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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Education Field Instructional

Making What You Feel: Editing a Landscape Photo

Chris Gampat
No Comments
12/28/2015
4 Mins read

©2012 Jamie A. MacDonald

All images in this post by Jamie A MacDonald. Used with permission.

Catchy title for a post? I hope it has you thinking,because that title is exactly how I work the majority of the time I am out shooting. So what exactly does that mean? To “Make what I feel”?

Let me see if I can explain.

When I am out shooting landscapes I am quite often in what I consider to be an elevated emotional state. I know it may sound a little over the top but all I mean is that I am in a good place spiritually. When I head out to shoot and the sky is moody, the land is begging for me to find a beautiful scene, I am happy. And when I do find that place to shoot, I want to convey that emotion in the final image I create. So as you will see, I am often shooting emotion, more than a straight out of the camera image.

Before I begin there are a few criteria that need to be met for me to begin shooting. The first is dynamic skies. I am definitely a cloudscape kind of guy so a flat overcast sky is not going to work for me. In my mind, and in my workflow, cloud structure is very important to a landscape image.
The next element I look for is something to lead my eye to the sky. Whether it be a strong foreground element, leading lines, or an object that just ties it together by placement.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Once I have a day with some cloud structure, I just head out and explore. My goal is to get lost in the countryside while watching the sky and my foreground. I won’t lie, there are many days where I head out and all I do is come back with an empty card. But when things come together and I find that location with some foreground interest, and the skies are promising, I stop and create what I feel. Let’s see what that looks like because I think you might be surprised how it all starts.

©2015 Jamie A. MacDonald
©2015 Jamie A. MacDonald

 

At first glance this scene may not appear to be “dynamic” nor one that would seem to evoke strong emotion. But, if you look close you can see some shape in the clouds, there are trees in the distance starting to show their autumn colors, and in the foreground a small garden with colorful flowers still hanging on to their blooms. What you can’t see is how I felt. I was with my family exploring northern Michigan and I was excited! It was a much needed break from a difficult couple of months for us. So I was full of hope, and I was still holding onto some pain.

That is what I felt, and that is what I will try to convey in my processing. So let’s get started!

I started by opening Lightroom CC and selecting this raw file that was shot with my Olympus OM-D EM5MkII w/ mZuiko 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO lens attached. When I shot this I used AEL (Auto Exposure Lock) to set my exposure in such a way as to start exposing the the trees in the distance, without overexposing the entire sky. I composed to allow for plenty of foreground and just as much sky. This breaks the rule of thirds completely, but then I am not one to follow the rules all the time. From Lightroom I export the image to HDR Efex PRO2, and although this is NOT a bracketed multi exposure shot, there is still enough information in the raw file to do some tone mapping and bring out a lot of detail in the shadows and add some accentuation to the cloud structure. And to me, that cloud structure is what makes the image. The benefit of using the NIK software is that you have access to control points. These are points you place on the image that allow you to do precise localized adjustments. You can see from the image below that I ended up using 8 control points to add warmth and color to the trees, and to define the structure of the clouds. I also applied global adjustments to boost contrast and deepen saturation.

NorMich HDREfex

Now that the heavy lifting has been done in HDREfex PRO2 I can close that out and move back to Lightroom CC where I will fine tune a few things before saving. I always save things like sharpening, noise reduction, and cropping till the very end. That is just part of my workflow. But actually none of those things were done in this image.

What I DID do though was boost the saturation to individual color channels in the the Hue Saturation Luminance panel of Lightroom. You can see in the screenshot that I focused on the colors in the trees, primarily the reds, oranges, and yellows.

Another adjustment that I find important to a contrasty image is to adjust your tone curve to an S pattern. This will pump the highlights up some (although I am REALLY pushing it here with that bright spot in the sky) and drop some dark blacks into the deep shadows. Just don’t go too crazy with it.

NorMich LR

I wrap things up with my new favorite toy in Lightroom CC, the Dehaze slider. This really makes the edges of clouds defined and adds to that intense sky look while at the same time removing the overcast areas in the sky and foreground.

So while the original image wasn’t full of the emotions that I had on that day, I was able to pour them into it and make it an image that showed what I felt.

©2015 Jamie A. MacDonald
©2015 Jamie A. MacDonald

I hope this write up shows you a trick or two that you can use in your processing, or maybe even inspires you to create what you are feeling, and not just what you are seeing.

Take care.

Jamie A. MacDonald

editing Jame A MacDonald landscape lightroom
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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