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Lightroom – How to Correct Backlight Issue

27 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by Kathleen Scanlan in Lightroom Tips

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Tags

Background light, creativity, Lightroom, Natural Light, No Flash, Photo information, Photo postwork, Photography, Photography information, Photography postwork, photos

How many times have you taken a picture of a beautiful object with a bright background and didn’t want to have the harshness of a flash? Your eye sees every detail of that object and the light from the background just makes it pop, right? But then when you look at your image, it comes out like this:

Screen Shot 2018-02-18 at 2.50.43 PM.jpg

In the past, when shooting with film, this could be somewhat corrected in the darkroom if you were lucky enough to have one (I wasn’t so lucky). You would have to take several images at different settings and work with “stacking” them to catch all the detail, and/or dodge and burn in the darkroom. Even before all the wonderful programs out there for digital cameras today, you still had to frame your settings and combine those images into one.

Now, everyone can take a shot and change it completely in a post-processing program with ease. And in many cases, may not need to “stack” photos. Today, I am going to give you a step by step process to lighten forefront images simply in Lightroom Classic.

Step 1: Easy. Download your image to Lightroom and make any straightening, cropping, and/or spot removal at this point. Don’t worry too much about the cropping. I usually will do this at the end but it can be done at any time.

Step 2: Make a “virtual copy” to work on. Right click on original image. Look for “create virtual copy” in the drop down list. Click on it. (Always work on a virtual copy and keep your original “clean”.)

 Step 3: Under “BASIC” on the right side of the screen, bump up the exposure, adjust the contrast, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks. I always add a little bit of clarity. My adjustments are below.

Basic.jpg

REPEAT STEP TWO. (Right click on the image you are working on, not the original.)

Step 4: Move down to “Lens Corrections”. Check Remove Chromatic Aberration and Enable Profile Correction. Below that, make sure your lens profile is correct. It actually does change the image a bit based on what lens you use.

Lens Correction.jpg

Step 5: Next, click on the “Detail” section. Under “Noise Reduction, adjust the Luminance (I always do this with the image magnified to 100% to see the detail), and Detail. To ensure the program understood you want the color nice and smooth as well as the detail, adjust those also.

Detail.jpg

Step 6: “Effects.” This step also can be done at the end instead of here. I add some vignette at this point. No real reason other than it gives me an idea of how my finished image will come out as I continue to work on it.

Effects.jpg

 

You should immediately see some more of the object begin to appear as it has below.

second-7158.jpg

REPEAT STEP TWO. (Right click on the image you are working on, not the original)

Step 7: Now comes the fun part. Using the brush, which actually looks like a microphone with dots around the head, and laying sideways in the upper right corner of the editing side, you are going to paint in more light. I only wanted the flower to have more light and color, and not the background. First, bump up the Shadow slider to 100% so you can see what you are “painting”. Once you have the object highlighted, now move the slider down (in this case, I set my shadow at 32). You can now play with the sliders until the image is the way you want. My settings are listed below. Make sure you press the “done” button in the lower right section of the main image. You want these settings to remain as they are should you decide to do more painting later.

Brush.jpg

Step 8: After completing the last step, I decided to go back into “Basic” and readjust some of the sliders. My end result is not too bad. Just needs one more small adjustment.

Basic 2.jpg

And voila! After a little bit more cropping and Brush light adjustment the tips of the flower, I am pleased with the final product. The flower is not overpowering and the background light has been reduced. It looks natural. This is the outcome I wanted.

Final-7158.jpg

It may seem like a lot of steps (and it is!) but they are not difficult and only take seconds to do.

I know there will be those who might feel they would want more light on the flower. Remember this is from ONE image. You can only adjust the light in the image just so far before pixilation occurs. There is another process that would add more light but it entails combining several images taken with different setting. I will cover that in another blog.   In the meantime, have some fun playing with your sliders and Brush in Lightroom.

 

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How To Start Shooting with Confidence

03 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by Kathleen Scanlan in Uncategorized

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Tags

confidence, DSLR, information, Photography, Photography information, photos

Still afraid of your camera?  Are you intimidated by all the things it can do?  That was me a few of years ago when I went digital.

My journey into the world of photography started when I graduated from grammar school and was given a point and shoot film camera for my graduation.  Luckily, it came a few rolls of film.  Back then, having a camera was great but it had its downside too.  You had to pay for film and then pay for processing (developing) of the film later.  Even if you had a darkroom to develop film at home, all the chemicals and paper cost money!  This meant that when I took a picture, I had to really think about what I was doing so I didn’t “waste” film.

Today, the photography world has changed in so many ways.  You can take a photo with your phone, pad, or camera.  A camera can be mounted on your helmut or a phone to a  drone to take aerial shots.  This article is not about those types of “cameras”.  It is only related to the DSLR.

