Before and After: Dreamy Edit

I want to share a tutorial on how I get a dreamy effect using my own Lr presets, some brush work, and Snap Art 3.

This is the final image:

This image was a little too saturated for the look I was trying to create right out of the camera.

Before:

This image isn't horrible, but it has a large blown out area in the front due to the strong sun coming from a window on camera right.  I decided to blur this out with a white vignette (yes, I said that!).  If you are a member of Clickin Moms, you can see a funny tutorial about what NOT to do with this vignetting option in Lr! 

The first thing I did was to run my Love Stands Still Soft Matte Preset in Lr:

This preset created muted tones and softened the blown spots. This preset is available for free to Clickin Moms members in the Pay it Forward section.


Then I did some brush work. I painted some saturation on the lips and some clarity on the eye lashes using the adjustment brush in Lr.

I added a wee bit of white vignette to smooth out the sun-washed areas by using the Post Crop Vignetting under "Effects" in Lr.

I then brought the image into Snap Art 3 and added an oil painting effect:

Then I brought it back into Lr and warmed it up just a tiny bit, added a bit more contrast, and exported the file.

I finished the edit with a quick soft light layer in PS set to 50% opacity. :)

creative landscape: before and after

I like to show how I do what I do sometimes. :) Here is a before and after from yesterday.

I saw this little tree on my drive home and thought it would be a nice subject.

The image was underexposed due to the bright sun that was near the tree. I underexposed and I used the Gradient tool in Lightroom to selectively bring up the exposure on the bottom of the frame.  After that, I cropped to a square and used the Distortion tool under the Lens Corrections to bow the horizon a little bit.

The image was finished with a bit of added exposure and a few swipes of a pretty teal color with the adjustment brush at low flow.

A Before and After

A before and after....