Before & After Tuesday

I am inspired by many photographers, one of them being Bobby Earle out in California who travels internationally for weddings. One of the things he occasionally blogs about is a Before & After section where he gives a brief description of how he turns a great photo into a spectacular photo thru the use of today's digital technology.

So, I am going to try creating my own Before & After Tuesday post to share with everyone the work that goes into making a great photograph from the camera, into a picture that shines with awesomeness after it leaves the computer. As I believe creativity not only comes from the click of the shutter, but also the pampered touch each of our photos receive when doing post processing.

Now onto the first example...

------------------

This picture was one from a recent wedding we did for Mary Bridget & Brian. They had wanted to do a 'Thank You' picture which they would send out to their guests after the event. This shot is the one straight out of the camera:

Overall it is a great picture. I used a 430 ex II flash directly on them with having the sun naturally light them up from behind, giving a nice glow.

Once on the computer, I used Lightroom 2 to darken and lighten certain area's that I wanted the eye to be drawn too. I also boosted saturation and contrast as well as a little sharpening. After that, I exported the shot into Photoshop where I used a series of actions and curve adjustments to change up the tones and colors to make it really stand out. The end result is below...

Please leave a comment if you enjoy these types of posts and want me to continue, or if there is anything else you would like to know about.