# plug in help



## Twainman (Aug 9, 2013)

hello everyone, I have a problem I can't seem to solve no matter what I try. I shoot in raw, have lightroom 5 and the nik collection. I always have trouble with getting good skies. When I spot out specks with lr. the tool leaves a small effect that is still visible no matter how careful I am. The adjustment brush is too time consuming especially if there are tree branches intruding into the sky. I'm thinking of trying topaz labs, but I'm confused if I should use their masking software or the layers software. Would one of these even do what I want? I forgot to mention I sometimes get banding in skies too. Thanks everyone, you people are great.


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## RAHAlpha (Aug 20, 2013)

Re the specks, do you have it set to heal or clone? Heal is better for dust specks. Remember too,  when you have selected the Spot Removal Tool, that you have the check box option at the bottom to Visualize Spots. 
Re skies, LR can do wonders with skies with the Graduated Filter and/or Healing Brush. You can also do a lot with Nik Color Efex control points but you didn't say what you were trying.


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## clee01l (Aug 20, 2013)

Twainman said:


> the tool leaves a small effect that is still visible no matter how careful I am. .../QUOTE] I've had some really crappy results with the spot removal tool in LR 5.2RC. I'm beginning to think the spot removal tool is broken..


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 20, 2013)

Got any examples Clee?


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## DaveS (Aug 20, 2013)

Speaking of LR 5.x...  Are you really still running 4.4 Victoria (like it indicates in your specs at the left)??   

So far, on the images i've played with, the spot removal tool is nicely cleaning up the sensor dust in the sky of a number of airplane photos I tool a few years ago.


On an unrelated note, where did the warning in the lower right hand corner of the image that indicated that this photo was still using an old process version go?   I can't find where to turn it back on.


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## clee01l (Aug 20, 2013)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Got any examples Clee?


I went back to the example that caught my eye about a week ago.  It was of an image where I cloned out a limb using LR4.x  It looked fine in LR4 but horrible in LR5.2RC.  Upon closer inspection, It appears that the feather of each clone circle had been set to "0"  Not something that I would have done intentionally.


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 20, 2013)

DaveS said:


> Speaking of LR 5.x...  Are you really still running 4.4 Victoria (like it indicates in your specs at the left)??
> On an unrelated note, where did the warning in the lower right hand corner of the image that indicated that this photo was still using an old process version go?   I can't find where to turn it back on.



Ooooops!  Nope, I'll update my profile, thanks.

The warning is now a lightning bolt just under the histogram.



clee01l said:


> I went back to the example that caught my eye about a week ago.  It was of an image where I cloned out a limb using LR4.x  It looked fine in LR4 but horrible in LR5.2RC.  Upon closer inspection, It appears that the feather of each clone circle had been set to "0"  Not something that I would have done intentionally.



Definitely report that then!


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## DaveS (Aug 21, 2013)

Ahh, that's where the process warning is now.  Not quite as obvious as it used to be. I still haven't finished reading your Lightroom 5 book yet, so still learning the subtle interface changes.


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## clee01l (Aug 21, 2013)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Ooooops!  Nope, I'll update my profile, thanks.
> 
> The warning is now a lightning bolt just under the histogram.
> 
> ...


I've reported my Spot removal tool bug with Images showing the error.
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lr5_2_rc_spot_removal_feather_bug?rfm=1
If anyone else can document the same error and add comment to support my post. I would appreciate it.  
In the mean time I may go back to LR5.0 to see if the bug exists there


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 21, 2013)

DaveS said:


> I still haven't finished reading your Lightroom 5 book yet, so still learning the subtle interface changes.


In the back of the PDF, there's a list of the changes, and also which questions refer to new features, which might come in handy as you've used previous versions.


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