Eliminating Distractions
Sometimes when you are at the location, as the sun is going down and the light is starting to change, and everything around starts to glow with this beautiful light, it all looks awesome, and it seems impossible to take a bad photo. However, when you get home and you look at the photos, they don’t look or feel anything like the actual place. You start to notice all these extra things in and about the photo that you did not see on the LCD screen while shooting. When that happens, some additional work in Lightroom and Photoshop is required to bring the photo back to life.
In this post I will show you the original photo from the shoot and how I brought it back to life, which is the featured photo above.
The Original Photo
Besides the horizon being crooked a bit, there is a bunch of stuff in the foreground that is kind of distracting and unnecessary. You can see these distractions highlighted here in the photo below:
The Fix
So to fix this photo is actually fairly simple and quick. The first thing I did is using the crop tool in Lightroom, I straightened and cropped this photo to eliminate majority of the issues. However, there were still some sticks and grass sticking up from the bottom of the frame. I got rid of those using the healing brush in Photoshop. I then added some contrast, did some local brush adjustments to highlight the road that is in the shade, and add some clarity to the patch of land that is at the bottom right third, which is kind of the center of interest. This was all I did to come up with the final result seen here:
Final thoughts
I think as we are starting out in photography, it is important to not criticize our images and to look for things that you like in the image. It is also a good idea to not delete the photos just because they are not perfect—you might not have the skills in the beginning, but you never know what you can do or how you will be able to improve the photo in the future.
I believe that anyone can make the most awesome photos they can imagine! All they have to do is learn a few easy basics. I hope to inspire you to also pick up a camera and develop your own photographic vision.
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