My first play in lightroom

[Free]

Hi All,

As mention in a post in "Share your shots", I got my first digital SLR and Lightroom last weekend.

I picked the basics of Lightroom up pretty quickly and had a go at tweaking a dodgey photo of my daughter.

The before shot...


As you can see it's in focus nicely, but I made a dogs breakfast of the exposure settings and came out with a fairly dull, uninteresting image.

I then removed some spots and from memory slightly tweaked the white balance, exposure settings, blacks, removed some red from her cheeks, warmed it a little, sharpened slightly and added a vignette (Probably a bit much looking back?).

The result...


Please don't hesitate to give me your opinion of what I've done wrong, or how you would make it better either in LR or Photoshop.

Thanks for looking
Free

[tiny]

Thats a beautiful daughter you got there. PP is good IMO. If it was me, I would try two more things.

1. There is too much negative space on the left. The eye keeps moving to that location trying to find interesting things there. I would crop.

2. On the upper right hand corner, the background is much more blue than the other parts of the photo. Probably a result from vignetting. I would try to lighten that area.

[Free]

Thanks heaps for your feedback, anything that makes me think is good

I can't believe I missed that dodgey colour in the top right! It was actually mainly from tweaking the vibrance and saturation settings.

I've had another go at editing, I'm not 100% convinced on the cropping, I'm a huge fan of white space in my design, so I think I'm bringing those preferences into my photos a lot. I did do a lot better with the colour correction this time, I think I pushed the sliders a little high in the first attempt.

Thanks again
Free

[w0lf]

Was the vignetting added on purpose? Cute kid. Nice picture.

[Free]

Yeah, I looking back it was a bit much, I was getting into LR and going a bit crazy with the effects. The latest pic is much more subtle.

[AgBeard]

LR2 is where most of my post production is done. I find the facility to create virtual copies (minimal extra disk space used) & then try out different treatments on the same image using the compare option to view the results & learn.

Enjoy you new DSLR & LR2

[MelodyT]

Hi there,

Must say, I prefer your original shot. The composition is good and the lighting & colouring, natural. Her rosy cheeks show up much better too. However, if I were going to do anything, it would be to 'adjust colour for skin tone' in PS. Nothing else. She really is cute.

Regards,
Melody

http://www.bubblingbrook.co.za

[Free]

Originally Posted by MelodyT

Must say, I prefer your original shot. The composition is good and the lighting & colouring, natural. Her rosy cheeks show up much better too. However, if I were going to do anything, it would be to 'adjust colour for skin tone' in PS. Nothing else. She really is cute.

You think so? I thought the colours were quite flat especially in her face.

[Usuqa]

i would use an ajustment brush on the eyes, brighten them a little you can also play around with clarity/sharpness/contrast and satuation to as thay can help make eyes pop that little bit more (just take care that you dont over do it tho).

I love lightroom, its such a great program.

[wal]

i like the face on the edited picture more, much clear and more feel to it.. about the background.. the previous comments said it all... Anyway, well done...