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

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