Lightroom: Before and After Shots

My Initial Review
I decided to try a photo editing software from Adobe called Photoshop Lightroom. I have heard many good things about it, so I wanted to see what it was all about. I downloaded the 30 day trial (which is a FULL version) a couple days ago. It seems easy enough to use "out of the box", but there were a few things that I got confused on regarding saving and publishing that were not as obvious to me.

After playing with it, I found it pretty fun. I *might* consider buying the full version (which is $300! eeek!). I can essentially do this stuff in Photoshop, but Lightroom has taken all the photo editing aspects and placed them in one program with a pretty bow on it! It makes editing so much easier than if I had just used Photoshop.

The only thing you can't do are detailed photo edits, such as taking out something from the background or taking a frown and turning it into a smile. The fun stuff I like to do. heehee But then again, I have not really explored deeper into the program other than the color edits. There's also the batch editing, that I have not played with yet, either. But I have a whole month to play and learn!

Also, I tried the Facebook uploader through Lightroom. I noticed that when it uploads the images to Facebook, some colors look muddy and gross and some contrasts are not as high as I set them.  Oh well, that's FB for ya.

++++

BEFORE and AFTER

The pic on the left is the original UNEDITED photo, straight from my camera.
The one on the right is the Lightroom edit.

I posted these and some more of my edited photos to a public Facebook album here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150886443725043.752712.823390042&type=1&l=a7aa4dbfef

This one was the first and my favorite so far. I love the B&W version A LOT! (P.S. the yellow text box was obviously not in my original... it was just on the screen when I did the screenshot! oops)



The white balance was off in my original, so the photo turned out too warm. Instead of trying to correct the color temperature, I decided to try to turn it into a B&W.

I didn't do too much to this one. I added some fill light and vibrancy to the overall color. I like all the textures in this photo... 
and of course the cute little guy too!

With this one, I decreased a little of the clarity to give it a bit of a "dreamy" feel.

I tried the high-contrast look on this one...

++++

My next post will be about another program that I have been playing with called Portrait Professional. I purchased it and it's really fun to see what it does to a face!! Insta-airbrush!!!

Running on reserves

Between my cousin's wedding, going on vacation, dealing with a "terrible" toddler and stressing about our upcoming move, I've been totally drained of all creative energy. I try not to stay up late to work on projects anymore - I don't want to risk weakening my immune system due to a certain health issue I have. Maybe one late night a week. But even so, most of the time I am so tired anyway, I just want to sleep.

The last creative thing I did was make a handmade wedding card for my cousin and her new hubby... I was inspired by South Park... one of my top 10 favorite shows. :)

In other news, I am REALLY EXCITED about my birthday gift I am getting from Joel. Yeah, I told him want I wanted, so what?! haha Well, there are a bunch of things I want but the one I dropped obvious hints on is the coolest thing on the list, in my opinion... it's also one of the most expensive... haha. Anyway, it will be something that I hope will be a new hobby for me and I plan to use it to make Christmas gifts this year! YES! Another year of handmade gifts! Woohoo!!! Last year's paintings were such an undertaking... I obviously don't want to spoil what it will be, but I will be sure to post pics of them in January 2012!