I have been shooting images for, well, a half a century and am still learning.  That is the key; keep learning.  The DSLR camera today certainly does a lot of the work for the photographer. Its advantage over the old SLR  is that it saves money on film and in Auto Mode (almost always) correctly reads light, distance and speed.  All one has to do is focus on the subject matter.  For most people who shoot photos, this is great.  No need to figure out f/stops, speed, or ISO settings to capture that smile, the deer in the field, or the setting sun.

So, the simple answer to gaining confidence is to just take out your camera and use it on the auto mode all the time.  But, that doesn’t always capture the image you are looking for.  It’s “brain” is limited to what it is programmed to do and doesn’t always adjust correctly for lighting (person in foreground comes out perfect but the background does not), for the many variations of light the eye perceives and adjusts to automatically, or even what you want in focus.

A bit more complicated answer to gaining confidence with your camera is to do the tiresome, boring, and any other blah word you can think of and read the manual.   It is filled with magical stuff if you can get through it!

In the past, only four things really mattered with the SLR:  focus,  light (ISO), shutter speed, and depth of field (f/stop).  Get those right and you had a good chance your roll of film had some great images on it .  Today, the DSLR cameras do so much more in-camera.  Colors come out vibrant, black and white as well as color can both be shot at the same time, sepia shots are done in camera, different modes to shoot in, and the list goes on.  But most importantly, you can shoot and delete as much as you want without the “money penalty”, i.e., film development!  We’ve come a long way from the Box camera.

My first DSLR made me crazy trying to figure out all the different icons on the piece of equipment.  Then add to that, taking the information the camera gave me on the back screen and attempting to use my knowledge of SLRs (single lens reflex cameras of old) to get the image I wanted from it!  Very frustrating and I seriously thought of just staying with film.  Of course, in the long run, doing that would become very expensive.  My confidence was at its lowest and I found I really didn’t want to pick up my DSLR at all and so it collected dust for a while.  I really had no confidence that I would be able to use a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) as I had my older film cameras.   I even spent money on classes to hopefully improve my ability to use DSLRs.  Frustration abounded.

Then a lightbulb when off and I now share this “brilliant” idea with you!  Read the manual.  But break it down into small pieces and absorb small portions.  Keep that manual in your camera bag.  Don’t be ashamed to pull it out when you are out shooting.  I have… many times, and still do.  Who can remember everything in that manual?

Boost your confidence by taking time to learn how to shoot in the different modes.  It does work. As I am a “hands on” type of personality and reading how to use my camera was extremely painful.  I only managed to get through the first few pages before I gave up.  So, I finally followed the method below and found it worked for me.  My confidence grew rapidly after that.  Use both your camera and manual for each step.

Use the “auto” mode for about a week.  See how it works.  The next week, go to the Aperture mode (you set the f/stop and the camera does the rest). The following week, switch to changing the shutter speed (Tv on Canon and S on Nikon).  Once you have learned the basics on how to use these three modes, try a week of the programmable mode.  The last one to try for a week is the manual mode.  By the time you get to this one, you will understand how your camera works and how each change you make in camera impacts the image you produce.  Manual mode gives you control over everything.  It’s not for everyone, but I use it with certain types of light because it gives me complete control over the image.

Your camera may not have all the modes I mentioned above, but working with your camera the same way by going through whatever modes it does have, will accomplish the same thing.  You will “know” your camera and your confidence with grow with that knowledge.

Technology is constantly changing.  What is new today is old tomorrow.  Learn the basics of photography, i.e., shutter speed, f/stop, ISO, and focus, and how each interacts with each other.  Confidence is grown by practice and then by continuing to learn.  Grab your camera and go!

 

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I’ve Finally Done It…!

12 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by Kathleen Scanlan in Photography

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Adobe, information, Lightroom, Lightroom CC, Photo information, photo work, Photography, Photography information, photos, Photoshop, Photoshop CC, post-work

Hi Everyone! I have finally entered the world of Blogging that everyone else has been in for years! Sometimes it takes time for those of us who were not born into the computer age to finally figure out how to use the “techy” stuff.

After I retired from my second love (where I had to make money to help raise a family), I jumped back into photography only to find myself completely perplexed and confused with all the new technology in this arena. Although I love photography and all that it entails, I was lost amid all the new digital cameras, post work programs, and information available on the internet. Half the time, I would read an article and still be lost as I don’t have a computer or techy mindset. All I wanted was an answer to a simple question in PLAIN english. And so, a blog is born…

In future blogs, which I plan on keeping it short and to the point (at least that’s the plan. Who wants to read long, run-on articles all the time?), I will share what I learn as I move on with my photography. Currently, I use both Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC for my filing and post-work (boy, were they a struggle to learn for me!).

I invite you to join me on my journey into the world of digital photography as I find my way around . Future blogs will contain helpful hints on composition, framing, and post -work, all written in a plain, down to earth language.

Well, here goes nothing…click!

41.878114 -87.629798

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