Before & After: Overcast Blues on Aquia Creek / July 9, 2024 by Todd Henson

It’s been far too long since I wrote a before & after post where I compare how an image looks straight out of the camera with the final post-processed image and talk about how I got there. So for today I chose the photo, Overcast Blues on Aquia Creek, first posted in mid-January of 2024.

Straight Out of the Camera

First off, I absolutely loved the scene that morning and was so pleased to capture a bald eagle as it flew by. But as you can see I ended up underexposing the scene so the image straight out of the camera is a little on the dark side. I try to get better exposures in camera as that gives you more data to work with in post due to how digital sensors work. But sometimes I don’t quite get it exactly as desired and rely on the dynamic range of today’s sensors to capture enough detail in those darker shadows. You’ll see below how I adjust the exposure in Adobe Lightroom to create what I believe is a more pleasing version of the scene.

Step 1: Initial Global Exposure Adjustments

Instead of raising the exposure right off the bat I decided to raise the shadows and see if there was any detail worth revealing. While doing that I also dropped the whites and blacks a bit and added a little vibrance.

Step 2: Linear Gradient Over the Clouds

Next I decided to try bringing out a little more drama in the clouds so I created a linear gradient over the upper clouds. The areas affected by these changes are highlighted in red. In that gradient I increased the whites a fair bit to brighten them up and I dropped the blacks to darken them just a little. This begins to create a little more contrast.

Step 3: Brush Mask Over Lighter Clouds Above Horizon

I decided to try doing something similar in the lighter area near the horizon so I used a brush to create a mask over that area which you can see highlighted in pink/red. I lowered both the shadows and the blacks which darkened those sections.

Step 4: Global Exposure Adjustment to Brighten Image

Finally I got around to raising the exposure to brighten the entire image a bit.

Step 5: Additional Linear Gradient to Sky

I wanted a darker gradient in the sky so I created another linear gradient over top of the existing one and I dropped the exposure in that area, darkening it a bit.

Step 6: Linear Gradient in the Water

Now it was time to look at the water. I’d created linear gradients in the sky, darkening from top to center. So it seemed to make sense to do something similar in the water below as it should reflect what’s in the sky. So I created a linear gradient from bottom towards top and lowered the exposure a bit to darken that section.

Step 7: Object Mask over Bald Eagle

I didn’t want the flying bald eagle to get completely lost in the darkness of the sky so I used the Object masking feature to select the bald eagle, seen in red, and I raised the overall exposure just a smidge, increased the shadows a bit to lighten them, and raised the whites quite a bit to try to make the white on the eagle pop.

Step 8: Brush Mask to Lighten Land Near Horizon

I wanted more detail in the land along the horizon so I used a brush mask on that area. I increased the overall exposure in that area, as well as raising the shadows to brighten them even more. I also raised the whites to lighten some of those areas even more, and I dropped the blacks a bit to keep the darkest areas dark.

Step 9: Brush Mask Over Lighter Areas in Clouds

I decided I wanted more whites in the clouds so I used a brush to create a mask over the lighter areas and I raised the whites to make them pop a little more.

Step 10: Sharpening and Noise Reduction

At this point I’d originally thought I was just about done so I did the steps I usually save for last. I added sharpening using the masking feature to only sharpen the areas with the most detail. And I used Lightroom’s Denoise feature to reduce the noise in the image. I used an ISO of 500, which in itself isn’t all that high. But I did underexpose the image in the camera and increased exposure in post which tends to bring out any noise in the image. The new Denoise feature usually does a very good job of reducing this digital noise.

Step 11: More Global Exposure Adjustments to Lighten Scene

At some point I came back to the photo and decided it wasn’t quite there yet. So I made some global adjustments to raise the exposure more, brightening the overall image.

Step 12: Brush Mask to Brighten Near Horizon

I decided I wanted a brighter area near the horizon so I used a brush to create a mask and increased exposure within that region.

Step 13: Brush Mask To Lighten Sections of Clouds

As often happens, I go back and forth with things and I’ll often return to the same areas. Sometimes I’ll adjust existing masks, which I also did in this image, and other times I’ll create new masks. Here I used a brush to create a mask in sections of the sky and increased the exposure to brighten them.

Step 14: Global Exposure Updates to Further Lighten Scene

Once again I decided to increase the global exposure, brightening the image even more. I also updated settings in several of the masks, further tweaking exposure in local areas.

Step 15: Post-Crop Vignette and Various Mask Updates

I often add a post-crop vignette to darken the corners and edges of an image to help bring the eyes of the viewer into the scene, and I did that here, though it was a very small amount of vignetting. I also further tweaked a number of the masks, once again fine tuning local exposure adjustments.

Step 16: Chromatic Aberration and Profile Corrections

Chromatic aberration and profile corrections

Next I applied corrections for chromatic aberrations and lens profile corrections. Chromatic aberrations are strange color fringing that can happen with some lenses and in some scenes, especially in areas where light and dark meet. For profile corrections Adobe has created profiles of many lenses, measuring how they distort a scene and applying adjustments to correct these distortions. Given I was using my macro lens there likely weren’t many adjustments made but I still applied them.

