Using Lightroom to Enhance an Image

[MarkyLandon]

It's amzing what you can do with lightroom, not just presets for RAW conversion but with adjustment vrushes to bo basic skin softening and eye brightening etc etc. Here's an example. Click on the image to go to my flickr stream for a fuller description.

[zona5101]

Nice work!

[Quo Fan]

I'm not a big fan of skin smoothing, but otherwise I'm glad you left some of her freckles.

[MarkyLandon]

Quo, skin smoothing is perhaps the wrong choice of words on my part. It's not skin smoothing in the sense of photoshop. This is softening the detail by reducing the clarity slider as part of the RAW conversion. The effect is a more flattering, softer look. Alternatively for a grungier, HDR like effect you can ramp the clarity up to 100 and show every single hair, wrinkle and dimple... as in this portrait of James Cracknell OBE (I was very please to have got this shot)

[Dodge]

I tend to use lightroom all the time but possibly because I find it such a simple tool compared to photoshop. I never tried it with a portrait, usually using it to completely change an image into something else, adding drama or creating atmosphere etc. Have to agree though, your 'after' image looks way more flattering than the 'before'. Thank you for showing this as I'd never have tried using lightroom to PP a portrait but shall next time. (Actually I recall doing it once, but cranked everything full up on a portrait of my wife and it made her look 90, kinda scared me).

Here's the last one I did in lightroom, made quite a big difference. I was wondering if I could give the image a more realistic look, kind of a moonlit night kind of thing. I started by trying black n white but that just didn't work, then found what I was after by using the cyanotope preset and darkening the blacks to deepen the shadows, then just a bunch of tweaking until I was happy. Seems to have worked pretty much. Dead simple too if I can use it. If I remember rightly, there's loads of free downloadable presets available for it too.

Hope you don't mind me adding pics to the thread, it seemed already an appropriate topic rather than starting a new one. Shows just how versatile LR is too.

Before:


After:

[kirbinster]

I agree it is a great program and can do amazing things. Overall good work, but the skin looks to bright and too smoothed - looks like a department store manikin.

[CiiVii]

Wow, Dodge-- that looks like a real person in your second image! Interesting food for thought.

[JohnT]

I have three of the major Photo editing programs along with around 200 various filters, but use them sparingly when it comes to portrait photography because even when I think the picture is great usually the subject just wants basic adjustments. You can get away with a lot more free style editing on nature shots.

The bottom line is if your happy with it that is what counts.

[spottydog10]

I like both pics...