Many people feel that digital photography is now at the point where 50% of the shot is capturing the image with the camera and the other 50% is the post-processing that you do to the image on the computer afterward.  I agree.

I love Adobe Lightroom.  Well, as much as it’s possible to love a bunch of digital bits.  I know I still have a lot to learn about using the program and at some point I’ll have to get serious about learning Photoshop.  Lightroom does most of what I’m looking to do and  even though I’d rate my skill level with it at intermediate, I can still do a hell of a lot.

For example, last night’s pictures.  When I first looked at them, I was pretty tired.  And quite disappointed with the way they looked straight out of the camera.  Later I found some energy and went to work on them and I’m pretty happy with the results.   So I thought that some might find it useful for me to post an example here of what I’m talking about.

Here’s a shot straight out of the camera (click on the image to see it full size):

And now the same image after “developing” it in Lightroom:

In no particular order, I straightened out the photo, cropped it very slightly, cut back on the overall exposure level, boosted up the blacks, used the noise reduction tools, brought up clarity and vibrance, backed off on saturation on blue and orange, sharpened things up a bit.  Of course I’m working with a RAW image.  Did I over-do or under-do some bits?  Maybe. That’s one of the things with tools like Lightroom – there’s no one “right” solution, you work at it until it looks good to you.  And I’m pretty happy with the end result.

For those who are interested in this sort of thing, this was shot with my Nikon D700 camera and Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens.  For this shot, I was all the way out at 24mm and wide open at f/2.8, ISO 3200, 1/20th of a second, handheld.  And here’s where I was standing when I took the shot.  (Actually, it’s slightly off.  Zoom in and it looks as if I was on the roof of the next building over.)

I know the lens is not at its sharpest at 24mm and f/2.8.  Normally I would have stood out there and taken a dozen variations on this shot at different settings.  I might have boosted the ISO up to 6400, closed down the aperture a bit and perhaps experimented with some different focal lengths.  But I was too fricking cold!  I think I’m going to revisit this spot on a clear night when the temperature is back to normal again.

Anyway, I know some of my readers are more expert at photography than I am, some aren’t, but your comments, tips, advice are always appreciated.

Share