I've seen a few presets recently to automate B&W conversions, add digital infrared effects, with Lightroom 2. In particular, I saw this featured preset from Pierre at Presets Heaven:

http://www.presetsheaven.com/2008/10/27/34-free-black-white-film-presets-for-lightroom/

Honestly, the faux digital film effects for this preset do not look realistic to me. ;)

I cut my photographic milk teeth on B&W roll film with a Yashica Twin Lens Reflex nearly forty years ago. (Yes, I'm 49.) I helped my father build a B&W darkroom in the basement of our farmhouse. Later, we built a color darkroom in an upstairs bedroom. I worked with Kodak, Ilford, and Agfa B&W film for years. (Mostly Ilford and Kodak Plus-X/Tri-X/Panatomic-X film.) These digital substitutes look nothing like Plus-X, Tri-X, etc. in my opinion.

Lightroom 2 presets for B&W film lack film grain! Same problem with digital IR effect presets with Lightroom. No film grain.

What seems to distinguish among these presets is highlights burning out for high ISO examples.

I'm sorry. Highlights burning out was not what distinguished faster and slower ISO films. Film grain was the major distinction. When you needed fast shutter speeds, you used something like Tri-X because you got two extra stops over something like Plus-X. But you knew it would be a lot grainier. Sometimes you even wanted more grain and chose something like Tri-X for that reason.

What is the point -- aside from marketing gimmick -- of simulating a particular B&W film? Why not focus on making a fine art B&W print that is evocative. Focus on the contrast. Focus on shadow details and highlight details. If you're going to try to add a grain effect, aim for one that is pleasing from an artistic perspective. I never once had anyone come up to me at a gallery or a contest and say something like, "Wow! Good choice with Kodak Plus-X." Even if you did a portrait with something like Tri-X, the comment you might expect would be "Too grainy!" not "Bad choice: Tri-X!"

Simulating B&W film effects in Lightroom is just not possible. Short of a noisy sensor from high ISO digital photography, all digital photographs have less grain-like appearance than Kodak Panotomic-X (32 ISO) or Agfa 25.

I've taken a long walk around to get to the point of this blog entry: Lightroom Ain't Photoshop!

I see many threads that ask some variation on this question: I own Lightroom, there are lots of presets for stuff like making B&W photos, so why do I need Photoshop? You need it because Lightroom Ain't Photoshop!

I'm not trying to intiate a flame war. What I hope to stimulate is a reasonable conversation about the comparative advantages and disadvantages of Lightroom vis-a-vis Photoshop.

I'm working on some B&W presets. I won't try to simulate B&W films. Again, 100% candid, I don't find the faux film grain with tools like Nik Silver Efex, Real Grain, or B/W Styler to be all that realistic in Photoshop. Good products, but my recommendations (forthcoming reviews planned) are not based on the accuracy of their film grain simulation.

There's one simple, practical reason for not simulating specific B&W film presets with Lightroom. Lghtroom doesn't have any tools for adding random noise to a photograph or for manipulating noise to make it look more like film grain. Photoshop does.

Trying to simulate film noise generically requires random noise, layer blends, filters to make it clump more, and then Blend If sliders to control where it gets applied. If you thought film grain was evenly distributed over lighter and darker film features, you're mistaken. For color film, you would also need to access individual channels, since they were not equally likely to show grain-like effects (color film did not have grains, they are bleached away completely and dye clouds remain).

If you want grainy B&W or more realistic IR effects, you need to run your photograph through something like Photoshop after you do your B&W conversion in Lightroom. Lightroom 2 alone will always be phoney (not faux) when it comes to simulating B&W films or IR because of the absence of grainy texture.

The ability to blur photos is also handicapped in Lightroom. Yes, Lightroom 2 added the possibility of negative settings for Clarity and that applies a slight blur. IR film was noted for extremely high contrast, weird tonal shifts (with vegetation being white, for example), and an ethereal glow. Lightroom's ability to blur a photo is not, plain and simple, up to the task for simulating IR film. More important, that blur should not be applied to the entire photograph for a realistic effect. You need to use the Blend If sliders and target the blur on the highlights and the shadows separately. You need Photoshop.

What is true for IR effects is also true for diffusion effects, high key glows, etc. Lightroom presets that simulate high key effects, like those from Matt Kloskowski on The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips site, are poor imitations of what can be accomplished in Photoshop with a little effort.

(You might want to see my tutorials on adding glows with Photoshop.)

http://www.thelightsright.com/givingyourphotosaglow)

There are some very important features unavailable or underdeveloped in Lightroom that can make a trip through Photoshop a practical necessity:

1. No ability to add noise. Even the Film Grain filter in Photoshop is developmentally disabled. ut at least you can get a reasonable simulation of film grain in Photoshop with effort. (John Nack, if you're listening, a more realistic Film Grain filter would be nice for Photoshop.
2. Weak blurs. Photoshop offers umpteen ways to blur a photograph. Lightroom does not even offer a vanilla Gaussian Blur effect. Negative Clarity settings are not the equal of Gaussian Blur.
3. Layers. Lightroom works non-destructively with photos. Great feature. They work like adjustment layers in Photoshop with a Normal blend at 100% opacity. Not so good! Giving a photograph a more realistic high key glow requires layer blends and comfort with Blend If settings.

There are many, many more featuires that give Photoshop an overwhelming advantage for adding photographic special effects. I'll let readers of this blog build on these three by adding their own comments.

I own and use Lightroom. I like the interface a lot. If all you want to do is "develop" digital negatives in the same way that you might run film down to Walgreens for 6x4 prints, then Lightroom should fit all of your needs. (My tone is flat here. When I write this, I'm not "looking down" on weekend photographers who want to capture digital snapshots.)

I really like the filmstrip navigator in the Lightroom Library module. I find Lightroom to be more elegant and refined than Adobe Camera Raw. For example, presets in Lightroom can be organized in folders. Not so in ACR. Lightroom is my first choice for RAW converter.

There is also at least thing that Lightroom (and ACR) do better than Photoshop: Gradient filters. You can do more with the Gradient tool in Photoshop, but the interface in Lightroom and ACR is really slick! It's a lot quicker and a lot more intuitive than the Photoshop Gradient tool.

OK, your turn . . .

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