Lightroom has more tricks up its sleeve than simple photo fixes such as exposure and contrast. It’s possible to craft images inside Lightroom and, in many ways, the tools in Lightroom make the task easier than it would be in Photoshop or another editing program.

In this post I’ll show you a way to turn a relatively hum drum image into something much more visually exciting. So, when you don’t get the image you want straight out of the camera see if, armed with some simple Lightroom tools, you can coax some better results from it. Remember too that this is a creative technique – you’re not looking for realism as much as a way to create a different look for your image.

Step 1

Start out with an image that has what I call …

When you’ve been using a program like Photoshop for a length of time, you begin to develop a wish list of things you’d like to see in future versions. Sometimes these are addressed by new releases and sometimes they’re not.

Now I know Photoshop CS5 has just been released but there are still things on my wish list that aren’t in Photoshop. Here are some things I’d like to see in the next version of Photoshop:

1. Clarity

While Vibrance, which first made its appearance in Lightroom, has now been included as an adjustment in Photoshop, Clarity has not yet made the grade – it’s available in Camera Raw but not in Photoshop itself.

In Lightroom and ACR the Clarity slider lets you adjust the midtone contrast and it gives a much needed

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A Guest Post by Nick Rains.

Using metadata correctly means that images can be fully catalogued and images can be retrieved at any time without necessarily knowing which folder the file is in. King Penguins, Macquarie Island – Canon 5D MkII, 300f2.8L 1/500 second @ f5.6.

Filing

Where do you actually put your image files?

Do you file images in folders with meaningful names like “Sydney 01-01-2010” and “Perth 11-03-2010”, or “Flowers” or some such. What if it’s a picture of a flower in Perth; which folder would you put it in? Or would you put it in both? This is a physical filing system, not unlike literal files in a literal filing cabinet. It can serve as a filing system but it neglects the …

Subjects who wear eye glasses can offer a unique difficulty for photographers. First, there’s the dilemma of whether they should wear them or not (will they not feel & look like themselves without them? Are they hiding fabulous eyes behind those glasses?) And then there’s the problem of glare and reflection. An attentive photographer will pay attention to this factor, but it does cause issues and where a photo might be perfectly composed and lit, but a little glare in the glasses can throw the whole thing off.

{An Ounce of Prevention}

So first, I offer a few tips to prevent glare so you can see those eyes. Then, I’ll give you a quick little tip for how I use editing software to soften the blow of glare when it does …

Destructive editing. Do the very words make you shudder? For many, the main rule of editing is to avoid destruction at all costs. So today, we’re going to talk about dodging and burning the non-destructive way.

For beginners, dodging and burning are tools in Photoshop and other editing programs which darken (burn) or lighten (dodge) desired areas. The problem with the tools is that they can’t be used on transparent layers and must be used on the actual image. This has a few problems:

• It destroys pixels
• You can’t create a transparent layer and dodge/burn on it, your work can’t be masked for easy ‘undoing’
• Although you can’t do it on a transparent layer, you can duplicate the layer, add a mask and dodge/burn that layer but this increases the file size

The way I …