Here's an image that I processed in Aperture 3 and Lightroom 3. I processed them several days apart, just doing each one so it looked liked I wanted at the time. I did A3 first, then LR3 second. I compared them afterward and made a few minor tweaks on each image to make them more similar to each other. No real point to this other than to show that you can get similar results with either one once you get a good grasp on the tools.
Here's the original shot. It's the -1.67 EV shot from a bracketed series on a 50D. I chose the under exposed version because the sky was close to what I wanted and I find it easier to lift shadows than to bring down highlights.
I processed the image first in Aperture because that's currently my preferred editor.
- Straighten
- Adjust white balance
- Used levels to brighten the white point
- Used highlights & shadows to lift shadows in the grass. Done as a global adjustment, then masked out and used the brush tool to apply it only to the bottom portion of the image
- Used contrast brush to paint some contrast back into the grass
- Boosted saturation & vibrance
- Used curves to boost the highlights
- Used dodge brush to brighten the sand
- Added slight vignette
Here's the Lightroom version:
- Adjusted the white balance using the same numbers as Aperture. The two programs don't display colors the same even when using the exact settings, but it was pretty close in this image.
- Used the tone curve to lift shadows & darks.
- Used the tone curve to boost highlights.
- LR doesn't have a highlights & shadows tool, so I used the exposure gradient to lift the shadows in the grass. This resulted in a good bit more noise than the h&s tool did in Aperture, but also gave a better range of colors in the blades of grass.
- The exposure gradient got the sand where I wanted it, but it was a little much on the grass. Used the dodge and contrast brushes with negative values to bring the grass back down a little.
- Boosted saturation & vibrance.
- Added slight vignette
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