Steps 1-16 Slide Show

Click on the arrows on each side of the image below to cycle through each of the steps. Though the masks do obscure the section of the photo being modified you can generally see the effects of that in the following photo. I’m hopeful this will help show some of the effects of each step in sequence.

Step 1: Initial global exposure adjustments

Step 2: Linear gradient over the clouds

Step 3: Brush mask over lighter clouds above horizon

Step 4: Global exposure adjustments to brighten image

5: Additional linear gradient to sky

6: Linear gradient in the water

Step 7: Object mask over bald eagle

Step 8: Brush mask to lighten land near horizon

Step 9: Brush mask over lighter areas in clouds

Step 10: Sharpening and noise reduction

Step 11: More global exposure adjustments to lighten scene

Step 12: Brush mask to brighten near horizon

Step 13: Brush mask to lighten sections of clouds

Step 14: Global exposure updates to further lighten scene

Step 15: Post-crop vignette and various mask updates

Step 16: Chromatic aberration and profile corrections

Final Image

And there you have it. After all those adjustments, all those back and forth changes and further refinements, we end up with the image above. I loved the scene when there. I was slightly concerned when I got home and realized I’d underexposed more than I’d thought. But at the end of the day I’m happy with where I was able to take this image.

Click on the image below to cycle back and forth between the before and after images.

BEFORE

AFTER

What do you think of the process? Is there anything you’d have done differently?

Overcast Blues on Aquia Creek is available for purchase as wall art or on a variety of products at my online store.

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Before & After: South Fork Quantico Creek - Downstream - October 2021 / March 14, 2023 by Todd Henson

It feels like time for another before & after post where I share a little about my process using one photo as an example, stepping you from straight out of the camera to the finished product. This photo is of South Fork Quantico Creek, facing downstream, in October of 2021. It’s an example of an image that didn’t require any drastic editing but instead benefited from a series of small adjustments. All of the processing was performed in Adobe Lightroom.

Straight Out of the Camera

Step 1: Global Adjustments & Lens Correction

Step 1 - Global adjustment and lens corrections — Global adjustments & lens corrections

I most often tend to perform any global adjustments first. These apply to the entire image and included lowering the highlights and whites and raising the shadows. This provided a little more detail, letting us better see in some dark areas and keeping some light areas from getting too light. I also increased the vibrance a bit to help the colors pop.

Step 2: Post-Crop Vignette

I very often apply vignettes to my photos to help draw the eye into the frame. Sometimes I’ll do this manually but in this case I used Lightroom’s Post-Crop Vignette setting to darken the corners and edges just a bit.

Step 3: Masking - Selectively Applying Texture

At this point it was time to start selectively editing specific areas of the image. I wanted the rocks to stand out nicely so I added a little texture, which is a type of contrast adjustment. I didn’t want that applied to softer areas like the water, or to the trees, so I painted it just onto the rocks. You’ll see a pinkish overlay on the areas where I applied texture.

Step 4: Masking - Selectively Increasing Exposure

I loved the greenery under the water and wanted that to stand out so I created another brush mask and painted over those areas, increasing exposure to lighten them up.

Step 5: Masking - Selectively Decreasing Exposure

There were other areas I thought would look better a little darker, so I created a brush mask and lowered the exposure of these areas. This was mostly the rocks but also some areas in the trees.

Step 6: Masking - Another Round of Increased Exposure

I decided that distant rock face was a little too dark so I created another brush mask and increased exposure just a touch.

Step 7: Masking - Selectively Increasing Whites

Finally, I wanted the whites on the surface of the water to stand out to show the motion of the water. I created a final brush mask and increased the whites in those areas. This was more focused than increasing exposure, just increasing the whites instead of brightening the entire area.

Final Image

And that was it. At this point I was happy with the look of the photograph. I’d started with an image I liked and by applying some small adjustments here and there I was able to enhance it into an image I liked even more, that better showed what I saw and how I felt on that day.

Click on the photo below to cycle between the before and after images to better see the results of all these small edits. Any one of them by themselves might not do much for the photo, but taken together they help shape the final image.

BEFORE

AFTER

I hope you’ve enjoyed this small look into my process.

South Fork Quantico Creek - Downstream - October 2021 is available for purchase as wall art or on a variety of products at my online store.

Do you enjoy these posts?

I appreciate your support!

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Before & After: Foggy Morning on Casco Bay / January 11, 2022 by Todd Henson

It’s been a while since I put together a before & after post where I compare the image straight out of the camera with the final processed image and show some of the steps I used to get from one to the other. Today we’re looking at a photo of a foggy morning on Casco Bay in Maine. It was such an incredibly foggy day many folks might think there was no point in even having a camera out. In fact, one person who saw me photographing this scene asked if I had a special filter on my camera that cut through the fog. 😀 Needless to say, the fog was very much a part of the image, helping to give it a particular mood.

I used Adobe Lightroom to process this image and I’ll show some of the settings I used in the steps below.

Straight Out of the Camera

Here is how the image looked straight out of the camera. Everything is a hazy shade of blue.

Step 1: Convert to Black & White

The first step for this image was converting to black & white. I knew when holding the camera that I’d likely process some of the images as black & white. There just wasn’t enough color in the scene to make much of a difference to me and I was picturing a particular look with bold and dark shades of grey transitioning to the lighter tones at the center of the image. I adjusted the various color channels to shift the shades of gray, though there wasn’t a lot of color in the scene to begin with.

Step 2: Basic Exposure Adjustments

The next step and one I usually do first was that of basic exposure adjustments. I increased the exposure a bit to lighten the overall scene, and increased contrast a touch. I push up the highlights and whites quite a bit and pushed down the shadows and blacks. This is the exact opposite that we might typically do when trying to bring out as many details as possible, such as when processing high dynamic range (HDR) images. In this case I wanted to add to the punchy-ness of the image, essentially lessening the effects of the fog just a bit. I still wanted the fog, but I wanted to assure the boat really stood out. To go along with this I used the dehaze setting to cut through the fog just a bit (there’s the magic anti-fog filter the person asked me about).

Step 3: Graduated Filter at the Top

Graduated filter at the top of the image

I was looking for something dynamic and contrasty. This led me to apply a graduated filter to the sky and use it to darken the exposure, as well as dropping the shadows and blacks to darken it even further. I was using Michael Kenna as an inspiration with this image.

The circle and lines on the image show where I’ve applied the filter. The circle is on the center line and you can see a line above and below. These allow me to control how quickly the exposure moves from darker to lighter with darker at the top and lighter towards the bottom.

Step 4: Graduated Filter at the Bottom

Graduated filter at the bottom of the image

I wanted to really direct your eyes to the center of the frame with the boat and the foggy island in the distance. So I added another graduated filter, this time to the water at the bottom of the frame. Similar to the sky I turned it into a graduated neutral density filter that would darken the water, darker towards the bottom and lighter towards the top. Again, you can see the lines that control how quickly the exposure changes.

Step 5: Spot Removal

I don’t know if you’re able to see in these smaller screenshots, but during the entire process I kept noticing spots on the image. Some of these were sensor dust, something that happens with cameras with removable lenses where dust can get into the camera and settle on the sensor. It appears as little fuzzy spots and can be quite annoying. Thankfully, Lightroom has a handy spot removal tool and all those circles show where I removed a spot. Not all the spots are necessarily sensor dust. Some are other spots I noticed in the scene and found distracting. They might have been debris floating in the water or birds in the sky.

Step 6: Another Graduated Filter on the Sky

Another graduated filter to further darken the sky

When I first started working the image I was really going for extremely bold blacks, so I applied another graduated filter to the sky and further reduced exposure and dropped highlights, shadows, whites and blacks, so the sky went from lighter gray all the way to black.

Step 7: Brush Strokes on the Boat and Island

I wanted to assure the boat and island stood out. These were my subjects. So I used the brush tool to roughly select them and increased contrast in that area by adjusting various settings, like contrast, highlights, shadows, blacks, and clarity.

Step 8: Brush Strokes to Central Region

Similar to step 7, but this time I selected almost the entire central region. I wanted to keep it much lighter than the top and bottom, so I boosted the whites and highlights and lifted the shadows and blacks.

Step 9: More Brush Strokes to the Boat

I decided to bring a little more attention to the boat so I applied another brush stroke, this time lightening the selected area by raising highlights and whites.

Step 10: Going Crazy with Graduated Filters

I kept thinking I wanted very bold blacks so I applied yet another graduated filter to just the top portion of the sky and seriously lowered highlights, shadows, whites and black, further darkening this region.

Step 11: Final Steps for Version 1

Final steps for the first version of the image

Then I applied the final steps for what would become the first version of this image. I adjusted the tone curve, further increasing contrast. I applied profile corrections that correct for any issues with the specific lens I used. And I applied a rather strong vignette, darkening the corners and pushing the upper corners and bottom to absolute black. At the time I though this was the final image.

Step 12: Graduated Filter Tweaks

After letting the image sit for a while I realized I’d pushed the contrast much further than I was comfortable with. So I tweaked the various graduated filters, lessening the contrast by lightening the sky and water so nothing went to complete black, instead maintaining degrees of gray.

Step 13: Another Round of Spot Removal and Final Cleanup

Another round of spot removal and some final cleanup

Finally, I went crazy with cleaning up any remaining spots. I used Lightroom’s features to help visualize spots and I zoomed in to 100% so I could closely inspect every part of the image. You can see I removed a larger number of additional spots of various sizes. I was looking for smooth transitions and found any dark or light specks distracting so I removed them.

Final Image

All of this led to the final image you see above. Click on the image further below to cycle between the before and after versions to better see the full range of changes. As you saw in the steps above, I sometimes go too far with something before changing my mind and toning it back down. Sometimes I do that in a single editing session and other times it’s days later after I’ve let the image sit a while.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at the roads we sometimes travel when crafting our images. There are times we’re almost completely happy with an image just as it is, with only the minimal set of adjustments almost every raw file requires. But other times we have a vision of the scene and have to do a bit more work to realize that vision, crafting the raw image to reflect what we imagine. It can be a very fun process.