Everybody's doin' it.

Post processing their photos....I mean.  You know when you see gorgeous photos taken by professional photographers and wonder why they are so breathtaking??  Well...aside from knowing how to take great shots, having fabulous equipment, and a good eye...professional photographers edit their pictures.  Gasp!  I know.  Who knew?

Something else you may not know...our computer crashed and burned a few days ago.  As in...went to sleep and never woke up.  Sucky.  So, we gave up on PCs and converted to a Mac.  Fortunately, it had been acting funky so I saved all my pictures on an external hard drive the week before.  (Thanks be to God.)  So now that I lost my editing software (Photoshop Elements), I have been searching for the software that I really want.  The good news is....I found it!!  Adobe Lightroom!!  I'm currently using a 30 day trial.  I've played with it for one day and am in love.  Love, love, love!!!  The bad news is...it's so freakin' expensive!!  I'll probably never be able to afford to buy it.  

FYI....My birthday is April 12th.  I will be accepting cash donations to my Lightroom Fund.  Cash, checks, PayPal transfer....it's all good.

So....wanna see some of my edits?  Please, puh-lease keep in mind that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing.  These images are just from me playing around...I'm quite lost, really.

Here is a picture taken of Jackson in 2005 from a "point and shoot" camera.  This one is the "straight out of camera" shot:

And here is the edit from Lightroom:

I think that's crazy!  I took a grainy, dark, underexposed shot and brought it back to life!  (Now imagine if I actually knew what I was doing...)  Now let's look at a picture of Miss F.  This one I actually edited in Photoshop Elements.  

 And now Lightroom...creamy, smooth skin.  Yummy!!

 Another PSE edit.  (I clearly don't know how to use it either.  So frustrating.)

And the Lightroom edit...creamy, dreamy, yummy baby!

 And so you can't steal it and print it at home....(sorry, Mom.  Just playing.  As if I am a real business with a real name.  Ha!)

 I also did one of Jackson.  I love this picture...but it was very orangey.  (If that is a word.)  In PSE I just could not figure out how to pull the orange out of his skin.

 Now in Lightroom...presto!  No orange skin and no screaming red shirt.

Again, I have no idea what I'm doing in either program...but I've been using PSE for 4 years and Lightroom for less than 24 hours.  The difference is amazing.  Now...if I could just come up with $300 to buy it...  Good grief.