Lightroom - Before & After Editing

Firstly, if you add a RAW file for people to edit, everyone will do it in their preferred 'style'

Shoot RAW without a doubt for LR editing - it'll then save your export as a jPeg so you still have the original RAW if you wish for future editing.
When you move a slider to where you want it, move it back 30-40%
You don't have to move every slider.
I've just edited an image & I have -0.20 exposure, with contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, blacks & the curve all at Zero!! There's a lot more to LR than what we consider the 'normal' adjustments.
Also, try to picture how you want the image to look before you start (or before you take the shot!!)
 
ancient_mariner said:
As Jay said, don't feel discouraged, but do invest time in developing your processing skills.

The key tools for me revolve around managing overall brightness, temperature & tint, highlights and shadows with both the basics sliders and tone curves, black and white points, clarity & vibrance/saturation - pretty much in that order. Early on I'd push the clarity slider right to bring out detail in an image (clarity can make highlights sparkle) and overuse gave a really hard and unpleasantly crunchy feel to the image. Now I prefer to push clarity left & use highlights and shadows to bring out details instead. I use the brush and gradient tools a lot too, rebalancing parts of the image to look natural.
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Yep agree with this.
Also try youtube, lots of good photographers on there giving examples of their approach to post processing.
 
You still with us, Prof?

I'm largely in accord with Toni (Ancient Mariner), except that I'd go light on clarity especially to start with, and I rarely ever touch vibrance or saturation and can hardly think why anyone would want to.

No one solution per image, a range of interpretations can be valid. I might process an image differently on different occasions, and this is little different to darkroom work.

There are certain basic technical criteria, maybe chief of which is not blowing significant areas of highlight (which you haven't). But tonal management goes a long way to expressing the particular 'message' of you the photographer.
 
There are a lot of adjustments available in Lightroom. Over half of them I have never touched at all. Most of the rest do not get used on most images. When I do move a slider, I do not move it very far. Very occasionally an image will benefit from a large movement of one slider but, in general, if an image needs the sliders to be moved a lot, you will be better off reshooting the image.
 
Apologies for the awfully delayed response,

I must thank everyone who has contributed thus far, its a lot to take in. I understand basic concepts such as colour temperature, exposure etc.., its just a case of which slider to use for the photograph. I suppose the more I think about, I can off the cuff tell if something as basic as exposure needs to be corrected but other stuff as colour correction etc... fly over my head. I'm not too worried as manual photography was the same but I've managed to some appealing (For me anyway) long exposures. One thing I am keen on exploring is tone mapping. I assume this is only done on photographs which will ultimately be merged into one ?

A more philosophical question here but when you import a photo to edit, is your aim to "fix" the image as in exposure, highlights etc... or make it as good as it can be ? I understand the latter can be interpreted as the former but view is that when you go to fix an image, you correct certain aspects which the camera didn't pick up but you intend to recreate what you physically see. As in, lets say a camera blows out the sky and keeps an object in the shadow yet if you were physically there, that wouldn't have been the case so your editing is merely compensating for your camera so your not adding anything. The latter would be like something below (Link (Not mine)). The editing is remarkable and a testament to the editor but I would think it's likely the before image is more a physical representation of what you would see. The finished photo looks good but its enhanced. I hope I haven't confused anyone here but does anyone get what I mean ?

I was going to give a link to another photo but I'm just letting people do my editing for me which somewhat kills the point of thread and me being able to learn !

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgur...6DgAhVcUhUIHWGsDgkQMwh1KCYwJg&iact=mrc&uact=8
 
Of the linked images, the first seems to replicate the feel of a raw import before processing, and the second is wildly over-egged ...

Yes, part of processing is as you say to 'fix' the image - curb its failings, bring it into tonal range. The other part is to express something. These can work in harness.

A photo can have the purpose of being a straightforward document, a 'factual' account. But in a further dimension, and as with all art forms (painting, music, etc), the nature of a photograph can range from being just decorative to being a deeper expression. The photographer and his/her tools are the agents of this. The tools can easily be abused though to shallow and often vulgar effect.

So there's a spectrum of intent, and a spectrum of realisation.
 
I'm certainly only a novice at best, but my view when uploading/editing is to make the photo look natural+, so for me an interpretation of what i felt the scene should have been or could have been, but this is massively selective to each person, you really need to find your own path.

I know the above is no help, but to give you an idea, the link with before and after, the after in my eyes is horrible, unnatural, over enhances and just looks false, im sure to many that's great and they like the enhancements and HDR type effect.

You really do just have to tinker, the more you tinker, the more you will find your "comfort zone", which in turn will slowly seep into your photography, so take my football shot (nothing special) but i generally don't shoot into bright sky like that, after this and a little work, i liked what the outcome was and now when I'm at a game i intentionally do shoot into bright sky's and sun, very rarely pays off, but im learning and that's all it is.

So you could say, my tweaking in LR of that picture has slightly steered my photo style and at the time the picture was a shot at nothing, tbh, i actually think it was a test shot as the light was dimming rapidly, normally i don't shoot backs of player and i generally only concentrate on my team (this was an away player)

So long winded, and prob not a lot of help, but you really need to find your own style and that will only happen from playing and mistakes.
 
Professor1991 said:
A more philosophical question here but when you import a photo to edit, is your aim to "fix" the image as in exposure, highlights etc... or make it as good as it can be ?
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No.

Fixing an image implies it is broken - I would discard that image. As far as making an image 'as good as it can be' is concerned, there is no such thing. My intention when editing is to produce a picture that tells the story I want to tell. Any image is capable of telling several stories and can be edited in several ways to tell those various stories - each is as good as it can be and different to each other.
 
john.margetts said:
No.

Fixing an image implies it is broken - I would discard that image.
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Agreed. You should really know what you're looking to achieve before taking the picture and get the image (and resulting raw file) as close to perfection as you can at the time of shooting. Then you can do what you need to with the raw file. Everything you do at the shooting and editing stage should be intentional and less is often more with processing.

If you like landscapes I suggest watching Joe Cornish's Lightroom tutorials on the OnLandscape YouTube page. That really is a thorough guide. Alex Nail and Greg Whitton (also respected landscape photographers) have also done some editing walkthroughs on their own channels. There are no tricks involved, it's just knowing what tools to use but if you have a good raw file you shouldn't need to do that much, unless you're blending exposures.
 
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