The power of a RAW file (and Lightroom)

Here’s a ‘before and after’ comparison of the same file. It was taken at a zoo, behind very thick glass (thank goodness). There was a bit of glare, very heavy fingerprint smudges, and I couldn’t shoot straight on. Do you get the idea that these were ‘less than ideal’ conditions?

Nonetheless, I wanted a photo of this lion, so I persevered. I sat down for a low angle, and I waited while he closed his eyes, opened them, nodded off again, and finally woke up and looked somewhere in my direction.

I didn’t realize how poor the shooting conditions and exposure were until I saw the original photo in Lightroom. But since I shot in RAW file format, it contains a TON of color, tone, and other data in the digital file, so I decided to see how far I could push the post-processing.
I was actually surprised that I was able to salvage an acceptable photo based on what I was working with. So to you new photographers out there, if you shoot in RAW, it’ll be alot more forgiving to you in post-processing, and you’ll be amazed at the results you can get!

Tip: Overexpose for low-light shooting

I often shoot sports in low light, whether it’s a Friday night high school football game or a dark high school gym. Because of this, I’m very sensitive to high ISO and noise. One of the main techniques I use is to overexpose the photo slightly and then bring things back down in Lightroom post-processing. Underexposed photos tend to show a lot of noise, which is often hard to fix well in Lightroom. But, if you intentionally overexpose the photo, the shadows/dark areas will look better in post-processing, and you can then bring down the highlights and often increase the exposure for nice results.

Here’s how things look on my camera

I shoot in Manual mode for sports. For most sports, I set the shutter speed around 1/800-1/1,000 sec. and the aperture at f2.8 and use Auto ISO (with a max. cap at 6400). I then set the Exposure Compensation somewhere around +2/3 to +1 of a stop. So, the camera determines the correct exposure based on these settings, and then overexposes it by that amount. I’m then able to do the adjustments in Lightroom as mentioned above.
Note: In order to do this, you have to use Auto ISO, and not all cameras support using this with the Exposure Compensation feature together.

Lightroom: Processing sports photos

(Thanks to Zamani Feelings for much of this info.- short but sweet!)
Often times, your photos may end up with a ‘muddy look’, which is a combination of too warm of a White Balance and too much Contrast. To fix this, cool down the color temp (you may need to play with the green/red slider, too) and lower the Contrast.

Sports Tip

Go to Lightroom’s Colors section of the HSL/Color/B&W pallet and increase the Saturation for the colors which match the uniforms.

Turn the Contrast setting down a little bit in your camera settings to keep some detail and reduce noise. This can be done in the camera’s Picture Style settings.

Important note: Picture Styles are applied to JPEG files during exposure. Picture Styles can also be applied to RAW files, either during or after exposure. BUT, for RAW files, the Picture Style affects only how images are rendered on the camera’s LED display. You’ll need to use something like the Canon Digital Photo Professional (DPP) raw developer to apply a Picture Style to a RAW file for it to ‘stick’.

Lightroom and Photoshop portrait softening tips

Lightroom

http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-professionally-retouch-portraits-in-lightroom/
http://digitalphotobuzz.com/using-lightroom-brushes-to-soften-skin
http://photographyblogger.net/hidden-gems-in-adobe-lightroom-skin-smoothing/

Photoshop

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/smooth-skin/
http://www.creativebloq.com/tutorial/high-pass-skin-smoothing-photoshop-812591
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2166716&seqNum=6
http://digitalphotobuzz.com/softening-skin-in-photoshop

How to do noise reduction in Lightroom

from https://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-do-noise-reduction-in-lightroom/