How I edit my music shots

So following from this thread I thought I would share how I process my images and more of the technical side. I chose this image from Global Gathering last year which features Rita Ora

Here is the original




Heres the final result




Its not the best of images but shows what can be done under really difficult conditions.

K-5 mkii
DA* 16-50mm
43mm
ISO 1600
f/2.8
1/1250

This shoot was really tricky, lots of backlighting strobe lit
Rita is well known for running around the stage so high shutter speed was needed hence the under exposure
Also red light boo

In lightroom working through the develop module
in this order

Exposure +2
Contrast +57
Black -9
Clarity +5
Saturation -15
Color reduce red saturation -27
Sharpening
Amount 59 I usually go no more than 70
Radius 1.2
Detail 42
Masking I always apply a minimum of 85 I only want he edges to eb sharp this image had 88 applied
Noise reduction
Luminance 26
Detail 50
Contrast 12
Apply lens profile correction
Finally crop and export

Gary, thanks.

What WB were you set to? if you know?

Colourwise, taking the saturation and red down, were you going for accuracy/vivid on the pink she was wearing but altering the red light as a by product?

Do you ever use lightroom masking?

Cheers, I've linked in to that other thread.

Curious about the sharpening in the middle rather than at the end?

WB set to auto on camera sometimes altar it but not on this image
Yes trying to correct skin tones and the outfit

Sharpening tends to altar the noise so I prefer to leave it until last

Thanks Gary for this workflow, very detailed and informative. Regarding the Sharpening, as you are using LR I would assume that the order of any of the adjustments you make, sharpening included, makes absolutely no difference to the end output? I'm guessing that ChrisA was thinking about the effect of seeing the sharpening earlier on and how that might affect the later adjustments?

The idea of sharpening at the very end, as a quality maximizing ideal, only applies to pixel based editing (ie in Photoshop or the Elements Editor).

Would you say that AWB is the best to use in mixed lighting generally? I'm assume it would be very difficult to pick any other suitable preset or create a custom setting that would cover many shots?

I work that way trough the developing module from top to bottom, I understand Lightroom was designed like that. Sometimes I might go back to adjust blacks or whites or contrast.

I always use AWB and sometimes need to tweak under led but very rarely.

I think the sharpening will be done at the end during the Export process. When you "develop" in LR it is screen based until you perform the export and create the concrete output. Nothing is done to the original RAW/DNG and a delta table must be held in the LR database detailing what alterations have been made. The output is disconnected from the act of editing, so you can make as many adjustments in whatever order but this is abstracted from the export engine. (I think)

What always gets me in the export process is the other sharpening options for screen, matt paper, low medium etc. Extra sharprning on top of the sharpening I know I saw on the screen.

Yes but the original processes are aeen on screen during the edit. The sharpening for paper media is not as harsh as for screen.

Thoughtful of you to share your insight and much appreciated.

When sharpening I only do a minimum amount and what I do sharpen I use the alt key to show how much sharpening is being applied, this is particularly important for the masking part as I don't want to sharpen the background.

The same goes for the noise reduction I don't want to soften the sharpening to much so again use the ALT key to see how much is being applied.

As for white balance on pre k-5 Pentax cameras they always seemed to have trouble metering the white balance correctly and always seems to cold so I used to set it around 6000k but the k-5 got better at metering the white balance so always used AWB, anything to reduce time.

This shoot was at 2:30am on a Friday night / Saturday morning so the less I can reduce editing the better. Around this shot there where around 3 shots each side that had similar requirements so these settings where then synced except for the crop of course.



Not sure what that is do you mean in the sharpening?

You've answered above, just wondered if you used masking to adjust areas or trimmed your work flow to the extent that all adjustments were global. Silly question really.

Correct. It makes no difference in what order you make adjustments in Lightroom as the whole thing is recalculated every time you make another adjustment. These recalculations are done on the preview image.

I leave the Detail module ( Sharp/Noise reduction ) switched off until I've done all the other edits as the recalculating NR and sharpening everytime slows things down, especially when using local adjustment brushes




It probably just adds a value to the same algorithm during export. I have it set to LOW for my exports

I would have added some local adjustment work in lightroom to bring out the skin tones and the jewellery. Rough edit ... before and after

Like it, I probably would have done that later if I chose an image to posts on forums and social media

Thanks for sharing, Gary. I was a bit surprised (and impressed) that all the editing was done in Lightroom, and none in PS.