This week's picture was sent to me by someone who I was lucky enough to "meet" as we were partnered for a Christmas Swap. Mandy of
Mandy's Marvelous Musings sent me this cute picture of her nephew.
To edit this picture I used both Aperture-as I do love the sharpening tool in it and mostly Lightroom. Really, one of these weeks I will use something else promise! So here are the original and finished pictures top to bottom.
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vNZL7ro7Hg8B08plOaKO_kzWFn259diC5TtO6o6_1I-wp3M8hRs73Kd1un-LWYe5017N6vZI5iY5MHDwrH5ygpvp-vXJ8AuYvchRfif0vZCbhxm1gSaaAiaEeRVg=s0-d)
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uxuoPwaq_3nI3dqq7z_T0BHLzpndnPjzTMCDsMRHEA39ZjYFGiaXc1hvq05wfzi_VrvDf9VyIX4-5dAbSJgUSbyqhL3flDgsXPzj7UlVHpwKzJRGvKLU5X8qCrgMs=s0-d)
The original picture wasn't completely sharp, her shutter speed was probably not quite high enough for the amount of light. So something I find that can often work for pictures that aren't as sharp as you want them is to make it black and white.
One of the great things about Lightroom is a lot of the presets that you can get for it. Sometimes though when you click on a preset you might think it isn't quite right.
So I first cropped the picture just a tiny bit-to help it fit the rule of third's a bit better. And then I used the preset B&W Creative-Look 2 and this is what I got
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vw0dT9n3uVg2H6_foWEVJw0cUkropgMT6e_1-BQoUibYmqaa8aQHnFDTg7MBgLqDT7TVOERkm6ew9ndflJC-CaeAyBVzV_q7zOc35jWTxNYzt_LICoUsbrnAU-uheXwQ=s0-d)
Obviously way overexposed. Now at this point I could either undo this and chose a different preset or I can just work with this, which is what I did.
I then went and decreased the exposure by almost a whole stop (.75), I adjusted the highlight recovery and then continued just playing with the exposure a bit. I also sharpened the picture a bit (almost always a must for any picture you will be showing online anyway), added some clarity, and then added a slight darkening vignette around the edges.
And just for fun here is the same picture with the Preset Summer love and some vignette
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_shx4Z8KKzqJkuuogvXAuaBxKT-yi66E3oMwGxYuUJH5B0hG7lX7kqRdI6oFJQ9-3GYNMM0AFBbhxWYIo-U3g6pEmTkFdZyMxK1dmM-pvKfN7d132RFuwE17jtbH0L28A=s0-d)
So quick easy fixes, mainly using just presets that can make a very cute picture totally adorable.