New to Lightroom - Critique or tips please!

Hello all,
Im fairly new to Lightroom 5. Just got it last week or so.
Yesterday morning i went to the cities marina and did some aerial shots with one of my drones.
Honestly - im just playing around in lightroom. I have very little photography knowledge, other than what i learnt from being hired to assist in shooting a movie. Usually all my photos are used for is aerial surveys. But from working on that movie, it kind of inspired me to start doing some photos and videos.

Please take a look at my before and after and tell me if im missing anything, or if you have any tips!

Original:



Retouched:



If its not your ideal style of photography, thats fine. I just want to know some handy tips that will allow me to improve.
Thanks all!

Looks good! Add some clarity, use the histogram and make sure it is sort of in the middle. Then go to the graph and make a slight inverted "S" curve. That will add depth of field. But, the clarity slider is my fav. Slide it to the right about 75%. But overall it looks good.

a reply to: samlf3rd
Add some blue and green so the water and ice is a little more vivid. Go to the color sliders and click on the blue button and slide the saturation to the right a little bit. Do the same for the green as well.

a reply to: samlf3rd

Ill do that right now, i have it open still.
I will repost after i have added those suggestions

Thank!

retouched with above suggestions:



That was actually quite noticable, thanks for the tip!

Would you say that photo is complete now?

Retouch is good only don't forget that snow is normally white not yellow

imo the crop isn't all that good, keep the right part and crop away the left. but that's just personal flavor.

I have to ask, from where did you take the photograph?? nice pov.

edit on color: it could well be because the differences in screen calibration.

I would try to use the brush to barely listen up the building-at least the roof as it seems a little dark. Actually just increase darks and blacks a touch so you don't blow out the snow which is already kinda bright but good.
a reply to: Macenroe82

a reply to: intergalactic fire

Thunder Bay Ontario - decommissioned grain elevator. 100 Meters above ground.

The next set of photos I am gonna work on is a Float plane yard. Theres about 10 floaters lined up in the yard.
I asked the owner if i could take some aerials of his yard and he said please do, but to send him a few shots after P.P
Ill post those next

I agree maybe keep the crop as it tells a bigger story, or keep the pier in at least. And go to yellow slide and drop down a touch to make the snow more blue again. However the color of the snow now really seems to help the story of the industrialized area and makes it look grungy. All in all practice practice! a reply to: intergalactic fire

I dropped the yellow to 0 .
But it actually looks more pronounced for some reason lol
Adjusted the crop. Tweaked the blacks and shadows.
I wanted to give the impression of the atmosphere down there. There was a couple other elevators that were demo'd.
Lots of people lost their jobs over the years as the industry went for a crap.
I want the viewer to feel almost depressed or ashamed in a way for what we have done to the economy in the area.

There are lots of buildings like this. I can post a few other shots from yesterday - Untouched though. Just so you all get an idea of the area

a reply to: Macenroe82

Nice, don't forget to send some pics to the owner. It's sort of a norm withing the photography world. If one day another photographer came by and asks to take some shots a lot will depend on previous experiences.

a reply to: samlf3rd

That's the downside of digital photography, you can go a million ways (and still don't like it)
There are off course good points about dslr but also some bad points.
I have very good experiences and memories from back in the day of analog photography.

That there is Lake Superior with the "Sleeping Giant" in the back ground



Float yard - lots of diff. angles



Richardson grain elevator - one of 3 operational in town. Have to contact the owner tomorrow to get permission to photo the property. Next weekend hopefully.
In the back ground you can see another decommissioned elevator

a reply to: Macenroe82

It's all personal taste.
If you ask me, industrial photography and architecture photography looks better when the it's less saturated or even mono.

Went out today and got some great shots of the mountains and the ice breaking up in the bay of lake Superior!

a reply to: Macenroe82

Wow it looks intriguing .. dark and mysterious

.. awesome .. I am trying my photoshop skills out too .. love learning new things and constantly improving

Pls don't stop .. you can never have enough of brilliant pictures