Perfect Your Landscape Photography Editing Workflow

Losing your images or misplacing them across numerous hard drives is a horrible feeling. Having an efficient workflow for your landscape photography images is important. Get it right today and it will look after you in the future. 

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I organise and edit my photographs using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Lightroom is my main photo editing app as I have less and less need for Photoshop these days as Lightroom continues to evolve. They are truly awesome bits of software that I could not survive without. Click the link above to get a free trial. 

Get your landscape photography editing workflow right

A landscape photography editing workflow may differ from other types of shoots because generally there will be less individual images compared , to say, a wedding. It is however still important to maintain a solid naming structure on your hard drive. I use a theme as he top level eg, ‘Weddings’ or ‘Videos’. This is followed by ‘year’ and then sometimes ‘month’. I initially copy the files to hard drive and the import into Lightroom. 

Using Adobe Lightroom

Once in Lightroom I organise, mark and flag the images to help me decide which to keep and edit. This is detailed in the video. I am using a MacBook Pro so once I am finished editing I need to move the files over to my external storage drive. It is important to do this within Lightroom itself which will copy both the physical file and the Lightroom catalogue data. Watch the video now to get full details. 

No Landscape Vlog this week

I was unable to shoot a vlog this week due to suffering a dreadfully bad back. Instead I decided to stay in and shoot this video. I will be returning to the landscape photography vlogs next week.  Leave a comment down below and let me know what you think of this video, does your workflow differ? Which bits work, which bits don't? I would love to hear from you.

Landscape Photo Editing in Adobe Lightroom - Waterfalls Vlog Images

In this landscape photo editing session I use Adobe Lightroom to edit the images from the Winter Woes and Waterfalls vlog and discuss composition and post processing techniques. Get a free trail of Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop - https://www.firstmanphotography.com/get/photography-plan

Watch the Vlog here - https://youtu.be/tYVuZS_oHJE

Google NIK Collection Video - https://youtu.be/ALkbAwitdrg

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This video is the full live landscape photography editing session from the images I captured on my recent vlog at Ingleton Waterfalls and Ribblehead Viaduct. The post processing is done in Adobe Lightroom.

The video is relatively long and probably not for everyone but gives you the chance to really see how I edit my images from start to finish.

During the edit I discuss several Lightroom editing techniques such as using the graduated filter tool. I also provide more information about the composition of the shots shots and discuss the rule of thirds and leading lines.

If you find the format of the video useful please let me know and I will document my future editing sessions in the same way.

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Landscape Photo Editing in Adobe Lightroom - Flamborough Vlog Images

Landscape Photo Editing - Flamborough

In this landscape photo editing session I use Adobe Lightroom to post process all the images from the recent Flamborough vlog.

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Watch the Flamborogh Vlog here - https://youtu.be/hiWX_DKOMRc

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This video is the full live landscape photo editing session from the images I captured on my recent vlog at Flambrough Head. The post processing is done entirely in Adobe Lightroom.

The video is relatively long and probably not for everyone but gives you the chance to really see how I edit my images from start to finish. Especially when I made a couple of silly mistakes at the time of shooting.

During the edit I discuss several Lightroom editing techniques such as using the graduated filter tool. I also provide more information about the composition of the shots shots and discuss the rule of thirds and leading lines.

If you find the format of the video useful please let me know and I will document my future editing sessions in the same way.

Finally, for those of you who celebrate it, have a very Merry Christmas. To everyone else, i appreciate you watching, you are awesome.

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How to Enhance Autumn Colours - Lightroom Tutorial

Take your Autumn landscape photography to the next level with this easy trick using Adobe Lightroom.

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In this Adobe Lightroom tutorial I show you how to make some very easy adjustments to your Autumn Landscape photography to make those beautiful autumnal colours really pop.

