Lightroom & Rawshooter for black & white works

[alain_lestrade]

Hello everybody,

I am new on that forum but I've been working with Rawsooter Premium 2006 (RSP) for ten months. So I was very disappointed when I heard of its death. Nevertheless, I'm trying Ligthroom Beta 4 now, especially for Black & White works.

Does anybody try to use and compare both, Rawsooter & Lightroom, for such?

Here is my attempt to black & white pictures with Lightroom Beta 4:

http://www.pbase.com/alain_lestrade/shadesshapes


My comparison (in terms of image processing only) gives:

- RSP is incredibly more "crisp" than Lightroom (can be a problem when shooting with 5D under a hard ligth of a summer day...). Anyway, it's really better,

- RSP seems for me, better with the white balance tool, but,

- I had often problems of tonality in B/W with RSP

- Litghroom, despite the previous flaws, gives me an excellent global tonality to the photos on the screen that can be very similar to fine art paper prints. (It's true that the remark concerns only the impression we can have at the screen, it does not mean that the prints on paper are better). That's why I am going on with Lightroom. But digital B/W is generally very difficult to manage in comparison to argentic.

I'm really interested in your opinion about that topic.

Regards,

Alain Lestrade. (lessam@free.fr)

[jdepould]

I've been using LR since its inception, and I think a lot of the things you mentioned should be ironed out by the final release, but definitely vaild criticisms. As far as BW, I love the split toning option, because it seems to me that sometimes digital BW can have a blue or green look to it.

[jengle]

I've done a little black and white in lightroom too, but after seeing your results I dove in and converted some pictures I was editing from a trip to the Mojave earlier this year.

I really like the work you have done.

My B&W Lightroom work is posted at http://www.pbase.com/jengle/socalbw

Jengle

[alain_lestrade]

Thanks Jeff,

Yours are interesting too. I like particularly the first one of your gallery (San diego). I've been in California last september and it seems a very good place for shooting.

Regards,

Alain.

http://www.pbase.com/alain_lestrade

[mnoble]

Alain,

Your black and white photos are excellent. You seem to have utilized all the best features of Lightroom. I have been using it for the last four months and I do like it a lot - especially for black and white. It is an excellent companion to Photoshop. My complaints are that the Detail section does not seem to work well at all. I can't see the results on screen. And there is no way to select only a portion of the image. Otherwise it's great. I plan to purchase the commercial version if it is at a reasonable price.

Good Luck

[alain_lestrade]

Mike,

I received LR V1.0 few days ago as a Rawshooter user, tried a little bit to play with it. Your complaint about the detail section remains with the noise reduction tool, but there is a solution, not really logical which consists in viewing the photo in the "library section" after having processed through the "develop section": in that case, noise reduction & sharpening appear on the photo.

Despite some little problems, I really enjoy Lightroom, especially for black and white work. I keep on using LR for B/W.

Regards,

Alain.