Hi there,

Thank you for joining us for Tuesday tips. Today I wanted to walk you through how I use Alien Skin Exposure X to polish my Lightroom Black + White edits. I love the crisp, polished finish that Alien Skin provides for my images and find that it accentuates my Lightroom edits wonderfully. I highly recommend this editing Software to those who mainly use Lightroom but want a few more added features.

I tend to use Alien Skin in 5 main ways:

To decrease exposure. I believe that Alien Skin provides a more glossy finish to your image when you decrease the exposure. It also allows for a slower, more controlled decrease. This is strictly preference based.
To add contrast. I love to add contrast within Alien Skin. With that said, I always add contrast within Lightroom as well but have found that adding a bit more within Alien Skin is ideal for my final vision. The combination of the two is perfect.
To add grain. The grain-powers within Alien Skin are much greater than within Lightroom. You can choose to alienate where you would like to add grain in your image— just the shadows, highlights or midtones. In Lightroom, when you add grain, it is throughout every single portion of the image. With real film, the grain is found mostly within the shadows so I find that this gives you a closer to real-life-film-grain-effect.
To sharpen. Alien Skin allows for a very crisp sharpening to your image. I prefer it to the sharpening that takes place in Lightroom. I tend to decrease sharpening in any of my Lightroom presets and then bring it into Alien Skin to “polish” my image with final touches. This is something you must try for yourself in order to truly see the difference. It’s there, look closely.
To add texture. I did not show you all how I use texture in this video but I do believe that Alien Skin is ideal for doing so. The texture capabilities within this software are wonderful. If you are looking to add dust or scratches, Alien Skin can be fun to play with. The best part is that you are also able to decrease or increase the overall opacity of such to give you full control.

Please take a moment to watch the following video of my workflow from Lightroom to Alien Skin. You can find many more in-depth editing videos within the Academy. Join us for only $15.00 a month and gain access to all the videos, lessons and courses by some of your favorite photographers.

To learn more editing tips + tricks, check out the following: