Burning & Cropping in Lightroom

[pharris201]

This was heavily backlight. I was in a dark room shooting into bright sun light. Totally blown out background and the bowl was murky.
This is my first time using dodging and burning to bring out an image. I think it still needs some work. Please let me know your thoughts and comments.
Thanks







Date Taken: 2011-01-06 17:16:38
Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
Exposure Time: 0.005s (1/200)
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 55mm
Date Modified: 2011-04-19 03:10:07

[wulf]

I can see lines round the orange rope where you weren't quite accurate enough with your masking. A better way to get the shot would be to use flash to balance foreground and background lighting better and then use post-processing to tweak the results.When you try to take the dodge and burn fix too far, as here, it looks like the foreground and background don't belong together.

Wulf

[jdepould]

The whole thing looks underexposed to begin with. You might try the fill light control for starters. Also, the brightness slider does better than exposure when it comes to bringing up the levels without blowing out highlights.

... but I'm not sure this image is worth that much time in post.