Baseball

Baseball on a sunny day

Nice action capture in #1, but I think it could use a little sharpening. In #2 I'd crop tighter to eliminate the sign on the right and I'd put some more light on their faces in post processing.

You don't need to get into too much detail, but how do I increase the light on faces without washing out other areas? (I am using Lightroom.)

Select your photo from your LR library, then in the upper right you'll see: Library Develop Map Book Slideshow Print Web.
Click Develop. Then you should see a histogram in the upper right. Below that a check box that says Original Photo. Below that is 6 different tools you can use to make adjustments. The tool on the far right is an adjustment brush - click it. Move your cursor into your image area to the left. You should see a circular shape. This is the brush. Make it smaller or larger with [or] keys (left or right bracket keys). Make it sized to fit the area (the face in this case) you want to adjust, then click over the area. You can move it around and paint different areas. Then use the Exposure slider to brighten or darken the area that you painted. Other sliders will also modify the painted area accordingly. That's the basics.

Qbx wrote in post #18385940
In #2 I'd crop tighter to eliminate the sign on the right and I'd put some more light on their faces in post processing.

Is this what you had in mind?

I think that you overdid it a bit, it looks unnatural. Either lower the exposure some or try again with lowered opacity on the brush.

Yes. That crop looks better, but you ended up with them in dead center of the frame. You could open up the space to the left, which is the direction they are looking and it would be more pleasing. You might also try to sharpen the guy's face on the left a bit. He seems to be slightly OOF, so it may not help. Although rrblint has a point, I doubt that the players would notice.

How about this?

Baseball is fun! Think about getting more of your subject(s) in focus by extending your depth of field. The firsr one looks out of focus, or maybe it's heat/haze causing me to think so. Also, if you can, move around to get a more pleasing or appropriate background. That could be difficult though.

Qbx wrote in post #18385991
....Move your cursor into your image area to the left. You should see a circular shape. This is the brush. Make it smaller or larger with [or] keys (left or right bracket keys). Make it sized to fit the area (the face in this case) you want to adjust, then click over the area. You can move it around and paint different areas. Then use the Exposure slider to brighten or darken the area that you painted. Other sliders will also modify the painted area accordingly. That's the basics.

What Qbx said, but I would use the shadows slider not the exposure slider. Lifting the shadows will even out the face, whereas Exposure will brighten both the shadow area and the bright area (which is already bright).

Now the composition looks right to me.