go into the Develop module on the first image and scroll down to the ‘Lens Corrections’ pane at right. Check the first two boxes as shown below. My examples are specific to the lenses I own. Choose as appropriate for yours.

21mm f/3.5 Voigtländer Color-Skopar Aspherical VM:




  • Click on ‘Make’ and choose ‘Voigtländer’
  • Click on ‘Model’ and choose ‘Voigtländer VM 21mm f/3.5 Color-Skopar Aspherical’ from the long list
  • The correct Adobe profile will appear in the box ‘Profile’
  • Click on the drop-down ‘Default’ above under Setup
  • Click on ‘Save New Lens Profile Defaults’
  • My 21mm Color-Skopar is 6-bit coded as a Leica 21mm f/2.8 Elmarit pre-ASPH, which is what Lightroom sees in the imported file
  • You have now instructed LR that every time it’s importing a file with the 6-bit code for the 21mm f/2.8 Elmarit-M to apply the profile for the 21mm f/3.5 Voigtländer VM Color-Skopar Aspherical lens.

The next time you import a file taken with the Voigtländer lens, the correct correction profile will be applied along with correction of chromatic aberrations.

Now repeat this process for files taken with your other lenses, selecting the appropriate Make and Model each time, then saving the result. Here are my settings for the other three lenses I own with 6-bit coding. Amazingly LRc has corrections for the two Canon lenses, each over 50 years old:

35mm f/2 Canon LTM:




50mm f/1.4 Canon LTM:




90mm f/2.8 Leitz Tele-Elmarit:




In the case of the Tele-Elmarit there is no lens profile stored in LRc so I chose the one for the 90mm f/2.8 Elmarit-M which is very similar. Both lenses are almost distortion free so you really do not have to check the ‘Enable Profile Corrections’ box, but you still want to correct for chromatic aberrations.

Now on your next import these profiles will be applied automatically. The next step is to correct the lens’ names in EXIF data using the tool I describe here which takes little time and allows the serious business of post-processing to commence.

A note on changing lens names:. For my three non-Leitz lenses I like to change the names from the Leica 6-bit coded names to the correct ones – 21mm Voigtländer and 35/50mm Canons. If I apply the EXIF tool to do this any Lens Correction changes made using the above method are erased, and the lens corrections have to be applied anew after the lens name change. To avoid this, instead of using the above method to apply lens corrections, create Develop presets for each lens with the appropriate corrections profile selected, saving them in the Develop modules Preset pane (click the ‘+’ sign’) thus:



Develop presets in LRc’s Develop module

Import the images in the usual way, run the EXIF tool to change lens’ names as required then in the Library module of LRc select the images to which you wish to apply Lens corrections using the Quick Develop panel at the right, thus:



Applying Lens Corrections using Quick Develop

For 100 images this takes a mere 2-3 seconds.

So the order of events is:

  • Import images from the SD/SDHC/SDXC card
  • For non-Leica lenses use the EXIF tool to change lens’ names
  • For non-Leica lenses apply the lens correction profile using the Quick Develop panel in the Library module of LRc after selecting images from each lens in turn using the Metadata panel in the Library module
  • You cannot select multiple images in LRc’s Develop module to apply lens corrections. This workaround lets you do so.
  • You are done

Sharpening the 35mm f/3.5 Summaron RF

Film, Leica, Lenses, Lightroom

Pretty easy.

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.

The other day I was pixel peeping, at 100% magnification, images from the Leitz 35mm f/3.5 Summaron RF taken on Kodak Ektar 100 film. These would make 48″ x 72″ prints. Two things are obvious. There is minor red fringing chromatic aberration, easily removed with one click in the LRc Develop module. And while this image, taken at the lens’s sweet spot of f/8 will easily make a 13″ x 19″ print, start cropping and the definition is not quite there. Given that this is the least expensive Leitz branded 35mm lens you can buy (other than the poor earlier 35mm f/3.5 Elmar in LTM) and realizing it was first sold some 70 years ago, I’m not grumbling. But can we get a quart out of this pint pot?



1/250th, f/8, Kodak Ektar 100, Noritsu HQ scan.

Reading up on various sharpening applications I came across one named Gigapixel from Topaz labs, a long time maker of LR plug-ins. They offer 20 full trial attempts and place no watermark on the enhanced image. Nice. The cost is $100. The examples on their web site are startling, showing massive improvement in micro-contrast and detail. Using the above image I could not remotely get comparable improvement. Indeed, if there was any improvement I was very hard pressed to see it. Either Topaz Labs is using an especially ‘friendly’ image which supports their technology or this is pure snake oil. Either way, $100 saved.

Next I took a look at Affinity Photo 2, v.2.6.0, using their Develop Persona and Document->Resize Document, quadrupling the displayed pixel count, for a file which accordingly grew to four times the size:



The Document dialog in Affinity Photo 2.

Again, I could barely notice any difference compared with the original. Pass. Lots of disc space saved.

Next I tried LRc’s native controls. In the Develop module I went to Photo->Enhance where, for JPGs like this, there is only one active option named Super Resolution:



Super Resolution in LRc.

Well, the file size again quadrupled but the difference was again negligible.

Hmmm, none of this works.

Then I recalled that LRc has a simple Sharpen slider in the Develop module, one which I had not looked at in years as I was using good lenses with large digital sensors, no sharpening needed.



