Lightroom Videos

Lightroom Video: Lightroom and Photoshop Before/After

Ever since I first started using the new sliders in the Basic panel in Lightroom 4, I was hooked. So I started out to record a video on how I use them but realized I use them in different ways for different photos. Then I realized, there were more things I wanted to do to this photo. Before I knew it, I had a full before and after video using Photoshop and all. You gotta love it when your video starts taking over right? 🙂 Anyway, my main goal here is to show you the Basic panel sliders in Lightroom 4 and just how powerful moving 4-5 sliders can be for your photo. In fact, you’ll see that most of the work is done before we ever leave Lightroom to Photoshop. I hope you enjoy!

Share:

64 comments

  1. DionV 8 April, 2012 at 10:56 Reply

    Great video, Matt. It cleared up the purpose of the White and Black sliders for me, and also helped clarify the gradient tool. Great before and after example, too. Thank you. Looking forward to more.

  2. Pshawphoto 7 April, 2012 at 11:48 Reply

    A great tutorial. Very helpful. Only downside is that now I will feel compelled to go back and try to resurrect a lot of my crappy pictures I had written off as hopeless.

  3. keith 6 April, 2012 at 23:29 Reply

    when you brought over the image into photoshop, did you bring it in as a psd file or something else? it looks like a psd?

  4. Tomislav 6 April, 2012 at 14:52 Reply

    Hey Matt 🙂
    Once again a greta B/A tutorial. Following your B/A videos man really comes to liking photo post production almost equaly to take the photo itself 🙂

  5. Tom 6 April, 2012 at 14:29 Reply

    Hi Matt, thanks for another great video!

    I have two questions, when u go from lightroom to photoshop your raw file is converted to psd. The lightroom default is tiff. Whats the reason you changed it to psd?
    Does either option have pro’s and con’s?

    And my second question:
    Just like u i also like to sharpen my photo’s in photoshop instead of lightroom.
    For one photo its easy to hop over to photoshop but what do u do when u want to do a whole set? When i have like 20 portrait photo’s witch i all edited in LR i like to sharpen them in cs5 all with the same amount of sharpening, is there an easy way to do this from lightroom or is it easyer to export them to jpeg and then batch process them in photoshop?

    I hope u have the time to answer these questions.
    Thanks for all the great video’s, i learn every time!

    Tom

    (sorry for my english, i’m Dutch)

  6. Glyn Dewis 6 April, 2012 at 09:00 Reply

    Hey Matt,

    Great vid. It’s always good at the end to see the Before/After…Always amazing to see how improved things have become but so darned quickly too.

    Nice one,
    Glyn

  7. Tom 6 April, 2012 at 05:12 Reply

    Hi Matt, Nice video as allways!

    I have one question, i see that when u go to photoshop your files are always set to psd while the lightroom default is tiff for external editing. Do u have a specific reason for setting it to psd?

    Thanks for making these great videos, I learned a lot from u!

    (sorry for my crappy English, I’m Dutch)

    Tom

  8. Mani 6 April, 2012 at 01:06 Reply

    I am curious, do you still play with the camera profile before starting on the sliders? I don’t think the camera profile changed in Lr4.

  9. Averil 5 April, 2012 at 19:06 Reply

    Grrrreat video Matt! Is there a way to import the develop presets from LR3 to LR4? or do I need to reimport them all manually again?

  10. Darrel 5 April, 2012 at 18:00 Reply

    Matt, Thanks for the video! I do have a question: Does Color Efex Pro work the same if one has the complete collection in Lightroom? Thanks, Darrel

  11. Andrew Berry 5 April, 2012 at 17:39 Reply

    The before shot looks like something I would take and not be happy with it, whereas the ‘after’ photo really show’s taking the shot is only half of the work.

  12. Mathias 5 April, 2012 at 17:24 Reply

    Thank you Matt! And now for something completely different: You had these basic “adjust everything” templates for previous LR versions. I used they on a regular basis (from a folder with your name ;))) They are not compatible to process version 2011. Do you have a new version? (I’d pay for updated versions of your presets)

    Thank you,

    M

  13. Graham 5 April, 2012 at 16:58 Reply

    All i see is the grey loader bar. Have upgraded to latest flash player but still not working. I`m using firefox.

    Anybody know how to solve this, I have googled it but can

  14. Tim Elley 5 April, 2012 at 15:59 Reply

    Thoroughly enjoyed your video – gives me lots of ideas, thank you!

    Like David, the video was at least 2-3 seconds out of sync for me.

  15. RON 5 April, 2012 at 15:49 Reply

    Things keep getting better and better, Gosh I hope all the technology doesn’t put us at a disadvantage with the people who have a camera and take their own pictures they would normally call a professional for, like portraits and such.

    Also ya video and sound out of sync again, but like David Kelly said it was still understandable to follow. 🙂

  16. John Blaustein 5 April, 2012 at 14:54 Reply

    Thanks, Matt. This is very useful to share with people who are just getting started with LR.

    The audio is WAY out of sync with the video. I can follow it since I am already very familiar with LR, but for someone new to it, following along is a bit difficult. Can that be fixed?

