Pulling Detail out of the Shadows with Adobe Lightroom

Jeff many thanks for the tutorial, I will be using your tips on my “failed images”. Just as an aside do you use an external noise reduction plug in and if so which one. Many thanks

George Osborne

Great series of posts. I actually did this very same thing recently (although by accident). I hit the “Auto” button on Lightroom as I normally do to just get a baseline. What I thought was a silhouette had a surprising amount of details in the “shadows.” I even took it one step further and did some tests about how much of the resultant noise could be removed with various applications:

Here’s the original shot compared to the recovered shot:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rpsommers/3978210625/sizes/o/

Noise in a 1:1 crop:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rpsommers/3978210625/sizes/o/

Same after using Lightroom’s noise removal:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3476/3978327809_6529b6c81f_o.png

Same, but using PS4′s noise removal instead:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2573/3979089650_f49844a799_o.png

Same, but using NoiseNinja noise removal:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3119/3979079738_3f4b79a067_o.png

And finally, the same, but using Noiseware noise removal:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2556/3979079472_7bede7d147_b.jpg

I’m consistently amazed with the dynamic range of the new 5D mark ii compared to previous cameras I’ve used.

Just not my day… original shot:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3118/3978210625_ebe390409b_o.png

I’ll drink some caffeine before commenting anymore, I promise.

Great Tutorial Jeff, I’ve got a pretty working knowledge of LR2 but seeing things like this really expands my abilities. Appreciate you taking the time to make it and show us.