If you've been following along with my blog, "Raw Unedited"/by KLMoore, thanks!  I wanted to give you a sneak peek on what I've been working on for the next blog.  

Before&AfterDurango This is the image that I posted on Facebook a few weeks ago and what we'll be looking at, on how to create this in Lightroom.  So, if you've been waiting for this, then it's coming.  It should roll out later this week or next week at the latest.  I'm trying to figure out the little screen shots I need to go with it.

One of the things that I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs is to always be learning new things.  One of the things that I've really learned a lot about in LR is how to better use the Adjustment Brush tools.  I'm really appreciating more of the little nuances that LR offers to do things to tweak my images, that before, I could only do in Photoshop. 

Here is one of my favorite images that I've had on my logo and web site since I first shot this picture six-months ago:

IMG_8486-2 I love this image, but there was always just something about it that I felt like I could do better, but just really didn't know how to approach it.  So, last night, I decided to pull this back in LR4 and look at correcting some of the things that bothered me about it, like the glare on the glass of the store front, just over the fender of the car.  It was always a hot-spot for me that every time I looked at this picture, my eye was immediately drawn to it.  Another thing that always bothered me too were the reds on the store front just weren't the deep reds that I remembered.  Plus, there was too much noise showing on the car that produced little purple specks that I didn't like and the glow of one of the neon signs was too bright that made it look kind of like a blob of light and not a sign.  Like I said, it's just the little things that I wanted to work on to try and get back my original image that I saw that night.

Here's the result of last night:

I used the Adjustment Brush tool to re-work some of the items that I mentioned above.  I also worked with the Noise Reduction tool to get rid of some of the "noise" that bothered me in the car itself.  The best part was that by "double-baking" the image in LR (we'll talk about that too later), I was able to pull out more of the details in the shadows and even pull out some colors in front of the car that was lost before.

So, what was good six-months ago, is better today.  At least in MY opinion it is and I like it (so if you don't, then too bad).  That's why learning new things is really a lot of fun.  Plus, I learned a new tool in PS6 that I ABSOLUTELY love and gave me the opportunity to correct another image that I loved, but there was just this little nagging piece about it that I didn't like.  Now, it's fixed.  Hmmmm, that might be a good blog too.

Thanks again for tuning in.  Comments, suggestions or ideas are always appreciated.  Stay tuned for the "how-to" on the sports image, it's coming.