Editing Magic

So with my 365 Project and now, this daily summer challenge, I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about photography... and a lot about editing. There have not yet been a lot of editing-specific challenges, but a lot of people have posted images that are amazing and something I have not yet figured out how to do with my camera. Thankfully, they are very nice about answering questions and so I have learned a few tricks. 

I'm not going to lie, for quite some time I've considered editing to be sort of... cheating. Ish. I mean not exactly, but to me, if it's POSSIBLE to get it right SOOC (straight out of the camera) then you should. Plus I feel like it takes more skill to actually learn to use your camera instead of relying on post-processing (editing). I shot in manual mode for three years before I got an editing program (lightroom). I have had it for two and a half years since and have barely touched its capabilities, yet it definitely improved my photos. Now I've come around a bit on editing and my thought is this: you should first get really good at using your camera, then really good at editing. Mastery of both (not just using one to compensate for the other) will result in truly amazing photos. So, I'm working on my editing skills! 

One skill I've been trying to develop lately is fixing funny exposures or tricky lighting situations. For instance, this shot... 

SOOC. If I exposure correctly for the shadowed part of the face, the other half of the face (plus the beautiful background) will be blown out. So I exposed for the background / a cross between the two sides of the face- just enough to keep the shadowed side from getting too dark and the light side from getting so blown out the data is gone. 

First a did a few things to get the photo in general to look the way I wanted: vignetting,  decrease the exposure a bit until the lighter side of the face looked good, play with contrast, etc. Then, I used a brush tool on the shadowed side of the face and hit "invert mask" so I could change just that. I lightened it a few steps and liked it pretty well actually! 

Just for fun, I lightened it a lot more. I wasn't sure what I would get. You can get a halo effect around your subject or an obvious circle if you're not careful. If I were going to go back and edit more, I might make another pass with a new brush over the dark spot in the middle of his forehead and see if I can't get that toned down. But, that aside, I think I actually like this. Yes, one side of the face is still slightly shaded- but that's how it was- and I feel like this is closer to what your eyes actually see in these types of harsh light situations. Might be overkill though. I can't decide.

I did a similar thing in this picture, although it was actually easier because I didn't have to be as specific. For this one, I turned the aperture up as high as it would go so all the reflections on the water would be sparkly! I feel like this also kept the background looking decent, but maybe that was just the exposure triangle. Anyway, everyone turned out a little darker than I wanted but it was okay because I could see the background more (and it's so pretty you want to see it!) and I was pretty sure I had caught Toby in the air (but it was honestly so dark on my camera screen I could barely tell). Post processing made me LOVE this one...

SOOC. I really like the moment, water sparkles, and framing. I also like the sun flare. That sun flare turned out useful in editing... 

As I decreased the exposure and increased the contrast in post processing, the flare stood out more, which I liked. It also gave me some leeway when I went to lighten Toby because he's in the flare so it helps distract a bit from any halo I might have created when lightening him. I lightened every single face in this picture. For the most part it wasn't enough to be able to see much detail (there really wasn't enough data for me to do that anyway), but at least you have a better sense for the moment. The only thing I don't love is that I totally created a halo around the kiddo on the blue floaty... but I'm convinced it's not horrible unless pointed out. (But you can see it now, right? On the sides of the pool it's most apparent).
I suppose it still has quite a few technical flaws (boy I'd love a wider angle lens...) but this is exactly how it looked in my memory, and it was great night, and so I love it. 

Most of the time, editing is not so complex. A few clicks and I'm good. For instance, this picture of my friend's baby is decently well exposed (I do like to err on the side of slightly underexposed when taking the picture because I hate when it's overexposed and you lose data and then you can't fix it in editing...) and pretty cute on it's own... 

This baby did not want to smile at me and I knew her mom was wanting a smiley pic of her for a one-year-old picture to put on their wall. So I did a little cropping... 

... and some contrast and saturation changes and upped the exposure and I honestly forget what else, probably vignetting because I do love me some vignetting... OH and I edited that scratch off her forehead because nobody wants a scratch picture on a wall portrait, "real life" or not! 

The thing of it is, I'm still barely even touching what LR is capable of doing. I need to understand more about tones and that whole hue - saturation - luminance sliders under the HSL menu and... yeah.  Apparently you can buy filters for LR. That's kinda cool. I think eventually, I'm going to take a class! 

In the meantime I'll settle for practicing. That's what all these photo challenges are for, after all... practice...