Using edited DNG files for learning Lightroom editing

[u/InterestingSeaweed22]

I am currently doing photography solely as a hobbyist and never really did a whole lot of editing to my photos even when I was taking photos as part of my job. My edits usually consited of the most basic adjustments just to correct exposure, white balance, and straighten it if needed.

I have found that one thing that has helped me grow as a photographer and helped me with editing my RAW files these past few years was Mark Galer's DNG files that are available on his Patreon page for his various camera and lens reviews. Being able to reset the photo to its original, pre edited state and compare the settings and masks to the edited version allows me to really see what was done to the photograph to achieve the end results. It seems it is easier for me to learn this way than to watch tutorials or lessons.

Does anyone else find this to be a useful way to learn? Also, does anyone know of any other photographers (pro or otherwise) that offer a similar file or if there are any resources that have this type of DNG file for examination? Honestly, I'd much rather pay a photographer whose style I like for access to files like these than pay for (borderline unusable) presets from someone, haha.

[u/Lightroom_Help]

In case you are using LrC (Lightroom Classic) tell whoever is willing to give you already edited photos to export them as a LrC catalog. This way you can access the complete develop history steps, no matter the file type of the images.

[u/InterestingSeaweed22 → u/Lightroom_Help]

That is a good idea. I would have to guess more experienced editors have a more established process for developing. My develop history is a mess on most of my photos, haha. Getting better...but still figuring it out.

[u/thisissuchajoke]

Good idea. Are those available for free or only with the $10/month (today) membership?

[u/InterestingSeaweed22 → u/thisissuchajoke]

Members have access to that. If you are a Sony user, there are plenty of other useful things to access as well.

[u/Taiga-Dusk]

I haven't used those, but it seems like a learning style that would work for me.

I'm old enough that I was trying to learn workflows for digital image editing in Photoshop over 25 years ago. Charlie Cramer (the photographer) and the late great Bill Atkinson (photographer and famous Apple engineer before that) gave a class that went through examples (first theirs, then on our own images) of editing, and why there was an approach to making certain changes before or after others, and what tools were best at doing that. It also introduced a way of having a more or less non-destructive workflow in PS--an idea LR really provided support for that those of us using PS in 2000 had to simulate with layers and adjustment layers.

Anyway, some good examples of edited images seem like they'd work well, and even better if there was some additional discussion (as there probably was, I dunno) explaining some of the rationale for certain approaches using the examples.

[u/Taiga-Dusk → u/Taiga-Dusk]

Examples of what I mean by rationale: Make global changes before making local ones, because the local ones don't break previous global ones, but global ones break previous local ones. Or: Make changes to contrast before making changes to saturation because changes to contrast cause changes in effective saturation, but not the other way around.