I was testing the new beta version of Lightroom 3 and decided to play with some old images.  To my surprise the presets that I’d made in my other Lightroom 2 copy were included following the installation.  One of the presets is one that I’ve used to make a hi pass filter image that starts with a dark over saturated image and ends up with a high contrast color image.  So, I selected an image of DeAngelo Williams of the Carolina Panthers that I’d shot for Donruss Trading Cards.  After applying the preset I backed off the recovery and brightness sliders in LR3 to make it brighter and contrasty.  I then added sharpening in Lightroom to add snap to the highlights on the skin and football.  This gave me a final custom black and white image with it’s own character.

Although this was just a test image I can see making a small portfolio of these portraits in black and white.  My initial impression of Lightroom 3 is very favorable.  Normally I like to just discover new changes in the programs but this time I watched the videos that Adobe made.  Each new version of Lightroom has been a significant improvement and I don’t see Adobe falling short on this one too.  I’ll be watching the changes on the beta and anxious for it’s actually delivery.

My other work can be viewed at: www.zwink.com

More photos of my NFL portrait collection can be viewed at: http://www.zwinkftp.com/donruss2008/