September 4th , 2010 → 10:37 am @ // No Comments

Copyright © 2010 Yorgo Nestoridis. Visit the original article at http://yorgonestoridis.com/yorgo-nestoridis-media/photo-editing-exercise.


Where is the Truth and what’s the Story

Editing a Photo has basically two aspects:

  1. Technical editing which consists in applying calibration and recovering a maximum of data from the image.
  2. Tell your story by enhancing the expression.

This post will deal only with the first aspect using a Photo ©2010 Laetitia Paris.

The Photo

ee ©2010 Laetitia Paris Original

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Original

What comes out of the camera is fundamentally good however the bright sky representing about 40% of the frame has it’s negative influence on the metering. The sky looks over exposed. The question is whether the camera sensor has captured color data which can be exploited.

Focusing on the sky

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Recovered Sky

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Recovered Sky

The difference may appear small here in this down-sized image, however on the full size image it is substantial. The increase of blue tones in the sky impacts on the perception of the greens.

Painting the sky

Of course Lightroom allows to intervene on selected areas; you can paint and tint your sky as you like (or use the Dark Skies Plug-in).

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Painted in S

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Painted in Sky



Working with Saturation

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris - desaturated

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris - desaturated



Lord of  The Rings

Lord of the Rings

Lord of the Rings



Firenza

Firenza

Firenza



Autumn Glow

Autumn Glow

Autumn Glow

The above exaggerated examples show how the mood and expression changes depending on how we deal with the photo in the post editing process. The important question remains: what’s the story you want to tell and how can the photo best express the essence of the story, mood or atmosphere.

We will talk about the expression at the Monday call.

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