I took this shot a couple of years ago in Pigeon Forge, TN, at a Cracker Barrel on our 25th anniversary trip. I love the retro Coca-Cola cooler and the glass bottles, but the photo is very yellow (as most indoor, non-flash, nighttime photos are). Also, I wanted the image to have a retro feel to match the subject.
The Edits
- Crop the photo tighter.
- Use Matt Kloskowski’s Nostalgic Effect Preset (2) for Lightroom (this preset is not for Lightroom 4; see yesterday’s post for details on using older presets with Lightroom 4), which increases clarity (makes it sharper: the original isn’t too sharp since the camera was handheld in low light) and reduces color vibrance and saturation (see how faded the red is now?).
The edits make a big difference, don’t they!
See all 31 Days of Before & After Shots here. Find links to other 31 Dayers here.
[Click here to read my first two 31 Days series, 31 Days of Encouragement and 31 Days of Real Life.]
Thanks for taking the time to explain what the presets in your software do. It gives me a starting point at least with my Photoshop Elements! (I do tweak things like “saturation” etc, but I do a lot of guess work until I get what I like. LOL)
Spring, guesswork is definitely an element of photo editing! Sometimes I don’t know what I want the image to look like until I play with it a bit. 🙂