5 Tips For MASTERING CONTRAST In Your LANDSCAPE PHOTOS

question for you if you had to pick the single most important aspect of post-processing and photo editing what would you pick that's a question that was posed to me recently and honestly it left me kind of puzzled my head was spinning a little bit just trying to figure out the best way to answer that question and I I don't really think there is a right or wrong way to answer it but nevertheless great question and I'm sure you already know the way that I answer the questions is based off of the the title of this video but I wanted to wrap a little bit of context around exactly why I think that contrast is the most important aspect in photo editing for starters contrast affects contrast contrast affects exposure it affects your white points your black points it affects your highlights your shadows contrast affects color and frankly there's probably a couple other things that I'm forgetting to mention but at the end of the day I could not find one other single item that affected as many different things as contrasted and that led me to the decision that you know what maybe contrast really is king and maybe that is the most important aspect of photo editing and that's the topic of this week's video is to discuss the five different ways you can enhance contrast in your landscape photos using Lightroom so to jump right into it the very first way of course is in the basic panel at the very top is the contrast slider now the way the slider works is it darkens down the darker mid-tones of your image and it also lightens the lighter mid-tones in your image now play sorry pay close attention easy for me to say to the histogram up here and watch what happens when we remove all the contrast from this image see how it contracts now watch what happens when we add contrast to this image see how it expands and will go back and forth it retracts and expands retracts and expands and that's a very common theme that you're going to notice throughout this entire video in any image whenever we remove contrast you'll notice that the histogram retracts and it went whenever we add contrast to an image you'll notice that the histogram fans so pay attention to that as we kind of go throughout these examples but for this for the contrast slider it's very basic it's very simple this image right here all these images that we're discuss today they're all raw straight out of camera the only edit I've done to any of these is just update the white balance but for this it's a very flat image I'm gonna I would I would put in a quite a bit of contrast for this if I was only going to use the contrast slider for this image I would bring it up probably somewhere to right around 70 but as you can see it does a great job this is a the before and then this is after so before afters very basic slider works very well it's kind of a no frills a contrast slider so you get you get what you pay for it works it does exactly what it says it's going to do now the second approach is by using the the black point so the black and white point except you're not gonna really use the white point you're really only going to focus on the black point this image right here is a perfect example for because there's a lot of black tones in the volcanic rock along the shoreline right here so the way the black slider works is if you increase the blacks your lightening all the black tones in your image and you can notice right through here that the black shore line is now doesn't have that same deeper black tone to it it's much lighter and if we bring the blacks all the way down you'll notice that the shoreline is almost completely black in many areas but if you bring it down to a reasonable point so for this image I would say somewhere probably right around here you can notice exactly how much contrast that that actually added to the scene so let me toggle it off so oops this is where we started right here and this is if we decrease the blacks so this is where we started and this is if we decrease the blacks so that's another really quick way to add contrast to your photograph is just by decreasing the blacks and look what happened to the histogram up here so this is where we started right here and if we increase the blacks which is basically removing contrast from your scene see how the contra see how the the histogram retracts a little bit now watch what happens when we decrease the blacks introducing more contrast see how the histogram spreads out back and forth back and forth so that's the second way is by using the actual black point slider now the third way is by using the clear adjustment and I know a lot of times you might not think of the the clarity tool as a means of adding contrast to an image but it's a fantastic way to do it and the clarity too actually adds something called I've heard it called up a hundred different things micro contrast edge contrast refine contrast localize contrast but what it does the clarity tool is actually looking for edges within your scene in Lightroom identifies an edge by looking for pixels that are say a dark pixel in a very light pixel that are touching one another that are very close to one another Lightroom is gonna think that that's an edge and when you turn up the clarity slider Lightroom is going to darken the darker side of that edge and lighten the lighter side of that edge ultimately giving the illusion of additional clarity and detail and sharpness of your overall photograph and clarity is also amazing and introducing texture to an image as well and this photograph is perfect I love how the the the rising tide coming in and out here carved these nice little patterns into the image but the overall image right now is completely flat and if we add some clarity to it you'll notice that it did add some contrast as well and I'll zoom in a little bit and you can really see the texture I mean look at it this is where we started and then we add clarity you can almost just feel the sand through the screen I love that aspect of it it really makes an image pop but it's very subtle i'ma zoom out again but if you actually zoom in if you look right here you see this white edge here or lighter edge and then you have a darker edge