Filed under: General
One thing that has always bugged me about Lightroom was the fact that it was possibly to customizable. Since Adobe has created this amazing ACR otherwise known as Adobe Camera Raw, it allows the users to tweak the look of a RAW image to perfection.
After doing a bit of searching, I was able to find great Canon 5D & Canon 30D camera calibrations. But these calibrations only affected the ACR, and when I edit in Lightroom I like to start with an image that looks very similar to what the basic RAW image looked. Thus I flatten the curve, take away any contrast and brightness.
What results from this type of “flat” image is the highlights looking very blown out. A simple solution, bump the recovery to +27 and all the highlights look natural again.
Here are the resulting images of what Lightroom (left) will do and what my calibration (right) looks like. You may look at the two and want the Lightroom calibration. But I would suggest you fight that urge, the left calibration is what it looks like on import. I have found that the preset import look will extremely limit your ability to edit your images to the way you interpret them. The right image will allow you to have more control over every aspect of the image since it’s starting you from the basic RAW image.
If you are interested in testing out my presets here are the links: