Crows with cherries

I decided to take the plunge and sign up for the full shebang in the Lightroom photo editing app for a whopping $4.99 a month. It's actually totally worth it, considering all the editing options I have, now. So I took a bunch of pictures of Lorena and Bo with cherries and practiced doing fine edits.

1/250 sec. f/4.5 70mm ISO 500

This is what the photo looked like in raw form:

You can see how Lorena's face is really dark and you can't see much detail or really tell what she is doing.
Next is what it looks like if I just edit the overall image to bring up the shadows, reduce contrast, and increase color to make the cherry pop. (lol)
In order to see her face I had to make the surroundings look cheesy and bleached out. I don't like it.
DSC_7635 1.jpg
Let's revisit the initial photo, the one I edited with the bells and whistles I got in my Lightroom subscription.

I was able to lighten up the whole image a little, and then focus on bringing up the shadows just for Lorena and her sweet treat. I also brought down some of the glare on her back where her feathers were reflecting the sun. I was even able to increase the vibrance in the red cherry.

1/250 sec. f/4.5 70mm ISO 500

1/250 sec. f/4.5 70mm ISO 500

1/250 sec. f/4.5 70mm ISO 500

These all look a little different, since I was playing around with the tools to get to know them, but it's pretty awesome being able to use the stylus and essentially draw out the parts of the photo that I want to be lighter, darker, more vibrant, etc. I've always been an artist (love to draw and paint), so this really brings it all together for me.

1/800 sec. f/4.5 25mm ISO 400

I feel like these shots of Bo are a little darker than I was going for, but the beauty of digital is being able to easily go back and change things, or even just start over and compare different edits. Either way, I get to create and learn, two things I love doing.

1/800 sec. f/4.5 25mm ISO 400