Wedding Photographer Lawrence Kent in Columbia SC and Augusta GA

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February 26, 2010

Before + After Friday – #003

Here’s this Friday’s Before and After shot.

This shot is from a wedding I did my very first year shooting weddings. It’s one of my favorite parting shots ever. It was very dark with the exception of the sparklers. It was also before I started shooting in the RAW format. Straight JPEG. Here we go!!

The original SOOC (Straight Out Of The Camera). A little dark.

First, because it was jpeg I decided to open it in Adobe Camera Raw. I added some exposure and brightness to slowly bring up the light. Then added some fill light for the shadows. I also increased the contrast to balance some of the fill and finally a bit of vibrance for color.

The next step I used the Yin/Yang action from the Totally Rad Action set and painted on the brides dress and painted darkness into the background. Now it’s looking good.

The last step after resizing the image for the blog was the add a little Magic Sharp from Kubota.

Now when the image looks pretty darn good now and natural expression and happiness in their faces is what really made the photo.

Take care,

Kent

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February 19, 2010

Before + After Friday – #002

This week’s before and after is one of my favorites. It’s the brides bouquet from a wedding I shot in May of 2009. I love the yellow in this photo and the gritty texture of the walls where the bride got ready. Here’s a Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop adjustments I made to take this photo from good to great.

Here’s the SOOC camera shot. A little warm from the tungsten lights.

I really didn’t do anything in Photoshop CS4 on this one. Everything was non-destructively edited in Adobe Lightroom. I added just a bit of exposure and blacks. Then to balance the warmness of the photo I set the white balance to auto and then adjusted it up a tiny bit to the warm side.

Next, I added some fill light to fill in the shadows a bit and added a medium to strong vignette. I also added a small amount of blacks as well.

I then exported the image from Lightroom and opened it in Photoshop and applied the Kubota Magic Sharp at 50%. That’s it! VIOLA!!

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February 13, 2010

Augusta Snow Days

On Friday afternoon, Augusta, Georgia got around 5 to 7 inches of snow. Something very rare. The kids were out of school early and waited eagerly for the snow to hit. And once it did and snowed and snowed and snowed. Here’s some of the images from Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.

NOTE: I’m trying out a new slideshow style for displaying my images. I’ll still be posted regular images but wanted try it this new way.

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View My Online Portfolio : Contact Lawrence Kent : Follow me on Twitter : Be My Friend on Facebook

February 12, 2010

Before + After Friday – #001

People ask me all the time, “How did you get your photos to look like that?”. To tell you the truth, not much. I don’t do a ton of work in Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Photoshop on my images. I firmly believe in getting the image as close to how I want it in camera. Editing hundreds and thousands of photos at a time requires lots of time and that’s time I just sometimes don’t have. I need to be able to shoot the photos and run a quick exposure and white balance adjustment on images to then get them online for the client to see. The photos that I present to clients in the proofing gallery are just that – proofs. It’s not until a custom orders a print or album that begin an extensive Lightroom and Photoshop session on those.

I also do a full edit on the images that appear on my blog. It’s usually a selection of my favorites from an engagement session or wedding. That does take some time, but over the years even gotten very efficient at it and I know the look I want for my images and since there very close to how want them out of camera 95% of the time, I churn those out somewhat quickly.

I’ve been wanting the start a weekly post showing some before & after shots and explain how got from beginning to end. This is the first post of the series and it’s from an engagement session I shot last spring for a couple who got married in May 2009. The photo was taken at the Savannah Rapids Park in Augusta, GA. Enjoy.

Here’s the straight out of the camera (SOOC) shot with no adjustments.

First, I started in Adobe Lightroom with a bump exposure. Just a little bump. Nothing too harsh. Then I increased the darkness in the shadows and added some vibrance to make the blues, yellows and greens pop.

Next, I added a vignette to darken the edges bring your attention to the subjects. I also removed some facial spots with the spot tool. After that I exported the image and opened it in Photoshop CS4.

In Photoshop, I use two distinct action sets – The Kubota Imaging Tools by Kevin Kubota and the Totally Rad Actions from Doug Boutwell. I used Oh Snap at 36% (with Defog at 0% and Contrast at 23% inside Oh Snap), Lighten via Screen at 12%, Derelicte at 20% and Warm It Up Kris @ 24%. After those action adjustments I flattened the image and ran my image prep action to resize and apply the border and watermark to the image. The final step is to apply the Kubota Magic Sharp at 25% to sharpen it.

That’s it. Took me about 6 minutes to complete. This was a relatively easy image for before and after. Others are a little more intensive with retouching and smoothing skin, brightening eyes, reducing wrinkles and boosting eye brightness. If you’re interested in the action sets referenced above, check out the two banners below.

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February 3, 2010

ProPhoto Blog Theme

I get asked at least a few times a week about my blog and who designed it and how it’s run. Now I could into to this long dissertation about Wordpress on a Linux server and custom CSS and PHP code but usually 99% of the time I proudly tell them that the good folks over at ProPhoto Blogs designed the theme and appearance options and the people at Wordpress designed the actual backend administration area.

I been using ProPhoto Blogs since version 1 and Wordpress since version 1.5 (of something close to that). It’s the most stable, most flexible, most user-friendly system around.

So if you’re looking for a custom blog or blogsite, head on over to ProPhoto Blogs and get yourself a custom theme for Wordpress. Use code LAWKEN334 during checkout to receive $10 off your purchase. Below is an overview of the theme ProPhoto offers. They even offer a 110% money back guarantee. Check it out!

ProPhoto 2.0 Blog from jared on Vimeo.

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