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[Groucho]

I meant the recovery slider - there was a fair amount of highlight detail that could probably be saved with the recovery slider. The Tone Curve highlight adjustment may help, also, but I find the Recovery slider to do a nice job by itself.

When throwing in a lot of Fill Light, one trick I found was that you'll often end up with a somewhat "flat" look to the area you brightened. Check the histogram and you'll often find that you've got some empty space on the left. Increase the Black levels and it will bring back the left edge, which usually does a very nice job of giving you more contrast in that area without making the whole photo overly contrasty.

 

[wenrob]

What I did is from memory but I don't think I used recovery in this pic. Given that I brought things up quite a bit I'm pretty sure I would have backed off. I do check for blown highlights though so if there are some I may have given them up in favor of something else. If I use a lot of fill light I do bump the blacks but crushed blacks are a pet peeve of mine so I err on the side of caution there. Since the pic was so underexposed I'm assuming I pulled back on them but who knows, lol. It's all one big balancing act, give a little here, take a little there, stuff you can't do with a jpg that's for sure.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Used Lightroom. Dropped the exposure by -1.91, boosted fill light by 60, increased clarity by 30, upped the blue saturation by +33.

Took it into Photoshop and used Liquify on the sky and the Oil Painting PixelBender on the whole pic. Then I jacked the saturation into overdrive. I also dodged the waterfall a bit.

 

[ColleenG]

That's really cool Mark!

 

[SrisonS]

This shot was almost a throw away... or a keep to "savor the moment" shot (my first meet-up with fellow Flickrites) that would've never been seen by others. But I decided to see if I could play around and give it more of a cinematic feel.

0716 Levels by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

The first thing I did was to crop the top, to give it that widescreen look. I then adjusted the Temp, to warm this up a bit. And one thing I noticed, was that the mist in the area, just made this look really flat. Adjusting Contrast really helped to unflatten that look. The increase in Highlights was to bring out some of the brightness in the white shirts. This really made the 'two main characters' stand out a little more.

The one part of the photo that I didn't care for was the emptiness on the right side; and it really seemed to draw too much attention. To combat this, I used the adjustment brush to darken that area (as you can in Red), and brought the focus back on the people in this scene.

And to finish things off, borders were added to give the more cinematic look.

Photo Hunters by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

 

[tlcmommyx4]

Use your adjustment brush. Where it says "Custom" click and there will a drop down menu that has some presets. One is called "Iris Enhance". I have made my own preset for Sclera whitening as well. You could just use the "Teeth Whitening" preset but I would bring up the saturation a bit since it looks to white for eyes. You can also use the adjustment brush to sharpen eyelashes. There are many videos out there on how to enhance eyes with Lightroom.

Thank you much, I did try the Iris Enhance, and I do think sometimes it not white enough, but I am learning

 

[SrisonS]

1178 Levels - At Hollywood Studios, You are the star by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

This a shot that I struggled with what to do with it. I initially tried to keep its natural color somewhat in there, but it wasn't working out like I wanted. So I just tried one of the Presets that I created. I can't totally remember how I even thought of its settings (especially the Camera Calibration stuff). But I think it might've been a combination of Lightroom's Aged Photo preset, and some adjustment techniques I've seen from a quick video tutorial from - Loomax - (I'm a HUGE fan of presets now, when it comes to finding a good starting point to give pics a unique look).

If you look at Loomax's pics, you'll notice that most of them have a great cinematic look to them. This is something I've really been trying to do with just Lightroom. I know he uses a combo of LR and Photoshop; but I only have LR at my disposal. I haven't been able to totally accomplish that feel, but I really like the looks I've been able to aquire; so I'm not too sad.

Two of the things that are unique to this look (anyways, they're uncommon for me with most of my photos) is the major change to the WB (to really get that brownish/goldenish hue) and the big decrease in Contrast (flattens the image, but brings out some finer details in the darker areas...with the help of Fill Light though).

At the time, another new thing to me was Split Toning. Quick Note: To create a Sepia, or other monochrome pic... turn the color to Grayscale, then play around in Split Toning (I almost thought there was no easy way to do Sepia in LR, until I figured this out.... don't ask why I didn't look at the even easier presets ). If you notice, the Highlights is in the Blue region. And while subtle, there is a hint of blue to the entire image (I also know that the Loomax guy uses a blue filter or something in Photoshop).

And finally, the last thing done to the image was some "Lens Correction". Now, the real essence of Lens Correction is to actually normalize the edges of a picture when a lens causes Vignette. But I've recently fallen in love with actually adding the Vignette (by decreasing the Lens Correction Amount level). And in this shot, using that technique is what brought some color to the sky; instead of it totally looking washed out.

I know all of that seemed a lot to swallow. But this just proves why Presets are so awesome.


Final product........


At Hollywood Studios, YOU Are The Star by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

 

[Suburbanmom]

Scott, you are really getting the most out of Lightroom and inspiring me to experiment more with the features I haven't messed with yet.
I love your sepia conversion.

 

[Twigs]

I am really enjoying this thread, and getting inspired. DH just surprised me with Lightroom 3 and PS CS5 today for my birthday. I really want to see what I can do with my boys prom pics. I shot them in RAW knowing that for the time of day and where the group went that I would need to do a lot of fixing on them.

 

[Suburbanmom]

I played around with split screening and camera calibration in Lightroom 2 - I have never even looked at them before...thanks Scott!!!

Here is my shot before and after.

Before

and After

I definately like the orientation cropped to portrait rather than landscape and I think the color wash is interesting without being over the top. I wouldn't want it on all my portraits, but I think it's fun to change things up once in a while.

 

[SrisonS]

Scott, you are really getting the most out of Lightroom and inspiring me to experiment more with the features I haven't messed with yet.
I love your sepia conversion.

Thanks a lot!!!

And great work on that portrait. The tones really do work well for it.

 

[danielephant]

This is insane! You are awesome!!!! I am lucky if i can take a picture and get someone that is not blinking! lol

 

[SrisonS]

6788 Levels by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

The main thing that really brought this photo to life was the adjustment in the Black levels. Before, it was completely flat; but the major increase in Blacks really helped to add some contrast.

Changes to the Aqua Hue were made to actually add some Aqua color to this. I didn't want this to look totally just blue.

As far as Luminance, I decreased the Yellow a lot to add some richness to the slight bit of yellow on the boat. Before that, it was too bright, and you couldn't really tell that it was even yellow (or gold or whatever). And on the reverse side, I increased the green to really make that pop.

Final Product.....


The Ocean Star by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

 

[tlcmommyx4]

Scott this is just amazing! I am still only touching about 6 of the buttons and scared to touch the rest lol. You do really great work!

 

[SrisonS]

Scott this is just amazing! I am still only touching about 6 of the buttons and scared to touch the rest lol. You do really great work!

I think that one of the best non-stress ways to get a feel for Lightroom is to just work your way down, and just slide things left and right until they look good. And it's great because you can undo anything, and your original file remains completely safe. Hey, that's how I learned anyway. I too was scared to venture out from the Basics settings area. Even picture sharpening was terribly difficult to figure out.

But a great book to look into is Scott Kelby's Lightroom 3 book. I only have LR2 right now, but it's still extremely helpful. Also made me realize how much I want LR3 now.

 

[TheGoofster]

Straightening a shot.

One thing that drives me crazy is when I see a shot (especially mine) and it's not quite straight (unless the shot is purposely off-center, like Scott always does so well ).
Normally when I am editing my shots, the first thing I do is use my straightening tool to get it nice and straight. The problem I have on occasion though is trying to figure out what I want to be straight in the picture. Some times you get a shot where one part looks straight, but another part looks crooked.
Yesterday my wife took my daughter and her friends ice skating / bowling. She took our small little P&S camera, so the picture quality isn't the best, but I think this gives a nice little example of what I'm talking about.
I've edited the shot 3 different ways, focusing on getting a different part of the picture straight in each shot. I was just wondering what others use as a rule of thumb when it comes to straightening shots.

shot 1 - where the foul line, and my daughters feet are straight, but the pins and ceiling are a little crooked:

shot 2 - where the pins are straight, but the foul line, and the ceiling are crooked:

shot 3 - where the ceiling is straight but the foul line and the pins are crooked:

of the 3 I think I like the second one the best, because it seems to give the most focus on the pins.

This shot isn't too bad, but on occasion I get a shot where it is pretty hard to decide on what to make straight (without making the rest of the shot look off). If any of you run into this, what is your rule of thumb? And if you have any examples of a shot where you had to determine which part to straighten, I would love to see them.

 

[SrisonS]

I'd go with Shot 2 for trying to make this scene straight. The part with the pins just sticks out so much more than anything else. I'd also probably just crop the ceiling out (and maybe a little of the floor in the bottom, to make things a little better centered). Then again, the ceiling being crooked doesn't really stick out too much for me. So I'd say #2 just like you already have it.

 

[bleeps]

Straightening a shot.

The problem I have on occasion though is trying to figure out what I want to be straight in the picture. Some times you get a shot where one part looks straight, but another part looks crooked.

I believe that what the human eye/brain yearns for is a mid-field horizon that's straight. We're hardwired to have that feel *normal* or pleasing because of our physical experience on the planet every day. So, as long as the strongest, mid-frame horizontal element in the photo is straight, the shot is pleasing (unless you're purposefully going for another effect or there's a way for the brain to comfortably process the lack of that horizon).

I think that's why you're getting the feedback on #2 (and why you like that one as well). It's the strong dark horizontal across the mid-frame's being straight that gives the composition the best balance.

 

[beatlesblonde]

Great tips everyone! I had never heard of Lightroom till coming on this board. I have PS CS5 and have pretty good results with it (the new content aware fill option is amazing!) I do have one suggestion, my camera doesn't have a RAW option (Sony Cybershot HX1) it only shots jpg. Do you have any suggestions as far as shooting in a particular format/setting. I tend to shoot in program auto which does allow me to adjust the F stop, ISO and EV (but I'm still learning what should be adjusted in each situation). I got some practice in our last trip (first trip with this camera) but I guess more practice is what it'll take.

 

[BecBennett]

I love this thread, love reading about what can be done to photos