Playing in the sandbox - post processing

[adamhiram]

When it comes to taking photos of my family, I’ve adopted the mantra “you get what you get and you don’t get upset”. I’d rather be in the moment and get a few snapshots than make every experience about the photos. As such, I wind up with a lot of photos taken in less than ideal conditions that allow me to hone my post-processing skills.

The photos below are of my son playing in his new sandbox. The lighting is harsh, taken at the worst time of day, with the subject complete shadow and the highlights mostly blown out. Both of these were shot using an ultra-wide lens with distortion corrected using the transform guide tool in Lightroom.

For this first shot, I exposed for the highlights so there would still be some detail in the background, and I made sure to shoot at the base ISO to allow for maximum shadow recovery. After fixing the distortion and cropping in, my editing consisted of 3 steps:

• I edited the overall photo, knowing I would go back and edit the subject separately.
• I edited the subject using the adjustment brush, increasing shadows, highlights, whites, contrast, and adding back a little saturation. The goal was to get more light on the subject while keeping the lighting realistic so he doesn’t look comped in.
• Lastly, I significantly reduced the highlights and did some burning on the grass, fence, and sky on the left side of the photo so the viewer’s eye doesn’t just go straight to the brightest part - the overexposed midday yard.

20190629-DSC_3117b by adamhiram, on Flickr

For reference, here is the original SOOC:


20190629-DSC_3117-sooc by adamhiram, on Flickr

I decided to try again using an on-camera speed light for fill to better balance the subject’s exposure with the ambient light in the background. I shot from a different angle, and am a little irked that this resulted in the foreground being a bit out of focus (it is less than 12” away) and a little more subject distortion, but I think it gave better results overall. I don’t love the on-axis hard light look, but off-camera flash in a modifier seemed a bit excessive for a snapshot of a kid playing in a sandbox.

After correcting for distortion and cropping slightly, I just did some basic edits and some subtle dodging and burning to highlight the subject while de-emphasizing the foreground objects.


20190630-DSC_3196a by adamhiram, on Flickr

Any comments, feedback, or other discussion is welcome!

 

[Jeff15]

Your edits look good to me.............

 

[Derrel]

I am viewing these from my cell phone which is a pretty good screen. Overall I would say that your edits look pretty good. You are right, the lighting is harsh, but it looks pretty realistic. I think your attitude toward family photos is the correct one to have… Resisting the urge to make every photo opportunity about the photos is the right course of action.