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’.

Simple white balance tip

(from https://improvephotography.com/42047/tips-night-sports-photography-processing/)

A very quick and easy way to get the WB very close to what it should be at an indoor basketball game or a football game is to use the Kelvin White Balance setting in your image. How do you know where to set it? Use live view and look at your LCD. Adjust the Kelvin setting until you see on the screen what you see in real life. Bingo. You’re set and the WB will remain the same throughout your shooting.

There won’t be any fluctuations and this makes post processing much more simple. There is a caveat however. This is assuming the light isn’t changing. An indoor sporting event and night football game where the game starts under the lights when it’s totally dark out and ends that way will be great for using the above set-it-and-forget-it method.

Understanding histograms

from http://digital-photography-school.com/understanding-histograms/
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Get creative with Displacement Maps in Photoshop

from http://digital-photography-school.com/get-creative-displacement-maps-photoshop/
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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