Before And After

While a great deal of creating a good image is actually taking the picture, editing is so important. Lately, I’ve seen a lot of people over-editing their photographs. While that may be their “style,” I have never seen a photograph with a bunch of distasteful filters (unless the filters are a central part of the concept) displayed in a reputable gallery. The thing is, a good photographer will take an image that does not need to have 20 filters thrown on it.

I like to get a good raw image, make some technical adjustments, then alter the tones to fit the feel that I’m going for. Here is a before and after of one of my images:

My Lightroom go-to’s:
-Exposure (Fixing the exposure works best with raw images)
-White balance picker (In my opinion, one of the best editing tools that has ever happened to digital photography. I usually shoot on auto white balance, so I use this to correct. If you don’t have anything white in the photo, just use the sliders)
-Clarity (This is a much better alternative to contrast, but be aware that adding too much clarity will make your image look HDR)
-Sharpening mask (Makes your pics extra sharp, without looking like you used sharpening)
-Luminance (Love, love, love luminance! This helps to reduce grain if you shot at a high ISO and it helps to soften skin. But be aware that adding too much luminance will give the model a very plastic and fake look)
-RGB curves (This is what I use to do a lot of my tonal changes)
-HSL color sliders (Amazing for skin tones  If the model looks to orange, just bring the orange saturation down. You can also move the red, orange, and yellow in luminance to make freckles pop)