Advanced Video Editing in LR4 – Using Develop Module Adjustments

by Gavin Seim: With the new LR4 beta now out, I’ve of course been poking around inside. One great feature for us that capture video, is the ability to play and do light edits via Quick Develop and build video clips into our LR workflow.

But there’s something more that you may have noticed. Initially just basic settings are shown available for video, as we can see on the left. Exposure, contrast and the like. Others get greyed out. Also when you attempt to go into the Develop module for more advanced edits, it simply says “Video is not supported in Develop.”

And yet, it seems we can use some Develop settings via presets. I decided to just run a few from Seim Effects presets and see what happened. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the dialog below and that while not all, many of the develop settings are actually available using presets. Settings I was able to apply and export on my clip.

Needless to say I was pretty excited. I didn’t see this shown at the Adobe press conference a few weeks back and as far as I know Adobe has announced no official develop module support for video. But it stands to reason it may be coming.

The Technique for right now is to make Develop presets on a still frame and then apply those settings to video. We can tweak color channels, curves and the like and really gain a great deal of control over video clips in very short order. It’s not perfect: There’s still some settings missing that would be valuable, but we’re off to a good start.

I’m rather excited at the workflow potential. And that I’ll be able to offer presets that can be used for video editing. We’ll see what happens. I plan to experiment further and post some free video presets soon on my blog.. G

LR tells me that not all settings from the preset are being used and lists what's available before applying the effect. Still a pretty effective lineup of tools.
Copy Settings showed all available tools currently available on video. Not all, but all these, plus B&W adjustments (not shown in this dialogue) are some of the most important ones. With these we can do some serious effects.

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About the Author

Glad you're here.

I'm from WA State USA and started studying photography in 97. I started work as a pro (using that word loosely because I sucked) using film at age 16. I learned fast but was not as easy to find training then. Sometimes I beat my head against the wall until I figured stuff out.

As digital dawned I went all in and got to study with masters like Ken Whitmire. In 09 I founded the Pro Photo Show podcast. I started promoting tone-focused editing. When Lightroom arrived, I started developing tools to make editing and workflow better.

20 years of study and photography around the country earned me a Master of Photography (M.Photog) from PPA. I got to see my workshops and tools featured in publications across the industry. Once I even won the prestigious HotOne award for my "EXposed" light and tone workshop.

Wanting something calmer, I moved to Mexico in 2017. It's a land of magical light. I'm here now exploring light and trying to master my weak areas. I make videos of that for my Youtube channel, sharing what I learn. I hope you'll stick around and be part of Light Hunters Tribe... Gavin

Gavin Seim

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