Ni Hao Y'all

when east meets south

before and after

I took this picture the other day when we were at the coast and initially I was going to toss it…

Sister in the background.

Underexposed face, his expression was almost unrecognizable.

Not-so-great composition.

But then I thought of Monica’s ‘before and after’ blog hop.


And I thought I’d see if I could salvage it.

I cropped it. Rotated it. And removed his sister, as well as various small rocks. Just because I can.

I upped the exposure and the sharpness on his face.

I used Sarah Ji’s ‘boost’ preset and messed around with the luminance and saturation of the blues until I liked the color of the water behind him.

And I was happy.


Then, just for fun, I added the LR preset ‘punch’…

because I still can’t resist going overboard.


I use a Nikon D90 with a 1.4 50mm lens. And edit in LR2.

Check out Monica’s blog hop to play along.

Comments

  4. Nice save!

    I laughed that you removed some stuff (and a sister!) from the photo "just because I can"! Yep, I've been known to do that too! Too bad it doesn't work that way in real life, huh!

    Donna
    Our Blog: Double Happiness!

    Reply

  7. you really saved this pic! The edits are really great and now you can see his little face. The colors are gorgeous!

    Reply

  12. I'm actually having the same "urges" in lightroom..I love going "overboard"!! I'm like a girl in the candy store..I have to keep trying one more thing!! ha ha

    I think it's a beautiful edit!!

    Reply

  16. Wow, that looks amazing! Good job!

    *I'm really sad because my camera is broken. No more photos for me….until I can afford to get another one. I hope it's before Isabella starts Kindergarten and Joey starts pre-school in July!*

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  17. Thanks for stopping by my blog! I also love your edit – isn't LR wonderful!!!! Looking forward to reading more on your great blog!

    Reply

  19. wow u sure have made the pic nice and bright. love it
    i have joined in too
    plz do visit

    Reply

  20. adorable, I love the composition. I need to learn how to change the exposesure on just the face . . .

    Reply

  25. Proof that I've gotta learn the art of editing!
    Love the crop and pop!
    Love & Blessings from Hong Kong,
    Kim

    Reply

  26. I'm impressed – I'd have tossed that one too….great job 'removing' the sister – I might have to break down and get LR2.

    PS – I'm a Nikon fan too – been using one since I started shooting crime scenes in the 80's. And I'm afraid that learning that work and surveilance kind of 'ruined' me….ah well….skill sets are important!

    hugs – aus and co.

    Reply

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