31 Days of Before & After Shots: Day 5

by | Oct 5, 2012 | Before & After Shots, photography | 7 comments

I hope you’re enjoying reading 31 Days of Before & After Shots as much as I’m enjoying writing it. It’s fun going through photos and looking for my favorites to show you. Today’s image highlights cropping and black and white processing.

I took this photo in March at the concert photography pre-conference workshop at Photoshop World. Although my camera is nice, my lenses aren’t too fancy. I didn’t have a lens that would zoom in close in low light, so this was taken with a 50mm f/1.8.

Attendees of this workshop could submit one photo for a chance to win a new camera and lens from Nikon. Mine came in second place.

Day 5 - Before

Day 5 - After

The Edits:

  1. A serious amount of cropping.
  2. Convert to a high contrast black and white (make the whites whiter and the blacks blacker). I applied a Lightroom preset called Noir Film, which I think I downloaded here.
  3. Noise reduction (the image was grainy and shot at ISO 1000.
  4. Add a vignette (darken around the edges).

 Any questions? Are you enjoying this series?

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.]

 

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4

7 Comments

  1. Rebecca
    Rebecca on October 5, 2012 at 8:44 am

    Loving your series, Dawn! I know I will learn a lot….I don’t have photoshop yet, but I am praying for it!

    • Dawn
      Dawn on October 5, 2012 at 9:41 am

      Rebecca, check out Lightroom: it’s cheaper and I do most of my photo editing there. Thanks for the encouragement!

  2. Heather :) :) :)
    Heather :) :) :) on October 5, 2012 at 2:46 pm

    I’m enjoying the series very much. There’s so much to learn 🙂 🙂 🙂 Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 😉 🙂 🙂

    • Dawn
      Dawn on October 6, 2012 at 1:37 am

      Waving to California! Thanks, Heather, for always being such a bright spot. 🙂

  3. donna
    donna on October 5, 2012 at 4:06 pm

    Dawn! What a fabulous 31day idea!! After spending a couple of years with another photo editing software I switched to Lightroom in June and I agree with you … It is terrific! Thanks for all the detail you are including and I am looking forward to seeing more!!

    • Dawn
      Dawn on October 6, 2012 at 1:36 am

      Thank you so much for your feedback! I’m trying to explain the edits as well as possible, for both Lightroom users and users of other software. I’m thankful there are Lightroom users reading!

      • donna
        donna on October 6, 2012 at 6:36 pm

        Dawn, your explanations are incredibly helpful. I am quite interested in your vast knowledge and use of presets … thanks for sharing.

        donna

        ps … blogging my 31 day on speaking praise.

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