**UPDATE - There is indeed RGB adjustments in the Tone Curve now. It is available when you click to manually edit the tone curve. A little hard to find, but it is there nonetheless and it is a huge improvement! Also, I forgot to mention that temp/tint is now an available option in local adjustments as well.

Adobe released the Lightroom 4 Beta a little while back and I finally got a chance to get play around with it a bit.

While there are some great new features like geotagging in the Maps module and prepping books for print in the Books module, there is very little in the way of actually improving the Develop Module functionality over Lightroom 3. While I look forward to LR4s new features and improved back end, the meat of Lightroom is really in the Develop Module and I was really hoping for additional features and controls in actually Developing photos.

Lightroom 4 does introduce a pretty massive change to the sliders in the Basic Panel in the Develop Module. A lot of people will probably be upset about the change, but in all actuality the new sliders and names in the Basic Panel are great change and are quite intuitive. Check out the video to see the details in those changes.

But, aside from that change in the Basic Panel sliders and the new adjustment to adjust Moire, everything else in the Develop Module is still pretty much the same, and that is what is disappointing. Here are the Develop features I was hoping Lightroom 4 would have to name a few.

1. Ability to create Presets w/ Adjustment Brushes
2. Improved Cloning/Healing Tools via adjustable brushes
3. **UPDATE – RGB Controls on Tone Curve are in LR4! Advanced Tone Curves w/ RGB controls
4. Advanced Split Toning control
5. Layers & layer adjustments (I know this is a dream)

Well, Adobe has made it clear that the Lightroom 4 Beta is just a preview. So, we can all stay hopeful, at least for a little while longer. Here’s looking at you Adobe!

– A Sad, Sad Post Production Pye

Welcome to Episode 10 of our Weekly Lightroom Edit. In this Lightroom Tutorial episode we are going to work on color correcting and making our sunset shot really pop. We want the colors to be natural, but vivid as well as balance out our highlights and overall contrast.

Hope you all enjoy!

Note: These images have been provided to the SLR Lounge users courtesy of Lin and Jirsa Photography for educational purposes only. They may not be used in any other manner outside of these SLR Lounge learning videos without the express written consent of Lin and Jirsa Photography. Thank you.

Full RAW Exercise File (10.5MB) – This full RAW file will allow you to follow the tutorial while achieving the exact same results as shown.

1) Purchase Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 through Amazon. Click any of these links to take you to the offer.

Click here to purchase Adobe Lightroom 3 from Amazon.com

2) Student and Teacher Editions of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 – For teachers and students, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is available for $89 through the Adobe Educational Purchasing Site.

Post Production Pye
SLR Lounge Senior Editor
Partner of Lin and Jirsa Photography

Welcome to Episode 9 of our Weekly Lightroom Edit. In this Lightroom Tutorial episode we are going to focus on creating a nice vintage black and white effect using tone curves to complete the effect. We are going to first make our basic adjustments, then use a tone curve to adjust and fade the shadows, and boost the midtones and highlights.

Hope you all enjoy!

Note: These images have been provided to the SLR Lounge users courtesy of Lin and Jirsa Photography for educational purposes only. They may not be used in any other manner outside of these SLR Lounge learning videos without the express written consent of Lin and Jirsa Photography. Thank you.

Full RAW Exercise File (22.5MB) – This full RAW file will allow you to follow the tutorial while achieving the exact same results as shown.

1) Purchase Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 through Amazon. Click any of these links to take you to the offer.

Click here to purchase Adobe Lightroom 3 from Amazon.com

2) Student and Teacher Editions of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 – For teachers and students, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is available for $89 through the Adobe Educational Purchasing Site.

Post Production Pye
SLR Lounge Senior Editor
Partner of Lin and Jirsa Photography

Welcome to Episode 8 of our Weekly Lightroom Edit. In this Lightroom Tutorial episode we are going to focus on doing some selective color enhancing. Meaning, we want to drop some of our colors, while enhancing others.

Since this image is all about Chinese patriotism, you can probably guess that the color we will be enhancing is red. We are going to drop all of the other colors in saturation while boosting the reds to really make this image pop.

