I always get "did you 'Do something' to that photo"? My answer is pretty much 99% of the time "Yes".
In some cases I like the look i got when i shot the photo, but in some cases I have something in mind, a mood, or a look, or something.
For the photo of the Gem at Sunset I took the other day, I wanted something super saturated in color, with lots of orange, and the feeling of the wetness of the ground, and more.
I didn't have the time to do as much editing to it as I would have liked, so I spent some time editing a slightly different angle shot.
What I want to show you is my "process", how I get from "OOC - Out of Camera" to Final Image.
If you are not into photography, thats cool, just check each photo and see how it changes from image to image.
If you ARE into photography, read the details on what steps I took to get to that particular image.
Step 1: OOC - Out Of Camera
This is the shot as it comes out of the camera, with little to no cleanup at all.
Out Of CameraOut Of Camera
You will notice how dark it is and that there is very little color in this. But this was the shot as I took it.
Step 2: Lightroom adjustments
With just a little adjustment in Lightroom you can vastly improve your image. I used "auto" on the Tone, and then tweaked that some till I got the image looking like below:
After Lightroom AdjustmentsAfter Lightroom Adjustments
Step 3: Photoshop cleanup
Decided to remove some things, like some of the cars, the street signs, fix the distortion of the buildings and straighten things up.
I liked the cleaner look, no bright orange signs, this took a while to "stamp" out the offensive items. LOL
Step 4: Adding some color
So, its not a bad photo at this point, it just isn't the deep dark orange super saturated photo i wanted. so...
In Lightroom I added some gradient orange fills, 3 or 4 actually. on the sky, on the ground, using V6's ability to Brush out some of these, i removed areas on the buildings and the GEM sign so that it didn't turn everything orange.
After LR GradientsAfter LR Gradients
Step 6: Topaz Impression
To kind of "smooth things out" and get rid of some of the noise (junk) in the shot, I took it into Topaz Impression, and played with some of the settings to get the look i wanted (OKeff to start).
Topaz ImpressionTopaz Impression
Didn't want 100% of this look as it makes it too much of a painting, so I dropped the opacity to 50%. Giving me the image below (with a little Lightroom adjustments).
After TopazAfter Topaz
Step 7: Adding some "light"
Almost there, not bad, but the street lights were not on yet, and I think if we add some "orange" to it (via lightroom's brushes) it would give it a really cool look. After adding a orange tint to the lights, I took the radial filter and added some orange glow around the lights to give the impression of light emitting from these street lamps.
Before is on the Left / After is on the Right.
Lightroom - adding "LIGHT" to the street lampsLightroom - adding "LIGHT" to the street lamps
Step 8: All done!
Here is the "final" image, after all the above cleanup. Thoughts? comments? input?
Sunset Gem 2Gem Theater and street at sunset
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this entry.
Please let me know what you think.
David