Post-processing and getting kicked off the bird's nest...

I love taking pretty pictures, but what I like the most is taking those pretty pictures and making them even more prettier through a little thing called post-processing. Editing, in other words. Getting the right exposure, lighting, and ISO down are critical when shooting but after all that's set and done the creativity juices begin to flow when I open up my images in Photoshop. My older sister Arleth is a wedding photographer and she was the one that began getting me interested in photography. She  taught me the basics (exposure, iso, light reflectors, composition etc.) on how to shoot raw with an SLR camera in about one hour with a photoshoot she had me do of her, and after that she pretty much threw me off the birds nest and said "it's all you after this." She gave me a quick run-through in a day on how to import my images in Lightroom and Photoshop and like a little bird barely learning how to spread its wings in the photography little universe I had to pick up where we left off and I realized I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I'm still growing and this little birdie has alot of growing to do.

One of the things I had to teach myself how to used was Photoshop. Looking at some of the first photoshoots I did, I realized, well, I pretty much sucked.  First of all my exposure was off, my pictures we're too dark and and my photoshop skills weren't so great. Ok, they were wack. I was barely learning how to fly cuz' my sister threw me off the nest remember!! I'm kind of thankful she did though. That was I had to learn through trial and error. So far, I'd say my Photoshop skills have improved and now I feel a lot more comfortable in the types of actions I preferably like to use in my images. In this little bloggity post I wanna' show how I use post-process my images and how I use Photoshop to style my images and make them look more, well, pretty.

The actions I use in Lightroom are very minimal. I make sure that when I take a picture, my exposure and my ISO are right on the dot. That way it decreases the work I need to do on Lightroom. I ususally brighten or lighten my images just a tad bit and increase my black to 6. After Lightoom is done, I save my image and open them up with Photoshop.


In the picture below, the left image is the raw image and the right image is the final, edited version. In this particular image I brightened it up a bit, warmed it up with the "warm it up kris" action (15%), "get faded autumn" (10%), "pool party" (%15), "Lux soft" (20%) and I sharpened the image with "boutwell magic glass" (15%)

    ISO400 50mm f/2.5 1/100 sec

         (raw image) ISO400 50mm f/2.5 1/125sec

(Final version) In Lightroom: Black vignet. In photoshop, "Detroit black and white" (70%) "Lux soft" (8%) sharpened it with "Boutwell Magic glass" (15%)

(Raw image on the left and final image on right) Brightened it up a bit, "get faded autumn" (10%), "pro-retouch" (20%), "lux soft" (15%), "Flare up golden" (8%), shrpened it with "Boutwell glass magic" (15%).
ISO200 50mm f/2.8 1/125sec