Didn’t take long to find a better Smart Lighting Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1tkqhxVACM
I think I remember this from long, long ago…
But he doesn’t cover Spot Weighted mode, which is where all the power is.
Not that it hasn’t been said before - you MUST use PL and experiment (and use it REGULARLY to remember). Just watching a video is not enough.
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Methinks that when/if you get some free time, you can explain it properly.
I’ve been using it, but most likely not correctly.
I found this training video:
DxO Smart Lighting - TuTo DxO
It’s sad that the ones I’ve found, both of which are easy to understand, are not good enough. Maybe some year you will create a teaching tool?
What I do now is somewhat based on what you told me many years ago…
Well, I use it every day, and if anything interesting shows up outside my home, I grab my camera, and within a few minutes it’s on my screen Then I do my best editing, until I’m satisfied. Sometimes I post here, but usually they just get mailed off to family and friends.
This is from a few hours ago - my first goal was to capture the beautiful sky. Then the bird showed up, so I took several more until I thought I got the bird captured properly
780_5717 | 2024-06-18.nef (29.8 MB)
780_5717 | 2024-06-18.nef.dop (31.3 KB)
If I go for a “walkabout”, I usually find things worthy of a photo. If it’s raining, or 90+ degrees, I put things off until the next day.
I completely agree with what you just wrote, at least one photo per day, usually more. Since I take my camera with me anyplace I go, this is easier.
If you want me to post here every day, of something that happened that day, no problem!
Sometimes we win, sometimes not. Maybe I should have used f/64 and 1/2000th of a second?
I never even saw this bird, as the mirror was up at the time. Who knows, maybe a ML camera would have sorted it out? Probably not. So I’ve got a fat, blurry bird in what could have been an interesting capture - but I was waiting for the larger bird, off in the distance.
Hello, and welcome!!!
If it’s not a photo, what is it?
It looks like a tour boat going under a beautiful bridge, with a fascinating background. Did you create it?
A pipe, maybe ?
The first video Mike posted wrongly suggested that Spot Weighted mode is only used for face detection. I use spot weighting all the time and rarely have images with faces that need detection.
Mark
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But Mike you don’t experiment with features. You have been here over four years. If you did experiment on your own you would not still be a relative newbie to Smart Lighting after all this time. I will bet there are dozens of features you have never tried simply because no one introduced you to them first.
Mark
Ah, Monsieur Magritte…
Well, to me, once a day, every day, is what I would call “regularly”.
Most of what I want/need to do is now doable, but Mark’s comments are valid.
Sometimes, but not too often, I experiment with features. I’m not creating a painting, I’m trying to get my image to look like whatI saw through my viewfinder. I know PhotoLab is capable of a lot more, but I usually want the finished image to look like what I was trying to record with my camera.
My camera, phone, car, computer, tv, and just about everything else can do far more than what I do with them. I’m happy if they do the things I bought them to do. Heck, the radio on my Mazda can do things I never even dreamed of, but I just want to tune into the stations I want to listen to. I don’t need quadrasonic and all the other stuff - I mostly listen to news on NPR (National Public Radio).
The fact that I’ve only been using my D780 for several months means I won’t remember how to use my other cameras until I re-learn things.
Wolfgang, if you don’t want me to mis-understand what you write, please be more specific. I’m not you, and I’m usually guessing as to what you mean? You’re also way, WAY over my skill level, just like Joanna, but she does a good job of saying things clearly, so there is minimal chance to mis-understand.
Very true. Why should I?
Eventually, I’ll learn most of the trick features, that I don’t know if I’ll ever need.
Why should you? Why should you? I guess you have no problem wasting everybody else’s time teaching you everything without you taking any initiative to learn things on your own.
What an incredibly selfish and self centered statement. The question at this point is why anybody here would waste any more of their time trying to show you anything if you’re not willing to put in your own time first. I hope others here finally realize what a user of other people you are. Mike I am done with you and I hope others here who have tried to help you over the years are done with you as well. You don’t deserve all the help you’ve been getting.
Mark
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The problem shifting between different RAW-converters today is that you will end up just where you describe you are today: “but none of my photos for the past four years are in Lightroom”
If you want to include the metadata you might have added in Lightroom you have to export the XMP-data to your files and then reindex these folders with PM Plus.
If you have used PM 6 before you got PM Plus the metadata is there in the files you have added it to. So you only need to reaorganize your files.
If I were you I would export all XMP from Lightroom. Then I would create a new topfolder for a new structure that shall include all your image folders you want to have as members of the PM Plus Catalog you will create. Copy all your picture folders to the new topfolder and then index all of it.
I don´t understand why you even think of jumping to Darktable of all converters. I will give you a very important reason not to do:
Compared to Lightroom and even Capture One Photolab has a real “killer feature” they lack. Both CO and LR have a real “show stopper” for me because both of the HAVE TOO import the pictures to their catalog BUT PHOTOLAB DOES NOT and that is a huge advantage when using them together with PM Plus. Either CO or LR integrates especially well with PM Plus of that reason.
