Once again, Color Dodge worked a small wonder. I realized it would add visual interest if the address were illuminated. After masking the adjustment in selective regions, the image looked more refined: That is, no haloed edges or dampened colors. In the Shadows/Highlights panel, I made sure to tick "Show More Options". Never dread those outdoor shots taken at noon ever again! This means I can even out high-contrast photos, clean and quick. What I like about it is, with the right settings, the highlights are undisturbed. The Shadows/Highlights adjustment tool does a precise job lightening up the darks. Why? Because there's a simpler, better way. Unlike step 1, though, I didn't go back to Lightroom to harvest details from another exposure. I thought the shadows on the house and in the trees could use a lift. Yes, delivered through controlled strokes, Color Dodge made a glowing difference: The light-bathed windows, facade, and porch received a slight boost, too. I also intensified the spill from the gate lamps.
PTLENS EDIT HOW TO
Learn how to unleash its full potential, all the while maintaining control.įor this twilight shot, I augmented the reflections on the pavement. Just don't go overboard, since it's a double-edged sword. The Color Dodge blending mode is amazing at enhancing - or even creating - lighting effects. I then exported it again and layered only its bottom portion onto my working image: Back in Lightroom, I warmed up the 3rd bracket even further - this time to 6200 K. The asphalt of the road was too blue for my taste, and I found it distracting. Here's a before-and-after closeup of the highlight recovery: Don't! Here were my settings for this task: It's easy to take for granted the brush tool.
Find out how to set brushes for seamless, natural blends here. Due to the abrupt contrast change, I had to be careful with my brushwork. What's the best way to recover blown highlights in this situation? Use layer masks to blend in detail from a darker exposure. The highlights in this shot weren't bad but still needed fixing.
PTLENS EDIT MANUAL
From here on, it was all manual labor in Photoshop. So I ditched it, and instead picked the 3rd bracket for my base exposure. It would require a redundant step to boost the brightness. It was too dark, with a useless dynamic range. The majority of the time, Enfuse creates great blends. Here was the result of the automated blend: But I had to export the files eventually for Photoshop work anyway. I could've blended them within Lightroom using the Enfuse plugin. The RAW files now looked ready, so into EnfuseGUI they went. Well, I wanted a positive response from viewers right from the get-go! The front exterior is the hero shot, especially for twilight real estate photography. Subtle color changes like this can trigger a positive emotional response. This purified the dusk sky and the ground from too much green.Īlso, how's your mind reacting to the warmer orange incandescents versus the yellow? Mine says it's more soothing. I adjusted the Auto setting (5000 K, -20 Tint) to 5500 K, -4 Tint. Quite the difference, methinks! Let's discuss the most obvious change: white balance. Hover to see how those powerful Lightroom adjustments affected this particular frame: I then treated them in Lightroom with my usual Lightroom presets. From experience, I knew the lightest exposure was useless, so I trashed it right away. I bracketed for 5 exposures, 1 stop apart. Let's get started! The RAW Conversionįor ambient images such as this, the RAW conversion is crucial. The total editing time took about 10 minutes. The image below is one of the RAW exposures. Rather, it was timing the light, good old bracketing, and basic post-processing. Those words should cue that I had limited time. Welcome to the very first case study! I'll be explaining how to edit an exterior from a twilight real estate photography shoot.