Clowns band: Music photography editing

This is a photo of Clowns band I took at The Triffid, and in this music photography editing tutorial, I’ll tell you how I edited it. All of the following edits were done in Adobe Lightroom.

Introduction to this music photography editing tutorial

I took this photo of a Melbourne punk band, Clowns (I’ll style it as Clowns band from here on out for SEO purposes), at The Triffid. The Triffid is a popular Brisbane venue I love to do music photography at. In the above music photography editing tutorial video, I’ll show you how I edited it from start to finish.

HowI edited this photo of Clowns band

Step 1

Firstly, I decreased the highlights by around 20 and increased the shadows and blacks by around 15 points. I increased the saturation slightly to make the image more vibrant. I then darkened the magenta, blues, reds and purples using the luminance tool. I did the same with the saturation panel. Finally, I favoured the pinks and the greens in the hue panel to balance out the image’s colours even further.

Step 2

I increased the clarity to give the image and the detail in the hair more sharpness.

Step 3

I then cropped and levelled the image to prepare for me to clean up the background. The cropping also removed the detail on the right of the image that did not relate to the subject matter.

Step 4

I then cloned and healed Wil to make the background less distracting, and help the viewer focus on the subject in focus.

Step 5

I also removed the microphone in the background to clean the image even further, increasing the striking nature of the stage lights.

Step 6

I reduced the shadows slightly and Increased the highlights by 16 to make the subject pop a little more from the background.

Step 7

Finally, I increased the temperature slightly to bring out the warmth of the lights even more.

The finished photo

And that’s how I edited this photo of Clowns band.

Extra editing tutorials?

If you missed my concert photography editing tutorial of photos of Dune Rats and Skegss, they’re there for you to read or watch, too.