hi i'm robin whalley welcome to lenscraft today i purchased an upgrade to exposure software's new
exposure x6 i was going to do a review of the various new features but then changed my mind
instead i'm going to use exposure x6 to process one of my landscape photos and in doing this i'll
use some of the new features what i really want to demonstrate is how you can use exposure x6
as an editing tool if you want to know about the various new features i found a useful page on the
exposure website which i'll share in the youtube video description my advice as always is to
download the trial version of the software to see if you like it and if it works for you everyone's
needs and wants a different so it won't really help you by me saying that i love the software
before i open exposure x6 i want to highlight that you can use it in two ways
the first is to use the browser and asset manager to organize your photo library and then from there
you can select a raw file or an image file and then launch the photo editor to adjust it
the other way to use the software is as a plugin to another package like lightroom or photoshop
for this video i'm using exposure x6 as a plugin to photoshop before i launch the plugin though
i've done an initial cleanup of the image which i then used to create a new consolidated image layer
i then converted the new layer for use with smart filters now you can use the exposure plugin as a
smart filter so that it preserves your adjustments between editing sessions this means that if you
find you don't like an adjustment you can later reopen the exposure software and change it
after launching the exposure editor we can see the editing tools on the right
which we'll look at in a moment over on the left we have controls like the navigator and histogram
we also have one of the great features of exposure which are all the presets exposure comes with over
500 film simulation presets which you can use as well as allowing you to create and save your own
to help you manage the different presets you have tabs along the top so you can use these as filters
you can also mark presets you use a lot as favorites as i have here when i move my mouse
pointer over a preset the main window updates to show its effect this can be a great way to produce
new editing ideas for images although i'm going to edit this image in color i'm really surprised
by how good the black and white presets look i'm going to start my editing by applying the fujineg
high contrast simulation i like the way this removes some of the yellow saturation in the
mid tones to give a more natural look to the image when i click the preset exposure applies
the adjustments to the controls on the right side of the interface it achieves many of the preset
adjustments using a combination of the color and tone curve sections when i pass my mouse over some
of the presets again you can see these controls changing whilst these controls may appear familiar
if you used other editors like lightroom exposure has a few additional features i find really useful
for example you have the colour filter section but this also allows you to control the temperature of
the tint to make it warmer or cooler if you find a combination of settings you like you can then
save it as a new preset to use in the future now i've already saved a cool green preset which i'll
apply to this image as you would expect with an hsl tool you can use it to control the saturation
of different colors but you can also combine this with adjusting the level of saturation
in the shadows mid-tones and highlights something else i've noticed whilst using
exposure x6 is the speed improvements over the previous version i can't demonstrate this but the
whole application feels more responsive making it extremely enjoyable to use for photo editing
whilst i'm in the color section i should also mention new advanced color editor in exposure x6
it gives a lot of control over changing colors and at the moment more than i've seen in any
competitor i'll be doing an in-depth video about the advanced color editor in another video in the
future at a high level though you use the left side of the dialog to define the colors you
want to target and then on the right you set the new color unlike with many other editors
you can do this by controlling the hue saturation and luminance independently of each other let's
close this down now and i'll add a new layer to the image i want to use this to select the top
of the image to enhance the appearance of the mist i'll call the new layer mist i then need to create
the selection for the top part of the frame to do this i click the brush icon which opens exposure
selection tools i'm going to start with the half gradient to select the top part of the frame
if i turn on the mask option you can see the selected area in red
next i want to refine the selection so that it only covers the lighter areas
i can do this using the colour constraints section at the bottom
this allows me to control the selection based on hue saturation and luminance for this image
i'll start with the luminance control to select the lighter tones
as i move the sliders to select the luminance range you can see the mask overlay changing
unfortunately it hasn't created the selection i'd hoped for so i'll use the hue controls now
to refine it this allows me to avoid the yellow of the leaves in the trees to the side of the image
finally i'll add some feathering to the selection
to help blend my adjustments with the surrounding areas
i'm happy with this so i'll turn off the mask and make the adjustments to emphasize the mist
in the layers section at the top of the screen you can see the mist layer
i can check the effect of the layer now by turning it off and on
if the adjustments are too strong i can reduce the opacity of the layer
the next adjustment i want to add is a vignette which i'm going to place on a new layer by itself
i'll use the vignette to darken the edges of the frame by placing the center
on the foreground rock making it a focal point for the viewer
now i want to remove the vignette from some areas to make
it more natural to do this i'll use a layer mask
i'll use the erase brush to remove the effect from
the top of the frame where the mist is and then select areas around the image
the final effect i want to add is to make brighter areas of the image glow
again i want to add this as a new layer so that i can control where it's applied using a mask i'll
create the glowing effect using the infrared control where i can set the opacity and spread
the opacity controls the strength of the effect whilst the spread controls how wide it is
initially i want to make this a strong adjustment to help me see the areas affected in the image
i can then use the erase brush to remove it from the foreground rocks at a low flow setting
i'll also use this to reduce the intensity of the effect in the mist
otherwise it will cause this area to blow out which i don't want
finally i'll reduce the opacity of the layer to control the effect
the before button at the top allows me to compare the starting image with the edited adjustment
i'm happy with the result so i'll click the apply button and return to photoshop as i mentioned at
the start of this video i've been looking at using exposure x6 for landscape photo editing but it's
just as good for other styles during the video i've used some of the new features
in exposure 6 but much of what i've done here was already in exposure x5 whether exposure x6
makes a good value upgrade really depends on your existing version and the tools you want to use
if you don't already own exposure i think the new x6 release is an excellent photo editor and
library manager it's well worth investigating further the photo library manager compares
very well with lightroom and the photo editor is in my opinion much better than lightroom
i've found it very responsive and with a little practice you can achieve some excellent results
i'm robin whalley you've been watching lenscraft i'll see you soon for another video