  17. Rikk Flohr 5 April, 2012 at 13:00 Reply

    Your audio is out of sync by 10 seconds. When you say “there’s your before-there’s your after”, the action happened ten seconds before you said it.

  18. Rikk Flohr 5 April, 2012 at 12:59 Reply

    The audio is about 10 seconds behind for what is happening on the screen. Makes it confusing when you say “there’s the before-there’s the after”

  19. Gregory 5 April, 2012 at 10:25 Reply

    Agree, David. I posted about this yesterday but I don’t think it went through. I’ve had the same 8 second issue with the last couple videos, which makes it very difficult to follow along. Using OS X Lion and latest Flash Player, and tried every major browser with the same result. Love the before/after walkthroughs though, Matt – thanks!

  20. David Olshan 5 April, 2012 at 09:13 Reply

    Thank Matt. I learned a lot from this video. As the previous poster mentioned, the audio sync is way off. Also, I wish the video was in Youtube format and could be enlarged so the detail on your screen is visible. I would love to see the default Detail Extractor settings you mentioned.

  21. Brian Perkins 5 April, 2012 at 08:28 Reply

    Nice run through, especially the basic panel part. Interesting bit about the white and black points not always being essential.
    Would be nice to have a fixed version, the video seems to be about 9-10 seconds ahead of the audio; just enough so that what is being talked about is never what is showing.

  22. David Kelly 5 April, 2012 at 06:06 Reply

    Thanks for another insightful before / after video 🙂
    I notice the audio sync seems to be out by several seconds on this video (as was your previous one) which makes it a bit tricky to follow what’s happening on screen vs your commentary, but it’s still clear enough to understand your workflow.

  23. Paul 5 April, 2012 at 05:33 Reply

    Looks like a great video but the sound is about 12 seconds behind the video which makes it all a bit confusing. Despite that, I’ve already learned about using the alt key with the Whites & Blacks sliders.

  24. Ham and Pickle 5 April, 2012 at 05:18 Reply

    Good video Matt, nice, simple workflow that improved the photo for a great result – there were some sound sync problems I saw, (same thing on the downloaded video – an audio gap at the start, then audio delayed, then the last third was video delayed), very strange. Made things harder to follow when the audio didn’t reference the correct point in the video.

  25. ROBERT ALSTON 5 April, 2012 at 04:42 Reply

    The video & sound are out of sync will you correct this and re-post please. It is very difficult to follow in its present state. Thanks, Robert

  26. Piet 5 April, 2012 at 02:25 Reply

    Awesome. I am starting to appreciate the new Tone controls in LR4 more and more. Not sure about the Clarity slider though. While I can see that it does a terrific job with the microcontrast without producing halos easily, I also notice that it brightens the whole picture. What’s up with that?

  27. Richard Davis 5 April, 2012 at 00:20 Reply

    Great short video, Matt. While I’m using LR4 I haven’t really set time aside to learn what’s new. Great tip on being able to change the white balance with the adjustment brush – think I’m going to be using that one in the future!

  28. Peter de Rooij 4 April, 2012 at 23:36 Reply

    Great video – I like seeing how someone else does go through the sliders.
    I have a little technical problem with it – there’s a significant delay between image and sound (sound starts over 10s in and is clearly behind). reloading does not help…

  29. Terry 4 April, 2012 at 22:59 Reply

    Great Tutorial Matt, but the audio is not in sync with the video, it is about 10sec behind the video, which means you have already done the adjustment before we hear you talk about it, but we can still follow it.

  30. Gregory 4 April, 2012 at 21:48 Reply

    Love these before and after walkthroughs, Matt – thanks! I’m having a serious issue with your videos though (the last couple at least). Audio and video is out of synch (by a good 8 seconds or so), which of course makes it tricky to follow along. I’m using OS X Lion and tried, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari (with latest Flash), all with the same result. The ads are in synch, so I have to assume it’s something with your videos.

  31. Adam Isler 4 April, 2012 at 21:12 Reply

    I think the audio is delayed from the video by just enough seconds for things to not quite make sense unless you remember what was happeniing 15 seconds before everything you’re saying

  32. Christian K. Ibsen 4 April, 2012 at 17:20 Reply

    Hi Matt,

    Great tutorial as always… however the sound track on this one seems to be displaced by 10-11 seconds, making it a little hard to follow!

  33. Robbie 4 April, 2012 at 15:16 Reply

    Looks like a great video, but the audio is 11 seconds late. I’ve tried 3 different browsers and my iPad all with the running behind.

  34. Paul 4 April, 2012 at 14:44 Reply

    Matt:
    Thanks for the example, but you might consider a few changes. At least on my screen the image and sound weren’t synced. Also, you might try slowing down your cursor movements as the constant motion is, at least to me, quite distracting. Please take these as constructive criticisms as I appreciate your hard work in providing these videos.

  35. M Dawson 4 April, 2012 at 14:33 Reply

    Matt,

    Seems the audio and video are not synced. Regardless, great stuff as always. Gotta get to Germany on your LR4 tour; if Scott can do it for LSR, then you can too! Right?

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *