Help Adjusting Photos

[fireb0x]

Howdy,

I did my first photo shoot this afternoon. They were team picture for a baseball team. My issue is that it was a very harsh afternoon Texas sun and so all the pictures came out very "orange" looking. I shot in RAW and have been messing around with random settings in Lightroom 2 trying to get it to look more natural and "cooler
(temperature wise).

I want to make sure I am adjusting the right sliders. Also, I want to make sure I can lighten up the shadows under the players caps. The bill of the cap casts a strong shadow over the face. How can I lighten these shadows but maintain some decent blacks everywhere else in the picture.

Are there any tips on what sliders I should be paying the most attention to?

I feel like I have been getting the best results with sliding the temperature and tint sliders to the left to give it a "cooler" and "greener" more natural look. The skin tones look right, but I want to make sure I am not adjusting the wrong things

Any help is appreciated.

[OsmosisStudios]

Examples (before/after) would be a great help.

If youre getting the skin tones right, that's the key. Generally, when you do get things right, things that were white will show as white.

As for shadows: if the pixel value is 0,0,0, youre SOL. You cant regain information from black. Even if it isnt, youre gonna have a real hard time getting detail back. Its easier to pull from highlights than shadows.

[fireb0x]

Here is a before and after of the photos I just edited:

IMAGES REMOVED



I'm thinking the ones in the second photo might be just a TINY bit too blue/green because the sky doesn't look natural. It was around 6:30PM. Really harsh sun.

[KathrynWilson]

Your edit looks a tiny bit too green but it's definitely a huge improvement on the first one! .Probably a little fill flash would have been about all you could do here to avoid those shadows, and even then it would have been tough.

[fireb0x]

I've readjusted it to make it a little less green. I've added it above. Changed some of the HSL settings and picked up the exposure a tiny bit. Here is the latest version. Much closer to proper exposure, I think.