Hope you all enjoy!

Note: These images have been provided to the SLR Lounge users courtesy of Lin and Jirsa Photography for educational purposes only. They may not be used in any other manner outside of these SLR Lounge learning videos without the express written consent of Lin and Jirsa Photography. Thank you.

Full RAW Exercise File (23MB) – This full RAW file will allow you to follow the tutorial while achieving the exact same results as shown.

1) Purchase Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 through Amazon. Click any of these links to take you to the offer.

Click here to purchase Adobe Lightroom 3 from Amazon.com

2) Student and Teacher Editions of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 – For teachers and students, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is available for $89 through the Adobe Educational Purchasing Site.

Post Production Pye
SLR Lounge Senior Editor
Partner of Lin and Jirsa Photography

Today is the beginning of CES in Las Vegas.  (Consumer  Electronics Show)  So, naturally, we’re going to see TONS of awesome new products announced in the next few days; many will have absolutely nothing to do with photography,  and some will.

I’ll post another news article later this week to discuss all the awesome things announced in the photography world,  (Sigma 180mm f/2.8,   Canon GX1, SWEET!!!)  …but for now I’d just like to mention that I’m curently downloading and testing the Lightroom 4.0 beta, and I’m pretty excited to see what comes up.

As usual, here are my random thoughts on what I see so far.  I’ll probably update this article as I get a chance to play around and learn more, so check back often!

CLICK HERE to download and try out the new Adobe Lightroom 4.0 Beta!

• 2012 process version, yay!  Hopefully it will be a significant enough improvement that I’ll get cleaner images at high ISO’s!

• I’m scared that they merged exposure and brightness.  That is REALLY surprising, considering how much I use those two adjustments separately, to manipulate my dynamic range…

• It SOUNDS like they’ve dramatically improved highlight recovery options, but I can’t be sure yet.

• Local WB adjustments, NICE!  Now I guess I don’t have to use my warming / cooling preset color brushes anymore!

• RGB curves – YESSSS!!!!!  This was one of the things on my LR 4.0 WISHLIST.  I cannot begin to explain what new worlds this opens up.  Simply put, I just cut my Photoshop needs down by 50-75%…  (Except now, HOURS AND HOURS of work creating Photoshop actions may have been in vain, OUCH, but that remains to be seen…)

• Direct book design, including Blurb.  Thank you, Adobe.  I will be using this like there is no tomorrow.  From clients to personal photos, I’m loving this.  Honestly I hardly ever used the other Lightroom modules before now; I’ve been 100% “Library + Develop” for years.  This is exciting…

• GPS maps.  Creepy, but inevitable and probably VERY useful for many.  (I’ll be surprised if every camera doesn’t have GPS capability within the next 1-2 generations.  Although I’ll be sure to turn it off ANY time I shoot a photo that includes someone’s face, but that’s a “big brother” discussion for another day!)

• A bunch of video features.  Nice, but it doesn’t sound like LR is a video editor, yet, just a catalog system.  And I don’t see any way to compile time lapse videos from still frames, that’s lame.  I guess I’ll just keep using Quicktime Pro…

• It sounds like we can now CATEGORIZE our PRESETS a little better.  I just hope I can DELETE the hundred useless Lightroom presets!  I hate those things!  (If that was possible in LR3 I’m gonna feel kinda dumb, but please feel free to point it out if you want!  :-P

• Unfortunately, there are plenty of wishlist items that did NOT make the cut…
- No word on multiple catalogs
- No word on access to in-camera processing
- No sign of that “relative adjustment” capability I was brainstorming
- Nothing about easily programming hotkeys for individual adjustments
- Yeah, you  get the idea.  There is of course the fact that this is a BETA release, and the final version could and probably WILL be quite different.  So for now, I’m just gonna fire it up, see how buggy it is, and probably close it and go back to LR 3.0 within 30 mins LOL because I can’t get work done.  (AT least, that’s how it was with the LR 1.0 and 2.0 betas.  :-(

Take care,
=Matt=