this photo: a before and after

I’m working on an album project that I miscalculated big time. Thought it would be a quick 2 hour project. It’s now DAY TWO and counting. Eeep!

Most of my time is being spent on the photos (editing them, finding them). I’m discovering a lot of gems (photos that I previously deemed unscrappable) and wanted to pop in to share one of them with you.

This is SOOC. It’s dark and the clutter on the upper left hand corner is distracting.

 



this is the photo after processing:

What a difference right? This is one of the reasons I love shooting in raw. When I open a raw file in photoshop, this super nifty, super exclusive, top secret dialogue box pops up, and I can edit (correct) the exposure, the brightness, the white balance – its like getting a second chance to reshoot the photo.


So nifty!!! Then I ran a Totally Rad Action (lux soft at 30%), cropped out the distracting clutter in the corner and now I LOVE this photo.

It’s going into the album, next to this lo:


What gems have you discovered recently?

Blog Comments

that's just awesome. i need to get these actions! how do you know though which action is just right for the photo? by experience or just run and then undo and try again? I love how in lightroom you can see what is happening before you really commit and how easy it is to undo. Guess I need to get the actions and just start playing 🙂

What a beautiful evolution of the photo! Just stunning, Liz! Does anybody use Totally Rad actions on jpegs (i.e. I don't have the ability to shoot raw)…

What a beautiful evolution of the photo! Just stunning, Liz! Does anybody use Totally Rad actions on jpegs (i.e. I don't have the ability to shoot raw)…

What a beautiful evolution of the photo! Just stunning, Liz! Does anybody use Totally Rad actions on jpegs (i.e. I don't have the ability to shoot raw)…

@molly – all of the above! from experience, from running + undoing, and also I check out the TRA recipe site. I like the what you see is what you get feature in LR but none of the LR presets work the magic that TRA photoshop actions do. You should definitely check them out!

@michael – I use Totally Rad Actions on jpegs all the time and they work beautifully. Did I give off that impression in my post? Maybe I should go back in to reword a few things.

Absolute gorgeousness! need to get my head around photo editing 🙂

I love the save! It makes me think maybe I should start shooting in RAW again.

Thanks, Liz!! No you didn't give that impression — sorry! I had just read on the totally Rad website that their actions work best on raw images and wondered if most higher-end designers work mostly with raw images. I'm thinking about their new LR actions since I haven't made the leap to CS…Thank you for your great examples and help!

Thanks, Liz!! No you didn't give that impression — sorry! I had just read on the totally Rad website that their actions work best on raw images and wondered if most higher-end designers work mostly with raw images. I'm thinking about their new LR actions since I haven't made the leap to CS…Thank you for your great examples and help!

Thanks, Liz!! No you didn't give that impression — sorry! I had just read on the totally Rad website that their actions work best on raw images and wondered if most higher-end designers work mostly with raw images. I'm thinking about their new LR actions since I haven't made the leap to CS…Thank you for your great examples and help!

now, im thinking if i should take pictures in raw. i did it once but im lazy to convert it so it was always jpg. i love TRA!!! i think every picture i have has been TRA'd 🙂

this is awesome liz. i'm curious though about shooting in raw. what's the difference in shooting raw and plain jpgs? i tried once shooting in raw and when i uploaded it on the pc i couldn't view it. i had to convert every photo from raw to jpg on my cam. hehehe… i'm so out of this world on these things. tnx for the nice inputs 🙂
your girls are sp adorable

@michael – thanks!!

@shaui – i love tra too. 🙂

@ing – i just updated the post with some screenshots of the "extra" editing options you have with raw files. 🙂 Its a lifesaver for me!!

Can't live without adobe camera raw…it'sthe bomb!

thanks so much for this liz… 🙂

Loved this!
I'll come back later with some 'saved' images 🙂

Liz, I love how you've shown the before and after of raw processing. I don't always shoot in raw but, I should. Hmmm…what gems have I discovered lately? Well, I consider this post to be my latest gem…so thanks a bunch for sharing. ♥

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