5 Editing Hacks that’ll Transform Your Landscape Photos!

many thanks to squarespace for sponsoring this week's video so just a real quick housekeeping item tomorrow october 14th at 3 p.m eastern the 2021 photography bundle from five day deal goes live and i couldn't be more excited as i am this year's i have two of my more popular video tutorials as a part of this year's bundle along with a boatload of other incredible teaching content for many of the biggest names in the photography industry so on october 14th this year's photography bundle will be revealed and i'll add a link in the description below that you can check out all the details associated with it if you are interested so full disclosure i'm not 100 certain as to what actually constitutes a hack versus that of a tip or a trick or even a technique but it seems as though the the term hack is the more widely used or accepted nomenclature these days regarding the topic of this week's video and these are all techniques that i use rather often some i use on every photo i edit and others are hacks that i i really only use in in very specific scenarios so for this video i'll be using lightroom but these techniques can easily be replicated in just about every major photo editing platform available today so to jump right into it the very first hack is something that i call floating vignette now there's there's multiple different ways to create a vignette inside of lightroom the the standard way is to come down here to the effects panel and basically just apply how much vignette you want to apply to a particular image and as you can see it's darkening down the corners of the image the the same amount and basically leaving a perfect circle in the center which is much brighter which works great under two scenarios i suppose when one when the subject of your photograph is in the dead center of your frame and two when you want to darken down every corner of your image the same amount which isn't always the case sometimes you only want to darken certain corners down certain amounts because maybe a certain area of your photograph is already dark enough and this is where this floating vignette trick really helps so let me remove this go back to effects i'm going to come up here to the radial filter but first i want to make the overall image much smaller so i'm going to come up here to radial i'm basically just going to draw a big radius around my photograph i'm going to select invert right here and hit the shortcut key o so i can see exactly what i am impacting so everything in red here is going to receive the vignette and this is pretty similar to the way the uh the standard vignette tool works inside a lightroom what we did to uh start this overall technique but where this comes in handy is so let's kind of change this a little bit i'm gonna bring it down i want to make it whoops i want to make it a little bit more oblong so more like this because i really want to darken this area up through here so something and i want to make sure that mushroom down there gets a plenty of attention as well so i'm going to kind of bring this out some something to about right there i think looks good i'm going to leave the feather at 100 because i want that transition done transition zone to be very gradual to be very soft i'm going to hit the shortcut key at o again to turn the mask overlay off i'm going to bring this all the way down to negative four just so you can easily see it and this is where the the floating vignette name comes from because you can you can grab this and you can move it wherever you want in your overall photograph and you can see that the vignette is just kind of floating along with you and this is just great to to help you visualize exactly where you want to place the vignette and make any kind of adjustments from there so for this one like i said i want to make sure that that mushroom gets plenty of love and i want to make sure that the top up here is darkened down a little bit as well so i'm thinking something about right there looks good let me turn this exposure adjustment off so you'll notice that all of these corners there this corner is the darkest this one's the lightest and these two are about the same but they're not all the the same as far as how much exposure reduction needs to be applied and this is where this kind of custom vignette technique really really helps so i'm going to go over here i'm going to go ahead and determine how much i want to reduce the overall exposure in these corners maybe a full stop just so you can easily see it at home and i want to remove some of this right through here so i'm going to come up here to brush i'm going to come over here to erase i'm going to leave the flow maybe at about 75 leave the brush about that size and i'm going to make just a quick swipe and if i hit the shortcut key oh you can easily see what i'm doing here and you'll notice that a little bit of that red is being removed i don't want to remove all of it but i just want to make sure that it's not receiving that full vignette that the other corners are receiving and maybe the same thing on this corner just one swipe one swipe here and i want to leave that area darker hit the shortcut key o again let's toggle this on and off so this is before and after let me just go ahead and close this down let's make this larger so you can easily see it so this is before after this is before after before and after so that's just a really great way to create a custom vignette every single photograph is a little bit different so if your subject isn't in the dead center of your frame and you don't want to darken all of your corners the same exact way this floating vignette technique or hack is a great way to overcome that that obstacle now the second hack is something that i call border light and this right here is a good example of this this is an image i shared on instagram a couple weeks ago a couple weeks ago i believe and same technique we're going to make it a little bit smaller right here on our frame i'm going to go over here to the radial filter and i'm basically want to draw a radius right through here and let's kind of angle it down and what i'm