Pensive (Original Unedited)
Pensive (1/80 sec at f/6.3)
Today image is the raw file I used to create yesterday’s blog image “Pensive.” If you missed yesterday’s blog then I suggest checking it out HERE so you can see the very simple lighting technique we used to create the image. Moving forward– I shoot all my files in RAW and then convert them to DNG in Lightroom. Once this conversion is done I begin to evaluate the images. The very first thing I do when working with an image is consider the crop. I try to frame things as well as possible “in camera”, but the dirty little secret is I still find myself doing a bit of post production cropping. Today’s image I decided to crop as a 4×5. Next, I focused on removing any distractions, and in this case, there were a few buttons I simply cloned out using the dust removal tool in Lightroom. I did find myself opening the image in Photoshop to remove a very small strand of hair that was on her forehead. This required me to export the image out of Lightroom and into Photoshop. Whenever I do this, I always use the “edit a copy with Lightroom Adjustments.” You may ask, “Why did I export it into Photoshop versus correcting the problem in Lightroom?” Normally, I just make small cloning or dust removal adjustments in Lightroom, but because the hair was so small and hard to isoloate it required Photoshops assistance. Once I was finished cloning out the stray hair I simply closed the image in Photoshop, which in turn saved the image back into my Lightroom library. The last and final step was to apply the very basic B&W High Contrast preset that ships with Adobe Lightroom. Once the preset was applied I was pretty much done with the image. There you have it…. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them.
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First, very nice portrait. I prefer it in b&w. Personally I never use any of the spot tools in Lightroom. I find them slow and hard to work with. I always correct these imperfections in Photoshop. I find it a lot faster than Lightroom.
So simple, yet so effective. Thanks, John.
Hi John,
Don’t you edit the RAW photos? Why DNG? Still trying to work on Aperture 3. I had a disappointing session at Apple today b/c they substituted a non-Aperture person to train me. I knew more than he did.