Tim, I did not mean to spike a phobia. I'm just curious how you work with PS that finds you so confused.
Since adopting Lightroom as the basis of my photo workflow/image processing, how I work with Photoshop and other image processing tools has changed. I can do most of the essential adjustments, cropping, and spotting work in Lightroom non-destructively, down to the point were there might be a couple of essential localized edits to tonal rendering or sharpening required. I then render a PSD file, created in the same place as the .DNG, which opens in Photoshop. (E.g.: IMGP1001.dng -> IMGP1001-Edit.psd) I find it easier to confine selective tonal edits to Adjustment Layers with masks rather than laboriously doing selections and localizing the edits that way. Because Lightroom does such a good job overall, it rarely requires more than one or two layers to get what I need done. If the edit is particularly complex, I save another copy of the fully layered .PSD in the same directory (e.g.: IMGP1001- EditL.psd). Then I flatten all layers, save the "-Edit" file, and return to Lightroom where it is stacked with the original for simplicity in organization. The same workflow methodology will work with LightZone Basic, if that's the image editor you prefer instead of Photoshop. I see that LightCraft is offering a discounted version of LightZone Basic specifically for Lightroom and Aperture users ... I may well go for that. In my evaluation of RAW converters and editing tools, I found LightZone's tonal adjustment tools quite interesting and useful. The tool paradigm is very different from Photoshop, yes, but the layered- filter working methodology is essentially the same. It seems that unlike some others, I find the conceptual model of working in layers like this just far simpler and easier to do than directly manipulating pixels. Whatever works for you is best. Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
