After reading up on the forum I've started to shoot only RAW images and do my post processing in Lightroom 2b.

I have really enjoyed the ability to render an image as my memory sees it at the moment I pressed the shutter. I surprised myself recently with the following image.

Two friends posed in cab of one of slip-on fire fighting units. The power of fill light adjustment to recover missing detail is remarkable. Mind you, next time I'll get them to swap seats!

Obviously my PP skills are in very early days, comments welcome.



And post processed:

[KrisK10D]

Looks good. I'm not sure why the truck's no longer white tho. And a little boost to contrast might help a bit.

[cputeq]

Glad you could discover the power of RAW

Your resultant image is a bit off, I think. The tone curves are a bit messed up.


Try this:

Open the resultant JPEG in Lightroom 2 (your second picture).

Open the Tone Curve Tool on the right.

There are 3 sliders at the bottom of the Histogram.
Slide the dark (left) slider to 10
Keep the middle slider at 50.
Slight the highlight (right) slider to 85.

Now, adjust the Highlights, Lights, Darks, Shadows sliders to these values (you may have to click the tiny black triangle to the very right of the first set of sliders to see these).

Highlights +1
Lights +53
Darks +17
Shadows +14


Hopefully, this should bring your photo's vibrancy back without losing any detail from the passenger. Hope this helps! Monitors vary, though, which may explain the different look we're getting (mine is only "eye calibrated")

[Dale]

eeek, I was so pleased at seeing the passenger that I failed to notice the white at all,



Thanks for the tips, I'll reprocess and post a smaller image.

[cputeq]

^ No problem, i find myself doing that sometimes

I was once so happy to have a flower macro that I sharpened, I didn't realize I sharpened it too much and people thought my ISO 800 shot was very noisy. doh! Oh well, you live you learn...for me it just takes a few times

[Dale]

Glad you could discover the power of RAW

Your resultant image is a bit off, I think. The tone curves are a bit messed up.


Try this:

Open the resultant JPEG in Lightroom 2 (your second picture).

Open the Tone Curve Tool on the right.

There are 3 sliders at the bottom of the Histogram.
Slide the dark (left) slider to 10
Keep the middle slider at 50.
Slight the highlight (right) slider to 85.

Now, adjust the Highlights, Lights, Darks, Shadows sliders to these values (you may have to click the tiny black triangle to the very right of the first set of sliders to see these).

Highlights +1
Lights +53
Darks +17
Shadows +14


Hopefully, this should bring your photo's vibrancy back without losing any detail from the passenger. Hope this helps! Monitors vary, though, which may explain the different look we're getting (mine is only "eye calibrated")

The results
Thanks for the intro to processing using curves. I'm impressed enough with Lightroom, the more I learn here, the more convinced I am that I'll buy V2 when it comes out. (I just got a .edu email address and staff ID card so the $100 or so purchase is attractive.)

I'm still playing in curves to get a more white type of white. I should get a white balance card as well I think. Many of my shots are taken with the sunlight filtered through various degrees of coloured smoke, so I have no idea what WB to set in Lightroom, other than to try guessing the right colour green on the fire suits.


I'm just so impressed with the help here, and the effect that help has on my photography. Thanks all.

Dale