I finally made the jump into RAW processing with Lightroom. I practiced a couple of weeks w/ Viewer, but decided to make the move...

This is my first set of pics edited...Please let me know what you guys think...For some reason, looking back at them I feel some are under-exposed...

Any help would be great!!

The complete set:

Yelp Brooklyn's Summerfest 2012 - a set on Flickr

Some examples:


EM501210-2 by MrKal_El, on Flickr


EM501212-2 by MrKal_El, on Flickr


EM501155-2 by MrKal_El, on Flickr


EM501140-2 by MrKal_El, on Flickr

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Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MrKal_El

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They are pretty nicely done, but please check out the "Straighten Tool" under the Crop Panel and use it to straighten your horizons.

The food and eating ladies are great.

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- tdp

Vernacular shooter/amateur photographer
500px | flickr

Will do!

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Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MrKal_El

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The first shot it ok as far as PP goes, but the OOF people in the foreground don't add anything in my book. If the people are important to the shot, use enough DOF to get them at least reasonably sharp. If not, move to the rail or wait for them to move.

After having used PS since CS3, I had resisted LR. Just couldn't understand what all the raves were about. However, a couple weeks back I broke down and bought 4.1, and I am more impressed with it the more I work with it. It helped that I watched a couple training videos on lynda.com and kelbytraining.com.

Although I do have PS CS5.1, I don't see much need to use it now. Perhaps for content-aware fill or stuff where I want to use layers, but honestly, I seldom use those and only used about 10% of PS's capabilities. I think I can do 99% of what I want to do just using LightRoom 4.1, and I do still have PS and DxO Optics 7.5.1 for when I need stuff I can't do in LR.

I am having a horrible time getting my images to look great in LR4. I know this is a common gripe but when I import my images from my E-PM1, LR seems to suck the life out of them. I'm trying to figure out the camera profile thing to see if that helps because a few presets I've used make them even flatter. Probably need to spend a few more hours with some training tutorials

I suggest you try some film presets from x-equals. They have kodak portra, fuji velvia, etc. Not trying to promote anything, I'm just a happy customer

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GF-1, E-M5, 20/f1.7, 45/f1.8

I don't know what metering approach you took but they are back lit, apart from the food shot. If you're using either the averaging or centre weighted meter mode, that bright back lighting is going to skew the meter reading and the subjects in front of the light will be underexposed (you would have got the right exposure if you'd walked around behind them and shot them with the sun at your back, but then you'd also never have got these photos unless you can walk on water).

I think the back lighting is where the problem lies. In Lightroom you can just move the exposure slider to the right until the foreground subject looks about right, pull the highlights slider to the left to recover the highlights you've pushed too high with the exposure adjustment, and perhaps adjust the black point higher if your shadows aren't dark enough.

To get the exposure better for the foreground subject in shots like these, you can use spot meter mode and meter one of the people. If you're metering caucasian skin tones add 1 EV positive exposure compensation to get the skin tone right. The background will appear brighter than it does in these shots.

Have you tried adding a little clarity & vibrance (basic panel of develop module)? It's what the "Punch" preset does, but start out with a lesser degree - like 20 for clarity & 15 for vibrance.

These look good, first time I heard of them. I personally use VSCOfilm, but there is a price difference.

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GX1 - OM-D E-M5 - Lumix G 7-14 | 12-35 | 20 | 35-100 | 45-175 - m.ZD 12-50 | 45 - Samyang 7.5 - 500px