6 Signs You've OVER-DEVELOPED Your Landscape Photo!

many thanks to squarespace for sponsoring this week's video so regardless if you're just getting started with landscape photography or you're a seasoned professional at some point throughout your photographic journey you have over developed your landscape photos it's just part of the learning process we have we've all been there but how long you actually spend in this uh over editing phase well that can vary somewhat and i think the the main culprit to my own extended stay in this over processing phase is the fact that i wasn't 100 certain as to what exactly i should be on the lookout for so while i was preparing for this video i went back quite a few years ago to review some of my past images in an effort to identify areas of my own editing workflow that were i guess let's say garishly over processed and i was easily easily able to identify six flagrant signs that i was over editing my own photos and in this video i want to share with you what those six signs are how to easily identify them and perhaps most importantly how to resolve them as well and these six signs these are not in any specific order whatsoever so to jump right into it the very first sign is something that i call detailed highlights and this it this might be the most common issue that i saw when i was reviewing a lot of my photos the second most common actually and it's something that used to happen to me all the time because i didn't quite understand exactly how to properly expose a scene and here's exactly what i'm talking about right here where you have a sky that's just completely overexposed and i think that's something that's you know you get really accustomed to early on when you start photography especially outdoor photography is that you can you can remove or bring back a lot of that detail in the sky just by bringing down your highlights and maybe crank them down to negative 100 and i used to think about that all the time when i was on location i was like well just get the just get the foreground in the mid ground and everything is outside of the sky just get all that looking good mark and then when you get everything back into a light room you can just bring down the highlights to negative 100 and that will fix the sky and a lot of times that is the case but what also happens rather frequently is this right here so i have the highlights not affected at all there is a quick edit on this image but if i bring the highlights down to negative 100 yep the sky looks much much better i like all the detail up through here but the sun just looks very very unrealistic and if if as i toggle this back and forth you can just really see exactly what that is doing to the actual sun so there's a couple ways you can resolve that of course you can actually uh reduce the amount of negative highlights or highlight recovery you're applying to the image so we could take our highlight slider maybe bring it back up here but we're losing a lot of that nice detail up here so let's just go back to negative 100 and this is a quick kind of a trick that i used to do all the time and i think it really does help so if we come up here to the radial filter i'm just going to draw kind of a small little sliver like an oval i'm going to put it right over the sun right there i'll hit the shortcut keyos you can just kind of see in red the area that this is affecting and i have the feather at 100 because i want that transition zone to be very soft and very gradual and realistic and then i'm going to come over here and introduce quite a bit of negative dehaze right through here and you can actually see what that's doing it's just kind of softening up a lot of those details through there and i'm actually going to reduce the texture a little bit because ultimately i want to kind of make the sun glow a little bit more because that's kind of what it looks like in real life so i want to remove some of that fine detail around the sun and just kind of exaggerate the glowing aspect of it and i'm going to come down here to the contrast and we can kind of rock this back and forth you can see what that does so maybe some negative contrast negative texture a little bit of negative dehaze and let's toggle this on and off so this is before and after before and after so you can really see just a real quick edit exactly what that is doing to the actual detail around the sun so that's something that you can do if you ever do encounter that and you don't want to reduce the amount of highlight recovery you're applying to your scene you can always create that radial filter and just bring down the the dehaze or maybe bring down the contrast bring down the texture ultimately softening up that area around the sun and just kind of bringing back that little glowing aspect of it now the next sign is something that i call dark corners and this is something that uh is a pretty interesting one because i didn't really realize that it was something i used to do all the time until i actually just went back and started to uh to review these i knew that it was something that i used to to encounter rather frequently but i didn't quite realize how often it it did occur and it's basically just adding too strong of a vignette to an image and i think the trick with the vignette is subtlety i think a vignette is supposed to be at least in my own in my own personal mind or eyes is a vignette should be very subtle it should be really almost invisible it shouldn't jump right out at you so when you look at a photograph and the first thing you notice is the vignette more than likely you apply