Need help with learning Camera Raw

[gillybro]

I have CS4 and Lightroom 2 and am trying to learn how a good adjustment should look when using camera raw on my photos. I have this photo which I adjusted and the one before adjusting in my gallery here at PP. Feel free to give me feedback. Thanks

Gil

http://www.proudphotography.com/gallery/data/34/thumbs/Family_Photo01011910.jpg (http://www.proudphotography.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/12799)
http://www.proudphotography.com/gallery/data/34/thumbs/MG_0083.JPG (http://www.proudphotography.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/12797)

[Kaye]

Gil, nice shot. I don't shoot in raw, but as far as post editing goes, I feel the first shot is better, but still needs a touch more exposure/brightness, especially on the faces. The faces are probably better in shot two.

[gillybro]

Thanks, Kaye. I didn't realize how much the sky would blow out the shot so the camera overexposed my shot. Now that I am 280 miles away from where I took it, I had to see if I could fix it in Raw. If I increase exposure more it blows out the sky. Would appreciate comments on how to set my camera when in AP mode when it tends to blow out the sky like this.
Thanks again to you. I'm open to more comments.

[StephenK]

Hi Gil :^)

This was a surprisingly challenging image to tackle. I'm posting both the final image from this undertaking and a
copy of the Photoshop workflow that resulted.

I'm using channels masks and blending modes and adjusting transparency among the layers as I proceed.

I actually ended up using your version of the sky from your darker print because I couldn't get my own version to
play-along without serious banding taking place... I recon you did the original edit within the Raw editor? You can
see where I turned the Eye off in my sky layer in favor of your version...
There were also a lot of Jpg artifacts that were present that were amplified by the fixes I applied.

Also... "Layer 5" is a 50% gray layer set to "Overlay"... black=darkens, white=lightens.... brush transparency controls
the weight of the effect... I love using this for dodging and burning!

I love the picture! I'm still not completely thrilled with the final version of this edit.. and I'm not sure if it
could be fixed in the Raw editor window the way the full resolutioned image could be approached within photoshop itself...?

Hope this is helpful...! :^)

[gillybro]

Thank you for the workflow. I think you have it as good as can be expected. I'll have to watch my exposure next time I try a similar shot.
Thanks again.