Aaron Macomber
Well-Known Member
So hey, I thought I’d share a technique I developed to process my water shots in particular, but it really works for me with most scenes. We’ve been conditioned over time to grab that clarity/structure slider and bump it to the right, as well as contrast, saturation, and then sharpen after maybe a curves adjustment in the pursuit of a shot with punchy contast and vivid color. Varying themes on that I suspect. So, take it or leave it, but this is what I’ve learned to do though experimentation, and I really like the way they come out, and thought I’d share. This is specific to landscapes, so this seemed like the place to post.
So, try this workflow... A lot of it is counterintuitive. Process your RAW, complete your blends or focus stack or whatever you have going on to get to your final composition. Add a duplicate layer for your adjustments, that way you can play with the layer opacity when you are all done to either reduce your overall adjustment, or to just see where you came from and where you now are. Next back the contrast off, back the clarity/structure (depending on what software you’re using) ALMOST COMPLETELY OFF. Add a curves layer and adjust that to get the contrast you are looking for, take it easy, just get it close and watch your histogram for clipping. Reduce the luminance noise just a touch to soften it. Now make a final contrast/clarity adjustment, less is more, just get your levels right for the feel you are looking for. Back off the saturation and bump up the vibrance (easy now...) to get it to pop. If you need to dive into selective color or balance to corect a cast, now is the time. Then go ahead and sharpen the details judiciously. At this point you should have nice creamy clouds and water/waves, sharp details without halos, and realistic color, but with a bang. An almost imperceptable dash of diffuse glow is good too if you like it, again watch the right side of the histo with that..real easy to blow your highlights. Flatten your adjustment layer(s), and then you can proceed with any local exposure adjustments, dodge/burn, etc, if needed.
Too much contrast in water and in clouds can be detrimental in my opinion. If your sky is crunchy, you can add a mask to the sky and give it quite a bit of noise reduction to soften it up. 95% of the time, you dont want super sharp details in the sky, and also the sky is most likely where you are going to have noticable and/or detrimental noise, so, two birds..
I tend to process my exposures darker than most becasue I like a moody feel, sometimes a level adjustment will need to be made for prints.
Play with it if you want, just thought I’d throw that out there. Feel free to discard...make sure and recycle
Cheers
So, try this workflow... A lot of it is counterintuitive. Process your RAW, complete your blends or focus stack or whatever you have going on to get to your final composition. Add a duplicate layer for your adjustments, that way you can play with the layer opacity when you are all done to either reduce your overall adjustment, or to just see where you came from and where you now are. Next back the contrast off, back the clarity/structure (depending on what software you’re using) ALMOST COMPLETELY OFF. Add a curves layer and adjust that to get the contrast you are looking for, take it easy, just get it close and watch your histogram for clipping. Reduce the luminance noise just a touch to soften it. Now make a final contrast/clarity adjustment, less is more, just get your levels right for the feel you are looking for. Back off the saturation and bump up the vibrance (easy now...) to get it to pop. If you need to dive into selective color or balance to corect a cast, now is the time. Then go ahead and sharpen the details judiciously. At this point you should have nice creamy clouds and water/waves, sharp details without halos, and realistic color, but with a bang. An almost imperceptable dash of diffuse glow is good too if you like it, again watch the right side of the histo with that..real easy to blow your highlights. Flatten your adjustment layer(s), and then you can proceed with any local exposure adjustments, dodge/burn, etc, if needed.
Too much contrast in water and in clouds can be detrimental in my opinion. If your sky is crunchy, you can add a mask to the sky and give it quite a bit of noise reduction to soften it up. 95% of the time, you dont want super sharp details in the sky, and also the sky is most likely where you are going to have noticable and/or detrimental noise, so, two birds..
I tend to process my exposures darker than most becasue I like a moody feel, sometimes a level adjustment will need to be made for prints.
Play with it if you want, just thought I’d throw that out there. Feel free to discard...make sure and recycle
Cheers
