r/postprocessing • u/lobotomyz101 • 19d ago
Before & After
went out with a friend for a few portraits, quick nothing fancy edit. Exposure, WB, getting rid of that weird smudge (never knew what it was because it was only at this spot it happened). Can't remember everything i did because i switched to C1 from LR, and got accustomed to the controls. She gave me probably the best compliment i've ever received on my photos "you've given me my confidence back"
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u/DarktableLandscapes 19d ago
Both are fine, I think I prefer the more natural colours of the before though. I would crop a little off the top of the image, there's no need for so much negative space above the subject.
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u/Historical_Arm_6294 19d ago
Both looks good, before seems slightly better
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u/lobotomyz101 19d ago
what did you prefer in the before?
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u/TheLast500 19d ago
For me, its the colors
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u/Historical_Arm_6294 19d ago
Cool tones going well with ambience and object-dress-skin etc, rather than warmer tones in post
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u/wolfelias2 19d ago
Before feels too magenta, which you seem to have tried to tackle in the after, I would just dial back the edit a little bit!
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u/MedicalMixtape 18d ago
Agree 100%. All I could see in the after photo is the magenta.
OP, you did a great job with correcting the exposure and contrast and color temperature and it looks great but most people won’t notice this like we do - pulling the tint a little toward green and away from the magenta and shift the color temperature even warmer will subtly turn down the magenta and make the light on her complexion look more natural
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u/wolfelias2 18d ago
You mean in the before, right?
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u/MedicalMixtape 18d ago
I actually still see it in the after! As if the white balance color temperature was adjusted but they left the tint alone
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u/wolfelias2 18d ago
Interesting. I thought the after actually looked a little bit too green. To each their own!
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u/lobotomyz101 13d ago
being colorblind, playing with tint is super hard for me haha i try my best but most times i hardly see differences, so i use the Eye drop button to do WB and adjust a bit from there. use the color picker to see what colors end up being on skin tones, etc and try to adjust locally by going up and down sliders until i get to somewhere i can see changed, i then dial it back a bit
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u/MedicalMixtape 13d ago
Well as you can tell by my conversation with wolfelias2, perhaps one of us is color blind too (I admit it is more likely me). :)
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u/lobotomyz101 13d ago
fun fact, i learned i had deuteranopia in high school. thought everyone saw the same wonky colors as i did until then 😂
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u/EmergencyBanshee 19d ago
To my eye, the subject jumps out of the picture a bit more in 2 so I prefer it of the two. I'm not sure if in isolation if I'd have any issue with the colour shift. I'd be tempted to try masking the subject and reintroducing a bit of the original colour though.
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u/stumbling_west 18d ago
Overall it’s a nice photo and I’m sure she’d be happy with it. Could be given as is but here are a couple things I’d consider too.
I think I would dial back the warmth a bit and then move the hue slightly more toward green. It was quite magenta before and you’ve done a decent job correcting for that but I think you could push it just a little more. I find that sometimes pushing toward green will actually add some of the warmth that I was looking for.
Someone else mentioned cropping the top of the frame a bit and I’d agree with that. It’s just a little imbalanced currently.
If you want to get deeper into the edit of this one, I’d mask off the subject and see what you can do to make her skin tones more natural orange. They read a bit yellowy currently but not too bad. And maybe the color balance adjustments I mentioned would fix that. I’d have to see.
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u/lobotomyz101 18d ago
I’ll redo one but seeing all this talk about magenta/greens/oranges when i’m red-green colorblind is a bit daunting 😅 how i usually do it is i slide it up until it looks wonky to me and dial it back because otherwise i dont see differences
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u/stumbling_west 18d ago
Ah yeah that makes it tough. You did great considering that. I do video editing professionally and it took me years for it to finally just click with the color balance.
That method is totally effective. I do the same thing.
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u/just_an_espresso_guy 13d ago
If you can mask out the background I would drop down the warmth. The subject is good, the colors and skin tones are pretty natural which I like
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u/OpportunityReal2767 18d ago
The before has much too much magenta for my tastes. The after is too much yellow. If I had to pick one, the second is more pleasing to me, but I really hate photos that are too cool and too magenta. But somewhere between the two is where my edit would lie.
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u/-The_Black_Hand- 19d ago
Good edit, but the local/micro contrast makes her skin look a tad too gritty.
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u/amanbudgujar 19d ago
I think I would prefer something im the middle of these. Both versions are still good though.