Landscape Photography in Autumn

Autumn is an amazing time if you shoot Landscape Photography as the swathe of colour we are treated too is truly spectacular. The summer of lush greens and high sun gives way to vivid oranges, yellows, reds and and maroons. Shooting a landscape photograph from one position can look completely different in the Autumn to how it does in the Spring, Summer or Winter.

Autumn Colour Gamut

Despite the amazing gamut of colour on offer, the overriding colour is often still green. Normal Lightroom edits can result in over saturated greens that leave the beautiful Autumn colours we are seeking, overwhelmed.

It can be resolved using a very simple trick where we desaturate the greens to enhance the appeal of the Autumn colours. Using Adobe Lightroom in two slightly different ways will effectively give the desired control. In the Lightroom tutorial I show you how it is done, and, how it can easily take your Autumn landscape photography to the next level.

Lightroom HSL Panel

The Lightroom HSL panel lets us easily control the saturation of colours across the spectrum. It is an effective Lightroom tool in so many areas of photography where careful control of colour is required. The colour panel will also let you adjust the luminance of colour and also the hue. If you have never experiment with the adjustment Lightroom provides in the area it is well worth a go.

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Sunset Photography - How to do Bracketing Photography

Improve your sunset photography by bracketing exposure.

Sunset photography is a challenging genre within landscape photography. I have talked before about how our own eyes and brain work together to let us see a very large dynamic ranges of light. We see details in shadows and very bright highlights at the same time.

Despite cameras having ever increasing dynamic range they still do not compare to the eye/brain combination. The problem is particularly felt in sunset photography where there is high contrast between the sky, where we often shoot straight at the sun, and the ground which gets darker later in the day with long shadows.

We previously got round this using graduated filters. A more modern technique is bracketing photography. Here we take a number of shots at different exposures and combine them in the computer. This creates a RAW file that contains all the details from the darkest shadows to the brightest highlights. This is exactly the same as HDR photography but we are looking to reproduce a natural sunset photography shot that our eyes perceived, rather than that HDR look.

Bracketing Photography

To capture everything that my eyes see I use bracketing photography. To do this in the camera you first need to be in manual mode. You will need a tripod. Set your ISO to 100, aperture to the f8-f16 range and then balance exposure with the shutter speed so you get an image that captures some small detail in the shadows and does not totally over exposure the sky. Use your Histogram to help you expose for the mid tones.

Turn on bracketing. On a Canon camera it is via the Q menu. When doing sunset photography going two stops either side is often the most effective.

Set the camera to fire using the two second timer to avoid any camera shake. The camera needs to be perfectly still for each of the three shots otherwise Lightroom will not be able to combine the images.

Take your shot and the camera will take three exposures. Check each image to make sure you have one that is exposed for the highlights, one for the mid tones and one for shadows.

Combine your sunset photography in Lightroom using the Photo Merge/HDR command. This combines your images into one large RAW file that allows much greater adjustment than a single shot. Process you sunset photography image and aim for something very similar to what your eyes witnessed to avoid your image looking over processed.

Cheating?

Cheating? For me no. I look to create a final image that is as close to what my eyes perceived as possible. the means whether it is with a physical graduated filter, bracketing or a futuristic camera is irrelevant.

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Straight Lines Will Take Your Photography to the Next Level

Take your photography to the next level by employing straight lines.

Since I started making video critiques a recurring theme has been keeping lines straight. This can be everything from architecture to portraits and its especially important to keep the horizon straight in landscape photography.

Why is it important you ask? We perceive the world in straight lines. When you look at a horizon with the naked eye it is always straight.  Buildings look straight, trees are straight and we look people straight in the eyes. Even when we tilt our heads our brain will still force us to perceive it as straight.

So when we look at a picture and things are not straight, it feels wrong. A wonky horizon, a diagonal building or still water on a hill all go against our normal perceptions.

A photograph will always be more appealing when lines are straight. Clearly curves are beautiful too and often photographers will shoot things at an angle intentionally but all other times things should be straight.

