Unmesh Dinda 0:00 Hi there, this is Unmesh from PiXimperfect
and today I'm going to share with you how to bring a completely washed out and rejected
image back to life in Lightroom.
Just turning up the Dehaze slder is not enough.
There's a special set of settings that goes along with Dehaze and today we're going to
learn exactly that.
So without any further ado, let's get started.
So here we are in the photography darkroom, which Adobe likes to call Lightroom, and if
you want to go ahead and download the raw photo and follow along, check the links in
the description.
This video is made possible by the support of our awesome Patreons.
If you want to receive exclusive PiXimperfect rewards like every adjustment we do in this
tutorial as a preset and also an exclusive Lightroom profile for this tutorial, do consider
becoming a member of PiXimperfect Patreon family right here.
So, what do you think are the challenges for this image?
Number 1, it's crooked.
Have a look at this.
It's very crooked, we need to straighten it.
Number 2, it's hazy, so we need to dehaze it.
Number 3, if we zoom in closely, have a look at this one is to one, the focus is not perfect.
This camel is focused, but the main camel is not focused so much.
So, we need to find a way to hide that.
And we're going to do that too.
So first of all, let's straighten the image.
So, press the 'R' key for the Crop Overlay, or you can click right here, it's the same
thing.
And then, with the Angle tool right there, just click on the Angle and then click and
drag to create a straight line along the railing right in there.
So, I think about this would be pretty nice and probably something like this.
And now have a look at this, it's straightened.
Number 1, done.
The second issue is there's a lot of haze.
So, simply increase Dehaze right here.
Let's increase it to the point where we like it.
We're going to go to about, maybe 82/83.
That's perfect.
But have a look at the problem with Dehaze.
It has added too much saturation in some areas.
Now, decreasing the Saturation will not help.
Why?
Because it has increased the saturation in areas which already had some saturation, in
the mid tones.
So, let's decrease the Vibrance.
We don't want to decrease the overall saturation, but only those excessive areas.
So simply decrease the Vibrance and it looks perfect, doesn't it?
Now, you can go even lower if you want to.
In this case, I'm going to apply a filter later.
And that's why, let's decrease the Vibrance even more so that we can apply the color of
the filter.
The White Balance in this case might be right, but there's this thing called Artistic White
Balance.
You don't have to be perfect with White Balance unless it's a product shoot.
And if you're creating art, there are no rules.
So increase the temperature.
I'll go to probably about.. have a look at this, it's instantly looking wonderful, about
6000-7000 range.
That's great, but if you look at it closely, there is slightly a little magenta to it.
So, let's decrease the just by a hair, maybe -8 or -7 or something.
Now in this photo, the colors are not very interesting.
We need to apply some filter, some creative profiles to it.
So, let's zoom out.
Have a look, the colors are not very attractive.
So what do we do?
Simply apply a Profile.
So, click on this right here, click on these four boxes.
It will take you to the Profile browser.
Now, inside of that, you can choose any profile you want, Adobe Raw profiles right here, you
can choose whatever you like.
If you hover through them, it's going to show you how it's going to look.
But, in this case, I am trying something artistic.
So you can go for, probably, Artistic 02 or maybe something like Artistic 07, it's giving
it an old look.
But, I'm going to use a custom profile that I had created.
It should be right here.
Let's scroll down.
This is inside PiXimperfect presets and let's choose this one.
I totally love this.
If you are a PiX Creative Patreon member, you can download this Lightroom profile from
our Patreon page.
Link is in the description.
Now the great part about Lightroom profile is that you can control the amount according
to you.
So you can decrease it, of course, just like Opacity in Photoshop, but, unlike Opacity,
you can actually increase it as well.
In Photoshop, you would have to duplicate the Adjustment layers in order to go beyond
100% Opacity.
But in this case, just increase the slider.
That's it.
And I'm going to bring it back to normal.
Normal is fine.
Now, remember the thing about Artistic White Balance?
I think I can go even more.
Have a look at it.
It's creating some wonderful effect.
I'm going to leave it at about 9000 or something.
Now, let's increase the Exposure a little bit to 0.44, that's fine.
And with that, let's increase the Contrast as well to add some punch to it.
Now, as you can see, the whites are too high, so we're going to decrease the whites.
Now, keep in mind, we don't want to recover the highlights in this case because the sky
is totally blank, so there is no point.
But, you can decrease the whites because I think it's too much in my opinion.
So I'm going to go for a -42, that's great.
Now, let's try decreasing and increasing the blacks.
You know what, if I increase the blacks, it's giving it a nice artistic feel.
So I'm going to leave it at +37.
To brighten the dark camels a little bit, let's increase the shadows.
Wow, that's adding a full effect to the image as well.
And maybe let's try and decreasing the highlights just a bit.
It's not helping too much.
Let's decrease the whites.
Now, to add a faded effect, let's come down to the Tone curve.
So, this is the Tone curve.
Let's click on it and now let's increase the shadows.
That's what we got to do.
Now, if you're not seeing this, if you're seeing something like this, all you have to
do is to click on this button right there.
Now, it will get you to a custom curve.
So, make the highlights a little brighter, and take the mid-tones a little darker.