too much vignette to that photo so if i just come over here of course whoops not in detail in the effects section you can just bring back or just reset the amount of vignette that you are applying to an image and i often don't use that technique anymore either because i a lot of times i don't want the same amount of vignette applied to all four corners so maybe i'll drag a graduated filter say over this area right through here and you could kind of just darken down that area right through there or maybe you can duplicate that and just drag it over here to this side maybe just darken down this area right through here a little bit and then toggle those on and off and there's multiple different ways to apply a vignette to a photograph you don't have to use just the uh the actual vignette adjustment you can use graduated filters you can use radial filters but i think what's most important is just to be cognizant of how much of a vignette you are applying to those photographs and something that has really helped me is when i look at an image if the first thing i notice is the vignette then i should probably back it off just a little bit now this next sign is a big one and it's something that i hear about all the time it's something that i see all the time and it's something that i really struggled with for years and it's something that i call crunchy and it's basically i'm sure you've already you can already tell exactly what crunchy means and it's just over sharpening your photographs and there's a ton of different ways to actually see this so when you look at this photograph right now it doesn't look too too bad it look it looks a little bit a little bit crunchy easy for me to say but if you zoom in here you can really start to see just how crunchy this actually is and kind of the telltale sign of this is looking for halos around very distinct edges especially if you have an area of your image that is very dark that butts up next to an area that is much brighter so like this tree branch right through here you can really see all of this halo right through here so that's something that you can definitely look for kind of back that off through there that's definitely going to help remove that of course clarity will also increase that halo as well and i actually don't i very rarely even apply any sharpening to my images now so i've done a complete one 180 360. i've done a complete reversal as to my sharpening technique so i was always so focused on razor sharp photographs and i think as a beginner it's just kind of a part of the phase as well like we become very obsessed with creating these images that are as sharp as we possibly can make it so we crank up this uh the the sharpness in lightroom we crank up texture and clarity and that's where you really start to get those halos so watching out for those halos is something that is a real telltale sign of over sharpening an image and i actually don't even apply hardly any sharpening at all anymore if i do it's just very little and i do it to very specific areas of my image that i want to kind of draw the viewer's attention to so watching out for crunchy photographs over sharpen images is something that i think is a is super important and very common as well now this next sign is something i call it heavy contrast and i think contrast might be one of the most difficult things in post-processing to determine you know when are you adding too much contrast when are you adding too little contrast and something that has really helped me is this right here so this is an image you can i you know i overdid it for the the purpose of this video but you can really tell that this image has way too much contrast in it and something that has really helped me is when you when you're looking in the shadow area of your scene if you've lost all shadow detail in the darker areas of your scene or the blacks in the scene then more than likely you have applied too much contrast to the image so you always at least for me personally i always want to have a little bit of detail in the shadows i don't want the shadows to ever be pure black i'm trying to keep a little bit of detail in there so when you're making your contrast adjustments pay attention to the shadow areas of your scene because if you end up with shadows that look like this more than likely you're probably adding a little bit too much contrast to the scene so if i come up here and let's just turn this tone curve off and on you can really see right through here so this is with the contrast a strong contrast curve applied and that's without that's with it and that's without it so you can see when i when i take that away you can really start to see a lot more detail in there and this image is starting to look a little bit better like that and then i would even bring the contrast down in this region right through here just using the actual contrast slider as well so paying attention to the actual contrast paying attention to the shadow areas in your scene is something that is has really helps me to identify images that i've been applying too much contrast to which to be frank was something that i used to do all the time and this next one is another big culprit to me or for me i'm having a hard time talking to that is a big culprit for me as well so much like the the highlights the detailed highlights this next one is something that i call bright shadows or vivid shadows and i used to get really i guess comfortable with my camera and the dynamic range that it had and i loved it when i was editing a photograph just cranking up those shadows because i got really excited