Happily this is a very easy thing to solve both at the time of shooting and in post processing when things have gone askew. It happens.

First, when you look through the view finder notice your scene and think about shooting straight. Notice the background and edges of the frame and this will make the vast majority of your images straight. Secondly the camera provides tools to help keep things straight.

Some cameras have a level level tool. You can also bring up the guide in live-view and align it with your horizon or you can get a small spirit level to attach to the top of your camera. Get the bubble between the lines and then you know it is straight.

Straightening Tool in Lightroom

Lastly you sort things in post-processing. Adobe Lightroom has a very powerful and simple tool to straighten lines. The straightening tool.

If you employ these simple tricks your images will instantly look better and really elevate your pictures to another level.

Let me know what you think. I'm obviously a big fan of straight lines but I suspect many of you might feel different. Share your thoughts and we can have an interesting and constructive  discussion.

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How to shoot RAW files on your iPhone

iOS 10 will let you shoot raw files on your iPhone with Lightroom mobile. The results are simply amazing.

Most people interested in photography will be aware of RAW files. They are essentially digital negatives. They contain all the data the camera sensor collects in an uncompressed format so no data is lost. This means you have much greater flexibility when editing, giving more accurate and detailed adjustments with things like exposure, white balance and colour tone. Just not possible when dealing with compressed files like jpegs.

Thanks to a recent update in Adobe Lightroom Mobile and to Apple’s iOS 10 you can now shoot DNG RAW files with your iPhone and the results are simply astounding. It's like having a whole new camera.

In the video I will show you how to shoot the images, how you can edit them in either Lightroom mobile or your desktop and then look at a few comparison shots so you can see what can be achieved.

Lightroom Mobile

You need to actually shoot your image using the Lightroom app rather than the iOS 10 native camera app and make sure the DNG RAW setting is selected. Once you do, go ahead and shoot your shot. You then have all the editing functions you normally have using Adobe Lightroom. You can start your edit on the phone and then move over to the computer if you wish.

I am amazed about how effective the iPhone camera now actually is. Pulling detail out of highlights and adjusting exposure that is just not possible with jpegs.

Here you can see an image edited from the native camera app. Details are lost in the highlights and you are limited to how much exposure can be adjusted. Look what happens when the same shot is captured in RAW. The difference is amazing.

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The post processing that can now be done is just much much greater. Like turning an image like this:

Into an images like this:

Adobe Photography Plan with Lightroom Mobile

To get this feature you will need to subscribe to the Adobe Photography plan. That gives you Lightroom, Photoshop and Lightroom mobile and this awesome ability to take your smartphone camera pictures to the next level.

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Aviation Photography - Lightroom Photo Edit

It’s not everyday a helicopter flies so close to my house, when that happened today aviation photography came to the front and I captured a shot. The image was far from perfect so in this video I take you through my editing process to bring it up to scratch. Get Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop today - https://www.firstmanphotography.com/get/photography-plan

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Aviation Photography

I must admit that I am not the biggest fan of aviation photography. I really dislike shots that feature an aircraft surrounded by nothing but blue sky. This is especially the case when the rotor blades of helicopters are frozen in time.

To capture the image of the helicopter today I used my Canon 400mm f5.6L lens. I stuck it out the window, whilst handholding, and took the shot having waited for the chopper to get into a good position where I was happy with the composition.

I much prefer aviation photography when there is a sense of movement in the image. To achieve this I reduced my shutter speed down to 1/50 second. The chopper was hovering so I managed to hold the camera steady enough to capture the image with some lovely movement in the rotor blades. This caused a slight loss in sharpness and the image is far from perfect but in the video I walk you through the steps I took to bring it up to scratch.

In the video I also use the clone stamp tool in Adobe Photoshop to remove an irritating telephone wire that I could not prevent being in my frame.  Watch this Aviation Photography Lightroom photo edit it now to see how I post-processed the image.

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Lightroom Quick Tip - Black and White Photography Toners

Take your black and white photography to the next level.

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Black and white photography is a particular favourite of mine and I will often convert a colour image to black and white. Most often I will envisage a mono image at the time of shooting knowing that the scene in front of me will look better in black and white.

Black and white works well when the tone of the image is more important than the actual colours. Some images can look messy in full colour but will look beautiful in black and white due to the really interesting tones.

Black and white processing can also be used to rescue images taken with high ISO in extremely low light. The noise introduced by the high ISO can look very pleasing in mono offering a look similar to ‘film grain’.

Once you have shot and processed your black and white photography you can potentially take it to the next level by adding a colour toner to the image. Sepia is one such tone. This colour was introduced from a particular chemical used in the dark room that increased the longevity and archival properties of a photography.

Adobe Lightroom offers the ability to add tone to your black and white photography using the split toning panel. Using this you can add colour to the highlights and the shadows independently, hence split toning.

Another method is to use the Google NIK Collection that offers a series of finishing toners that add a full array of toners that mimic those that were historically popular in the darkroom. In the video I show you how you can easily add black and white toners using Adobe Lightroom and the Google NIK Collection. Download both programs and have a go adding tones to your images to see what you think. Let me know if you agree and this can take your black and white photography to the next level.

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Mentioned Videos:

• https://www.firstmanphotography.com/tutorials/google-nik-collection-silver-efex-pro
• https://www.firstmanphotography.com/photo-edits/landscape-photography-editing-fine-art-landscape

Lightroom Quick Tips - Why You Should Use Virtual Copies

How to use the Lightroom Virtual Copy feature.

In this video I give you a quick tip about why you should be using Lightroom virtual copies.

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Adobe Lightroom is a power house of image editing and organising software. One of the key features is the non-destructive workflow. This is where the original image file is never adjusted. Lightroom simply creates a reference to that file, within the catalogue, and that is what you edit and see within Lightroom.

Sometimes though you might want to edit the image in a number of different ways. This could be a colour version, a black and white version or simply a re-visit to an image you have edited before. Thankfully, Lightroom provides this feature allowing virtual copies to be created. This is where Lightroom creates another reference file from the same original, and untouched, image file meaning you then have two versions of the same image within Lightroom that can be edited in different ways.

To create Lightroom virtual copies simply select the image you want to copy, right click and select ‘Create Virtual Copy’. To then edit a previously edited image from scratch - right click the newly created copy and under ‘Develop Settings’, click ‘Reset’.

Lightroom virtual copies are a powerful and simple feature that can easily be used in your Lightroom workflow.

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How to Rescue an Underexposed Image

Bring an underexposed image back from the brink.

Sometimes mistakes happen. They happen to the best of us. Imagine the scenario where you see an amazing photo opportunity, line up an incredible composition and pull the trigger knowing your shot is going to be great. You look down and are horrified to find the exposure is way off. This could be due to your auto/semi-auto exposure being thrown off or a mistake when shooting in manual. Sound familiar?

With the dawn of digital photography and RAW images we now have the ability to easily and effectively adjust exposure. If a shot is overexposed and the image is ‘blown out’ there is often nothing we can do to recover it. However if an image is underexposed you might be able to rescue it, even if you have missed by around 2 stops.

A question worth considering though is should we be rescuing images?

Many would argue you should capture everything correctly in-camera. Anything else makes you an unskilled heathen, unwelcome in photography high society for evermore. There is such as strange attitude towards post-processing at the moment where everyone is terrified an image may be misrepresenting a situation. Why is photography under such scrutiny when people believe a misleading headline or a five second video on Facebook without a second thought? We so often feel the need to justify our work with comments like ‘no major processing, just small contrast and saturation boost'.  How is this different? Who draws the line where an image goes from being enhanced to manipulated?

