Applying a sequence of Develop Presets

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JBtheLD

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Working as a Professional Lighting Designer I take a huge number of theatrical photos of shows that I have created the lighting for, about 1''' per show. I have found over the last few months that I process & edit them in a very similar way each time and would like to automate this as much as possible by combining a sequence of Lightroom Develop Presets into a single new User Preset. The shots are taken on a Canon 5d with a 7'-2'' f2.8L IS lens at ISO 8'' and usually at f2.8. Here's what I do:
  1. On import I only apply a metadata preset that adds my copyright info, some details about the show, and a few keywords. Fine.
  2. Apply General - Auto Tone Develop Preset
  3. Reset Exposure (Auto Tone increases the Exposure way too much).
  4. Usually Blacks have been Autoset to ', I set this back to 3 or 4 or 5.
  5. Apply General - Punch Develop Preset
  6. Increase Exposure to suit photo, by eye
  7. Adjust Recovery to rescue any blown Highlights
  8. Increase Saturation to +1'
  9. Sync to other similar photos
  10. Crop as required
  11. Repeat for other sets of similar photos
  12. Select for printing, slideshow, web etc.
  13. Job done
I like that applying Auto Tone seems to analyse the histogram of the photo, but hate that the Exposure is usually set way too high.
How can I combine the analysing of the Auto Tone Preset with the General - Punch Preset alongwith an auto Recovery adjustment into a single User Preset, so that I can apply this new User Preset to all my show photos upon import?

Thanks.
 
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Thank you Richard for your reply.
I've had a look at your link which refreshed what I had previously learned about Presets. Would you mind answering a couple of further questions:
How does the Auto Tone Preset actually do it's stuff?
Does the order of applying several Presets make any difference to the outcome?
Does the Lightroom General - Punch preset analyse the histogram of each photo it is applied to, or does it apply the same values to all photos every time?
Thanks,

John
 
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JBtheLD said:
Does the order of applying several Presets make any difference to the outcome?
Click to expand...
No.

JBtheLD said:
Does the Lightroom General - Punch preset analyse the histogram of each photo it is applied to, or does it apply the same values to all photos every time?
Click to expand...
Same every time. All it does is set Clarity to 5' and Vibrance to 25.
 
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Mark & Richard,
Thanks for your replies. I guess I'm clearer about this now - what I was hoping was that I could create a User Preset that would make my RAW files "pop" automatically, based on the content of each photo i.e. just as Auto Tone seems to dynamically and automatically adjust the exposure based on each photo's histogram.

I have a fantastic Photoshop Action (which I purchased) that reads each photo (jpegs only) analyses the histogram and then modifies the exposure, contrast etc. to make each photo really "zing". So I can quickly batch process a folder of images automatically.

I guess that's what I'm hoping to be able to do in Lightroom.
Could I use the Snapshot facility to achieve any of this? i.e. process one photo from a show and then apply similar relative adjustments to the rest of the shoot?

many thanks,

John
 
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Sadly, no -- at this time, it is not possible to do relative adjustments with presets, and Auto Tone is the only dynamic image analyzer type adjustment available.

I have personally submitted (months ago) a feature request for relative adjustments in presets. Please consider submitting one yourself...
 
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Mark,
I'll submit a feature request as you suggest and in the meantime many thanks,

John
 
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JBtheLD said:
I have a fantastic Photoshop Action (which I purchased) that reads each photo (jpegs only) analyses the histogram and then modifies the exposure, contrast etc. to make each photo really "zing". So I can quickly batch process a folder of images automatically.John
Click to expand...

Hi John,

Would you share some info on this Photoshop action? Where can I demo/purchase it? Sounds very helpful for an automated workflow process.

Thanks,

Rob
 
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