Comments on: Freaky Raw Processing: From Sunset to Moonrise with Adobe Lightroom

By: Andrew Halpern

Andrew Halpern — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:44:37 +0000

Jeffrey, one trick to make really cool LR developing settings is to pull a slider well far into the right or left, then try to ‘fix’ it by balancing out with another slider. Keep on doing this throughout the develop settings. It’s crazy what happens. Like for example pull blacks up to 75% then balance out with fill light, then screw up the exposure, try to fix it with recovery. Then mess up the white balance, try to fix it with HSL controls or split tones. Then mess with color calibration… etc etc.

I created this image of statue of liberty using this technique. All the colors came from lightroom, but I took it into Photoshop after for noise control. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nyer82/2575020438/

By: Therese Steinlauf

Therese Steinlauf — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:55:02 +0000

I actually like the X version best followed by A and F, tho all are interesting. I tend to like the more realistic color schemes. I live in Marina del Rey, CA, and see some pretty spectacular scenery right out my windows. Thank you for an informative post!

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:44:08 +0000

I must be blind or lost… where is the download for the “Freaky Raw Processing”?

There is no download, unless you haven’t downloaded Adobe Lightroom. You can see the Develop settings for each version in the associated screenshot. My point was not to package certain looks into precanned presets, but to encourage play with the sliders. The same settings that worked out interestingly for this photo may fall flat on another, and vice-versa. —Jeffrey

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:37:11 +0000

“Frankly, I’m not happy with my choice of “honest” and “artistic” here, because
one can certainly be both honest and artistic at the same time —”

One suggestion about your struggle of what to call the original photo would be “Reality”. That expresses what the scene, person, etc. actually look liked (assuming we took it right, or adjusted it to reflect the original reality). But another thought on this… a lot of photography is in some range of “artistic”. The tools we use in Photoshop & Lightroom give us a range of creativity to make that sunset scene above really grab the viewer, just as you did for me with “A”. Look at Ansel Adams. Despite all his lighting charts he developed, which were essential, his work would not have been what it is if it were not for his dodging & burning and other creative effects he did in the darkroom. So is his picture of half dome
“Honest” (or I like “Reality”) or is it “Artistic”? When we see it it feels and grabs us as reality alive! But it is certainly a great artistic work once one understands all he had to do to create that shot. Obviously there is a range as you say and some photographic works are clearly artistic. Even wedding photographers create a sense of the joy and beauty and wonder of that special day in the way they take the photos AND in the way they process them artistically with special tools. That’s the wonder and beauty of photography. Bringing people into a certain space, place & time the grabs the mind, heart & soul. Thanks for all your resources. I look forward to using this one.

By: Graham R

Graham R — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:48:30 +0000

I have to say, i love your site, it’s one of the ones i poke around when i have downtime at work, somehow i missed this post. The results you got were wonderful, and let me realise how much i’m missing in lightroom, any “over the top” post i was doing in 16bit psds, now i have a few presets to give similar results in lightroom (similar to your settings actually)

The “uber warm sunset” shot is an effect i do alot by hand in photoshop, i massaged your settings and came really close to something perfect. It’s the type of effect that lends itself really well to a photo of a brightly coloured, expensive car in a not-so-good neighbourhood.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/grahamrose/2230245067/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grahamrose/2230245903/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grahamrose/2231038738/

are three shots i gave it a go on.

Thanks for the kind words. It’d be interesting to see the originals these came from. I like the lighting your the 911 a lot, and wonder whether you have a shot of the lighting setup. If so, you might consider posting the triplet to the lighting setups pool. —Jeffrey

By: R Pedrosa

R Pedrosa — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:21:20 +0000

Going back to the diagrams and settings I realized that, in fact, D has much more contrast applied to it, so what I think I was mentioning above is the higher silhouette “contrast” in A, similar to some “unmasking” effect. As we can see from this example, techs FX do not necessarily translate into (subjective) visual FX as expected (my case, obviously, others may have seen immediately that D was more contrasty).

By: R Pedrosa

R Pedrosa — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:07:53 +0000

Nice post. I like the A and D, since I’m not into visual FX. One thing: from D, it seems that a little sharpening would do good to the image (you don’t mention any in your post), since the silhoutted part would be more in evidence. In fact, A looks sharper, but it could be just the result of increased contrast.

By: Arnaud

Arnaud — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 07:03:30 +0000

I would vote for H – Moonrise and A – Stylized. Martian sunset has a weird but not unpleasing atmosphere to it.

By: Marcina

Marcina — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 01:25:36 +0000

While “D Closer to Reality “ and “H Moonrise” are my favorite variations on your photo, I’m going to have to vote for “C Nuclear Winter” and “F “Velvet Elvis Moonrise” Painting” as my favorite titles.
Oh, you’re right about the duck cartoon. Gotta love it!