Martin Evening - The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC Book: Plus an introduction to the new Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC across desktop, web, and mobile

An introduction to the main features in Lightroom, showing an example of a typical studio shootworkflow

Welcome to the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom system, which is designed to meet the needs of digital photographers everywhere. Lightroom now consists of two components: Lightroom Classic CC, which is the desktop version of Lightroom; and Lightroom CC, which now refers to all things mobile, but in particular, the Lightroom CC computer application. Because this book is predominantly about working with Lightroom Classic CC, the main focus is on how you can best work with the Lightroom Classic CC desktop program. Some Lightroom Classic CC users may also be subscribed to Lightroom CC, in which case there is a whole chapter at the end of the book dedicated to discussing Lightroom CC mobile workflows and how these integrate with Lightroom Classic CC. With this in mind, and for the sake of simplicity, I mostly refer to Lightroom Classic CC as Lightroom throughout the book. However, in the Lightroom Mobile chapter I make a clearer distinction between Lightroom Classic CC and Lightroom CC/mobile.

Lightroom was designed from the ground up to provide todays digital photographers with the tools they most need. This is reflected in the way Lightroom separates the various tasks into individual modules, is able to process large numbers of images at once, and lets you archive and retrieve your images quickly. But before I get into too much detail, let me begin by explaining a little about the basic concepts of Lightroom, the essential preference settings, and the Lightroom interface.

Lightroom is a high-quality image processor and image database management system rolled into one. Although, as I mentioned in the introduction, Lightroom now consists of the Lightroom Classic CC desktop application and a Lightroom CC mobile system and streamlined Lightroom application. Lightroom is designed with photographers in mind, giving them powerful image-editing tools to process their photographs and manage large numbers of digital images. Lightroom provides a suite of application modules that provide an ideal workflow for digital photographers.

Lightrooms tools are designed to streamline the image management and editing process and make the user experience as smooth and simple as possible. The program aims to provide photographers with the tools they need most and eliminates the call for complicated workarounds. For the most part, Lightroom has succeeded in doing this. It does not have too many complicated preference dialogs, nor does it demand you do anything special to optimize the program settings before you get started. For example, there are no color management settings dialogs to configure. This is because color management in Lightroom is carried out automatically without needing any user input. The Lightroom print workflow is very logical and, once set up, is easy to work with.

Lightroom is comprised of individual, self-contained modules built around a central core that contains the image processing and image database engines. Each module can be thought of as offering a unique set of functions, and in Lightroom there are seven separate modules: Library, Develop, Map, Book, Slideshow, Print, and Web. The modular approach means Lightroom can expand the range of things you can do in the program but without adding unnecessary complexity to the other existing modules. Lightroom is designed so that all individual modules are able to tap into the two core components of the application. This is what gives the program its speed and adaptability.

NOTE

You can use the following Mac shortcuts when switching between individual modules (PC users should use plus the number):

1 to select Library
2 to select Develop
3 to select Map
4 to select Book
5 to select Slideshow
6 to select Print
7 to select Web
to go back to the previous module

In addition, selects the Library module in Grid mode, selects the Library module in Loupe mode, and selects the Develop module.

). The Library module is used to manage the catalog, the Develop module to carry out the image processing and the remaining modules are for creating different types of outputs from Lightroom: i.e., published books, slideshow presentations, prints, or web galleries.

Figure 1.1Lightroom Classic CC is a file storage-based program that uses a modular architecture system. At its heart are the Camera Raw image processor and catalog database engines. Lightroom CC/Lightroom mobile is a cloud-storage-based suite of program and apps.

You will notice Lightroom has a locked interface, where all you can do is edit the visibility of the modules and module panelsyou cant actually rearrange the panels or make them float. I see this as a positive thing because you always know where you are when you are working with Lightroom. With other programs, like Adobe Photoshop CC, people tend to personalize the program in the way they arrange the panels and their appearance. I find that if I am asked to take control of someone elses computer, it can take a while to work out where everything is in their version of Photoshop. With Lightroom, the interface is always the same, and its never a problem trying to locate a particular panel or tool.

NOTE

The ). In this scenario the cloud can become the main hub, although it is possible to combine the two.

One of the key aims with Lightroom Classic CC has been to improve Lightroom performance. With larger catalogs the launch time is faster, plus there have been many other speed improvements, especially with regards to the preview management. For example, Lightroom now applies what is known as predictive caching to speed up the preview loading in the Develop module. It does this by loading the Camera Raw cache for two photos on each side of the current selected image before then loading the final high-quality image into RAM memory. In this respect, the more available RAM memory you have the better. You can also expect faster image-loading times while navigating images sequentially in the Develop module. Steps have also been taken to speed up the Library module performance. The way this works is as follows. The Camera Raw cache always stores preview-quality negatives, and whenever Lightroom renders thumbnails or smaller standard previews for use in the Library module, these preview-quality negatives are requested and loaded first. As a result, when youre working in the Library module Grid or Loupe view, the thumbnail/preview rendering is now faster. Exporting is also faster, and this should be particularly noticeable when making bulk exports. File moving performance has been improved, as is backup performance to network-attached servers. To improve Lightrooms responsiveness, Lightrooms thread priority queuing system gives high-priority rendering tasks, such as Develop module editing, priority over such background tasks like exporting images, converting photos to DNG, and building Smart Previews.