Marmelade Fly on Yellow Flower Reprise

In the last post I showed a picture of a marmelade fly on a yellow flower. I would like to revisit that picture to show how much an image can change depending on how - and with which tools - it is processed.

The original image was captured in RAW format. I then processed it in Adobe Lightroom 2. The result is this:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Marmelade Flies on a Yellow Flower processed in Adobe Lightroom 2"] [/caption]

While I was reasonably happy with the image, I had to do some testing in Capture One Pro and decided to see if I could do better. I have long thought that Capture Ones color rendition is much better than Lightrooms. But judge for yourself:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Marmelade Flies on a Yellow Flower processed in Capture One Pro and Photoshop"] [/caption]

Quite a difference, don't you think? The first rendition looks almost like a painting while the second is so real you can almost touch it.

So how was it done?

I first opened the file in Capture One and set the exposure so that none of the color channels would clip. This part is identical to what I did in Lightroom. Note that the yellows are a bit darker in the C1 rendition than in LR. I then exported a 16-bit TIFF file to Photoshop from C1.

In Photoshop I created a mask to darken the green part to the left of the flower using a curve. A second mark darkened the bright leaf to the left and below the marmelade fly. Then I removed some spots from the yellow petals which were really there (i.e. not dust on the lens or sensor) but which I did not like. All of these steps are identical to what I did in Lightroom except that I did not darken the single bright leaf in LR.

I then added a watermark copyright note and reduced the size of the file. Finally, I used Pixel Genius PhotoKit Sharpener for output sharpening. All of this is fully automatic during the Lightroom export.

In total I spent about five minutes in Lightroom to get a decent image. I spent about half an hour in Capture One and Photoshop to get an excellent image. There is clearly a trade-off time for quality here.

That is why I usually perform all my culling, keywording, and rough editing in LR. When I have identified the handful of images with real potential I spend more time on them in C1 and PS. Now if only I could take the LR settings and use them in C1 so that, for example, I do not have to re-crop ...

Using Lightroom and Expression Media to Modify Metadata

A reader asked the following question:

My specific question is regarding how you were able to use both LR and XM2. Did you upgrade from iVMP and added LR into your Workflow after it got released?

I used iVMP before, but am exclusively using LR. However, being frustrated with its DAM capabilities, i am looking to go back to XM2. Were you able to migrate your LR catalogs to XM2? Any thoughts welcome. Thanks in advance.

I understand the frustration with the DAM (Digital Asset Management) capabilities of Adobe Lightroom - looking at both Bridge and Lightroom I sometimes feel that Adobe just don't get DAM. But there is always hope for LR2. ;-)

I have Lightroom and Expression Media working together nicely (see here ). The way that works for me is to write the metadata changes I make in Lightroom directly to the image files instead of to XMP sidecar files. This works well with JPEGs and DNGs.

XM can import the metadata changes (you have to initiate this manually).

If you simply want to go one way from Lightroom to Expression Media you are done at this point.

If you want to work with both programs you then write the changes you make in Expression Media to the files (manual command). Lightroom can import the change and you can continue editing in Lightroom.

This way of working is not perfect because it requires that you to remember to manually sync, but it seems to preserve all the data.

Using Lightroom with Expression Media to Add Metadata to RAW Files

In the past, I have used Capture One Pro (C1) to edit the RAW files (which I exclusively shoot) and then output JPEG files. I would then employ iView Media Pro to add metadata to both the RAW the JPEG files. I exported the metadata to a XMP sidecar file for each RAW file and archived the RAW with the sidecar XMP.

It turns out that this workflow is far from ideal: both the RAW and the JPEG files' metadata needs to be kept in sync. If I go back to create another JPEG from a RAW that has already be processed, I have to manually copy the metadata from the RAW to the new JPEG because C1 3.x looses most of the metadata during processing.

When Adobe Lightroom (LR) came out, I started using it and eventually replaced C1 with it because (among other reasons) it supports XMP metadata very well. I can now add metadata to a RAW file and it will be preserved no matter what I do with the file in Lightroom (or Photoshop, for that matter).

But here the problems started: