In this edit I chose to desat­u­rate the warm tones and added blue to the shad­ows. This was shot with 2 lights. Main light on the left with a grid and a dif­fused fill light on the right — hit­ting the back­ground just enough to have him pop­ping out.

There was an idea brought up among pho­tog­ra­phers over in a Face­book group. The idea was to share images show­ing “before” and “after” retouch­ing. I thought I’d also share it here on my blog as well.

For me the next best thing after shoot­ing is the edit­ing stage. I use Light­room and Pho­to­shop in my work­flow. In this image I adjusted the lev­els to punch up the con­trast and toned it much warmer. I also edited a few areas in the skin and took out the logo on the bag. The edits enhanced the mood and cre­ates a bet­ter impact.

Even if it’s a minor lev­els adjust­ment — no image goes untouched from the RAW stage.