i have been shooting for years (mainly children’s port), dig since 12/07. although the camera transition has been easy (nikon n-series to nikon d-series), the editing and postproduction have been quite challenging. then add hardware problems, calibration probs, eeeeeeeek. memory probs, space probs… compatibility probs… ignorance.

i was editing in elements 3 (eek) tugging on tabs and clicking on arrows, weepingly watching my children’s skin gamut from copper to green and finding home in magenta. all my little kids looked like they had either just experimented with mom’s expired self-tanner, or had just been resuscitated from an unfortunate debacle involving an ice pond.

in the meantime, i have one project of 80ish little green portraits overdue, and one of about 20 little blue children. (intermittently disbursed therein are a few sun worshippers.) in my ignorance, my attempted solution was to tweak, go to lab proof, go home tweak, go to lab proof, ad nauseam.

then i calibrated, loaded printer profiles, tweaked and proofed a few more times. i had opened and closed and changed and saved my pix so many times, i now had 100’s of pictures of little green and purple coppertone children, their faces muddy and pocked, with jagged little edges. All of which had been prepaid for…

desperate and overwhelmed, on the verge of collapse, i was online researching for about 6 hours two nites ago, desperately seeking ideas about skin tone in color correction. stumbled upon lightroom… read lots of info about the vast capabilities… and learning curves involved. Got lightroom. Found your website. Loaded your presets.

Of all the mistakes and ignorance and problems that have plagued me, miraculously, I had kept my original tiffs and they were pristine in their master file. Last nite, I finished 40 portrait edits, the children have skin colored skin in all their unique dimensions. As these portraits were shot in natural lite (w/ and w/o strobe and speedlite), I was able to utilize many of your presets in diff ways. Thanks to you, I will be able to deliver beautiful jobs a little late, as opposed to ugly jobs very late, so, thank you. Thank you. You have impacted my business in a positive and generous manner.

This is the longest (if not only?) letter I have ever written stranger(s), but I wanted to express my sincere gratitude for you compiling and sharing the presets. I’m intrigued by the type person that would create and compile masterpiece recipes and willingly share it with strangers.

I would like to contribute as well and I am working on a preset for “recently-thawed sun-burned children”, and will forward it when it’s perfected.

Most sincerely,

Reese

Take care, mehearty!

Don

Now I wonder how long it will take before Canon and Nikon start supporting the DNG format.

For a quick look at what’s in there, you might also see the test image via my Exif viewer. Searching for “this is” on the page will lead you to everything I could edit.

Let me know what you find out.

Me along with bunch of my wildlife friends have been putting our pics together.. but tagging them etc.. AFAIK, Aperture puts all that into in IPTC field. Not sure what lightroom does.