Capture One 21 - STYLE BRUSHES for Landscape Edits (and when to use them)

style brushes in capture one for landscape photography are they useful can they speed up our workflow or not so we are going to take a look at this today we will be working with this image so this is the final result and this is the starting point this is the raw file so we'll be working towards this result with a bit of help from style brushes coming up hi everyone this is kasia's mokwa welcome to my channel where you will always find photo editing training and educational videos to help you grow as an artist and photographer so today we are going to be looking specifically at style brushes when it comes to application in landscape photography in the previous video i've been experimenting with style brushes in a portrait image and the reason why i'm mentioning it here is quite important so when you are working on a portrait you have to you are forced to create a mask for any of these adjustments that you can apply with style brushes you have to create those masks manually you have to grab the brush and you have to paint in the mask and then you can adjust either eyes or you can whiten teeth or whatever you like or if you want to work on dodging and burning for the hair and so on and so forth so you have to create those masks manually i want to put emphasis on this because in my opinion the biggest the most important factor behind any successful edit are seamless adjustments so we have a landscape image here let's take a look at before and after so this is the starting point and if we compare this image with this one you can see that i have applied a lot of adjustments basically everything has changed the luminosity levels i have applied very complex color grading and i would say that if i had to paint all these masks that i'm using in this image manually even with a tablet even with a pen i'm sure the image would look much worse so even for burning when i was working on this mountain here i have used luma based mask because this mask is pixel perfect i can create it in a few seconds and i don't have to bother with painting in manually so let's just take a look at this mask this is the layer if i hit m this will give me the preview of my mask as you can see here the mask is based on luminosity values in the image i have specifically targeted those luminosity values as my aim was to make this mountain stronger to darken certain areas of this shape and to create such a pixel perfect mask i've been working with the luma mask tool that is readily available in capital one i didn't have to paint it manually and i would say that to paint such a detailed such a precise mask it would take me ages and to be honest i'm not sure if i would be even close with my final result when working with a pen to this mask that can be really create super super fast and is pixel perfect so this is my point that's why i'm mentioning working with style brushes in portrait images in comparison to working with style brushes on landscape images to me these are two entirely different stories so the question is are style brushes useful for landscape photography we have here in this second group enhancements we have the adjustment deep sky so why they have created this so i'm going to take you now through all the steps that i have taken to get from here to here and we'll discuss is it better for specific adjustments for to get specific results to use luma-based masks or color based masks or should we use style brushes so let's jump right into it i'm going to open my browser and let's switch off the before and after so i'm going to take this one let's hide the browser so we have the original fire so let's take a quick look at the image and let's assess the photo so the biggest issue that we can see in the image are those blown out highlights so if we go for the exposure warning check we can see that we have lost information here in this part of the sky so i have now two options i can either go for linear response or i can try to recover those highlights with the hdr tool and this is what i've done on this very layer so i have used the hdr tool and i went with the highlights towards negative 100 i have created another layer to check if i can get a bit more so here i went further i went towards negative 50. so this is a tip for you if you are working on one layer and if you go to the limit with a specific tool i wouldn't recommend this for most of the other adjustments definitely not for clarity and similar adjustments but when you are working with the hdr tool and you want to recover some of those detail in the highlights maybe in the shadows you can experiment so with 100 with negative 100 to me the sky was still a bit too flat so i went a bit further i went for negative 50 so i have in total negative 150 and to me this is really a good starting point for further edit so you can work in this way on my hdr tool i have adjusted the shadows as well i have applied 16 so this is before the adjustment and this is after the adjustment i was working towards balanced starting point i didn't want to have any strong division in terms of luminosity between the sky the mountain and the foreground i wanted to work on this further with curves and with color grading so on these two layers i have applied the hdr adjustments this is the image before and this is the image after so there is no way that i could get to this result with style brushes so basically the order i would recommend is whenever you are facing any issue in your image i would first of all try to apply the correction the specific adjustment with field mask so when you are looking at this layer if i hit m we have filled the mask this means that the adjustment was applied to the whole image i wasn't working only on the sky i wasn't separating any element in this image so first of all try to apply the adjustments to the whole image if this doesn't bring you the results that you want if this is not efficient then i would try to create pixel perfect mask either color based mask or the luma based mask these tools are available in capital one and it's really easy to use them i have recorded several videos when i'm covering this in detail creating this sort of masks for landscape images you can find them in the description down below so going further when you create luminosity base mask or color based mask and you are still not getting satisfying results then i would use style brushes and i would try to paint those adjustments in manually so let's move further on this layer i've been working with curves i've been working on luminosity adjustments so let's just open up curves so i have created a bit of classic s-shaped curve i have lifted the black so i wanted to get a bit more matte effect and on the luma curve i've been working a bit here on those darker shadows and basically i haven't applied any adjustments on the luma to my bright mid tones and highlight so on this layer i've been fine tuning my luminosity adjustments as you can see i have increased the contrast in comparison with the previous step i just wanted to have a little bit more pop and i wanted to start color grading from this point so i have been working with curves so on this layer i've been applied some color grading with curves i've been working with red green and blue very subtle adjustments and further color grading i have performed with color editor and with color balance so i have adjusted these two colors basically to get from the starting point up to here i have increased a bit of saturation with the last adjustment so this part plus color balance so here i have applied some adjustments as well i have warmed up the overall image with the master tunnel so i went for those yellow orange tones for shadows mid-tones and highlights i applied basically very similar bluish a bit more towards cyanist tone so when it comes to the shadows i have lifted just a little bit the shadows they are just a bit brighter when it comes to the mid toes i have darkened them and when it comes to the highlights i just cooled them down a bit so on these two layers i have performed color grading and now i can start really working with style brushes i wouldn't be able to color grade this image with style brushes there is no way i could do this and it doesn't really make any sense so up to this point in my edit i've been working with filled masks let's go for medium size so we'll see a bit more so let me just show you if i hit m this will show the overlay for this mask let's go for the next one so as you can see on all of these masks we have just plain overlay that targets the whole image it doesn't really make any sense to apply color grading to a part of the image only when we have the luminosity adjustments and color grading in place we are ready to move further and to apply some local adjustments with style brushes and by the way if you're getting value from my videos i would always appreciate if you subscribe to my channel if you leave me a like and if you leave me a comment under this video i am always super curious your feedback i am always curious the way you are applying these adjustments in your own edits and i would like to hear your suggestions for future videos in this channel so at this point i have finished working on luminosity adjustments i have applied color grading and now i'm ready to look at the image and decide if there are certain areas in this image that would benefit from targeted adjustments if there are some areas that could be enhanced without affecting the surrounding elements so first of all i might take a look at this image in terms of plants so we have our foreground and we have the i would say the mountain is the middle plan and we have the background in form of the sky in form of the super dynamic clouds a very common issue that comes up when we are working on landscape images is this very strong division between the foreground and the sky so we would have typically some warm earthy tones maybe some greens in the foreground and then the bottom part is cut off and we have very cold tones in the sky so i've been already targeting this issue when i was color grading so if we switch off these two layers you can see this perfectly here so this basically looks as if you have taken two images and put them together so the tones from the upper part have very little to do with the tones from my bottom part and i was working quite intensely on joining these two elements i didn't want to apply any of these earthy tones to the background to the mountain but i've been trying to introduce some of the blues from the sky in those rocks in these stones visible in the foreground so let's just zoom in a little bit here and let's take a look at these stones and if i switch on my color grading you can see that i have managed to tone down the blues in the background and they are now way more linked together these stones that are visible here in those rocks in the background and those rocks visible here in the foreground so these are really i would say details but this is really really important to try to take a look at the image as the overall composition the composition not only in terms of luminosity values but in terms of color value so before this adjustment the image was combined of two foreign pieces and after this i was able to link it a little bit stronger so now i might take a look at those warm tones in the foreground and i might take a step with a style brush to make the foreground pop and this will create a little bit more depth in the image this can be achieved by making bigger difference in terms of color temperature so simply speaking i can warm up the foreground a little bit so let's move over to our style brushes and let's take a look at what we have here so i'm going to work with color and i can work with this brush so let's try i'm going to first of all increase a bit size of my brush and i'm going to paint over these earthy yellowy tones to further increase the warmth you don't have to be super precise here and remember that we can always further fine-tune the opacity values for this very layer so i'm going a little bit stronger so you can see these adjustments on your screen so that's it let's now switch off this layer and switch it on so the difference is very subtle but i would say it is benefiting the image we have created more three-dimensional feel to the image if this is too much you can always find you on the opacity you can always go down so i've heard some people complaining on the value set for these adjustments in capture one and i would