right through here watch what happens when we turn this clarity all the way up you'll notice that the wider edge brightens in this darker edge darkens and I'll do it again all the way up and that's ultimately that's exactly how the contrast slider works is Lightroom is looking for those edges and it's gonna make the darker edge darker and the lighter edge lighter giving that illusion of more details and clarity and that's kind of that micro contrast or edge contrast you might hear people talk about so using the clarity slider is a great way to add very localized contrast to the edges of your photograph but as with anything you definitely want to be careful with the clarity slider if you go too too overboard you can introduce haloing much like if you over sharpen an image so you want to go too far overboard with clarity and it's not it's not really a tool that you want to use as your sole means of adding contrast to a photograph I hope that makes sense now something else that's cool before I before I jump to the next one dialing in negative clarity is also pretty interesting as well because it has a nice softening effect to a photograph this is not a good image to do it on but I'll show you if we take it down to negative 100 see how soft the image is and plus look what happened to our histogram up here see how contracted it is and look what happens when we expand it or when we introduce more clarity which is ultimately adding more contrast to the image so there it is it's protracted with no contrast here's more contrast and you can see the histogram expand but decreasing clarity I like the look that it gives on some images because it kind of provides like a soft ethereal look to an image or a painterly look and certain photographs that works well on this is definitely not one that it works on but maybe playing around with negative clarity values negative ten negative twenty sometimes just to take a little bit of that bite out of a particular photograph is another pretty neat approach as well now the fourth way to update contrast in Lightroom is by using the dehaze slider and once again much like clarity probably don't ever think about D haze as a means of adding contrast but it is a very interesting way of doing it in much like clarity you don't want to rely on the dije slider as your sole means of adding contrast but it definitely does add contrast this example right here is a phenomenal example of him as you can see there is a lot of haze in this photograph and if we turn this up you can see that it Lightroom does a great job of cutting right through that haze but it also added a lot of contrast and punch and it really increased the vibrancy of the greens in this photograph and I'll show you again I mean it does it does a really good job in this image right here and you can also dial in negative dije sometimes I've done that before where you want to create a little bit more additional atmosphere or provider to create the illusion of additional fog or mist so going negative 10 negative 15 on dije sometimes will do that this image already has a ton of haze NN so you definitely don't need to any more but that is another creative way you can use the da's tool but the d haze tool absolutely adds contrast to your photograph you want to be careful when you use this tool though because if you use a lot of d haze no positive 30 or 40 or in higher and then you add contrast using the contrast slider or maybe the black point your you could very easily introduce too much contrast into your photograph so you want to be careful using the haze tool but it will add contrast to your photograph as it did in this image right here so this is where we started we add some d haze and this is where we're at right now so cut through the haze added a lot of contrast and look what happens to the histogram this is where we started and if we put in negative d haze which is ultimately removing the contrast from the photograph you can see that the histogram really contracts up there now if we take the D haze and we turn it all the way up you notice that the histogram really spreads out so there's that same theme reoccurring again and in the fifth and final way to add contrast to your landscape photos using Lightroom is the tone curve and it is by far the most powerful it's going to give you the most control also it's also the most intimidating especially if you've never used the tone curve before either and my goal here today is to try and simplify it as much as possible to make you feel more comfortable testing it out if you've never tested it out before so this is just an image of a gray scale this scale represents the value the tonal values of a histogram on the extreme left you have a true black then you have your mid-tones right through here you know on the right side you have pure white let me close down the basic panel will open up the tone curve so the way the tone curve works across the bottom here you have the darkest values across the top up here you have the lightest values the brightest values so this anchor point down here is in the extreme bottom left-hand corner so that represents pure black this anchor point up here is in the extreme top right hand corner and that's going to represent pure white so I'm going to take the pure white anchor up here and I'm going to slide it all the way down to the bottom and it's going to bring this all the way down to the bottom with it and watch what happens to the overall photograph all the way down and we're left with a black image and because that line that anchor line right here is all the way down on the bottom resting on the bottom which is all black value so our entire image is now black so let me take this reset this and we're gonna do the same thing over here so we're gonna take the anchor point that's representing absolute black and we're gonna drag this all the way up to the top and it brought that line you can see that line going all the way to the top with me and now we're left with pure white so that's just a good way to kind of get your feet wet a little bit of exactly how the the the tone curve operates so what you can also do is if we grab our color picker here and if we hover it over this value right here you can look