A year ago, when I opened Go Backpacking up to contributors, I got an email from Troy Floyd, an American traveler/photographer/blogger who wanted to share some his ideas and images. The instant I saw his photography, I knew I wanted to work with him.
Over the next several months, I began to feature portrait photos from the “Faces” series at his blog, FOGGOdyssey.com. I admired the way he got up close to people, capturing the details in their faces, and how he used editing software to enhance the original photos, making them more vibrant and colorful.
My first exposure to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom was during my Rwanda trip this past April. As it was a social media press trip, my group included Eric Lafforgue, a BBC photographer on assignment for Lonely Planet, and Peter Stuckings, a freelancer based in Vietnam. Simply by being in their presence, I improved as a photographer, however I still figured editing photos was over my head.
In an effort to further grow as a photographer this year, I bought a Canon S90 before leaving for Colombia in June. Not only was it recommended by Jodi at Legal Nomads (and I knew she did her homework before buying one), it allowed me the opportunity to shoot in RAW, meaning I would have more leeway to edit my photos versus shooting in JPG, should the desire arise down the road.
And arise it did, after returning to Medellin, and hanging around Troy for 3 1/2 months. It was like hanging around Eric and Peter, but for a prolonged period. Not only would I be with Troy when he was taking photos, I'd see what they looked like after he edited them. Before he left Colombia a few days ago, we sat down together and he gave me a tutorial on Lightroom and file management (which becomes important when you're amassing tens of thousands of photos).
Below are some of my early attempts to take old travel photos and spruce them up through the magic of Lightroom. As I found my personal style and voice through writing here every day for close to four years, I know I will eventually develop my photo-editing abilities too.
Here are a few before/after examples from my experience getting started with Lightroom. And be sure to tell me what you think! If you have any specific feedback (positive or constructive) on specific “after” photos, please share in the comments section below.
This was suppose to be my “making you jealous from a beach in the South Pacific” photo, but overcast skies and a Canon Powershot 6mp camera (on a lower quality setting) left me with a dull result. Together with Troy, we highlighted the turquoise waters, warmed up the sand with yellows, and gave the clouds some definition. We also brightened up my face to help draw the viewer's focus.
On a snorkel trip around Moorea, we passed by these luxury bungalows. With the lush green mountain backdrop, and the dolphin swimming to the right, I thought this photo would reflect the paradise I was visiting. But again, overcast skies, and a low quality photo left it looking bland. I used a Lightroom preset called “General – Punch” to pump some life back into the shot. I then tweaked the brightness, exposure, and contrast to show some definition in the clouds.
Back on Tahiti, I ate the pork being cooked in this photo as my last supper before heading on to New Zealand in the morning. Again, overcast skies, combined with a setting sun, diminished the available light. I used another Lightroom preset to give me a quick 1-click improvement, and then adjusted individual settings for both practice, and to ensure the photo looked the way I wanted. I was specifically focused on brightening the flowers painted on the truck, and warming up the fire.
Oftentimes, looking back at the photos from my 'round the world trip, I remember a much more vibrant scene than was captured on camera. When I took this night photo of the Sky Tower in Auckland, the photo on the right is closer to what I saw then how it came out originally on the left. In Lightroom, I did a little crop to focus attention on the Sky Tower, removed dust spots, and brightened the greens and reds.
As my Lightroom tutorial with Troy wound down, I started editing this photo from New Zealand, which is one of my all-time favorites. It was too stormy at Cathedral Cove for us to go sea kayaking, so we hung out for a bit, looking at the rough waters. One of the backpackers on our bus hopped up on the rock, his boots dangling from his hand. The silhouette of him against the sea says “contemplation” to me. Troy helped tweak it a little further.
As I get started editing photos, I'm sure I will be over-editing many of them. Adding too much saturation, too much color, and turning natural landscapes and people's skin tones into what I think looks good. But it might end up terribly unappealing to everyone else. As Troy suggested, I'm going to chalk it up to the learning process. In the case of this photo on Lake Taupo, I took a more subtle approach, and I think it shows how a few small improvements can make a big difference.
While visiting the historic San Antonio neighborhood of Cali, Colombia, Troy took a few photos of me against a variety of painted buildings. In this photo, he was drawn by the textures, so in Lightroom, I darkened it up a bit, which brought out the texture of blue area of wall. I brightened my face, and tried to add a little to the orange without going overboard. The photo didn't need to be cropped, it's exactly how Troy framed the shot with my camera.
I really enjoyed looking at the differences in the photos! I’m a total photography novice, but I have a free trial of photoshop light room on my computer right now and wasn’t sure if I would get around to testing it out. I think I will give it a whirl after seeing these. I love the photo of you against the orange and blue wall. It’s very striking.
