The (somewhat) Subtle Edit

Day Seventeen (1am)

So I’ve finished the light editing and have bumped the image count up to 465 with various additions, duplicate B&W and color images, and a few sepia toned thrown in for good measure.

I’m starting on the retouches that I couldn’t do in Lightroom. Photoshop is an old friend of mine and together we make some pretty fantastic things happen. This example is far from fantastic, but I wanted to share nonetheless.

I had an image that contained stray background elements that I could not creatively crop out at the time of shooting. Devilish power lines. Hideous!

Here’s the RAW file:
With some skill and control over frustration, I managed to rid my image of the dreaded power lines. I applied a contrast boost in a few color areas strengthening the red end of the spectrum. I warmed the image up a touch and tossed a slight Gaussian blur ring around the outermost elements of the image to get this:

I liked the image greatly, but also wanted to see what it would look like in Black & White. A few parameter adjustments from the “soft skin” preset in Silver Efex Pro and we have this:

And sometimes (just sometimes) you need to be selective:


I will keep all 3 edits and print them for the proof book. I believe that they all have their merits and deserve a place in the proof book. Let the bride and groom decide which they like best.

More to come!

©2009 DivineMayhemStudios