trying to do here is i'm going to create a little bit more kind of glow coming from behind this um this this kind of mountain or this cliff area right through here i want to try and just kind of bring out a little bit more of that warmth from the sun rising there we had a little bit more light in that region kind of add a little bit more punch to the overall photograph now the key here is you want to keep this uh the center area of the overall radial filter right on the edge if i hit the shortcut key oh you can kind of see this a little bit better i'm going to kind of angle it a little bit more bring it down a touch and we'll kind of stretch it out quite a bit as well just about something right there hit the shortcut key oh to turn that off i'm going to bring the exposure up quite a bit let's really warm it up a whole lot maybe even add a little bit of a magenta tint to it and i'll turn it on and off and you'll see how bad it looks right now so this doesn't look very realistic at all and this is where the the kind of border light reel i guess a hack here comes and it has to do with using the range masks so i'm going to come over here to range mask drop this down to luminance i'm going to hold down the option key we're going to drag this over anything in white is going to receive the edit and anything in black is not going to receive the edit i'm going to come over here to the smoothness kind of bring this down and i ultimately want the cliff side to be almost completely black because i don't want it to receive any of this edit at all so think about right there looks pretty good and now since we have a very refined range mask i'm going to have to adjust some of these adjustments a little bit further let's make this a lot warmer make add a little bit more magenta tint and now let's turn this on and off before after bring let's bring the highlights down some maybe not quite as much exposure about right there before after before after and now you can see that that that adjustment is no longer affecting the cliff side or the mountains right there it really looks as if that additional exposure is coming from behind the mountains or behind that cliffs where the sun was actually rising if i close this down zoom it in a little bit more so it's easier to see at home this is before and after and if you really pay attention to the the mountain side right through here you can really see how good of a job that has done before and after and of course you can go in there and make any just additional adjustments that you would like to make but that's a great way just to add a little bit more punch to an overall photograph and just kind of add that i guess maybe it's exaggerate one of the your more favorite qualities of a particular image now the the next hack is something that i call sun tone this is probably the easiest hack but also probably the the most effective as well and it's super super simple to do so i'm gonna this is an image from boulder beach in acadia national park i'll be there next week or actually when this video airs i'll be there at this time but i love this location and if i really want to just exaggerate the sun rise right through here i'm going to come over here to color grading i'm going to select highlights instead i'm not going to select mid-tones or shadows or highlights i want to make sure i only select highlights because i really only want to affect this area right through here i'm going to select this area and use this kind of predefined color that lightroom provides or default color i'm going to select that and then the real trick here is to turn this luminance up i'm going to turn it up quite a bit just so it's easier to see at home and if i toggle the overall adjustment on and off before after before and after and if i want to turn it up even more you definitely can do that as well before and after before and after definitely overdid it a little bit but i want to make sure it's easy to see at home but that luminance slider is something that i think a lot of people miss or don't pay attention to when it comes to using the color grading tool inside of lightroom and that is a fantastic way just to add a little bit more warmth and a little bit more punch to a sunrise or a sunset and i'll toggle that on and off again one more time that's it before and after i normally wouldn't do it that much probably somewhere right around here i think that looks pretty good but super super simple technique to apply and it uh the the the i i think work really really well now the fourth hack is something that i call grad painting and i think this is a growing trend especially in outdoor photography over the past few years is this uh is this desire to kind of soften the overall photographs you've heard of the orton technique a lot you've heard of painterly images and i think this grad painting hack is a is a great technique to kind of just take that a step further so for this particular image i'm going to make it a little bit smaller in my frame we're going to come up here to graduated filter and it's basically basically going to draw a graduation from the top to the bottom and if you're ever having a hard time keeping it straight you can just hold down the shift key and that will automatically lock it in place so i'm going to take it to about right maybe about right there let's hit the shortcut key oh whoops i was talking about making it straight and look what happened so think about that looks good there okay hold on or hit the shortcut key oh which we already have done i want to be able to see what i'm impacting here i'm going to bring this down a little bit more and bring the bottom up because i don't want to impact this area right through here i really only want to impact the i guess the the definitely the background and maybe a middle portion of the mid-ground area as well and what i want to do is i want to soften up the details in the background i basically want to create a transition zone i want the foreground to be razor sharp but as the eye goes through the frame i want those details to soften up a little bit kind of how like how you see things normally you know if you're looking at a mountain the foreground