Video – Before & After Family Photo
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Here's another one of those before and after videos for you folks. I know these are popular because they really show the workflow and the link between the two programs we tend to use most - Lightroom and Photoshop. I thought this particular photo made a great candidate because I was able to do some very neat things in Lightroom (more than a lot of people think is possible) but I also needed to move into Photoshop for some quick retouching. Hope you enjoy it. I'm actually taking the day off to spend with the family since they're off from school, but have a great Veterans Day / Wednesday.
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Very helpful video! Thank you.
I love Lightroom and use it almost exclusively, but just picked up CS4 and am excited to learn what I can do there. Thanks for the tips about moving back and forth!
Wow this was a really useful video. Thank you very much!
Thanks for video… always helpful. The Adobe LR team will be presenting LR3 Beta to our LR users group tonight in St. Paul, MN. Should be fun.
Overall a great tutorial. I’m not 100% with you on the pumpkin though. It looked a bit gray when you lowered the opacity of that layer. Maybe you could locally increase hue & saturation to compensate?
I really like the technique of making your own vignette mask though. I’ll definitely use that one! Thanks!
Great tutorial. I’m sure that those who are fairly new to LR and PS will find a start-to-finish session like this invaluable.
Great way to teach Matt.
Have a great day off, you have your priorities in the right place,
cooksfriend
Hi Matt,
Julieanne Kost did a video on the brush tool in LR2 where she shows that you can sharpen the eyes etc. really nice with this brush tool and using the clarity slider. Maybe a good tip for your blog readers!
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the great video. I’m a big fan of your before & after videos.
I noticed that you used the brush tool and the brightness control to brighten the face. What is the difference between using the exposure slider or the brightness slider to brighten something?
Nice tutorial Matt. Thanks. Always great tips.
Matt,
These before-after videos are my favorites. I’m with Jeff, though, on the gray on the pumpkin. Maybe a future video could deal with restoring flashed-out areas to a reasonable level, which often is needed for snapshots using flash where a shiny forehead results. Keep it up.
Fantastic … I was familiar with the techniques but when you put them together the way that you do, I am amazed. I learned a lot from this tutorial and I hope to see more like it. This is what I need.
Hey thanks for this video about lightroom, it looks like I’ll have to upgrade mine to v 2.0 or higher
Thanks for the vignette tip. Great Info!!!
Thank you! I picked up a handful of useful tools from this.
Thank you for sharing it.
Nicely done Matt and very cool way of doing the skin tone for her, especially the Hulk look! I will start to use that feature more now.
But, it amaze me how fast Mac works with LR compare to PC. Next purchase, most definitely a Mac!
I’m with Jeff and Jack, awesome vid except the pumpkin greyness, which could easily be fixed. Very cool to see somebody else’s workflow. I dig the brushing vignette, which we used to call burning and dodging.
Nice vid Matt – I love these as you really get to see what all the little changes add up to in the end – without going over the top.
Oh and that “personal vignette” tip – that ROCKS – I’m definitely going to try that one out ASAP
Very helpful video, Matt. I appreciate that you oversharpened for the video so we could see the difference. The pumpkin+free transfer trick is very handy also. Perhaps my favorite suggestion is the local sharpening for denim and jewelry. I’ve not thought of that before.
Hi Matt, Great Video, love the selective sharping and custom vignette, excellent.
Second Jacks call for a video to deal with excessive highlights caused by flash, such as a shiny forehead.
Keep up the good work!
Ditto on the gray pumpkin!
I would guess that working with a higher resolution file and playing with the blending mode might help with that?
Matt, wondering if you could have used the adjustment brush on the pumpkin with exposure reduction?
Loved the Adjustment Brush tip. Many thanks.
Slightly off-topic but do always use a laptop Matt? Do you also use a desktop or do you connect the laptop to an external screen? Sorry if this has been asked and answered before. Sometimes miss these things at my doddering time of life.
Cheers.
Hi Matt, thank you for the video..
Why you don’t writhe a book or ebook or a dvd with the workflow in LR an CS4 like this tutorial?
There are many book of LR and CS4, but no many who mix the two software.
Antonio
Matt…awesome tutorial! Love the manual vignette. I was in need of this recently and I’m sure I will use it often since I take a lot of off-set photos. Love the cloning idea…I understand too that you probably would have done more with the pumpkin (i.e. color matching, etc.) but for the sake of video time that wasn’t possible. I would echo others’ comments though in the fact that it would be great to see a video dedicated to cloning. I do currently use the face brightening with the brush very often…love that feature! I’m with you also on preferring sharpening in PS. Maybe LR3’s sharpening will be better. I love your before & after videos too. Great way to see the whole workflow and the combo of LR & PS. Love it!
Packed with useful tips: thank you, Matt!
I would love to hear a discussion about the differences between a PC and MAC. I notice the speed within the programs (better with a MAC) but especially the smoothness and speed in going from one program to another. I almost always notice that on the learning videos, the instructor is using a MAC. There must be a reason for this. I wonder if this is the operating software or the processor/memory, or a combination of both.
Either way, the videos are wonderful and thanks for all of the work..david
David, same as me. I have seen it on videos and working with it. All, I can say is that MAC where build to do Design/Art/Video Editing… stuff, according to my experience. I work in both platform and the sad story is that my I-Mac of 2002 beats my 2009 PC as far as working with Adobe Product, isn’t that sad! The ultimate that I have witness was last year when I had one of my animation student rendered the same project at the same time and he was running the Vista on is MAC! Performance, PC took over 4 hours and the MAC took 1:15 hours!! Since then, I’m saving money to jump over in the MAC world!!
Thanks Matt, a lot of good tips in that video. Love the personal spotlight!
Matt, Thanks for the great tips to make a photo pop!
This is one of the most helpful videos I ever watched for LR. Thanks!
I use the same technique for brighten up faces and vignetting but use the opposite tools – exposure for the faces and brightness for the vignetting.
I think that the brightness tool distorts the colors which is fine with vignetting since it’s more like “lens correction” vignetting in the LR. But you don’t want the color distortion on peoples faces.
Using exposure adjustment for vignetting causes dull gray cast on the photo more like “post cropping” vignetting in the LR.
What do you think Mats?
Matt,
Nice tutorial.
This would have been considered “dodging & burning” if you were doing these corrections in a traditional darkroom.
Great vignetting technique. But why not doing all the cloning and sharpening in Lightroom. As I am telling my students, why leaving Lightroom and creating another file when Lightroom can do it all non destructively. I am telling to my student that if Lightroom cannot do the job it is ok to use the big Lightroom plugin called Photoshop. ( Ok it is a joke ).
Thank’s for you always interesting tips.
Tim – Interesting points. I find the Brightness slider to give a lot more realistic fill then exposure. I also found reducing the Exposure to darken the edges gives more of a “burned in” effect then the Brightness. More like the actual vignetting settings which is what I personally like.
Ed – Yep, but nobody knows what dodging and burning is anymore. Its a Photoshop world now and while the art of dodge and burn hasn’t change, the terms are definitely gone.
Sylvain – I try to do a lot in LR. I’m just not a huge fan of that Brush for detailed work and I can’t break my habit of going to Photoshop for it. I just feel like I get so much more control (when I need it). If I don’t have detailed work to do, then heck yeah! Keep it all in LR!
Thanks,
Matt