The power of a RAW file (and Lightroom)

Here’s a ‘before and after’ comparison of the same file. It was taken at a zoo, behind very thick glass (thank goodness). There was a bit of glare, very heavy fingerprint smudges, and I couldn’t shoot straight on. Do you get the idea that these were ‘less than ideal’ conditions?

Nonetheless, I wanted a photo of this lion, so I persevered. I sat down for a low angle, and I waited while he closed his eyes, opened them, nodded off again, and finally woke up and looked somewhere in my direction.

I didn’t realize how poor the shooting conditions and exposure were until I saw the original photo in Lightroom. But since I shot in RAW file format, it contains a TON of color, tone, and other data in the digital file, so I decided to see how far I could push the post-processing.

I was actually surprised that I was able to salvage an acceptable photo based on what I was working with. So to you new photographers out there, if you shoot in RAW, it’ll be alot more forgiving to you in post-processing, and you’ll be amazed at the results you can get!

Tip: Overexpose for low-light shooting

I often shoot sports in low light, whether it’s a Friday night high school football game or a dark high school gym. Because of this, I’m very sensitive to high ISO and noise. One of the main techniques I use is to overexpose the photo slightly and then bring things back down in Lightroom post-processing. Underexposed photos tend to show a lot of noise, which is often hard to fix well in Lightroom. But, if you intentionally overexpose the photo, the shadows/dark areas will look better in post-processing, and you can then bring down the highlights and often increase the exposure for nice results.

Here’s how things look on my camera

I shoot in Manual mode for sports. For most sports, I set the shutter speed around 1/800-1/1,000 sec. and the aperture at f2.8 and use Auto ISO (with a max. cap at 6400). I then set the Exposure Compensation somewhere around +2/3 to +1 of a stop. So, the camera determines the correct exposure based on these settings, and then overexposes it by that amount. I’m then able to do the adjustments in Lightroom as mentioned above.

Note: In order to do this, you have to use Auto ISO, and not all cameras support using this with the Exposure Compensation feature together.

Lightroom and Photoshop portrait softening tips

Lightroom

http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-professionally-retouch-portraits-in-lightroom/
http://digitalphotobuzz.com/using-lightroom-brushes-to-soften-skin
http://photographyblogger.net/hidden-gems-in-adobe-lightroom-skin-smoothing/

 

Photoshop

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/smooth-skin/
http://www.creativebloq.com/tutorial/high-pass-skin-smoothing-photoshop-812591
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2166716&seqNum=6
http://digitalphotobuzz.com/softening-skin-in-photoshop

How to do noise reduction in Lightroom

from https://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-do-noise-reduction-in-lightroom/

How to reduce noise in an image shot at a high ISO with the Detail panel in Lightroom

from http://www.slrlounge.com/school/how-to-reduce-noise-in-an-image-shot-at-a-high-iso-with-the-detail-panel-in-lightroom-4/

100+ free Adobe Lightroom tutorials

http://www.lightroompresets.com/blogs/pretty-presets-blog/14346905-100-free-adobe-lightroom-tutorials
 
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How to properly sharpen images in Lightroom