How to Save a Terribly Lit Portrait in Adobe Lightroom
We have all taken a shot where the flash didn’t fire, we didn’t have any lighting for a sudden moment, or we just made a mistake. If the image is particularly nice in other regards, it can be disappointing. So, here’s how you can save portraits that aren’t well lit using Adobe Lightroom.
There are some mistakes that are borderline unrecoverable from, even with today’s exceptionally malleable raw files. For example, if you have blown out all the highlights there is little you can do to recover the detail. However, it’s rare that an image is so far off of the right settings that there’s nothing you can do with it, and that’s more applicable today than ever before.
When I bought my first DSLR, I immediately shot in raw after I was told to by an experienced photographer, and I’m glad he took the time to make me. However, the amount of flex in older raw files is tantamount to what you can do with JPEGs in many ways. You were able to raise the shadows a little or the overall exposure, but any dramatic changes came at the price of noise and artefacts all over the image. Now, the raw files have so much information, that a modern camera can shoot 2 or 3 stops under the correct exposure — and in some cases even more than that — and recover it in post to the point where it’s unnoticeable.
In this video, our friend, Pye Jirsa of SLR Lounge, teams up with Adorama to show how he made an underexposed, poorly lit portrait into something worth posting.
Posted In: LightroomPortraitsPost Productionvia:Adorama 4 COMMENTS
Robert K Baggs is a professional portrait and commercial photographer, educator, and consultant from England. Robert has a First-Class degree in Philosophy and a Master’s by Research. In 2015 Robert’s work on plagiarism in photography was published as part of several universities’ photography degree syllabuses.robertkbaggs.comMore from Robert K Baggs
- Hidden Algorithms in Adobe Photoshop for Easy Color Correction
- A Better Way to Increase the Dynamic Range of Your Final Image
MORERELATED ARTICLES
LIGHTING / February 11, 2021Save a Portrait in Lightroom When the Light Isn’t Right
LIGHTROOM / February 8, 2021Create Incredible Sunset Photos With Editing in Lightroom
EDUCATION / January 25, 2021Five Creative Editing Tips in Lightroom
LIGHTROOM / January 23, 2021How I Edited This Portrait in Lightroom
PREMIUM PHOTOGRAPHY TUTORIALS
Check out the Fstoppers Store for in-depth tutorials from some of the best instructors in the business.Fstoppers Introduction to Adobe LightroomThe Ultimate Crash CourseWith Pye JirsaPhotography 101How to Use Your Digital Camera and Edit Photos in PhotoshopWith Lee Morris
4 COMMENTS
Matthias Dengler – 12 hours ago NEW
The skin tones look like she’s a tomato.
Alexander Petrenko Matthias Dengler – 9 hours ago NEW
How to set your white balance form a white shirt and not see how it messed everything.
Yan Pekar – 7 hours ago [Edited] NEW
It could be that the photo was taken just for the purpose of the video. If not then it is not just a terribly lit portrait, but also a terribly chosen location – with overexposed pieces on the ground, too many things on the sides and on the background…in this case, yes, – it is possible to correct the lighting but it would not save the photo, as the lighting is not the only thing which is wrong on this photo.
Andrew Eaton – 6 hours ago [Edited] NEW
Really not convinced of his method, depending on the camera you took the shot on, using capture one not Lightroom (hate Lightroom) use the High Dynamic Range Highlight tool to compress the highlights and take info from the raw files dynamic range, a bit of work on levels and a adjustment layer on the skin with a colour temp and tint. Very quick edit..
Myron Edwards 