# Editing section



## Ian.B (Jun 17, 2015)

sorry to be the forum newbie throwing stones at the window but ....... 

......has a before and after LR _ONLY_ editing section ever been thought about? 

Same goes for the more experienced helping others by re-editing their photos (??)


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 17, 2015)

I don't really know. Victoria, as the site owner, may have thought about it.....she'll no doubt comment.


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 17, 2015)

I'd been bouncing around that idea myself. What sort of thing would you like to see in there?


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## Ian.B (Jun 17, 2015)

we post the original file and the  edited file with brief note on what we did it

I would think LR only edits; but then who's going to check 

Just for a demo
the original file..just a snap of someone's front yard as I walked past (getting fit)



 editing with the basic panel sliders plus a some sharpening/noise control
some selective editing with the adjustment adjust>>mainly dodge and burn stuff.



Used the adjustment brush to desaturate the file (not the best way btw)
used the erasing bush to selectively remove the above effect to add the colour back
pickets were lighten with the adjustment brush



​The other idea is someone would post a photo for CC/help and others could edit/explain how to do whatever. As they say; a photo is worth a 1000 words
Those who know how do it might do a video of their work...I'm out of that lol 
Maybe a poll to see how much interest there is (??)...Who has the time; me and my big mouth :crazy:


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 17, 2015)

I like the idea.  I'm still tied up with my book launch at the minute so let me add it to my to do list and come back to it.  Give me a nudge if I haven't got to it in a month.


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## Ian.B (Jun 17, 2015)

Cheers Victoria


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## tspear (Jun 17, 2015)

I also like the idea. 

Tim


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## Ian.B (Jul 3, 2015)

Bugga; do it ALL again!!

time for another edit. Photo taken from the footpath with a Olympus EM1 and Panorama 20mm lens while on my walk of the local back street

The original raw/dng file



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after my basic edit preset (didn't do a lot with this file


and after some finishing off with these settings.


Plus>radial tool used to darken around the dog -60
hold alt+ctrl and drag the r/tool button to make a duplicate
double click on 'effect' at the LH top of panel>click invert mask  at the bottom of the panel
now we can add the same size R/tool effects to the dog only>>contrast 17>> clarity 40>>saturation 20
(that's all easier  to do than read or for me to type. 
another wide r/tool is added to mainly darken the bottom of the file>>could also be done with the grad tool or adjustment brush; the most important tool we have imo. 
top rh corner is lighted a little with the adjustment brush.....gives the look of somewhere for the dog the run to and hide. 




Just note how BIG I am before you come any closer​
Just a very simple and rather boring photo until some extra editing which only takes a few minutes [once we know how. and two other little must job were  done and hope you will be able to find them
Download the photos if you wish to play


Now then; tell me this please: I have a new key board with the 'screen print' button combined with the 'home' button
What extra button do I  use to get a screen print? (yep; thats why I had to retype the whole post :(. Long story!


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## Ian.B (Sep 1, 2015)

just to see if it could be done  I  edited a few files with the Lightroom Tone Curve mostly


original file>>lumix FZ200 plus the canon D250 achromatic close up lens/filter



1508-0717 by Ian Browne, on Flickr





tone curve edited colour by Ian Browne, on Flickr


Convert b/w; colour channels set to 0; and then edited in tone curves



tone curve edited by Ian Browne, on Flickr​

_WHOOPS;_ I tell a lie; just remembered I did use the adjustment brush to darken the base of the lhs stem/flag/leaf
Naturally the file was sharpened and noise reduced


Cannot be done with all photos :(


It's barley btw; growing in the back yard because Crested pigeons don't eat barley seed so seeds were left to grow

>> I have not problem if others adding their editing into this thread; or even post a problem photo you have. 

><> Victoria: don't hesitate to close the thread if it's not to your liking


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 2, 2015)

Ian.B said:


> ><> Victoria: don't hesitate to close the thread if it's not to your liking



Chat away to your heart's content.  I haven't forgotten the editing section idea....


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## davidedric (Sep 24, 2015)

Yes, it would be interesting.  I've been playing with dehaze quite a bit, and it seems amazingly useful.  Would be interested to see how others have got on, and when to use it in workflow - it's often the first thing I tweak :surprised:

Dave


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## Ian.B (Sep 25, 2015)

cannot help there David as I still have LR5. With aerial photos that often can have a blue haze I found adding clarity and  yellow was OK but I'm sure LR dehaze would be very handy for such photos.


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## Ian.B (Oct 12, 2015)

someone drop a hint recently about posting a photo or two so here we go. Basically a snapshot of someone's front yard as I walked past; in fact it's the same garden as the first edited photo I posted above. The light coming through the red leaves caught my attention; picked a spot outside their fence and took the one photo. That saves so much time later as I try to pick which one is best. Quiet often there is no best or worst so just pick one and run the others out of town. Picking seems to be one of the dramas with the 'easy to take lots of photos' cameras of today. At some stage _all_ the 'easy to take photos' need to be sorted! I'm sure if we had to pay $x every time we hit those shutter buttons a lot less photos would be taken; including those silly selfies. More people are killed taking selfies than are taken by sharks lol. Dumb bum hey!

For this image it was an easy edit; bit of a global standard fixes and then a fair bit of dodging the add some light into the duller garden area in the shadows.

Started like this with a raw file from the little Olympus OM DE 1 and 12-40 f2.8 lens :hail:
Care is needed not to blow out the sunlit leaves; especially if jpeg is been used to record the scene. We can recover shadows however blown highlights are lost.






after some basic global adjustments >h/light -100 > shadows + 80 > white -35 > black -45 > bit of clarity; vibrance; sharping; noise reduction we ended up with this





Then it was use the adjustment brush to dodge/lighten/warm mainly the lighter colours. From memory there a 1/2 a dozen or so different brushes. 





while I was typing I wondering what a bit of tone curving would do (??)
drop h/lights -50 and upped the white +60. It's getting there; but it's not done. There are always little twinkle to do. 





Now it's time to hit  "F" so the image is full screen (on LR); push the chair back and look_;_ _study_ would be a better word
Straight away I can see the flowers need a bit more wow factor. I could use the same adjustment brush I have already added to some of the flowers, or I could use another brush on some of the flowers so there are variations. BTW: I quite often paint on a bit heavy and then erase back. Go softy softy with editing. 

Once done we might put the file away for a day or so; or week or a month and then look again for the '_something missing' 
_The worst thing we do is just what I doing now; posting to quickly.  I only took the photo less than 24 hours ago. If a client is waiting then we need to get the file delivered. (good chance that the rush to get the photo/s done will stop on the clients desk and several weeks later the printer will be phoning the photographer saying they will need the photo next week!). But if this is a just a photo for you then time is not important. Don't rush to get your photo on the www. 

Cheers; hope you get something from the write up. (sorry about  the typos; I edit a lot faster/better than type/read :()

I love to know how many read it all or just looked at the pics


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## tspear (Oct 13, 2015)

Ian,

I read your approach, I actually approach it differently. Likely because I do not try and make the flowers "pop" as much.
Therefore, I would have used a gradient with on the bottom going into the leaves using the brush to "erase" the mask over the uneven tree line.Then used the gradient to solve the shadows, dark areas and not have to fight getting the leaves overblown.
From there, I would have gone after the color balance; and left the leaves at the top basically intact.

Tim


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## Ian.B (Oct 13, 2015)

but you're a modern bloke with LR6/cc Tim; I _only_ have LR5 lol. Have to admit I haven't looked at the file since posting; it's an _old _photo now! 

Thanks for comment/ideas; something I had not thought of using (grad tool  that is). I have a great liking for the adj-brush. 

You; anyone in fact, is welcome to down load any of the files to fiddle with and I hope re-post it. I can add a larger jpeg file to flickr if required

I have no dramas with others saying what and how they would edit such a photo; just remember this is a _Lightroom_ forum. The thread is all about sharing/learning so don't feel you have to hold back negative comments; or post your own edits to your photo. Having dramas with a photo? Post it and ask for ideas.


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## Hoggy (Nov 10, 2015)

Ian.B said:


> but you're a modern bloke with LR6/cc Tim; I _only_ have LR5 lol.



Why Ian, it's so simple even a caveman could do it! 



> something I had not thought of using (grad tool  that is). I have a great liking for the adj-brush.



Oy!  You must be a glutten for punishment.  Things bog down quickly when using the adjustment brush here.  OTOH I haven't tried it yet since finding the GPU-acc was actually slowing down the brushes.  But it was still incredibly slow in LR 5.x as well.


As for the topic, I think it _should_ be LRonly..  Which for me would account for 99.999% of my images.  I still tend to think that after using things like PS, it should be called photographic art at that point - I guess cause one is that much further removed from the negative when that's done.
One way to sort-of enforce it would be if reduced resolution lossy DNG's were allowed to be uploaded here, say under a certain filesize and/or resolution.  The develop snapshots could even tag along with it


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## Ian.B (Nov 10, 2015)

Hoggy said:


> Oy!  You must be a glutten for punishment.  Things bog down quickly when using the adjustment brush here.  OTOH I haven't tried it yet since finding the GPU-acc was actually slowing down the brushes.  But it was still incredibly slow in LR 5.x as well.



The adj/brush is not really a problem for me (??). I can have 10-15 pins on a file and things keep working OK
Surprisingly enough it's keywording that bogs my machine and I feel lens correction is a drama or the leading drama (??)

I would be lost without the adj/brush. I'm fiddling with a few Oly EM1 l/scapes atm so I might post one or two of those


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## Ian.B (Feb 2, 2016)

another made this pic from that. 

A file from June last year that I fiddled around with today until I had something I liked . (instead of sorting out the hard drives and Library ). 
All done in LR5 with a fair bit of adjustment brushing (dodge and burning) and a few grad adjustments. Added the colour with split toning .... maybe a  bit also with the adj/brush.
3rd pic is the raw off the card and 2nd is a straight LR B+W (V)

Happy to answer any questions where I can. I don't use presets apart from the one basic edit; from there it's just fiddle around with sliders; make a few virtual copies (Ctrl + ") which are great as they don't add files to the hard drive as happens when PS/Nic and the likes are used. So easy to end up with a massive amount of disc space been taken up with what is really _just one photo. 

_Cheers


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