Photo editing can be difficult
This is an understatement, especially if you photograph indoor sports. Similar to outdoor sports with poor lighting (hello, high school football photographers! I see you!), dark locations can make your awesome shots look dull and lifeless. You must have tricks up your sleeve to bring the light, colors and detail out of your digital photos. I love learning editing tricks and picking up skills from other photographers. I think photographers are the best editors because we have the "eye" for the photos we take.
The photo above utilizes a few different photo editing skills. Clarity, vibrance, exposure, blacks, whites, contrast, texture, sharpness, highlights, shadows, cropping (and I think straightening) were all utilized in the editing of this photo. I did not run it through DeNoise in Lightroom but I definitely should, since the grain does show up. This photo was taken at 6:33 pm CST, so we were starting to lose daylight and were in a covered horse stall for the environment.
My camera settings were:
Nikon D5 with a 24-70 mm 2.8 Tamron lens
Shot at focal length of 56 mm
Aperture f/2.8, auto White Balance (WB)
Manual setting
ISO was 8000 (hence the grain)
With the information above, what would you do? What edits would you make? Would you change or improve the image above using the same choices that I made?
If you look at an image like this one, are you overwhelmed? Do you think "I could not make my dark image like that look like hers does"? Are you stuck with your edits? Let me know. I'd love to help you!
Do you know someone who needs my help? Send them THIS LINK!