in the histogram and you can see that it put an anchor point there if we move over here you can see it put an anchor point to the corresponding tonal value of this region and we can do the same thing over here the anchor point represented now represents this tonal region so if we want to affect only this area here I can just click it and if I want to darken this area I drag it down if I want to lighten this area I'm gonna lift it up because lighting light values are up the darker values are down and if I bring it all the way to the bottom here you'll notice that it turned completely black now let's go let's pick another area let's uh let me remove that anchor point let's pick this region here I'm gonna click here if I want to darken that area I'm gonna drag it down if I take this area all the way to the to the bottom it's gonna take the entire line with it ultimately making everything black and if I do the opposite way you can see it's going to brighten that area so that's just a good way to understand exactly how the tone curve operates just from a perspective of lightening and darkening specific tones now for a real life example this image right here is grossly overexposed I'm going to run through a very quick edit here just to fix it to make it something we can at least work with I am NOT going to touch anything with the traps I'm not going to touch the the black slider I'm not going to do anything with clarity or D haze because I only want to use the tone curve to add contrast in this photograph so now that we have a usable image to work with in the histogram looks a little bit normal I'm gonna come down here to the tone curve and a great way to start getting used to using the tone curve is by right through here click on point curve right here and Lightroom has these presets for you so you can select medium contrast and you can see that it puts a very subtle s-curve that's going to provide medium contrast for this photograph and if I change this to strong contrast you can see that that s-curve is now a little bit more exaggerated which is providing more contrast and I'll toggle this on and off so this is where we started and this is where out right now so that right there added a lot more contrast to the photograph and you might have heard people talk about the s-curve in in the tone curve and that's the curve that's going to provide contrast to your photograph every image is going to have a little bit different histogram or a different tone curve so that s-curve will look a little bit different for every image but ultimately that s-curve is what is going to provide contrast to your photograph so in this example right here if we wanted to add more contrast to this photograph I would take this anchor point here and we would bring this down a little bit we would darken the darker mid-tones and then maybe brighten the brighter mid-tones right through here and let's toggle this on and off that's off and this is on so off on and that added a lot more contrast and the image is really starting to look quite a bit better now let's reset this and let's make a tone curve from scratch and a great place to start doing this is like this we're gonna put an anchor point right here in the center I'm going to come up here to the upper right hand corner where it intersects right here and put an anchor point there and I'm going to do the opposite down here in the bottom left-hand corner where these lines intersect I'm gonna put an anchor point there and I'm gonna pull this anchor point down and you can see I was darkening the the darker mid-tones and I'm gonna bring this anchor point up a little bit creating that esker and you can also move the center point so don't think you have to keep that locked in anywhere I'm gonna probably bring that one down a little bit to it darkened down the mid-tones a little bit more if you bring that down just a touch and let's toggle this effect on and off so this is where we started and this is where we're at right now and watch the histogram so this is where we began so yeah the histogram is kind of kind of crunched up a little bit and then when we turn on our tone curve you can see how the histogram expands up there so that's kind of a quick crash course into how to use the tone curve it's the name of the game with the tone curve honestly is subtlety you can get you can very easily go overboard and mess well you're not gonna mess up your photograph you can always undo anything but I'll show you what I mean real quick you can take this anchor point and if you turn it up really high and you can see what it's doing at the photograph and you you don't have to make big sweeping changes to affect your image it's just it's very subtle changes but if you just focus on creating the s-curve that's gonna be a great place to begin adding contrast to your photographs using the tone curve then when you get a little bit more comfortable with it then you can start to get creative and there's a lot of different ways you can get creative and kind of stylize your edits using the tone curve so those are the five ways you can add contrast to your photographs using Lightroom I hope you were able to pick up at least one or maybe two new nuggets of information that you can apply to to your photos moving forward if you have any questions please leave them in the comment section below and I guarantee I will get back in touch with you and if you enjoyed this week's video if you could give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel if you're not subscribed already and as always I really appreciate you watching this week's video and I'll see you next week

Channel: Mark Denney

Views: 60,139

Keywords: contrast photography, photography contrast, photo contrast, how to add contrast, how to add contrast in lightroom, adding contrast, understanding contrast, lightroom tips for adding contrast, contrast editing lightroom, edit contrast lightroom, contrast photo editing, contrast editing, contrast slider lightroom, mastering contrast, contrast, lightroom contrast, landscape photography, landscape photography tutorials, lightroom tips for landscape photos, lightroom, mark denney

Id: ybIxHXpDDcc

Length: 17min 20sec (1040 seconds)

Published: Wed May 29 2019