Shooting Raw, A Dull Shot To A Pretty Cool Shot....

[Anna M. Wood]

Let's share some examples of what we can do with our images to bring a dull photo to life with a little bit of work in Lightroom and Photoshop.

My image was OK straight out of the camera but lacked pop.  From the El Centro photo call on June 18, 2014.  RAW image from my Canon 70D with Tamron 150-600mm.  EXIF shows 182mm, f8, iso 200, 1/1000 sec.  High noon, summer solstice, HOT, cloudless sky and military grey aircraft makes for some very harsh lighting.  I can see why they chose that color for the aircraft, it just gets lost in the cloudless sky.

Straight Out Of The Camera



1st Edit
Crop / Angle Adjustment and Basic Image Adjustments in Lightroom.  I like 16:9 and 16:10 crops so I can have cool screen savers on my home and work computers.



2nd Edit
Into Photoshop for NIK Color Efex Adjustments (Detail Extractor, Graduated Neutral Density and Pro Contrast).  All pretty lightly applied to keep the glow effect to a minimum. Just enough to pull some texture out of the image.  The jet has some character from the wear and tear of use. Then the layer returned to Photoshop for a High Pass Filter sharpening.  I like to use Photoshop so I can do non-destructive edits on layers and save the PSD file for future edits as I learn new techniques and get better at my craft.  I have tons to learn yet.



Back to Lightroom and Final Edit on the PSD File Before Export
Added a Color Priority Vignette.  Also got rid of the huge dust or oil spot on the left just under the wing tip that was brought out from the 2nd edit in the NIK plug-in and missed seeing when in Photoshop.

[Scott Youmans]

Anna,  Great tutorial.  I think you've graduated from beginner status!

[Anna M. Wood]

Thanks Scott....

[John Driscoll]

OK....sold on Lightroom and RAW.  Been using Photoshop Elements and some Topaz Labs add-on's.

Next question.  I know a lot of photographers swear by Apple Mac products, I personally can't stand Mac.

Is there anyone here that is using a Windows based platform for Post Processing?

If yes, what monitor do you recommend?  I have been using my POS work issued Acer laptop for editing.

[Anna M. Wood]

I am a Windows girl myself.  My Mac computers are bootcamped with Windows.  I love the hardware, dislike the OS from Apple.  A Windows machine works just as well as Apple for editing.

I am fond of IPS display monitors with a minimum of 16:9 aspect ratio at 1080p minimum.  Depends on your budget for monitor choices.  Your laptop will also dictate monitor choice.  It needs to be powerful enough to drive an external monitor.

I am not familiar with Photoshop Essentials but I am pretty sure it reads RAW files.  What version do you have?  If it reads RAW files you can likely edit them in an Adobe Camera Raw plugin.  Which is basically Lightroom without some of the bells and whistles.  I would give that a go for a bit with some RAW files to get a feel for the process.  There are some pretty good videos and tutorials to be found online for the basics of Adobe Camera Raw.

The Topaz plugins are great too.  If you have them and like them I would stick with them.

[John Driscoll]

Lightroom = check!
New Hi-Def monitor = check!
New PC that can actually display HiRes images = check!
RAW photos to play with.......not just yet.
I did readjust this JPEG in Lightroom and feel that it opened it up a bit,
BEFORE:

AFTER:


Very subtle differences, but going in the right direction.

I can't believe I was using a laptop that barely had 800x600 resolution to edit photos! LOL

[Anna M. Wood]

800 x 600.... Ouch.

Your new kit will make image editing much more enjoyable.     

[Jay Beckman]

Currently at Oshkosh, but OH! just wait until I get home...