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SLEEK LENS REVIEW
To illuminate a little of my behind the scenes workflow, my usual post shoot routine is to download my raw files right into Photo Mechanic where I rename files and flag the keepers. From there the keeper are imported to Lightroom for lens and camera profile adjustments and basic edits; primarily color and exposure corrections. On export, some (my studio favorites) get a further gentle tweak in Alien Skin Exposure 10. And a few more get polished within Photoshop.
I haven?t used much of the Lightroom?s preset capability in a while, so I was interested to explore the Sleeklens presets when they asked me to do a review of their Forever Thine Wedding Workflow.
Their Forever Thine collection includes Lightroom presets and brushes. And oh was I excited to play with the brushes. Brushes, radial and graduated filters are some of my favorite LR features. They also offer an editing service if you’re ready to outsource. There’s more than just wedding presets. Check out the Lightroom presets here.
Forever Thine Wedding Workflow Presets
There are a lot of presets! Going through all those presets, there were a handful that I immediately was drawn to:
At The Chapel, Pastel Tone 1, Pastel Tone 2, Gone With The Wind, Cindy, Grace, Helen, Serafina, Valentine?s Story, New Girl In Town, Black & White: Clean, Old School, Stardust
Many of these presets are too heavy for my editing style. It took me a while to go through them all and learn what I liked like and how to apply them. What?s great is that they can be tweaked to your needs – and you can save the modified presets as you like. Used judiciously, they are a great addition to my LR workflow. And to be fair I use about the same minimal amount of Alien Skin filters.
In a recent website review I did, it was pointed out that the unification of wedding images are more challenging that the engagement images – because over the course of the day and the season and the venue choice lighting varies so dramatically. I am showing here some examples from a wedding I shot last fall at the BC Club.
Forever Thine Wedding Workflow Brushes
The brushes are awesome. Wedding specific, there?s one that brings down the highlights on a wedding dress. Which is so needed. This allows you to fine tune the image is smaller sections. I love this feature of Lightroom.
SOME EXAMPLES
Like any addition or change to a set routine, there?s a learning curve. Here’s my first go at using the Sleeklens Wedding Workflow.
Presets: Exposure -1, black soft vignette, reduce yellow tone.
Brushes: reduce highlights, fix under exposure
Presets: At the Chapel, Open Shadows, Reduce Yellow Tones.
Brush: Bright Wedding Dress
Presets: Best Man, Black Heavy 2.
Brushes: Sharpen Face (on diamond)
Presets: Open Shadows, Black Soft 2.
Brushes: Reduce Highlights, Define Hair, Fix Under Exposure
Presets: At the Chapel. Brushes: Reduce Highlights
Presets: At The Chapel, Low Contrast
Presets: Open Shadows, Close highlights, Reduce Green. Brushes: Fix Underexposure
Presets: Close Highlights, Open Shadows, Sharpen
A suggestion for importing: Create separate folder for each of the Forever Thine preset categories. The ones I found myself going back to were All in One, Color Correct, Exposure, Polish and Vignette.
Exploring and playing around in LR with the Forever Thine presets, I found many of the basic adjustment presets to be very useful. The included brushes, which can also be used for the radial and graduated filters, are wonderful. The price is worth it for these brushes alone.
