Delicious Recipes is a streamlined workflow tailored for fast processing of hundreds of photos that works with Lightroom 4/5/6/CC + Color Efex Pro 4. To help you learn the new workflow with all the tips and tricks to get the most out of Lightroom and Color Efex Pro I included the comprehensive, detailed, step-by-step PDF guide.

The pack contains all necessary files including Lightroom presets. The presets prepare your RAW files for further editing in Color Efex Pro where you’ll find recipes – ready-made settings to get the most beautiful colors out of your images.There are 14 recipes for color images and 5 recipes for B&W ones. Each of them comes in 3 contrast versions to suit your taste better.

The detailed guide will help you achieve natural, repeatable colors when developing your photos with easy individual enhancements possibility.

Important: To show the effect of Delicious Recipes on photographs, the exposure and white balance on the images BEFORE are already set. Some were subtly retouched in Lightroom as well. The use of Delicious Recipes is the only difference between the images BEFORE and AFTER. In other words, a preset from the pack was used in Lightroom and then recipe in Color Efex Pro accordingly to attached PDF guide.

3 contrast versions

Each of 19 recipes comes in 3 contrast versions to enable you to quickly make any necessary enhancements to suit your taste better. Versions + and ++ are characterized by standard, quite strong contrast, whereas version – is aimed at those who are fond of a bit “vintage” character with a higher level of blacks and matte whites.

Krzysztof Ziętarski, author of Delicious Recipes workflow:

Delicious Recipes is an outcome of many years of work as a professional photographer. Since the beginning the quality of picture editing was vital to me. The most important are natuaral, “undigitalized” colors, which are coherent when it comes to e.g. wedding coverage. As probably a lot of us, photographers, will admit that being consistent in editing of material is not an easy job to do, especially when lighting conditions change in minutes or even seconds!

Hence I was used for quite a long time to CaptureNX + Color Efex Pro, which gave substantial initial colors – not to be achieved in any other image editing software. Moreover, there were easy to apply setting kits from CEP as well as fantastic U-points which simplified my work. Nevertheless, the software has its cons especially when it comes to bigger number of photos e.g. 400 images from a wedding.

The way of work organization in CaptureNX2 when compared to e.g. Lightroom does not survive the competition as far as picture loading and saving time is concerned.

At the beginning of 2013 I took the challenge to transfer my favourite colors to a more effective software. After trail and error process with different programs available in the market, I decided on the set Lightroom 4 + Color Efex Pro 4. I was finally pleased ( not an easy thing to do! ) with he colors I got in this configuration. Additionally, I was really surprised by the speed of editing that I managed to work out.

Right now, it takes me 4-8h to fully edit 400 pictures from a wedding- depending on lighting conditions. (+ time for file saving). In comparison- with CaptureNX2 it would take me roughly 20-25h, so four times longer

For the first time since many years I had time to think of Christmas as the materials from the wedding season of 2013 (which was incredibly busy) I finished by mid November

And, one more thing- thanks to the workflow I am able to catch up with editing my private collection of photographs and I am up-to-date with the very fresh ones

Krzysztof Ziętarski
www.krzysztofzietarski.pl || Facebook Fanpage

Some of my photos from 2013: ( I used Standard recipe )

“If Delicious Recipes were available before, I would have saved several years of trial and error testing”

I was looking forward to the brand new Delicious Presets product, as I was always impressed with the colors by Krzysztof Ziętarski. While waiting for the moment he shared his methods of post-processing, in the meantime, I was working on my own workflow feeling convinced that I would always follow it. I couldn’t be more wrong. Having followed Krzysztof’s workflow for Lightroom and Color Efex Pro I willingly kick my old habits and start using similar, yet much simpler system of post-processing with Delicious Recipes.

The aspects about Delicious Recipes post- processing I loved most:

Picture touch-up – New system divides the workflow into two stages (LR+CEP), which gives a fresh insight into the photo twice. This way, I have the chance to correct any possible previous mistakes that result from the fact that your eye gets used to the colors. Then, I can work on the best effect of the photograph.

Speed – The key thing – especially when you have to edit several thousand pictures a year, just like I do

The simplicity of developing – proper raw image developing according to the tips in the manual together with subsequent work with the set of Color Efex Pro effects allows me to bring out the details and improve tonal range of the picture. This way, I can get rich colors without spoiling their natural beauty at the same time.

The possibility of adjusting post-processing to one’s own style – Delicious Recipes helps a great deal when it comes to fast development of digital images with the colors I formerly had to put great effort into getting. With the help of Color Efex Pro one can easily adjust the look of the pictures to one’s own style and taste.
Too bad that the product wasn’t available before… I would have saved several years of trial and error testing. I do recommend!!

Marcin Mentel
www.marcinmentel.pl || Facebook Fanpage

Marcin’s results achieved with our Color Efex recipes in literally minutes: