Guys, I'm about to show you one of my most epic Panorama ever.
The workflow I'm about to show you is really a very powerful workflow in Lightroom,
at the end, I am going to be using Luminar Neo for something crazy.
It's a bit of a surprise, stay until the end.
Alright. So here we are. This was a beautiful sunset in Paris
and I had GFX 100s, a medium format camera
and my lens was not wide enough to capture this beautiful statue
here on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
So what I did is I just took a whole bunch of photos.
I made sure that every photo had, like, about 30%
And can you imagine, I mean look at the resolution.
Every photo is what? Every photo is almost twelve thousand pixels by,
like, every photo is a one hundred million pixels.
It's crazy. This is probably one of the biggest photo I've ever produced.
So I'm gonna select all of that. Boom.
I'm gonna right click. I'm gonna go to photo merge.
And I'm gonna go to Panorama. Now you really need a very strong computer to be
able to do like a Panorama with a medium format camera.
If you really wanna learn Lightroom, I have this new book coming out called Lightroom Classic natural drama,
which I'm gonna show you in this demonstration of how I do it.
If you wanna it as a reference, get the book for free if you pay the shipping.
Alright. So here we are. Here we are.
So when you do a panorama, you have different projections.
It's just different way of stitching photos.
So you can go to spherical, which is kinda cool and it's gonna make like more of a panorama look.
In this case, I think I wanna go for that or you can go to perspective.
And perspective is not gonna work in this one because perspective,
you cannot have object which are too close to your lens,
which was the case here. So I think I'm going to go to spherical.
But I have a problem. Houston, I have a problem.
I made a mistake and I did not shoot the last photo here.
I should have taken one more photo for the right side.
So I'm gonna use a magic.
You see all these all these things here that's missing,
I'm gonna click on fill edge
and Lightroom is gonna use a technology called content aware fill
and it's gonna create the missing pixel here.
And I already have done that and here is the result.
So that's the panorama. You can see some stuff which is a little weird here,
but that's fine. And now, it's time to do what I call the natural drama formula.
And that's really covered in the book I go in detail on every step.
So step number one is exposure. So I'm gonna open the shadows.
I'm gonna bring down the highlights. You've seen me do that a lot of time,
but there's a few tricks in this video especially at the end.
Anyway, I'm gonna hold on the option key. I'm gonna crush the black like this
and that's gonna make the photo from very dark.
You wanna have like pixels which are 100% like,
look at the quality of this photo. Look the details.
Look you can the rain and I don't think I have taken a more sharp
and so detailed photo in my life.
It's crazy. It's so huge. It's probably like a five hundred million pixel photo.
Look at the resolution. Twenty one thousand pixels wide.
It's crazy. Anyway, you need a strong computer.
I'm gonna add some contrast to it.
And basically, that's step number one.
Good exposure so I can see what's going on.
Okay? Step number two of the natural drama formula is the white balance.
So what white balance should be used for this one?
Well, before we do the white balance, I want to go to profile and because it was shot with a Fuji camera,
I love Fuji cameras, I have Sony,
I have Fuji, I shoot with both of them the Fuji have incredible profile.
And back in the day, I used to shoot with something called Mamiya seven two,
and I used to use a film called Provia or Valvia.
So I love the Valvia look. It's got a very magenta.
Check this out. Are you ready? I'm gonna use the Valvia profile,
and it's making the color a lot richer.
So I choose that profile. And then,
boom, I add I'm gonna go maybe to daylight.
Or cloudy? Yeah.
Maybe cloudy is kinda cool. What you don't wanna do is you don't wanna loose the blue in the sky.
I like my sunset to go from blue to warm.
So I think, let's see what shade is gonna give me.
I think shade's gonna be too much. Yeah, shade I'm losing the blue.
So I think on this I'm just gonna go to cloudy.
And then I don't like… the yellow has a lot of green in it,
so I'm gonna add a lot of magenta to kill the green.
Yeah. I'm gonna add a bit more yellow,
but I'm not done. So that's step number two is the white balance.
Now step number three is color refinement.
So color refinement is you basically go to the hue saturation and luminance section.
In this one, I'm not gonna do much because I really like the colors.
So but let's check it anyway.
So what I'll do is I'm gonna take that tool on the
hue and I'm gonna click where it's kinda warm like here,
for example. And if I go up,
it becomes very greenish.
And if I go down it becomes a lot more magenta.
So I'm changing a little bit the sky to go a little more reddish.
Okay? And then saturation, I love to make the sunset really pop,
so I'm gonna add a lot of saturation in the three first color here.
Here. Okay. I think I went a little too far on the hue here.
It's a little too red now. I'm gonna bring that back down a little bit.
You know, and it's very subtle. I mean, it was such a great sunset.
I'm trying to get it back. Where is the sunset?
Okay. So that is step number three of the natural drama formula.
We refined the colors. Now,
step number four and this one is crazy and that is dodge and burn.
But before to do dodge and burn, this is really when I actually crop the photo so I'm gonna go here.
I'm gonna unable profile corrections. If it does anything,
it does not. I'm gonna go to the crop tool and I'm gonna go 16x9
and I'm going to crop it. Crop it.
Crop it. And I wanna make sure it's straight.
16x9, I wanna really focus on the statue and on the Obelisque here.
Also, it's gonna take out that little weird thing that was created in the pixel that was missing.
Boom. And now,
the time is for the dodge and burn.
So I'm gonna dodge and burn the photo.
That's step number four of the natural drama formula.
So what I do here is I'm going to make the sky a little darker on the gradient
because you could use a new AI and select the sky,
but I find that if you use a gradient,
it's more natural. So I'm gonna take the linear gradient and I'm gonna basically burn the sky.
Okay. I'm burning the sky.
So I'm gonna click and drag
and I'm gonna lower the exposure and it's gonna make the top of sky darker.
I think I'm gonna add a touch of blue in it at the same time.
But you see the problem is that it's now making this a little darker.
Now here is a little pro tip
for you. And this is a new feature that just came out in Lightroom and I absolutely love this.
Because now you see this whole waterfall, not waterfall,
water or whatever, Leave me a comment
and tell me what that is in English because I am French and I don’t speak very well English.
Okay? I'm gonna go to mask and I'm gonna click on three dots,
intersect mask with Sky. By intersecting,
mask with sky, check it out. Boom. What it does,
it only affects the sky and not the fountain.
Yeah, the fountain. That's what you're looking for. Now,
I'm going to dodge the photo. Dodging means making it brighter.
It's crazy. So I'm gonna go here. Bam.
I'm gonna use a brush. Make sure
when brush the flow in density is in the seventies
and I'm gonna boost a little bit the exposure and I just wanna make the water brighter here.
Maybe here make this a little bit brighter.
I really love this part of the fountain,
now, I think by mistake, I touch exposure,
the overall exposure. I'm just gonna make it a bit darker.
Yeah. Something like that. And what I wanna do is I want to make this whole sunset come even more.
And that's more dodging. This is a little secret.
When you have such an amazing sunset. And believe me,
that only works if you have such a sunset. Do not do this at home if you don't have a great sunset.
You can go here and you go to radial gradient
and you make a little gradient where the sunset
is and you add a bit of yellow and a bit of magenta and a little bit of saturation.
Now this only works if there was truly colors there.
If you didn't have colors, it's gonna look really weird.
I see a lot of people doing this technique and it's really weird.
Okay. At this point, I really like the photo.
I'm like, wow, this is really good and it's time for the magic trick.
So for the last step of the natural drama formula is to go to Photoshop.
I could go to Photoshop and erase the bus, which is gonna take a lot of time.
So I'm not gonna do that on this photo, I have a lot of other videos
on how to erase anything in Photoshop,
look at the description of the video.
I might just add a bit of more contrast boost the white.
I just do the final touches. And honestly,
at this point, I could stop here, probably one of my favorite photo of the last year.
Really like the colors, but I have to be honest with you.
I work with a gallery and the gallery keeps telling me,
you know, the best selling photos are very,
very strong. They have very a very strong color cast.
They have, you know, they really, like,
they really want me to use, like, Photoshop and Heavy Post Processing.
This is what I call the natural drama. But now,
I'm gonna go to Luminar Neo to add a little je ne sais quoi to make it even more crazy.
Now, if you don't like, the very,
like, impactful kind of photo. If you don't like the photo that sells really well,
do not watch this next part. Stop the video now.
Please don't watch because you're you're gonna leave me a nasty comment.
But if you really wanna create an impact,
if you wanna sell this photo to the world,
Stay tuned. So I'm gonna go to edit Luminar Neo.
And by the way, you can get 10% off Luminar if you use the code PHOTOSERGE
You know, this is not sponsored by them, but,
you know, if you just wanna get 10% off. I do get a small commission.
You do support this channel. If you do,
this is more lightroom tutorial than a Luminar tutorial,
but I gotta show this to you guys. So here I am in Luminar Neo.
And again, usually, I stop here.
My gallery has been asking, we want more impact,
more color, more crazy because it sells better.
So I'll show you. So you go to edit,
and I don't do much. But Luminar Neo has some very powerful sliders.
So you go to edit. It's a little slow
because this is literally a five hundred million pixel photo and Luminar,
can handle it. I go to enhance, and I just boost a little bit accent.
Accent is just gonna make the shadow open a little more.
It's gonna make it a little more saturation. Don't go crazy like this because that's too much,
but a little bit of accent is good. And a little bit of sky on Sky Enhancer.
It's gonna make the sky a little more darker,
a little more boom boom boom. It's amazing.
Now, Here's one of the secret slider.
It's the landscape. And there is a slider called golden hour.
If you use the golden hour, I love what it does to the sunset.
It just makes the sunset pop. I love what it does to the sunset.
I don't like what it does to the bricks here. But here is the magic trick.
You ask… you know, you put some golden hour,
then you go to masking, then you go to radial gradient
and you make a big gradient, and you make it so it's only affecting the sunset and look at that.
Let's go back to adjustment and check it out before/after.
See, it's just making the colors really pop but around the sunset.
Okay? And it's, you know, it's small things by small things by small things. Usually,
I also like to go to structure.
Structure is here. It's called structure AI and I add a little bit of that.
Okay? And then and then I go to super contrast.
Super contrast. It is amazing.
It is incredible. And I do. I highlight contrast,
midtones contrast, and shadow contrast, and that's gonna make the colors go crazy.
Okay? I could stop here. Let me show you.
This is the before and the after.
It really makes the photo pop. Now,
I think there's too much color,
so I'm gonna go to color harmony, and then that first slider is brilliant.
If you go left, it's gonna re-desaturate a little bit the photo just a little, but it's very strong.
Just a little bit. A little bit goes a long way.
Alright. So I'm back and on the right side is a lightroom natural drama version.
On the left side is like the sort of over the top,
but I didn't go more crazy. I could go even more over the top.
But this kind of photo actually sells better on the left side with a Lumino Neo,
a little touch and on the right side. I kind of prefer the right side.
Tell me in the comments which one you prefer. By the way,
don't forget if you use your code a PHOTOSERGE, you can get 10% off Luminar Neo.
Get my book Lightroom natural drama.
It's really, like, there's so many sliders in Lightroom.
Just pay for shipping. And you'll get the book for free link is under the video.
And also, I made this really cool video well back on focus stacking.
Check it out. It's really hard to get this crazy stacking focus, like from the start to the end.
It's Lightroom and Photoshop. I think you're gonna enjoy it. Aurevoir!