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Help - I've been using lightroom cc for a while but am having a difficult time making this image pop. It was taken on a cloudy day and it is just flat and boring. I've tried all kinds of things but am looking for suggestions/samples. Every once in a while I get one like this and it just drives me crazy. I did use ocf flash but obviously it and other things just didn't go right. This would be a throw out pic but would like to see if there is a way to make it saveable?? The sky in the background doesn't help but it's there and I need to work with it. You can probably tell but I did begin with trying the radial filter and reduced the exposure around the subject and I played with the exposure/shadows/highlights sliders but that's as far as I got. And yes, her hands look darker than the rest of her but they are completely outside of the radial filter so I'm not sure what's going on there....I'll worry about that later.
Looking for suggestions.
Thank You, Thank You.
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Try cropping the image tighter to get closer to the subjects face. The background isn't very compelling. Bring out her eyes using the iris adjustment brush. Increase the contrast using the tone curve - set to medium contrast. Bring up the vibrance. Post your second attempt For comparison.
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Okay, I cropped and edited the tone curve and made brush adjustments. Any other suggestions for edits?
NOTE: the image doesn't look right within the post (looks over-sharpened) but look at it full size and it's better.
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Here is an alternate... she is a beautiful subject. Her hands hanging indelicately aren't the strongest part of the image. I want to get closer to her face and look into her eyes. Tilting the image just a bit conveys a different attitude, tone, a subtle vignette frames her face, a bit of softness on her skin, a bit of tweaking on the color balance... it may be too far away from your original thought when you shot this but I saw this when I looked at the first time.
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Here's my take.