New to Lightroom

[cream T]

Ok I've just downloaded the trial version of Lightroom and tried a little on a couple of my car pics. So here is what I started with



after lightroom



comments?

[tommcana]

Color effect is good.

[Shadowman]

Nice effort.

[Stagecoach]

Graham, it all depends upon what you are looking for, reality or something different. Not sure what the true colour of the car is but the edit does look a bit on the warm side.

How about removing the pylon and the concrete support?

[davidedric]

I suspect that de-concreting with Lightroom would be very tricky.

To the OP, it would be interesting to know what adjustments you made, though I agree with Grahame that it looks a bit too warm. However, the great thing about pp is that you can do whatever you choose 'cos it's your photo.

Dave

[IzzieK]

+1 to Grahame's comment, but a quip from Dave brought smiles.

..The great thing about pp is that you can do whatever you choose 'cos it's your photo.

That is the thing, Dave ... sometimes I quiver at how little sliders can really ruin most of my shots especially when I got scared I have the beginnings of Parkinson's only to find that a little fella is underneath the table scratching its ear...

Anywho...Graham...the first one looks like a neat car and the pp made it looks like everything has a strong orange cast including the bushes and surrounds. Hold back the sliders to the left, mate!

Welcome to CiC.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Graham,

Good pose (angle of vehicle) and it certainly looks interesting - is this what you do when not behind the camera?

This is quite an 'upright' vehicle and your crop would 'skim the head' of any driver in shot, so personally I would not have taken quite so much off the top edge.


Your sharpening has brought all the unwanted background elements into much sharper focus than as captured, which draws the viewer's attention away from the subject.
There appears to be some moire effect happening with the radiator grille too.
You may wish to consider localised sharpening, especially where the aperture and format used hasn't provided quite enough Depth of Field separation between subject and background.


I agree it is (for me) way too 'warm' (red) - how confident are you that your monitor screen is accurately reproducing colours? (hue and saturation) I am wondering if you thought you were making it more neutral/accurate, while actually introducing a colour cast.


I also agree that the pylon and bridge pier detract, if noticed at time of capture, the car and camera could have been moved (camera right) to position it between piers and hide the pylon, allowing the crop to be sufficient to remove the bridge deck alone (time permitting, of course). You will need a program like Photoshop or Elements to clone out these things now, LR is not best suited to that task.


There is much to learn when beginning the post processing 'journey', so please do not be discouraged by the all things I have mentioned, tackle them one item at a time and then move to the next.

I hope you find these points helpful for 'next time', Dave

[pnodrog]

Graham what part of noo zealand are you from? I have pylons near me that look almost identical so we might be neighbours..

[DanK]

Graham,

Welcome to CiC.

Almost everything that can be done in Lightroom can be done with other postprocessing software as well, so unless you want to point to a specific part of your edits for comment, you are basically asking what people think of your edits, not anything about lightroom as such.

I agree with others that the white balance looks off. I have no idea what the car looks like in real life, but the vegetation looks wrong--too warm, and too red.

Photoshop is a lot better than LR for removing things, but I think the concrete post would be tough even in photoshop, since it runs right through the windshield. This problem reminds me of what some of my colleagues wrote in a book about statistical analysis years ago: "you can't fix by analysis what you've spoiled by design." The analogy here is that postprocessing is analysis, while composition is design. I think the lesson I would take from this photo is that it is very important to evaluate the framing of an image before one captures it.

Re Dave's suggestion of selective sharpening: that is easier to do in software that creates selections, but you can do it in LR in two ways: you can apply sharpening to the car with the adjustment brush, or you can blur the background with the same tool. I think I would opt for the second, as you can set other adjustments (e.g., clarity) to help blur the background a little.

Dan

[davidedric]

Another quick and easy way to blur some of the background in Lightroom is to use the radial filter. Dialling in negative sharpness introduces a Gaussian blur, and of course you can use the other sliders too. It's not a precise mask of course, but I find with an appropriate feather it can be rather useful.

Dave

[DanK]

Another quick and easy way to blur some of the background in Lightroom is to use the radial filter. Dialling in negative sharpness introduces a Gaussian blur, and of course you can use the other sliders too. It's not a precise mask of course, but I find with an appropriate feather it can be rather useful.

Dave

Good suggestion. If you do either this or use the adjustment brush, reducing clarity will also create considerable blur, and you can do both.

[Downrigger]

Great start, Graham.
Assumption - you worked from RAW file, best way to go.
My first reaction was "good for you - you didn't get carried away" which the large array of options offered by LR and its congeners readily invites.
Yes - I agree with the comments on the color cast, this may be best addressed with the green/magenta slider but might just be "overwarming", worth some experimentation.
I agree with remarks on radial filter and/or adjustment brush. Also experiment with "post-crop vignetting" which is a nice dress-up for many images.

[cream T]

First let me say thanks for all the comments, I've only had the program a day and a bit and that was just my first effort at trying to improve a photo. Although quite warm the colour of the car is probably best represented by the second pic it is cream as in cream T. The brown is quite rich as I was trying to bring it out more. The surrounding grass and trees looked to dry and flat and I was trying to get some life into them. I reallise now that was a mistake cause it takes the eye away from the main feature the car. Positioning was another mistake, should have placed it between the bridge pillars. I think a slightly longer lens to get more blur in the background also.
To the other comments, yes this is what I do other than take pictures of them, and I'm in Hawke's Bay.
ps since getting lightroom I've only seen one how to use it video and I'm trying to find some others to help learn.

[Glenn NK]

Graham:

Adjustment Brush as mentioned by Dan K.

This is the approach I use, but as a LR beginner, you may not be familiar with the tool.

Using the adjustment brush, you can alter the White Balance of the car independently of the remainder of the image. (In fact you can make the BG solid black).

I'll illustrate the problem with the 30 day trial period - I started with the first version of LR, and I'm still learning tricks.

30 days is simply not enough time in which to realize its potential - and I suspect that's why some "learned" photographers shun LR, or downright dismiss it - can't think of his name now . . . . . . used to see him here all the time. Pity.

Glenn

[depthcharge101]

I personally find the orange/yellow tint a little too strong. Might want to go easy with the white balance like the others are saying. The highlights of the sky appears to be severely darkened as well, at the moment it looks a tad bit flat. Might want to increase its exposure a little. But other than that I like the clarity and contrast changes you've done the image. It's a good start I'd say!

[TrishBJ]

I found Lightroom very difficult to get my head around when I first got it, and still have a huge amount to learn (like the adjustment brush others have referred to). There are lots of instructional videos online, but I found too difficult to juggle the video on one computer monitor while practising on the other monitor, what was being shown in the video. I have the added problem of being stuck with satellite internet (very slow!!!) so videos via internet are tedious to download. Ended up buying a book called 'Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Classroom in a Book' and find it very useful as I can step through different things at my own pace. You probably have a more recent version of Lightroom, but there may be a similar book???