RAW Pelicans In Lightroom

Wandering our local zoo these pelicans caught my eye. I grabbed the following shot in "P" or Program mode. The pelicans were in the shade and surrounded by green foliage. The "white balance" was also set to automatic and look what happened.

The white balance was fooled by the shade and the image is way too blue. The exposure is fine for the over all shot but since the pelicans are white they are a little over done. Had I shot a JPEG image I might have been able to salvage it but since I shot a RAW image it was very easy.

I loaded today's shoot into Adobe Lightroom and in the Development module I made the following adjustments.

1. I cropped the image to minimize the extra space around the birds.
2. I grabbed the White Balance eye dropper and clicked on a white area on the right pelican's back. My color was instantaneously great.
3. I dropped the exposure by 0.7 stops to bring out detail in the birds.
4. I darkened three sliders (slid them a little way left) including: Highlights, Whites, and Blacks

That's all folks. About 30 seconds of work and the following is the result:

A much better image with very little work. I could have decreased the exposure in the camera by adjusting exposure compensation by 2/3 stops and set the white balance manually to "Shade". That would have helped but would not have adjusted the contrast in the way the sliders in Lightroom did. Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and many other programs with RAW converters will work as well, but you have to learn how to use them. I'll try to get you started from time to time.

Have fun!