Lighthouse landscape PP - learning Lightroom.

[EmyB]

I am practising editing in Lightroom and I would love to know what you think of my processing? I am not particularly happy with the composition - I feel the lighthouse is too far away! But it was a good practice photo I think. Is the exposure corrected or wrong? I've tried to darken the lighthouse down again and bring the sky out, and saturate the grass a little.

I am worried about over-doing it but I think now perhaps I have underdone it? The photo still looks a little washed out I think. Any tips on creating more punch?

[Tzetsin]

its definetly a bit washed out. Otherwise its ok. use the "blacks" slider to give it a bit, or if that ends up looking odd, use the shadow/mid/highlights sliders to bring it some depth.

[EmyB]

Ooooh I didn't even know those sliders existed! Off to investigate where they are hiding and what they do! Thanks heaps!

Any other thoughts?

[Tzetsin]

I hope you dont mind. I tried to get as many adjustments in the shot too for you to see what i'd done. Basically i masked off each major area sky, water, forground hill, background hill, lighthouse. Then treated them each to taste. Mostly adjusted the brightness/contrast and saturation. Then did a small amount of global adjustments with the tone curve.


Capture.jpg

[EmyB]

No I don't mind at all, thankyou very much.

That's a huge improvement! I'm amazed how much detail you got out of the sky. And the grass even looks so much better.

I've had a look at your list of adjustments - very helpful thankyou. As I said, I didn't even realise these shadow/mid/highlights sliders existed and I haven't been brave enough to tackle the tone curve yet either. I am working my way through tutorials and am asking for Scott Kelby's book for Xmas! . Thanks for demonstrating their usefulness, you've inspired me!

[Tzetsin]

Glad to be of help Keep in mind that a lot of those adjustments you see are applied to masks, not the entire image. you can paint on a mask with that lil painbrush looking icon at the top of your adjustments panel.

Scott kelby stuff is ok, but if you really want to learn lightroom, photoshop or just photography in general, subscribe at lynda.com. its 25 bucks a month and you can watch all the video tutorials you can stomach. They are absolutely top notch and i can guarantee after watching those video lessons you will be many times more proficient at whatever it was you were learning.

[baajero]

That is amazing... Is the program called photoshop lighthouse... Im fairly new to post processing as you can probably tell... there are so many photoshops I'm confused which one to buy

[Hill Country Hack]

Not trying to jack the thread, but I "lost" my sliders and now have to make my adjustments with the tone curve. How do I get them back?

[Tzetsin]

Originally Posted by Hill Country Hack

Not trying to jack the thread, but I "lost" my sliders and now have to make my adjustments with the tone curve. How do I get them back?

lol look for the little triangles, click them and it'll drop down your sliders. If you lost ALL of the sliders, there is a little triangle on the right side center that'll pop the panel back in.