Dumb lightroom question?

Moos3h

Moos3h

Messages
2,769
Name
James
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi all,

Have just installed the 30 day trial of Lightroom 2 and am very impressed with the speed over Capture NX, Picasa and iPhoto.

However, I have a weird thing - whenever I first go to a NEF (RAW) file in lightroom, it shows correctly exposed and looks nice, however about a second after viewing, it suddenly goes darker and less 'good' looking.

Why on earth is this? Can I turn this off?

Thanks in advance,
James
 
I get this with Canon raws and I haven't given it much thought. But I think what you are initially seeing is the embedded jpg thumbnail within the raw file. After a couple of seconds Lightroom then adopts the raw image, which as you may know is totally unprocessed.

To see it better, if you have taken jpgs as well as raws, import them both. Look at the jpg first, then look at the raw. You'll see that the first couple of seconds of raw view looks just like the jpg.

I can't see a way to make the raw image adopt the look of the jpg. I adjust all my photos mostly individually, with the odd batch run here and there. You can get one picture looking the way you want and then apply those settings as a batch to the rest. I've found this only works with photos in the batch that are broadly similar.
 
The way it seems to work is that Lightroom has default settings for each camera RAW type. To change these, and hence the adjustments you are seeing. Import a a RAW image, go to Develop, set the settings you want (my brightness and contrast were set high by default), then open the Develop Menu and choose Set Default Settings, Update Current Settings. Then import another new RAW and the settings should have held to what changed them to... which would be neutral if that's what you wanted.
 
Try the "auto" tool in "tone". There's a school of thought that says it's not a good tool, but I find that shots instantly lose the raw image blandness. About 80% of my shots are improved, 20% are worsened with the tool. Those that are improved still need work but that's where artistic license kicks in.
 
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