I've been seeing posts here and there about folks doing their basic color correction in Lightroom. Is anyone doing this? If so, are you just using the Saturation sliders and WB controls, or other tools?? And, are you using LR to color correct skin tones?

Thanks! I'm stuck in color correction hell. I just can't seem to "get it".

I use LR for most of my post processing and I love it. I am sure other, wiser people will weigh in on this, but do you have any presets? People are putting out presets left and right and they have been a boon to me.

OnOne, I think, put out a set of about 100 with all kinds of basic corrections (including a set of white balance ones). This set is free, or was last year, anyway. Here's a link for it.

Matt Kloskowski puts out new ones every Monday in his Lightroom Killer Tips blog (a must have in your reader). Some have been really helpful to me, others I've taken a pass on.

I bought Kubota's LR presets (they were cheap!) and sometimes they are great, other times, not so much. I rarely use his Auto WB because it looks funky. Must be the Florida sun?

Anyway, I try presets first and then tweak as needed. I've been doing shooting for our church in our recently rented building and the sanctuary has been giving me fits about the WB--the walls are a funny mauve, probably from the 80's. I can't imagine trying to shoot a wedding there because everyone looks so awful. I think I finally tweaked the WB to one that works on most sanctuary pictures and you can bet I've saved that as my own preset.

hth

Thanks for your post! Yes, I have a bazillion presets, which is probably part of my issue. I get bogged down trying so many, and then I don't know WHAT the heck looks good anymore.

Does anyone use the HSL sliders for color correction, and if so, how? So far, I've been using the saturation sliders to remove a little red/orange that I seem to continually get from my 40D images, but sometimes, the skin goes a little too gray. Maybe I should just be doing this in PS?

Under Presence is Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation. To get redness out use the Vibrance. I would also check your camera's settings. I'm assuming like my 5D it has Picture Style... you should adjust there or on the Color Temperature. If it's consistently red/orange then some setting is off, I'd hate to have to always adjust that for every picture... just a suggestion.
r.

Yes, I do have Picture Styles, but I shoot in RAW, so I'm pretty sure they are ignored. Will try the vibrance slider to reduce red, but so far haven't had much luck. It doesn't make it WORSE as it enhances the other colors, but it doesn't get rid of the orangy tint - even when my WB is seemingly decent.Oh DUH! I was thinking of vibrance only in the POSITIVE direction, not the negative. Yes, that does help with the sacrifice of the nice colors of the rest of the image. I wonder if I should de-vibrance in LR to get rid of the bad skin tones, and then boost contract, and saturation of the other colors within PS??Thanks for that suggestion!!

That's too much work! Geez, your skin tones must be pretty red. Don't know what to tell ya. Maybe show us an example?

Download LR 2.0 - you can use the brush feature to selectively change the tint (like only on the skin and not for the whole photo). 2.0 SERIOUSLY ROCKS!!!

Oh crap! I even have it! I just hadn't thought about it, since I didn't want to really learn the retouch module until they launched the real deal. What a great idea!! Thanks for the suggestion!

Have you any problems with it being "buggy"? Would you use it on a client shoot?

Drag the orange luminance slider over to the right a few clicks - this is similar to Kubota's skin pop Lightroom preset - it will make skin tones less red and brighter in general.

Yeah, I've been using it like CRAZY! I've only noticed a few tiny bugs that didn't affect me much at all. I'm using it right now to edit a wedding (don't worry beta-warning-people, I have several copies of these photos in case something kooky happens to 'em!)

Dont worry about the fact that Adobe themselves warn against using and relying on the beta for actual work? Hahaha, you're full of shit.

Adobe has warned numerous times that your edits MAY NOT BE ACCESSIBLE in the final release of LR 2.0. Also, there is the possibility that some files imported to LR2.0 could become corrupt (it happened with other betas of LR, I wouldn't count on this one either) so backing up is an absolute must.

I wouldn't go around telling people to use LR 2.0 for actual jobs right now - just too much liability. LR 1.4 is FINE and does everything anyone needs it to at the moment. Don't get ahead of yourselves people... be careful with beta software too! Jesus...

Seriously? Could you be any more immature?

I have numerous backups, thanks. BACK. OFFFFFFFFF.

I wasn't talking about you specifically. Could you be any more self centered? And what does this have to do with being immature? hmmm..... Re-fuckin-lax. Jesus.

Sooooooo ... this wasn't aimed at me? Well then you're even more immature that I thought ... you just told the OP she's full of shit for absolutely no reason.

Nice move!

no, that was directed at you. now get over it, old grump.

Old grump. That's a new one. Oh, wait ... maybe you're talking to Troy (?)

No, that was directed at you too. Go get some rest, you seem a bit on edge lately.