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Editing: Subjects in Sunset Light

(wind whistling) Coming across so many reindeer was a phenomenal opportunity to create both close-up and wide images of them in amongst a beautiful glacial landscape like the one in Vatnajökull. I spent the whole afternoon that day thinking about this type of edit after we finished shooting, because we were in sunset light, we're in this glowing light, and I knew that that wasn't really the vibe that I wanted to get out of the images. So even just forward planning, just visualizing how you wanna translate that scene into the edit. It can help so much. And for me, I was able to get to a place that I was really happy with. And we have two selections on the screen here that I feel really tell the story of what we are seeing. That's this close up portrait and wide one. And I wanna take you through one of these edits. I wanna take you through this wide scene because I think there was the perfect opportunity here to explain how you don't have to stick exactly with the color schemes that we...

re present at the time. If your mind sees something else, if your vision strays away from what the camera was capturing at the time, just go for it, I think, and you can make it realistic. In this case, you can still tell it was afternoon light but it just has this different look that really fits my style. So, let's dive into the edit now. So we're gonna bring up the raw photo now and dive into this edit and the first thing we can see is that the colors are completely different. And the way that the light is, the focus is a little different to what I see as the main focal point of the image. So what we really wanna do is draw the viewer's eye to the area of focus. And in this case, of course it's the reindeer, they're in perfect formation. Two of them have the golden light of the sun. That's just like, for me this is like really a dream shot. And so grateful to have had this experience and to be able to share with you guys how I'm gonna edit this. So Develop module, D again, gets us into it. And the first thing I'm gonna do again we're working with a portrait shot. So we're going to be placing this in 8 by 10, focusing on how we would post it on Instagram because I'm not gonna beat it around the bush, that's where most of my images end up these days. And one challenge that I already see, straight of the bat is that the mountain behind is slightly off center from the middle reindeer. And all I would've had to do is take two steps to the left. I know out in the field that I was moving all over the place to try and get that centralized frame with the layers. And it just didn't work out exactly as planned but I've come up with a solution. It takes a little bit of a brush but you can see it in the final edit and just gonna go for the color to begin with. And then we'll get to that stage in a minute. So, bringing in the exposure. I'm gonna start with actually brightening a little bit, I think, and then bringing some of the contrast back using the tone curve. So again, I'm sticking to the points where rather than just the standard three points as normal I'm going to be pulling up based on the histogram beneath. And of course this is gonna make some super strange colors. I think it's quite evident in my edits in the beginning that they look fairly strange. My eye went to the sharpening pretty fast this time. That's just because I just want to, just for some peace of mind, you know before I get too involved in an edit that of course it is sharp and it's usable. This one actually, would resolved detail quite well. I was moved down to the 200 millimeter lens, shot at 2.8. This lens has way more clarity than, you know the 400 with the 5.6 converter. So I'm really keen on this shot and I think it could make a cool print. So first step, how do we get the colors to be where we want? Now, it's obviously quite a red and kind of sunset vibe image. So, I'm gonna bring the tint across. Likewise, the temperature is gonna come become more blue and that's okay for the moment because we can balance using the HSL to bring back those colors that we're looking for. I'm gonna go straight into that now before even touching the other things because I think it's just the most important here. So let's see what happens if we remove some of that sunset light. The first thing I'm noticing is that it is causing the reindeer to become a little desaturated. So, it's just gonna stick as it is for now. And, what I really want to do, what my mind is just screaming right now is brighten the foreground and try and lead the eye into the subject. So, if I just get the graduated filter, brighten this. I'm also then gonna get this kind of flow of exposure that I really like. And you can see in a lot of my photos actually, and likewise from the top down. I'm going to darken and it may take a couple of of these to get it right, but simply by darkening and lightening the foreground where just the eye is straight in on the reindeer. And that's kind of the aim with this. Again, I'm really pushing these graduated filters to sculpt the light, but the colors are being changed as I changed the exposure up and down. So I'm going to use the white balance inside of the filter to bring back some of the blue color, create this cohesion across the top half. And because the top has gone kind of strange I'm just gonna test a darker, graduated filter on the top. Just kind of see how that affects it. Maybe even one more. Okay, we're getting somewhere now. There is still some color up in the top that I'm not too happy with, but we can come back to the top in a minute. Now we're gonna focus on building the color scheme around this image. So, the first thing obviously with all this contrast is it's become quite saturated. So, just kind of bring some of that saturation away and then refine it with the HSL. In this particular image I'm gonna apply my slightly blue hued modification, I guess you would call it. And again, a little desaturation of those blues and the biggest thing in this one which is quite useful in multiple scenarios, when you have bright light, is actually the luminance slider. And by pulling that down you're gonna affect only the blue areas and darken those. So its gonna give us quite a dramatic appearance to this shot. It's also gonna increase contrast which we have to be careful of. And by doing that, just starting to get some impact going on. I'm noticing a few things now like the blue in the foreground just gonna trial a little desaturation and maybe even like a lack of clarity could be good. Maybe just like bringing back. Yeah, you can see if I apply it just the eye get so distracted by that foreground. And I think it can look quite natural like even just an amplification of the boca to just even bring some of those textures and just fade them away even more. It will brighten of course. So we're just gonna darken a little bit. At this point in time, my main concern is that the reindeer are looking a little dark. So I'm gonna try a couple of easy radial filters just to boost some shadows in this area of the image and see how that affects it. Yeah, that did quite well. Maybe even a touch of warmth could help there. Still thinking that this one here needs a little selective brush and I might even try just a slight brighten and warming of this reindeer. Just gonna check my selection. Yeah, it's not precise, but it's gonna be fine for this. A little bit of warmth. And again, balancing, when you go warm, you have to add a little bit of magenta to just to bring it to its natural point. And this kind of just like building on the way that the light's coming in. It won't make it look fake. It'll just give a slight edge to what's already happening. I'm zooming out now just to get a feeling for the photo. And I wish I took those two steps just to get this centralized frame, but I don't have that. I have the layers, really stoked with that but I'm gonna try one thing of moving the brightness from the right side of the peak to the left side. And that is a few brushes to get there, but to start with I'm just working with quite a high flow and density on this cause it's gonna be quite an intensive one. I'm just gonna brush in, continually move the size of my brush just as the landscape changes. Check my filter. And now I'm just gonna darken slightly on this. It's looking quite natural. And now the focal point already shifts. Of course remember to balance your white balance when you make these small adjustments, because you want that consistent color hue across that area. That's looking quite good. Now, in a new brush I'm going to brighten the left side of the peak following the natural flow of that area. I might have to refine in a minute but I'm just gonna bring the exposure up a little bit. And just going to recentralize the scene and bring the viewers eye to almost line up the mountain and the reindeer. Now, one tip for this section is to create even more of a fade on the edge and make the feather to the point where you can't really see where the brush begins. I'm gonna make a big brush with a high feather and I'm gonna just nip in on the edge. That has a very soft edge, just like that. Just looking at the contrast I think we're getting close to having the shot now. I'm just thinking a little bit about the way that the light is. And I think I wanna create some sort of cohesion between the brightness where the reindeer are, and this section of the sky. I feel like there needs to be some kind of sweeping light that leads the eye around the frame. I'm gonna use a radial filter to fill that and that's gonna appear over the sky and over the glacier in the background. Gonna make really high feather on this and slightly brighten. And it's just gonna create a little bit of dynamic light in that midsection. Just like that. We're getting to a good place now. We're just gonna play around with this orange glow a little bit and see if we can't get that to balance a little more. And something at this point that's really useful is, okay, the whites are in the snow, they're glowing with sunlight. Why don't we try split tone those to bring in some additional blue, without having to paint it in, without having to change the color of the orange or anything like that? If we just apply it over the top that's a really simple way to get that blue. So, bringing in a little bit of blue on those areas and that's gonna really balance it out. Slight change of crop I think. Just need to move it slightly in, just a little bit. I like that we have this specific third of darkness and brightness and then all the subject is going on in the middle. It's not your traditional composition but something that works for me. And I'm okay with that. I've gone back to the sky. My brain is working quicker than my mouth but all these things are just firing. And as I see it, I'm changing, changing, changing just moving between different segments of the Lightroom Develop module, just trying to really balance and sculpt the light to the best of my abilities. We're getting really close now. I remember that I applied some sort of radial filter up here. Did I ? If I didn't, I need to because there's a strange area of darkness that I just wanna work on. Just invert, feather up, boosting that exposure up slightly. And it's just gonna balance that area really well. Okay, the last segment of this that needs to be worked on is that I'm seeing too much saturation and I'm just going to go in with the HSL, work selectively, bring it down a little bit, even go back to the luminance. Bring that down a little bit more. See how we go. I think that we're almost there now with our final edit, little bit more blur in the foreground and a little bit of extra brightness. One thing that I need to be careful is that this graduated filter with the clarity and the dehaze down. We don't really want it to affect the reindeer because that's gonna reduce our detail in that area. So just gonna check that, bring in some extra brightness. Not too much though, we don't want it to look dumb. A bit more desaturation there. And finally going back into the tone curve. I see one more thing. There's always one more thing. Always. I think actually it needs a new radial. I'm seeing some darkness on the left three reindeer. I just want to bring them to be a little bit more focused. Again, we don't want that fake kind of circular radial look so feather in all the way. Exposure up, bring in some additional warmth I think. Little bit of fade. That's gonna really help with the sky gradation. Maybe even just an additional point on the tone curve just to balance that contrast. And there we go. Pretty happy with this image. It's one of those ones that requires a lot of creative thinking. But if you play around, especially with those multiple graduated radial filters and brushes, you can sculpt it in a way that not only affects the light in the image, but even the way that you perceive it. The composition, everything can be changed by using some filters in Lightroom. You can create a different set of weather. You can create a different mood. However your internal interpretation of that scene is, just give it a shot to bring it out in the image. And you never know what you could make. It's really fulfilling experience when you get these types of edits that just play out so different from the original yet so natural in a way and something I'm pretty proud of. So, this image is one of my favorites.