Lightroom 4

[Jay Beckman]

I know some have just taken the step into Lightroom with version 3.6 but some may also be migrating to LR4 so this can be a place to swap ideas, hints and tips...
A lot of what gets laid out here is also applicable to LR3 so if the Mods feel a catch-all Lightroom thread is more appropriate, that's cool.  
We'll just have to state if something is for both or for LR4 only.

Found a BIG one today!  Adobe have expanded the Brush Tool adjustments to include Color Temp and Tint.

Typical scenario...  Plane taxiing in that's slightly up-sun leaving you with the "blues" on the shady side:


With Brush Tool adjustments painted along the fuselage and vertical tail:


Brush Tool Settings Are:
+10 Warmer
-4 Tint (Green helps neutralize Magenta)
.10 Exposure
50 Contrast
10 Shadows
20 Clarity
10 Saturation
10 Sharpness

No longer will you have to resort to masking skies and foreground in CS5 or trying to fudge things with simple color gradients in LR3!

Screen Grab of what the Brush mask looked like.  This was applied without zooming in 1:1 with a brush about the size of the hub on the main landing gear.

[Paul Dumm]

Love that " new" brush tool. Now if they can get the clone/heal tool to work like PS.......LR5 maybe?

[Jay Beckman]

Try taking very small bites out of the offending object with multiple circles instead of trying to lasso an entire object....

I've manged to remove some really nasty stuff using only LR.  Also, play with each bite via Clone or Heal.  Sometimes one works better than the other.

[Joe Copalman]

I was just kvetching to myself internally over this. 

Is that brush mask something you set the parameters on manually with a quick-select-type tool, or is it a "smart" thing where you click on the object and LR4 decides what to mask based on what it *thinks* you want?

[Jay Beckman]

You will see handles for:
A | B | ERASE (You can have two different sized brushes plus a third for erasing)
Size (Duh)
Feather (Edge Softness)
Flow (The smaller the number, the more dense on a dot to dot basis as you paint along)
Auto Mask Check Box (ON and it will try to work around areas of obvious contrast.  If you notice my example, it really cut cleanly around the blue cowlings.)
Density (A way to adjust how heavy the effect is applies)

And of course above all these you have the actual adjustment parameters per whichever version you're using.

There are also presets up at the top in a drop down box.

[Jeff D. Welker]

Great idea for an ongoing discussion Jay.

Did you use your Wacom tablet for the mask work on Maid in the Shade? I'm still getting acquainted with mine and have only tried using it in CS5. How does it work in LR4?

Also, I've been holding off getting my LR3 upgraded to 4 because I'm hearing there are a few glitches that need fixing. What is your take on waiting?

Finally, it might be a good idea to start a similar thread for CS6. As you know, the beta is out and it looks like a winner.

[Rob Silliman]

Adobe just released a RC for Lightroom 4.1.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom4-1/