Lightroom ?

[Steve's Girl]

I am such a stooge when it comes to technology... but I have been trying to figure this out for weeks.

When I open the photo in Lightroom, it will say "Loading" across the bottom and the colors look very vibrant, etc. Once the photo has finished loading, the photo kind of "greys out". (I know, not a very good technical term, but the only way I know how to describe it). In fact, the colors look rather flat. I have Kelby's book for Lightroom, but that doesn't seem to be helping me. Am I doing something wrong when I import? I don't want the flat image, I want the nice vibrant "loading" image.

 

[Code]

RAW or JPG? edit: nevermind stupid question, I assume RAW since you're using Lightroom.

Is it only happening the first time you load a photo? The camera stores a thumbnail preview in the RAW file and Lightroom uses this as the thumbnail and "Loading" image the first time you look at a photo until it renders its own preview based on the development settings (unless you change Lightroom default and have it render its own preview on import). On my camera (Oly E-510), the RAW thumbnail the camera generates is made with the camera settings taken into account. If I have "vivid" color mode set, then I get the exact same behavior as you describe the first time I load the photo because Lightroom's defaults are much less vibrant than the "vivid" mode on the camera.

 

[Steve's Girl]

I guess I only notice it on the first time it loads. So, is Lightroom then applying default settings that "flatten" the colors? After the photos have loaded, I just cannot seem to adjust them to get them back to what they looked like before Lightroom finished "loading" them.

 

[Groucho]

Do you have a develop preset being used when you import? If so, maybe it's applying some unusual settings. The pale look is just as likely to be white balance as actual color settings - sync'ing a WB change across a bunch of photos is the main time I notice a change like you describe.

FWIW, I have mine set to apply a custom preset (clarity 7%, vibrance 13%, sharpening 45%) when importing, I find that works pretty well for my tastes.

 

[Steve's Girl]

Do you have a develop preset being used when you import? If so, maybe it's applying some unusual settings. The pale look is just as likely to be white balance as actual color settings - sync'ing a WB change across a bunch of photos is the main time I notice a change like you describe.

FWIW, I have mine set to apply a custom preset (clarity 7%, vibrance 13%, sharpening 45%) when importing, I find that works pretty well for my tastes.

No, I don't have any develop presets used. On import, I have develop settings set to none.

How do you apply a custom preset?

Thanks

 

[SWDopey]

Try this...

Shoot the same image in raw and in jpeg - a nice bright colourful image.

Now bring up the 2 images in LR.

The nice bright preview you're seeing initially looks quite like the jpeg one, right?

Now, adjust the raw file until it looks like the jpeg.

Save those settings (but not the white balance) as a preset.

You might want to try a few image to get an 'average' setting.

Now whenever you import images, set that 'starting point' preset as the develop preset to apply, and you'll be pretty close to the jpeg the camera would have shot.

Oh, and tick the 'render standard previews' in the import dialog. It renders the previews 4-5 times quicker on import than it does at a later stage.