Photo Adventure Transcript

Download the photo here.

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Macro Photography --- and today we are going to turn this small statue photo... into this photo... using Lightroom. So let's get started.

First off, I'm going to go to the "Lens Corrections" panel and check both boxes. Next, I'm going to go to the "Tone Curve" panel and set the "Point Curve" to "Medium Contrast". Next, I'll jump to the "Basic" panel and change my temp to be slightly cooler. I'll go with 4700. Moving down, I'm going to reduce the "Highlights" to minus 100. I'm going to increase the "Whites" by holding shift and double clicking which brings it to plus 45. I'm going to hold the alt key and reduce the "Blacks" to minus 14.

Moving down to the "Tone Curve" panel, I'm going to increase the "Highlights" to plus 56 to try and bring up the forehead a little. Next, I'll decrease the "Shadows" to minus 20. I'll turn it on and off so you can see the difference this panel makes. And I'll switch back and forth the "Highlights" so you can see the difference. I'll switch back and forth the "Shadows" to see the difference.

Moving down to the "HSL" panel, I'll going to click on the "Saturation" tab and I want to decrease the green over on the left side to bring more focus to the statue. So I'll decrease "Green" to minus 56. Next, I want to increase the saturation on these cool looking rust spots to bring them out more. So, I'm going to increase the "Purple" to.... plus 49. I'll increase the "Magenta" to.... plus 82. I'll switch this panel on and off so you can see the difference. Ok that's looking good but I want to decrease this green highlights over on the left even more so I'm going to go to the "Luminance" tab and decrease the "Green" by minus 67.

Moving down to the "Split Toning" panel. I want to bring more blue into the statue so I'm going to go change the "Hue" for the highlights to blue. Then I'll increase the saturation to plus 19 to bring in some of that blue. I'll switch the panel on and off to see the difference. I'm liking that.

Moving down to the "Detail" panel, I'm going to increase the "Luminance" to plus 70. And moving down to the "Effects" panel, I'm going to decrease to minus 12.

Ok so here is a look at what we've done so far from the original. Nice improvement. Now I'm going to the "Graduated Filter" and set the "Exposure" to minus 95 to darken the left side.

Next is my favorite part. I'm going to use the "Adjustment Brush" to paint shadows and highlights. First I'll start with the shadows, leaving it at minus 95 exposure, and just paint areas to create more drama. I'll turn it on and off so you can see the difference. Next, I'm going to paint the highlights with exposure increased to plus 95. Ok, I'll switch the panel on and off to see the difference.

Now for the final touches, I want to bring out the face a little more so I'm going to use the "Radial Filter" with the exposure at plus 95 and I'm going to draw a circle on the face. Let's create a snapshot and see the difference that makes for the face. And now let's see the before and after. And there you have it, here is the final result. If you liked this video please give me a thumbs up to help out this channel. You can also download the photo if you liked it. Thanks for watching!