I took this photo of my daughter last night and it needed a lot of rescuing. I wanted to share the method I used to fix this shot with you all because – let’s face it – even the best of us need a little rescuing from time to time!

{How I Took it}

I took this in my very dimly lit front room using my Canon 7D and a Lightscoop. Camera was set on auto due to laziness. The settings were:

  • ISO400
  • 18-200mm lens at 40mm
  • f/4.5
  • 1/60th sec.

{How I edited it}

LIGHTROOM

  • Imported RAW into Lightroom
  • Adjusted exposure (up)
  • Clarity (up)
  • Brightness (up)
  • Temperature (cooler, but still keeping it warm)
  • Cropped
  • Lightened shadows
  • Lessened blown-out highlights (using both the recovery slider and the highlights slider)
  • Used an adjustment brush for her skin to undo the amped up clarity from the third step. My personal skin adjustment brush is clarity somewhere around -45 and brightness at +4
  • Exported files as DNG to maintain the edits I’d applied, but keep the file from being compressed into a jpg.

PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS (PSE)

  • In PSE, I ran the enhance > adjust sharpness amount 69% (this will depend on your photo of course)
  • I then ran the MCP Eye Doctor action on her eyes (this is the most magical of actions I will never be without it!)
  • After completing the action, I flattened the image
  • Duplicated background layer at ‘soft light’ 35% just for a little added contrast
  • The top layer, I applied a fliter > gaussian blur to add a little glow
  • Used the eraser to erase the top layer/gaussian blur away from her sharp-as-a-tack eyes
  • I could have removed the crumbs but I think they’re cute

Voila!

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