The main thing here is taking the shadows up, just like that, to add a faded effect.
Maybe I'll take it a little down.. this one as well.
That's fantastic.
Have a look at the before and after Tone curve.
So, here's the before, here's the after.
Now, if we zoom in one is to one, the image already has a ton of noise.
So I would avoid sharpening it too much unless you absolutely need it.
So let's go to the Details panel.
Have a look, Lightroom already applies a default sharpening, which is great, and you can just
leave it at that.
Maybe go higher if you want to, but I'm going to leave it at that.
Now, let's come down to something else, which will help us hide the focus missed.
Now, since the image already doesn't have so much details and it is a little blurry,
how do we hide it?
By adding some texture.
And here's what we do, let's add some grain to it.
Let's come down to the Effects.
Now, inside of the Effect, let's increase the amount of grain.
That's it.
So I'm going to go to about, maybe, have a look, have a look at the nice grain, it'a
looking fantastic..
70..
70 is adding that nice grain to it, that vintage feel to it.
You can, of course, control the size and the roughness of the grain as well.
So, if we increase the size, it's going to be a little bigger, like getting more vintage,
but I don't want it to be so big.
This is okay.
Roughness - maybe a little lesser.
So, you can control this as much as you want.
Have a look at that vintage feel.
Totally loving it.
Look at it at full screen.
Look.
Wonderful, isn't it?
So, here's the after and this is the before.
We have come a long way.
Now, to make the image more engaging, let's add some Vignette to it.
So, here Post-Crop Vignetting, let's decrease the amount, first of all, to -100 to see what's
happening.
Then you can decrease the Feather to see which areas is the Vignette covering.
Now, control the midpoint.
I think this would be a perfect area.
This is great.
And you can also control the roundness as well.
Do you want it to be completely round like this, or maybe something like that?
So, I'm going to keep it probably at +25 / +24.
That's great.
Now, it's time for us to increase the Feather.
See, the head of the camel is getting darker.
So, in this case, you might want to move the midpoint a little away and then increase the
Feather even more.
Midpoint away.
Now, of course, the Amount is too much.
So, now, let's control the Amount.
We don't have to add so much of a Vignette, this is great.
And you can always take the midpoint a little to the middle and decrease the Feather and
increase the Amount in the negative side.
This is great.
Now here's an important part.
If you don't want the Vignette to be applied on the highlights around the edge, you can
of course, increase the highlights from there.
Have a look, it's not being applied on the sky.
So you can do that if you want to.
I'm going to keep it at about 78.
Now, if you want, you can also do some Dodging & Burning on this one to add some dimension.
So, let's go to the Brush right there - Adjustment Brush.
Now, inside of that, click on New, make sure it's already new, double click on the effect
to bring everything back to neutral and maybe increase the Exposure a little bit and start
painting.
I wanted to brighten the head a little bit, maybe make the brush a little larger, and
add some brightness to the hump maybe right here, maybe a little bit here.
So you can take your time to do it as much as you want.
So I'm going to probably add some brightness to him as a well, a little bit around here.
Now, we did been some extra areas.
So, you can hold the Alt key or the Option key, the minus one shows up.
Let's make the size a little larger like this and just erase it from the excessive areas.
Let's decrease the size.
You can always zoom in and do that.
Make the brush a little larger.
Now, instead of Exposure, you could have also used Highlights first and then a tiny bit
of Exposure, and then maybe a tiny bit of Clarity.
See, have a look before and after the brush.
This is before the brush.
This is after the brush.
Pretty nice.
So I'm going to erase it from here because I think I've added too much.
So, hold the Alt or Option for the minus one, increase the size and maybe erase it from
here.
All right, that's great, isn't it?
Now, in the end, if you want, you can also apply some Lens Corrections.
So, click on the Brush again to bring it back to those settings and click on Lens Correction
and inside of the profile, let's check both - Remove Chromatic Aberration and Enable Profile
Corrections.
Have a look.
So, it will correct it a little bit.
Now, I still want to keep the vignetting, so, I'll take it all the way to the left and
it's looking great.
And I think our image is done.
So, that's our take a trash image to something usable.
A quick little recap.
The Dehaze slider is not enough, you would have to move other sliders with it, mostly
Vibrance and sometimes, Contrast as well.
Sometimes what happens is, when you increase the Dehaze, it adds some additional contrast
which we do not need.
So, Dehaze is increased.
If we decrease the Contrast, that's also giving it a very nice effect as well.
Probably, I'm liking this even more.
So with Dehaze, do not forget, Vibrance or Contrast and sometimes Saturation as well.
You need to move those.
Secondly, to add some color and mood to your photos, do consider adding an artistic Lightroom
profile.
You can also Create your own Lightroom profile and I have a video about it.
Check it out right here.
A lot of us are concerned about too much noise, grain and I used to think exactly that way.
I didn't like noise in my images.
But you know what, we can actually use it artistically, especially in black and white
images or color or moody or cross processed images, noise is absolutely wonderful.
I hope this video helped you, and if it did, make sure to give us a like and also don't
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miss any other future tip, trick or tutorial.
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Thank you so much for all your support.
Thank you for watching.
I'll see you guys in my next month.
Till then, stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai