Lightroom Advice

Seajay

Seajay

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Cathy
Edit My Images
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Hi everyone,
Today I have been playing with Lightroom 3 trying to get myself comfy with the controls etc.

i have used the picture below and I know it is not the best that is why I am using it to play with as there are many textures and colours etc also it needs to be sharpened.My problem is I have no idea which control to use to bring the face to a near normal colour and texture,I am not looking for perfection as it will not be possible just need to know where do you go to try to get the face skin tones or which controls do I use.Charly was wearing a light foundation when I took these with my old camera so this may be why her face is lighter than normal.


Any help to guide me to the right control would be great.



rocks by cooriedoon, on Flickr
 
Doesn't look far out at all. The face is a bit flat because you used direct flash, maybe it was a bit too strong. Though that's not a great example to play with as the dynamic range is very low (no bright highlights) and no bright colours.

Colour balance is an art. It's right when it looks right. Lots of threads on this. Use the colour temperature controls at the top of the develop module panel.

Get a book - Scott Kelby is probably favourite. Lightroom is fairly easy to use for basic stuff (google YouTube guides) but you need a book to get the most from it.
 
Ok Richard thank you I will pick another to use I just picked one I felt needed a little of everything . I will google the book and have a look at it .

I did follow a few you tube videos to learn about sharpening but could not find one for faces only plenty of fix the eye ones. Lol!

Ok tomorrow will be google searching and many thanks!
 
Any particular reason you're using LR3? You can download a LR4 trial off the site and upgrade isn't that expensive.
LR4 amongst other things has an adjustment brush that'll allow localised sharpening, white balance corrections and so on enabling you to brush added sharpening on only areas that require it. Its also got a skin smoothing preset somewhere.
 
LR 3+4 also have the ability to decide how much of the image you want the sharpening to apply to if using global sharpening if you hold down the ALT key and then adjust the Masking. When you press the ALT key and then click on the masking slider the image will be completely white. As you move the masking slider to the right you will see black areas start to appear. The black areas are where the sharpening will apply.
 
If you tick the box under the image in the Develop module(Show Selected Mask Overlay) whilst having the Masking brush selected,the area to be adjusted is shown in Red. Its quite a good little tool.
 
Ok thank you I will pop open another photo in lightroom and follow your instructions to see how that all works.Richard just using Landscape 3 as I have it and have never used it until joining this forum I usually use photoshop and want to learn Lightroom once I get a little more knowledge of it I will get the new one.sounds like the new one will be fun to earn too.
Cathy
 
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Is this better? I had a play with it in Lightroom 4.

8254971928_4e13cff52c_h_d.jpg


I hope you don't mind. Let me know if you want me to delete it from my flickr.

Cheers
 
highpriest said:
Is this better? I had a play with it in Lightroom 4.

8254971928_4e13cff52c_h_d.jpg


I hope you don't mind. Let me know if you want me to delete it from my flickr.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Excellent :thumbs: Face is way better, use of flash invisible unless you know where to look.

But what did you do? That's why you need a book. The basic sliders are more logically labelled in LR4, but what is 'Clarity' (one of my favourites, boosts mid-tone contrast without affecting the extremes) and 'Vibrance' (boosts saturation of low-saturation tones, without affecting already well saturated areas).

To the OP, check out the preview of Scott Kelby's books on Amazon.
 
Wow! well done that looks great and no i do not mind at all I appreciate the help.

I hope you can now tell me a little of what you did. I am watching a book about Lightroom on ebay so that will help when it comes.

Thank you so much
Cathy
 
HoppyUK and Seajay - glad you liked it.

It was a very simple edit in Lightroom 4. I used the 2012 Process.

Warmed up the photo slightly (Auto WB picked Temp +3 and Tint -9 which looked right on my laptop screen).

Tone

Exposure: -0.12
Contrast: +7
Highlights: -67
Shadow: +10
Whites: -19
Blacks: -40

Presence

Vibrance: +14

Sharpening

Amount: +5

Was happy with the amount of detail, contrast, tone (face, hand) and colour at this point but these adjustments had made her teeth look very dull. So I used the Adjustment Brush, selected the preset Effect 'Teeth Whitening', blew up the image 300% and carefully applied the effect on the teeth using a small brush. Exported to JPEG.

Not knowing the subject's real skin tone, it's all a bit approximate, obviously :) You should be able to extract a bit more detail and process it more accurately if you have access to the original RAW file.

Cheers
 
highpriest said:
..........Was happy with the amount of detail, contrast, tone (face, hand) and colour at this point but these adjustments had made her teeth look very dull. So I used the Adjustment Brush, selected the preset Effect 'Teeth Whitening', blew up the image 300% and carefully applied the effect on the teeth using a small brush.......

Cheers
Click to expand...

Sorry to butt in, where is this effect found in Lightroom please?
 
It is a brush preset in LR4 (discovered it today actually :)). Nothing too complicated by the looks of it - it sets Exposure to +0.41 and Saturation to -63.

It can be found in the Effect drop down if you select the Adjustment Brush tool (shortcut K).

8255532986_0410635e62_o_d.png


Cheers
 
That's rather good, mine was set on custom for some strange reason!

Many thanks for the info.
 
After the promise of a sweetie and a shot on my ipad my youngest granddaughter Anna allowed me to take photo's today which is great as it gives me more practice.

This time i used only manual and raw only no idea what i am doing with raw yet but hey it was fun using it.

I would like to have this printed for her if i can get it right.
I have removed a hair from her eye using photoshop as i don't know how to use lightroom for this yet.

Would you remove all the stray hairs to the right that are on the wall and in your opinion what would be a good size to have this done for her.I don't want it just to be a 6x4 but not sure how it would look in a large print.Would it be suitable for a canvas or better framed.



Anna & Daisy by cooriedoon, on Flickr
 
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Gordon thank you for the link.
For now it is easier for me to learn using my family and pets but I do hope to take some nice landscape shots too in the future.
I am off to watch the video right now I am sure it will help a lot when working with the photos in Lightroom or photoshop.
 
:)
 
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