So, you’ve mastered your camera, the exposure triangle and your composition is solid. Now, you’ve taken the weekend off, time away from work and your family, and have driven several miles to your favorite location. You know the sunrises and sunsets will be magical over those mountains and that gorgeous waterfall, you can’t wait! You shoot and you shoot and you shoot. Then you look at your images on the camera’s monitor. Your heart sinks. You can’t believe your eyes . . . flat and lifeless. You load them to your laptop, same thing . . . boring! They’re sharp and they’re well exposed, according to the histogram. Your composition seems creative and inviting, but they just look dead! That pop and brilliance you expect is just not there. OMG . . . what have you missed?
As you drive back home your mind races between how you could have screwed up these images and maybe a career in plumbing or pest control would be more rewarding.
STOP . . . HOLD ON . . . TAKE A BREATH! You’re only halfway done. You just need some good ol’ post-processing. The digital darkroom. Don’t worry . . . I think I can help!
As silly as this story sounds I have heard it repeatedly. First off, shooting in RAW, images will appear flat, so that is a good thing!! Secondly, join me for a couple of hours of Lightroom best practices for editing and then adding the punch you crave with Photoshop
enhancements. I’ll share with you my over 40 years as a working professional on image enhancements with easy and awesome Lightroom and Photoshop tips, tricks and surefire, easy-to-do techniques. Including intimate color and tone adjustments, texture overlays, image blending, luminosity masks, burning and dodging, all in a non-destructive process . . . and all easy to repeat from image-to-image!
All you need to do is bring an empty notebook and an open mind as I will challenge your creative process and leave you with many new ideas to apply to your imagery.