If you rigg PM Plus properly and set up Photolab to be used as an “External Editor” in PM you will have a really efficient combo that can´t be beaten today. Having done so just select a number of images and select: Edit selected photo with … Photolab.EXE".
If you have Photolab open in parallel with PM Plus Photolab will open in a second with all these pictures ready to edit them.
Tips!
As you can see below Photolab has also a pretty unique feature that is called “External Searches”. Here every import from any external tool is saved so you can open these pictures anythime you like and it is very easy even to convert a search to a “Project”.
After that you start an indexing of the topfolder in Photolab to get in synch with PM Plus. It might take an hour ow two.
When you have indexed all your pictures in PM Plus, turn on “Synchronization” in Photolab via “Preferences” - “Metadata”. I can only guarantee a perfectly functional systems with flat keywords with PM Plus since I haven´t tested with hierarchic/structured keywords. It might work even with the later now but I leave no guarantees.
The synch is rock solid of you just maintain the metadata in PM Plus.
What I have seen there is only Photolab that has this fantastic possibility to integrate with PM Plus just because it is the only converter of the three I have namned that workd right on the picture folders without any need for “import”-processes.
So Mike, it is really not a very good idea to migrate to another RAW-converter with another DAM in worst case when you already have PM Plus. It is PM Plus that will be able to relieve you from the problem with having some pictures in Lightroom´s DAM and some in Photolabs or even some in Darktable if you don´t whatch up.
Of couse you can use PM Plus with both CO and LR, but you will never get anything as streamlined and scalable as the integration with Photolab. An integration with CO or LR will not at all be as instant because it will end up forcing you to conduct an import-process before you can start editing and that is a fare more inefficiant workflow.
I remember also that Darktable seems to be very much like Capture One was before they started to improve that softwares efficiency a lot 3-4 years ago. With Darktable you will just create an even worse mess than the one you already seem to have with Lightroom and Photolab. Don´t go there it will most certainly just make it worse. Try to look into the possibilities you already have with PM Plus and Photolab and there is nothing more efficient and well balanced on the market than Photolab, when it comes to meet the needs of people who DON´T do a lot of editing with their pictures.
If you feel unsafe just try with a small testcatalog in PM Plus and index it in Photolab too and synchronize afterwords before you decides to do it on all your pictures.
I never learned all the tricks and things in Lightroom. I learned enough to do what I needed to do. Same thing for PhotoLab. You still don’t get that I want to edit my photos, to be more like what I saw in the viewfinder, or what I thought I saw. I don’t see the point in learning things I’ll likely never use.
My D780 has a gazillion settings, probably 1/3 of which are for video. I’m ignoring those, until when/if I want to capture video. From what you’ve written, you’re trying to edit your photo to create “art”. That is not my goal, and rarely has been. To me, my photo is what I captured in the camera. I’m not an Ansel Adams, and never will be. But I’m currently more than satisfied with what I can do in PhotoLab to polish my images. I’m not you, and you’re not me. I know you think you’re trying to help me, but you don’t understand my goals. Ideally, I would capture an image, and post it. Sadly, I’m not good enough to do that as well as I’d like, so PhotoLab helps my finished image look like what I tried to capture. Perhaps, instead of wasting your time on me, you should post more of YOUR photos, and explain what and how you did.
I haven’t posted many questions in a long time, likely because with the help of others here, I’ve learned what I need to do. You want me to learn all of PhotoLab, which would likely be a waste of time. You’re not the only one who doesn’t post many photos - you seem to spend most of your time talking about me. No complaints, say whatever you wish, but why not post things where YOU can help others here? Not sure why I’m even writing all this - unless you change, I will simply stop responding to you. That, or get better at a one-sentence response. Do feel free to talk all you want about photos I post, and how you feel I could have done things better. Those would be useful discussions. 
For me, when I want to access my old Lightroom photos, I just open Lightroom, and everything works like it used to, or at least well enough. Thanks, but I have no desire to do what you are suggesting. As long as I keep paying my monthly fee, Lightroom and PhotoLab will remain available on my computers.
No thank you.
I thought I explained this - when I get back to India, I’m supposed to teach people how to use DarkTable. Why do they want it? Simple - $$$$.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to, or is it that you’re referring to someone else? There is no “mess”. I can simply open Adobe Lightroom Classic, and see the same things I saw many years ago, before I started using PhotoLab. I’ve got 11,322 photos in Lightroom.
Because that is the method we use to find solutions to your problems and you will never learn anything if you don’t.
Every photo is individual in what it needs to treat it. There is no “universal” solution and, for you to keep on posting your photos here for us to solve will not teach you anything apart from this is what was needed to perfect that particular photo. Basically, you seem to be asking us to perfect photos for you, without any intention of working things out for yourself.
And this proves that you have not really learnt from previous replies to your posts. Use the forum search. For me, sorry, but this thread is over. By all means ask single questions in separate, named threads but I will no longer extend this one.
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