I'm just a few weeks into using Adobe Lightroom and I am impressed by the power and flexibility of its tools. I find I'm getting more dynamic range and contrast from single RAW files, and powerful noise reduction without sacrificing much sharpness.

In the above photo, I took color out of just the flower and left the surrounding vegetation green and yellow. Very often, photographers strip the color out of the periphery, leaving only the flower in color. However, I liked the crisp texture of the petals, their shape and the play of light and shadow.

Much of my ease and familiarity with using Lightroom so quickly is to the credit of Serge Ramelli, "a French photographer living in Paris". Serge hosts a biweekly podcast on YouTube for Lightroom, Photoshop and Photomatix.