Thanks Debbie. Lightroom feels far less intimidating than Photoshop, which I’ve had on my computer for awhile and use to create basic graphics.
man trying to see the photos in this post but all but 1 (the BBQ pic) are not showing up for some reasons. I tried viewing it in Chrome, Safari and Firefox. :(
I can see the photos now man! Looks great and proud of you for taking the next step in your photography skills. It was great teaching you as you caught on quick and from your work above it looks like you really got the grasps of LR3.
Hmm. It seems that all of the photos on the right side have been replaced with a “this photo is currently unavailable” placeholder from Flickr. Would love to actually see how you did though… I’ll check back later to see if they’re working again.
Hey John, thanks for letting me know. I don’t know why the Flickr set disappeared on me, but I’ve uploaded the photos again.
Grrrr… Dammit, Dave… I was just about to do the same post ;)
Great info and glad to see someone else spreading the Lightroom love.
I may have to look into this. I’ve never edited a photo beyond a few basic Picasa tweaks, but I know some of our images could benefit from some editing. Photoshop has always seemed way too overwhelming for me, so maybe Lightroom is the way to go.
Only a couple of the pics on the right are showing Dave
Thanks Lis — I was accidentally deleting the photos I was uploading to Flickr via Lightroom, and just figured that out today! Hopefully all is good now.
Yeah – nice one – and I like the effects you have got
Good going, Dave! I’ve been using Lightroom for three years, but I would love to take a course to better fine tune my editing skills. Nice that you have someone to teach you!
Thanks Kristin – it’s more fun to use than I expected (Photoshop is kinda overwhelming so I’ve never spent much time with it). I think Lightroom is intuitive enough that anyone can pick it up with a little time spent messing around.
Awesome comparisons! Once you learn, it can become so easy just to enhance some of your photos. Especially those colourful travel ones!
Thanks Lindsay — it’s exciting to learn a new skill, especially given how many photos I take and post online these days.
This is probably the #1 people have with their photos: no post processing. What comes out of the camera isn’t truth or reality. Even Ansel Adams needed a darkroom.
Hey Gary, I might be late to the party, but it feels good to be here. I’m already appreciating other’s photography more as a result of getting into the editing process myself.
Unfortunately the right hand column isn’t showing at all right now (This photo is currently unavailable). Will check back later as def want to see the “after” shots. Cheers!
Hey Christian, I fixed the “after” photos and discovered the mistake I was making when uploading to Flickr via Lightroom. Let me know your thoughts!
I’m glad I first saw this when the right hand gallery was broken – made me engage with and assess the images BEFORE I saw the pimped ones.
This will definitely make me have a bash at some RAW shooting next trip. The Moorea Luxury bungalows shot was really nicely improved by getting more shades of green in the background jungle/hills – really like that. But, the standout is the Cathedral Cove – nice work!
Hey Christian, thanks for checking back and sharing your feedback. All of those photos were originally JPG, so even if you’re not shooting in RAW, you can still make big improvements.
I love Lightroom too. I’ve been using Photoshop Elements to edit our photography but I am thinking of switching over to Lightroom altogether because it is an easier program (though Elements has more functionality).
This is some great information to know. I never thought about maybe getting photo editor software but you can really see HUGE differences in the pictures. Im going to have to look into & maybe getting it before going on my RTW trip!
Hey Jaime, I use to do small touch-ups via Flickr/picnik.com online, but Lightroom is so much more powerful. I’m most excited about the chance to breathe new life into some of my early travel photos, when I was using a less powerful camera, and didn’t have the same approach to taking pictures that I do now (take a lot, different angles, etc).
I would be interested in knowing how much more functionality Lightroom has than Picnik which I have been using. I guess I should try the free version. Also is Paint.net an option which is a free version similar to Photoshop.
I’d been using the free basic version of Picnik via Flickr to do simple things like crop and brighten photos, but I can’t imagine the premium versions even come close to what you can do with Lightroom, which seems to be one of the top choices for serious photographers.
Thanks for the post. I too had experimented about light room but still has to master the art of photo editing. Though the editing process seemed tricky as there so many commands to deal with, but I enjoy the trial and error process.
Thanks for linking this article in the TBS written articles section. I just downloaded photoshop and was wondering if lightroom was necessary. Apparently, totally is.
I don’t have experience with Photoshop, but one of the reasons people prefer Lightroom is that it’s easier to use). It can make a huge difference in your photos if you learn how to do even basic edits.
Dave,
Wow, you have mastered lightroom, we haven’t even heard of it but looks like it makes a huge difference. We put together a photo essay of Angkor Wat which we thought was awesome — http://www.whoneedsmaps.com/angkor-wat-pictures/
But some of your pointers could really help make it better!
Thanks for sharing, super useful!
Cheers,
Jenn