to see how much detail i could recover in those shadows but when you remove all the shadows from your scene and you end up with an image that looks like this that doesn't quite look too good either it kind of has that hdr kind of a look to it and maybe that's what you're going for but that is not what i was going for i just didn't really know that there was anything wrong with that i thought that that actually looked good to remove all of the shadows basically from my image to bring back all of the detail just like it was completely flat lighting so that's exactly what i did right here just crank the shadows all the way up but it really you kind of create a very flat looking image so if i take the shadows down to around zero that doesn't quite look good either but just a little bit of highlight or i'm sorry a little bit of shadow recovery looks much much better but that right there just it you lose a lot of that three-dimensional quality in the rocks in the foreground when you take away all of the shadows so shadows are meant to be dark and i think that just being very aware of what your shadows look like and just being aware to try and keep them not as dark as possible but to a reasonable level so for this particular image i think something about right there looks good now this final sign and this is probably the most common that i hear about it's something that i definitely fell victim to quite a bit when i was first getting started and it's something that i call color overload and it's and i'm sure you've heard it many times i'm sure you've experienced it many times as well where you just get too overzealous with the saturation slider you get a little bit too carried away in the hsl panel and you end up with photographs that look like this i remember this was one of the very first trips where i actually i planned everything out and i traveled to the destination and i looked at the weather and and when the sun was going to be setting and everything i really planned it out and i got pretty good conditions and i was so excited with the sunset and i really wanted to bring it out and this is what i was i was left with right here had the you know saturation way up but being aware of what you're doing with your colors and it's really hard to tell when you're overdoing i think this is why this is probably the most most common issue when you're starting to post-process your images is you know a lot of times you're shooting in raw and when you're shooting in raw you need to do a lot to to correct those photographs and one of those things is you know definitely adding in contrast but also fixing those colors and bringing them back but understanding exactly when you've gone overboard that's a tough thing to uh to determine sometimes so what i like to do is you know get it to a reasonable point and i actually don't even use saturation slider anymore i use a vibrance or something down here in the hsl section right through here but i think perhaps the most important thing is to just set the the color the vibrance or the saturation or however you want to apply color enhancing to your photograph set it how you like it and walk away that's the the best advice that i've ever heard and it really does work and i don't mean to walk away and come back five minutes later walk away and at least come back maybe 20 minutes later 30 minutes later maybe the next day and revisit that image and see if the colors still look good in your in your mind and more than likely if they were really really overdone before you're gonna notice that now so give your eyes uh some some time to reset come back and visit it and more than likely you'll be able to tell if you've added too much color or too much saturation to the images in your photograph so i really do hope you enjoyed this week's video and before i do wrap it up i do want to say a real quick thanks to the sponsor of this week's video which is squarespace who i have been using for the last gosh four or five years for for everything related to 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 mark denny for a free trial and 10 off your first purchase so i really do hope that this week's video was helpful something that might be able to help you out in identifying areas of your post-processing that you used to do or maybe that you're doing now that perhaps could be a little bit uh over processed and like i said at the beginning of the video this is something that has that impacts all of us at some point throughout that photographic journey one time or another we have over developed our landscape photos so if you did enjoy this week's video if you could give it that thumbs up and subscribe to the channel if you're not subscribed already and ring the little bell notification as well just that way you are notified next time i do upload and as always any questions leave those in the comment sections below and i guarantee i will get back in touch with you and i will see you all next wednesday bye

Channel: Mark Denney

Views: 44,629

Keywords: landscape photography, landscape photography tips, mark denney, landscape, photography, over edited photos, over edited photography, over developed photos, photo editing mistakes, over editing, bad photo editing, landscape photography editing, how to edit better photos, over developed photography, editing mistakes, photo editing tips, landscape photo editing tips, over editing photos, over processed landscape photos, how to edit landscape photos lightroom, landscape photo edit

Id: t3BHS2YtLsM

Length: 14min 53sec (893 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 09 2020