Dark, Moody Post Processing with Adobe Lightroom | QE #357

In this video I’m editing a dark, moody landscape photo using #Adobe #Lightroom for the post processing

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0:00 Intro
I wanted this photo to look much darker and grim, so my intention was to darken most of the clouds, while still having a nicely exposed foreground, plus I wanted to add some glowing lights just above the landscape in the distance. Sadly, due to some camera error this is only a jpeg, not a raw fie, so I was rather limited with the post processing which I have mostly done in Lightroom.

0:32 1. Basic Adjustments
First off, I slightly adjusted the white balance to reduce the color cast. Then, I increased the shadows and the whites carefully to get a well exposed base image. I further dropped the contrast and added a bit of dehaze to make the mountain peak more visible. Finally, I dropped the vibrance.

2:00 2. Local Adjustments
To make the upper clouds darker I used a simply graduated filter and dropped the exposure. Also, in using this filter, I dropped the texture to make the clouds look smoother, added clarity to get more structure and dropped the saturation.

For the glowing areas I used radial filters. Inside of them, I increased the blacks, decreased the dehaze and added some whites without overexposing.

Another radial filter was used over the waterfall itself. Here I added whites and texture.

6:00 3. Color Grading
Not much going on here. In the hue tab I increased the yellow hue to get richer green tones. In the saturation tab, I dropped the green saturation and boosted the blue one.

7:05 4. Photoshop
Finally, I used Photoshop to get rid of a few objects with the spot healing brush, enhance the glow just a little more and do some minor dodging in the foreground.

[shengyetang]

Hi Chris, just for your reference. Color changes while tone changes. Shall adjust tone before any color adjustments, including WB HSL Calibration.
Calibration changes the whole color, shall be adjusted before HSL.What do you think?

[DomenicoPescosolido]

Excellet video, can I ask the name of the plug in that you use in PS to select the ares of image? Thanks

[philipculbertson]

I always have a question when using PS. When and why do you merge layers, flatten layers, or create a stamped layer? I never seem to know which to do and when.