before's and after's

I want to give you some before and after editing tips.

The girls in these pictures are my lovely sisters. We all live in different states but this summer we were all home in Idaho Falls at the same time! It was so fun talking, and catching up. All of us are so different but at the heart of it all, we are all the same. They are some of my very best friends.

On to the tips...this first "before and after" I want to show you how you can find a diamond in the rough when editing. At my first glance the picture below did not get put in my save folder. But after I went through all of my pictures I realized that I didn't have any good pictures of my sister, Heather and I. So as I went back for a second look I saw this one where Lindsey (on the left) had her eyes closed but Heather and I were both looking at the camera so I simply cropped Lindsey out (sorry, Linds!) and turned it black and white. 

I couldn't end the post without putting a good shot of Lindsey in here! In this picture I first turned it black and white, cropped it so her eyes landed on the top third of the picture and then softened up her skin by using my clarity brush at -100. (all edits done in Lightroom)

The moral of this post is don't immediately discard every picture at first glance. You just may have a gem!