Optimal sharpen settings.

Now I really started seeing improvements. In the Develop module you can see ‘Before’ and ‘After’ images by hitting the ‘Y’ key, and here they are, at 100% magnification. Again, that translates to a 48″ x 72″ print:



100% pixel peeping, ‘Before’ (left) and ‘After’.
Click the image for a large original.

Look at the detail in the flag and in the fluting of the Grecian columns. A very significant improvement. Now I am not about to make prints that large but now I know I can crop images from this ancient optic and get great prints from the crops. Not half bad for an ancient bit of bottle!

Affinity Photo 2

Lightroom, Software

Hasta la vista, Photoshop.

Much as the many enhancements in Lightroom Classic, compared with my decade old Lightroom version 6, reduce the need for Photoshop, there are still those images which require the more granular processing capabilities of a Photoshop-like application. However, on upgrading my 15 year old Mac Pro to the latest Mac Mini M4, Photoshop CS5 refuses to boot. That’s sleazy Adobe for you.

I think I have found a solid replacement for Photoshop: Affinity Photo 2. No subscriptions, just a one-off payment of $34.99 with a full 7 day trial period, no watermarks. That’s Black Friday pricing. Some research discloses that Version 1 of Affinity Photo was continually upgraded over a seven year period at no cost to owners, so paying that sort of sum every few years is not exactly something to grumble about. Affinity only asks for money for major version upgrades.


Purchase options.

I needed traditional PS tools to edit this image and clean up the background people, plus add selective lens blur. LRc is just not sophisticated enough to do that. (The image was taken on a Panasonic GX7 micro 4/3 camera. One inherent issue with micro four thirds sensors is that the short focal length lenses which are standard with the sensor come with high depth of field. That’s physics, not Panasonic’s fault).
Here’s the before and after, the ‘after’ processed in Affinity Photo 2:


North Beach, San Francisco.

The Affinity interface is very much like PS. Adobe is asking $23 to $35 a month, meaning $276-$420 annually, which I think is exorbitant. And that’s on top of $120 annually for LRc. You pay for Affinity in a couple of months by comparison, and you own it. I set up LRc to allow round trips just like in the old PS days (Option-Command-E to export to Affinity – you set this up in the Lightroom Classic Preferences->External Editing panel) and then just a Save in Affinity will return a modified .tif file to LRc. The original RW2 file above is from Panny RAW in the GX7.

Given the similarity of the tools and commands to PS the learning curve is not all that bad, and layers are supported. Here’s the interface – I have tailored it to light gray finding the default black hard on the eyes:


The processed image and the Affinity interface.

The 7 day trial period delivers a fully functional app. I downloaded mine from the Apple App Store, the safe way to go.

There are many good tutorials available on You Tube. For a round trip from Lightroom Classic I find that the exported .tif file pops up in Affinity Photo 2 in some four seconds on my base spec Mac Mini M4. I have never seen a beach ball in Affinity which processes everything very quickly. Affinity is optimized for Apple Silicon. From their website:

“The new GPU represents an industry inflection point—we now have compute performance surpassing nearly all discrete GPU hardware, but retain the key benefits of unified memory. This required us to step back and think again about where performance bottlenecks might be, as it’s clear the ‘old rules’ no longer apply.

“The results of this work yield a benchmark score of around 30,000 for the M1 Max 32-core GPU, absolutely obliterating any other single GPU score we have ever measured. Our changes have also improved performance on the previous M1 chip, which is now roughly 10% faster in our benchmark in version 1.10.3.”

Apple says it recorded up to 5.6x faster combined vector and raster GPU performance in Affinity Photo with the 16-core M1 Pro, and up to 8.5x faster with the 32-core M1 Max.

So there. Mostly BS, but you get the idea.

One word of advice. One of the really well implemented enhancements in Lightroom Classic is the Denoise function. This does an excellent job of taking out chroma noise in files without destroying detail and it’s very processor heavy, typically taking 30 seconds on the speedy Mac Mini M4. (Chroma noise is very common in files which are produced by small sensors in micro fourth thirds cameras). Once you round-trip an image to Affinity (or Photoshop) it comes back as a .tif file which Denoise cannot currently handle. At this time the function only works with most stock RAW files and will not work with either Apple Pro RAW, .tif or .jpg formats. So if you are going to use Denoise along with a round trip to Affinity, do so before the round-trip, while you’re core file is still in RAW format.

While Photoshop has a deeper AI focus – Photoshop’s neural filters will allow you to change a dour face into a smiling one if that’s your thing – the key AI feature of PS is available in Affinity. This has been around in PS for over a decade and is named Content Aware Fill. In Affinity it is called the “Inpainting Brush Tool”, and can be found in the drop-down menu for the Blemish Removal Tool. It’s a useful tool for removing extraneous items from images and works every bit as well in Affinity as in Photoshop. Further, the Magic Lasso outlining tool, frequently used in conjunction with Content Aware Fill in Photoshop is identical in Affinity. Both do an excellent job of selecting an area of choice to which you wish to apply localized changes.

Affinity also offers applications for graphics designers and publishers. These are also attractively priced. I have no need for those, but if you are into those fields they’re probably worth checking out. All apps come in both Mac and Windows versions. Now if only Affinty would clone the excellent database and cataloging features of Lightroom I could ditch sleazy Adobe for once and for all.