you're going to see is a much sharper area versus the mountain itself so i think this is a great way to kind of create that that painterly effect soften down some of those details get away from that digital look a little bit and also just kind of create the illusion of additional depth in the overall photograph i'm going to hit the shortcut key o just to turn off that mask overlay and what i'm going to do is i'm going to come over here to clarity i'm going to bring down that clarity some i'm going to overdo it some just so you can see it i'm going to bring down the texture just a little bit as well to about right there let's zoom in quite a bit here i want you to easily be able to see this and let's go back and let's toggle this on and off so this is before and after before and after and if you pay attention to this area right through here you can really see the difference let me just uh let's exaggerate a little bit bring that texture down to about -45 bring the clarity down quite a bit as well and now we'll toggle this on and off so this is before and after and you can really see how it kind of softens down all the edges right through here before and after before and after definitely overdone just a little bit but i think that that is just a great way and you'll notice too the foreground toggle this on and off looks exactly the same that in that is not impacting the foreground whatsoever it's only transitioning all the way to the background so this foreground area here razor sharp the softening effect really doesn't even start until this area right through here and i think that's just a really cool way to just get a little bit unique with your photo editing and maybe just add a little bit of additional depth by utilizing clarity and texture in your overall photograph now the final technique now this is something i mentioned this at the beginning of the video that some of these techniques i i use very often i use on every single image and some of the other techniques i very rarely use just in very specific scenarios but this next hack or technique is something that i use on just about every single one of my photos and it's something that i call soft fade and this is a perfect example of that where the blacks in this overall image to me they're just a little bit too dark it almost it makes the image look a little bit too contrasty to digital i just don't like the way that this one looks and this is all just personal preference but for me the way that i kind of fade this image out is i'll come over here to the tone curve i'm going to put an anchor point right here one in the middle one in the upper right hand corner here so basically i'm going to come and put one more about right there and i'm going to take this tail end of the tone curve and kind of bring it up to maybe around 20 ish and i'm going to bring this one up a little bit as well to about right there and if i zoom in and toggle this on and off you can see the difference this is before and after before and after let me show you another region right through here let's zoom in a little bit more this is before and after before and after and basically what that's doing is just kind of fading the the shadows a little bit fading the black tones just so they're not so black they're not that deep black it doesn't have such that real digital look to it it's got very much a kind of a filmic look to the overall image and i'll toggle it on and off again one more time before and after before and after and i think that's just a great way to just kind of soften down the overall photograph doesn't make it look quite as contrasty but it still retains some of that contrast as well so that soft fade technique is something that i apply on i would say probably 9 out of 10 of the images that i've shared over the last year or so and i really like that technique super simple to do too so those are the five editing hacks that uh i've been i've been using uh more and more over the years some more than others but i hope you did find some of that interesting and helpful for some of your landscape photos you might be editing in the future and before i do wrap up this week's video i do just want to say a huge thanks to the long-time sponsor of the channel which is squarespace who i use for all of my website and e-commerce needs squarespace provides a dynamic and attractive online platform to create your website you can display your photography using squarespace's professional portfolio designs and customize the layout and look and feel of your gallery just so you can make it your own with squarespace's traffic overview feature you can track trends and page visits and views to better optimize your content and you can even grow and engage with your customers with squarespace's email campaign tools which will enable you to create engaging emails that match your website with your products your blog post and logo just so your messaging remains consistent so if you're looking to start a new website or possibly upgrade your current website check out squarespace.com forward slash marc denny for a free trial and 10 off your first purchase so i really do hope you enjoyed this week's video if you have any questions about any of the hacks covered in the video definitely leave a comment below and i guarantee i will get back in touch with you and as always i really do appreciate you watching this week's video if you did enjoy it if you could hit that thumbs up and subscribe to the channel if you're not subscribed already and i will see you all next wednesday bye

Channel: Mark Denney

Views: 24,019

Keywords: landscape photography, landscape, photography, mark denney, landscape photography hacks, photography hacks, landscape photography editing hacks, photography editing hacks, landscape photography tips, landscape photography editing tricks, editing hacks, photo editing hacks, photo editing, hacks, landscape photography editing tutorial, photo editing tips, landscape photography for beginners, how to make better photos, improve photography, improve photo editing, photo tricks, tips

Id: 2exp3Jyq8OA

Length: 16min 32sec (992 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 13 2021