Publishers of technology books, eBooks, and videos for creative people

Home > Articles > Digital Photography > Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Vision & Voice: Refining Your Vision in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom — Bound

David duChemin walks you through the adjustments he made in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to a powerful photo of a woman praying in a Sufi shrine.
From the book

I shot “Bound” in Nizamuddin Darga, in Delhi, India. The darga is a shrine to a Sufi saint and is, at times, a magical and intense place. This woman had prostrated herself and was praying. The shackles on her wrists are promises she’s made to the saint or to Allah. It’s a simple image and in my mind’s eye it draws its power from the gesture, so my postprocessing work will go in that direction. There are some lovely earth tones in this image, and the photograph could work rendered in several ways, but I wanted fewer elements competing for the attention of the eye. So I rendered it in black and white.

Before I even touched this image I knew what I wanted from it. I wanted it in black and white, possibly a duotone. I wanted it to feel stark and a little harsh. This is not a gentle image. It’s an image with a woman pouring her heart out, and she’s physically, if not also metaphorically, in chains. And I wanted the eyes of the viewer to go where mine went—to the intersection of her hands and head, to the texture of her skin and the juxtaposition of the chains on an otherwise soft and feminine figure. That’s my starting point.

Correcting flaws in the image will be easy. The only thing I feel needs fixing in the original file is the slight skew; it’s just not straight, and the horizontal lines on the marble make this not only obvious but easy to fix.

Click the Crop Overlay tool, or just press R on your keyboard to bring it up. Now you can eyeball this—grab a corner of the image and rotate until straight—or you can use the Straighten tool. Click the icon for the Straighten tool to activate it, then click and drag it across the horizontal line of marble at the bottom of the image. Press Enter to make the change. This works great for any image in which there’s a line you know to be vertical or -horizontal—it takes the guesswork out of straightening an image.

Because I want to get straight to the black and white conversion for this image, and there’s not a lot of fancy tweaking I want to do with the exposure, I’ve used the Auto function in the Basic panel to get me to a starting point faster. I’ll come back later to tweak, but as you can see it gives me a good place to work from without doing anything weird to my histogram.

Before we do the black and white work, I’m also going to introduce a little more contrast to the image, this time with a simple Point Curve preset. Open your Tone Curve panel, go down to the bottom, and from the Point Curve drop-down menu select Strong Contrast. This is a decision made by preference—I like strong contrast in my black and white images—but it’s also specific to this image because I know that a stronger contrast is going to accentuate the stark feeling I want in this photograph. A gentler imager—something I wanted to be softer—would likely benefit from a softer contrast as well.

Now we’re ready to tweak this in black and white. Go down to the HSL/Color/B&W panel and click the B&W option. This immediately converts the image to a black and white representation of the underlying color file, but will keep those color channels intact, allowing you to push and pull the tonal values according to your tastes and vision for the image.

The default values will need some tweaking, but first take a moment to push each slider back and forth. You’ll notice the Red slider doesn’t affect much more than the dark skin of the woman’s arms. Orange also affects the arms but alters the tonal values of the marble and the woman’s covering, as does Yellow. Each slider makes subtle changes to the image. Take a moment to notice what each one does and which changes you might use to push and pull the eye of the viewer. Blue, for example, seems to really pop the chains if you pull the slider to the right.

The values I settled on came from this same exercise. I wanted the skin tones lighter so I pulled them back to 0. I noticed the Yellow slider introduced a moiré pattern into the woman’s garment, so I pulled it back to 0 as well. Green helped lighten the garment without reintroducing that moiré pattern. Aqua got reset to 0 because it didn’t do much for me. Blue, as you discovered, made the chains pop a little, and so I’ve pulled the slider to +60. The changes here are subtle but they’re important, and in images with more color you’ll notice the changes are less subtle.

Now that I’ve tweaked my black and white conversion, I’m ready to go back to the Basic panel to tweak the overall feel of the image. I’ll do this tweak now because shifting around the values in a conversion can affect the histogram, and it’s easier to fine-tune things after you’ve made the big shifts.

The last round of adjustments kept things pretty dark, so let’s bring the Brightness to +40 and the Fill Light to 20. Notice how the histogram reveals some clipping in both the shadows and highlights? Press J to reveal which shadows and highlights are being clipped. They’re few, and we can correct them later. Remember: fix the big issue first. In this case, it’s the need to brighten the image. The small bits of clipping are easily fixed with a brush or gradient filter later. While we’re here, pull the Clarity slider to +50 to pull a bit of focus to the textures in the shawl, the hands, the chains, and the marble.

The final tweaks will be made with two separate gradients. The first will be used to slightly burn the lower-left corner, the second to both darken and slightly defocus the dark slab of marble at the bottom of the image. I want to darken it to further anchor the image and give it more weight, and I want to slightly defocus it in order to make it less distracting. Again, subtle changes.

The first gradient is pulled from bottom left and up to the end of the first triangle of light with the Exposure at –.50 and Brightness at –20. The second is pulled from just inside the black strip of marble until it touches her little finger, with Exposure at –.50, Brightness at –30, and Clarity at –65. Hold the Shift key down as you drag the gradient and it’ll stay straight.

The image, as it is now, is where I stopped the first time. But the more I played with it the more I wanted two more things, so these are optional. I wanted to try pulling the eye even harder to the hands, chains, and folds of the cloak, and I wanted to introduce a subtle tone.

For the first, I simply painted in the changes I wanted. With my mask visible (the keyboard shortcut is the O key), I painted in a little Exposure, Contrast, and Sharpness, along with a maxed-out Clarity slider.

Lastly—and I really mean it this time—I used the Split Toning panel to create a slightly warm tone for the image. I chose warmer earth tones, kept the saturation quite low, and kept them evenly balanced. I’m still undecided on which of the final prints I like more, but the final image with the warmer tones and the slightly more dramatic hands and folds seems a little closer to what I felt about this scene to begin with.

Peachpit Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from Peachpit and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about Peachpit products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites; develop new products and services; conduct educational research; and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email ask@peachpit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by Adobe Press. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.peachpit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020