Tutorial Elements and Lightroom | Use them together to make the most of editing
4
Once you do that you’ve got some other options to pick. First, choose the PSD file format option. Next, choose the Adobe RGB (1998) option for the Color Space (works better if you ever decide to print the photo). Under Bit Depth, Elements does not support 16-bit so make sure you choose 8-bit. Go ahead and set the resolution to 240 if it’s not already, and leave the Compress setting at None. Once you have all of the options selected, you can go ahead and close the dialog. You’re ready to go at this point.
5
Now let’s edit a photo in Lightroom’s Develop module. In this example, I’m going to adjust the White Balance setting to make the photo warmer. To get the overall brightness and tone of the photo right, I’ll increase the Exposure, add some contrast, adjust the Highlights and Shadows, as well as the Whites and Blacks. So far, these settings are exactly the same as you’d have in Elements’ version of Camera Raw. But I’m also going to do a few things you can’t in Elements. For starters, I’ll use the HSL section and add some saturation to the blues. Then I’m going to use the Effects panel to add a vignette to darken the edges a little.
6
I’m also going to use a huge feature, that I use all the time in Lightroom, and it’s something you just can’t do in Elements’ version of Camera Raw. Notice how the sky is still pretty bright compared to the rest of the photo. Normally, you’d have to open the photo in Elements, and make a selection to darken it. But Lightroom has a feature called the Graduated Filter and we can use it on the sky to darken it without selections or layers. I just clicked-and-dragged the filter down over the sky. Then I reduced the Exposure a little to darken it, and even added some blue under the Temp setting to take away that yellow/muddy color the sky had in it.
May/June 2013 | 31