Lightroom Photo Editing

 I edited a photo using Adobe Lightroom.  




The Before or Unedited Photo


The After or Edited Photo



Light and Color

The original photo had the people on the computer screen as the focal point.  Everything around it was blurred out a bit and darker.  I decided to lighten up the entire picture a bit.  So, here are the settings I changed on my picture:
  • Exposure +.65
  • Contrast -.19
  • Highlights -.3
  • Shadows +.26
  • Whites -.3
  • Blacks -.3

The biggest struggle I faced was learning the different light setting like exposure, contrast, and whites, for example, and knowing how to best use them.  I decided to choose the auto setting, and then changed things just a bit from the suggestions provided.  It took a bit of practice on my part and playing around with the adjusters while moving them from left to right to get the picture the way I wanted it. 

Crop and Rotate

I use a lot of photos on Instagram, so I decided to go with the 1x1 option.  After the square box outlined an area of the photo, I moved the picture around a bit to make sure I got a little bit of the laptop, the phone, the desk, and the dry erase board in the picture.  The computer is still the focal point, but if someone is seeing the photo, I want them to visually understand this is probably a classroom setting with students learning virtually.

Then, I decided to play around with turning the photo a bit.  This is a bit tricky for me, because I didn't want the photo to look crooked or change it to the point it didn't look as good as the original.  So, I decided to go with the auto option for straightening my photo.  Deciding where to center the photo and exactly which parts of the picture to include or to leave out took me a bit of time to decide. 

Brush

I didn't have the paintbrush option on my Adobe Lightroom.  In fact, I purchased the Adobe Creative Cloud through UofA, but the option is still not showing up.  It could be a human error on my part, but I know I am using Adobe Lightroom.

Since I couldn't use the brush setting on my photo, I played with a couple other settings instead to give the photo the look of the brush option.  What I did instead is change the dehaze settings from 0 to +20 and then add texture to +15, which blurred the background and changed the hue a bit.

Gradient

The main obstacle I faced while wanting to change the gradient on my photo was the fact that the options didn't work the way I thought they would.  When I watched the gradient tutorial by Adobe, my lightroom didn't have the gradient option in the same place.  Also, I wasn't able to make a shape around my image of where I wanted the gradient to be.  

With that said, I did adjust the gradient with the settings on the sidebar.  I set the highlights to the hue of 229 and saturation of 18.  I raised the luminance to +35 as well.  

Platform Tools

One of the platform tools I liked is the light feature.  Being able to adjust the light on a photo where I can make it brighter or bring in more shadow is great.  I also like being able to adjust the exposure when needed as well, especially when a picture might be darker.  

The auto settings in Adobe Lightroom are a nice tool to have as well.  Sometimes the automation gets the photo looking the way I want it to, and other times I just need to make one or two small adjustments to my liking. 

Lightroom for Future Projects

To be honest, I have already used the Lightroom app from my phone to edit my photos for Instagram.  So, I'll definitely continue using it for social media pictures for my business.  But, I will also use it to edit head shots, photos for blogs or podcasts, and even pictures to use with my students.  

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