This argument is really a misunderstanding of what digital cameras do, whether they are a hardcore DSLR or an iPhone. If the camera is capturing JPEGs, then it is post-processing the image before you ever see it. They add contrast, saturation and sharpness on every single occasion so claiming you 'get it right in-camera' is not be the badge of honour people think it is. An unprocessed image looks like a RAW file image. Flat, with low contrast and very little sharpness.

RAW files capture a large amount of image data that allows a number of changes to be made and this includes a decent exposure range. In the video I show you how to rescue an underexposed image using Adobe Lightroom.

Whilst it is unlikely rescued images will end up displayed on a wall or in your portfolio, they still have a place. It could be an important moment in time captured or simply, an image to share online. Services like Facebook and Instagram compress images heavily and use low resolutions so detail of images often cannot be seen. Sharing your rescued images on these services is a very reasonable way to put extra content out into the world and continue to grow you audience.

So should you rescue your underexposed images? In answer - yes. It is not hurting anyone and it will be your audience who decide whether it is good or not. Personally, I give very little thought and time to those who are critical of my creative process. You are free to not enjoy my methods and my work as I am free to ignore you.

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How to Add Vignette in Lightroom

Draw attention to your subject by adding a vignette.

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A vignette is the darkened area around the outside of an image. It is caused by the fall off of light from the centre of the frame as light is blocked inside the lens barrel. It happens naturally, often at wide apertures and particularly with prime lenses.

It is an effect that can be very appealing. It draws attention in towards the main subject in the centre of the frame and masks any distractions around the edges. It is particularly effective in portraits and is often used in wedding photography, placing the focus of the image directly on the happy couple.

When the effect happens naturally you may sometimes want to remove it if it was not part of your planned image. We have covered removing vignette in Lightroom previously and you can watch that here:

https://www.firstmanphotography.com/tutorials/remove-vignetting-in-lightroom

In this video we go through a quick edit in Abobe Lightroom to add a vignette to an image. We take a look at three different types of image to give an idea of how the effect can work in different scenarios.

To add a vignette, load your image into Lightroom and then open the image up in the develop module. Navigate over to the adjustment panel on the right hand side and scroll down to the effects panel. Open this up and then you should see the post-crop vignette section. Drag the slider to the left to add a vignette. The other sliders control the, feather, roundness and midpoint of your vignette.

It is important to edit your image first and add the vignetting at the end of your edit after you have finished cropping. Otherwise you may crop out some of the effect. It is also the kind of effect where less is more. Aim to achieve nice natural looking vignettes that do not overpower your image and achieve the goal of focusing attention onto the subject in the centre of the frame.

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How to Remove Vignetting in Lightroom

Quickly Remove Vignetting in Adobe Lightroom

In this short video tutorial we show you how to quickly and easily remove vignetting in Lightroom using a simple automated tool.

Very simply Lens Vignette is when the light falls off to the edge of the frame within your image. It results in a dark border around your image. Sometimes this is desirable in your image as it can draw the viewers attention to the main subject in the centre of the frame. On other occasions you will want to remove vignetting to have even exposure across the frame.

Lens vignette occurs with most modern lenses but is more obvious in some lenses than others. Large aperture prime lenses will generally create more vignette when shot wide open. This happens because they suck in so much light the internal barrel of the lens will block some of the light coming in from a wider angle compared to the light hitting the lens head on. This results in the darkened corner of the images and on many occasion you will want to remove vignetting in Lightroom to counteract this effect. Once stopped down, the smaller aperture directs the light away from the inside of the lens barrel so the effect is much reduced.

To remove vignetting in Lightroom all you need to do is head into the Develop module and under the Lens Corrections panel select the Enable Profile Corrections box. Once this box is checked it will remove the vignette based on a profile based on the camera or lens you used. These profiles are built into Lightroom.

On other occasions your photography can sometimes benefit from adding vignette to an image. This is also extremely easy to do and can be very effective in focusing a viewers attention. The addition of a vignette will be featured in an upcoming tutorial.

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