Project 365 - Day 33 (I Told Ya to Watch This Space!)

Lightroom 3: I can't recommend it enough.  Thanks to the noise reduction capabilities in the latest upgrade to my editing software of choice, I can put off buying the $2,500 body I wanted that would handle such lighting conditions out of the box.  I LOVE this shot now, even for everything it isn't (like, in tack-sharp focus, but YOU try to nail this hand-held) because that helps make it everything it is: Evocative.

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The original picture (see Project 365 - Day 17 (Watch This Space!)) has all the color and clarity I wanted, but has way too much noise ("noise" makes a shot look unacceptably grainy) because of the extremely low light conditions.  However, thanks to the brilliant noise reduction capability in LR 3, I was able to smooth the grain away, leaving you with the above (much improved) result.

Yeah, it's cheating juuuust a bit to rework a photo for a 365 project; it's something I'll only do when the photo and rework make the re-post worth it.  I find this photo worthy, as the original was (charitably) halfway viewable as a snapshot; now, I think it's suitable for enlargement and framing.