This Friday we have an image of Lauren taken in the wonder winter land of Michigan. Great photo! Bad lighting :(

Original photo of Lauren in snowy Michigan.

Original photo of Lauren in snowy Michigan.

The fixes:

1) Overall, we have an underexposed image, so we need to fix that exposure!
2) Recover those shadow details. You will see the details in Lauren’s hair really pop!
3) Great shot in the falling snow, but we can barely make it out. Let’s get that snow fall to pop too!
4) The overall photo is “soft” or “fuzzy” in the facial details, so we’ll sharpen at the end!


Step 1 & 2: Fix the exposure and recover those shadow details

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Click image to see settings detail.


The majority of the fixing on this image was done in Viveza 2 in the following order:

1) Before anything else, the Global setting for brightness was set. This image called for around 35%.
2) A control point was added to a large falling flake. Brightness was bumped and structure was bumped (this helped get detail out of the falling snow).
3) A control point was added to the blue in Lauren’s eye with brightness bumped a bit and saturation bumped.
4) A control point was added to the center of the facial area and the brightness was reduced to counteract the global setting. Structure setting was bumped to begin the process of sharpening the face.
5) A control point was set on the teeth to help lighten with brightness increased. To keep the teeth white, the saturation was reduced.

Step 3: Bring out some more detail in the snow

Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro was used next with two filters applied. The first was Tonal Contrast which helped bring out the details in the falling snow and in the background. A control point was added to Lauren’s head with an Opacity setting of 0%. This simply means the filter was applied to everything but Lauren’s facial features.

The Darken/Lighten Center filter was added next and set to darken the edges with just a little brighten at center.

Step 4: Sharpen!

The final step was to use Nik Software’s Output Sharpener. The settings were backed off from the default for this image, it just needed a touch of sharpening:

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The final image!

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How about we edit a photo of yours?

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