Now, there was a time not that long ago
that if I'm honest, I thought of Lightroom as being somewhere
that I just imported, organized and printed my images.
But that has now changed big time.
Lightroom has become a very powerful editing tool
and continues to do so, especially with much of
the desktop version being in the mobile versions.
So in this video, I want to show you
how very quickly we can take a flat image
and with
just a few simple adjustments, using some very powerful
but easy to use controls completely
bring it to life.
Now, here's a photograph that I took
in the north of England in Yorkshire,
next to Ribblehead Viaduct; an incredible location
on what was actually a bright sunny day despite the clouds.
However, the picture at the moment doesn't really show that,
so I want to edit this to make it more like it was
when I was actually there.
I'll start by bringing up the color
because at the moment it looks very flat.
If I use the saturation slider, that will bring up
all of the colors, but in doing so will also affect
the skin tone which we do not want to happen.
So instead I'll use the vibrance slider.
I can drag this far
over to the right and we can see the colors
have now really come to life,
but the skin tones still look good.
I’ll add a little bit of overall contrast
and a touch of clarity.
Now, on the day,
there was a beautiful blue in the sky,
but again, that's not showing up here.
So I want to enhance that.
I could go to the HSL section and then saturation,
click on the target adjustment tool
and place that onto a section of the sky and drag upwards.
This adds saturation to the blue,
but the problem here is that it's also affecting other areas
of the picture where the original tone appears.
So that's not the way to do it.
Instead, I'll use a mask.
So I'll click to add a mask
and choose Select Sky.
Lightroom does a great job selecting the sky,
which we can see from this red overlay,
however there are some areas
that it's also included, like the biker.
So I'll choose, subtract and then select subject.
There's also some red overlay
on the distant hills, so again, I'll choose subtract,
and this time choose a brush and brush
those areas away so they're no longer selected.
To now increase the blue in the sky.
I might think of using the white balance,
but that adds blue
onto the cloud, so doesn't look realistic at all.
Instead, the best way to do this is to use something
called Intersect.
I'll hold down the option key on Mac or alt
key on windows to make the Intersect
button appear within the masking section.
Then I'll choose a second mask.
I'll go for color range and then click on an area of sky.
And we can see the color selected just here.
Then with the overlay visible, I'll use the refine
slider to fine tune
the color being selected by dragging to the left.
Now we see the overlay is only in the areas of the sky,
so I can
then maybe use the white balance to boost the color a bit.
With that done,
let's come out of masking and then go to the HSL
section.
In here I want to now brighten the ground because the sun was
shining through.
I can do that by using the luminance section
and then dragging the green and the yellow
sliders to the right.
If I turn this now off and on, you can see
how that has affected the ground.
Finally, let's add the finishing touches
using color grading.
I'll cool the shadows down
and add a little bit of extra contrast
by dragging the luminance to the left.
I'll use the midtones to warm
the skin tones up
and then I'll go to the highlights and warm them up too.
Now, I don't want the
bright areas of the clouds to be affected by this warm color,
so I'll use the luminance slider
to brighten the highlight areas which then takes color
out of those areas.
I'll then use the blending slider
to subtly blend the colors of the shadows,
mid tones and highlights.
And then I'll use the balance slider
to tip the color of the image more towards the highlights
to warm the image up.
I'll also use the global color wheel
to add one final bit of warmth;
just a little bit, so I'll keep the saturation quite low.
So there you go, before and after.
Now, this to me looks much more like it
did on the day I was there
and you can really see the difference in what we've done
by having the before and after side by side.
So let's create a virtual copy
and then reset this version so
the edits are no longer there.
Now I'll click on both and press C
to put them side by side in compare mode.
So there you go.
Big difference in a very short space of time.
I just think it's amazing that what used to take
quite a few layers
in Photoshop can now be done with just a few adjustments
and this is only going to keep on getting better and better.
Now, one of the panels that you saw me
using there in Lightroom was the color grading panel.
This is such a powerful part of Lightroom and Camera Raw,
but is often overlooked.
So I'm going to end this video with another video
showing you something that I've got over on my website
that goes into how we use the color
grading panel in a lot more detail.
So I'll leave that with you.
Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you in the next video.
Hi, I'm Glyn Dewis and this is my Color
Grading: The Essential Finishing Touch mini course.
In this course,
I'm going to take you through everything that you need to know
to get the very best out of the fantastic
color grading panel in Lightroom Classic, Lightroom
CC, Lightroom Mobile and Camera Raw.
We'll cover what color grading is and then dive
into the color grading panel explaining what everything does
and how to use it correctly to add mood, atmosphere, a look
and ultimately a style to your images and all
without the need for buying any extra software or plug ins.
Now I use color grading on every single image that I edit,
be it from my main camera, my smartphone or my drone.
Portraits, landscapes, seascapes, still life,
color grading is the essential finishing touch.
In this color grading course you'll not only fully understand
the process
and how to use it, but also how to get the very best out of it
so that you can go on and create your own unique style.
I'll see you in class.