say that it is better that they are sometimes quite strong especially people were talking about applying this one added detail we will be working with this one in a minute so this applies sharpening and it is quite harsh to be honest but i don't think this is meant to be applied that way that i'm just bringing the brush from here painting over my image and trying to make it work i would say that this is the whole point to apply these adjustments quite strongly overdo this just a bit and then always jump over here to the opacity value and fine tune so you can go to zero take a look at your image how it looks before applying the adjustment and find the point when you are happy with your adjustment from style brush okay let's now move over and let's try to experiment with the brush that was typically created for landscape images and i'm talking about the brush deep sky so let's grab it from here let's go for larger size because i'm going to apply it over the sky and mountains hardness 75 is fine okay so i have the brush let's now paint over the area where we have the sky and the mountains so i'm going to cover more than half of my image let's now hit m so this is the preview of my mask after one is still generating okay so i went a bit too far here let's go for e eraser let's increase size of the brush and let's try to fine tune this so this is exactly what i've been talking about if i would be working with either color based mask or luminosity based mask if it is possible of course then i don't have to worry about this sort of issues here i can very quickly erase it but it is far from being pixel perfect simply speaking okay let's switch off the preview of my mask and this is what you can get from the style brush deep sky so to my liking this is way too harsh let's just move over and work with the opacity value so you can first of all decrease the amount of this adjustment here but you can as well find what sort of adjustments this tool applied so if we jump over to color tab and if we take a look at color editor so here let's take a look at color balance nothing happened here so it seems that the result was created with color editor let's just make sure i'm going to move over to the exposure top and let's see here now the contrast was increased as well from 0 to 14 so in the exposure top as well you can find tools plus very strong adjustments on highlight recovery and the whites were pushed so here clarity as well very strong adjustment on clarity so i would say that you would never want to just apply clarity at 30 and leave it like that that's why you would always want to go and revisit the opacity value so let's jump over let's go back to color editor so the deep sky this effect was created when it comes to color with the advanced tab and here you can see that basically it darkens the darker blue and it brings up saturation for lighter blue tone so this effect is quite complex there are several tools that were used to create this effect and it can be used so it works but i would always recommend going here and lowering the opacity value alternatively you can adjust the brush setting so again if i move over here and grab this brush again if i right click these are the settings so i have already changed the size but hardness opacity and flow i haven't touched them so they are quite strong you have hardness 75 opacity and flow at 100 you could either change it here but it is really way more efficient way faster if you just go here and reduce opacity so if we go all the way to zero this is the image before applying the deep sky style brush and if we go a little bit over the right then we will make this effect more intense so i believe something around now 59 is too strong i want to keep my aerial perspective visible so that way i have depth in this image those rocks visible here in the foreground are way darker and then the further away we are looking from the lens then those plants are getting brighter and brighter if i would go for stronger adjustment here then this blue is getting really heavy and the image is dynamic those clouds are getting very very dynamic but very heavy as well especially these parts of the sky so it is way more safe to just go down here and now i can target specifically this mountain and i can work on darkening it if i want to so i'm going to do this i'm going to be working with burning so i have a choice here as i've mentioned before i could either use a style brush so i could go here and grab this brush burn but i would have to work manually i would have to i don't know zoom in and try to cover only those dark areas in the mountain but this would be super hard because the structure is very very complex and it will be way faster if i just grab a luma based mask and i'm going to do just that so first of all i'm going to create new field adjustment layer let's very quickly rename it let's call it mountain so we will be adjusting those mountains visible here and i'm going to grab my luma range let's tick this button here so we'll see the overlay so right now almost everything is covered so i'm going to fine tune the mask i'm going to work with these sliders so i will get those areas that interest me the most highlighted i can ignore the rest because i can find you on the mask so let's focus on those mountains let's see if we include a little bit more no i just want to make the structure as three-dimensional as possible so i want to have some contrast this is too soft transition i believe something like this will work well remember that the luma mask is flexible we can apply it now we can apply our adjustment and we can fine tune it further this is really really amazing and i don't see any point why i would be painting the mask manually with my brush let's fine tune the mask i'm going to grab eraser let's go for higher size let's go for 100 for opacity and flow and let's see i'm going to leave the sky if it will be too much i will remove it but let's just erase the mask from the foreground so the mask was created based on luminosity values and exactly the same range that is visible here in the mountain that we want to darken exactly the same i have to zoom in very similar luminosity range is visible here in the foreground and that's why this part was included in our mask but we don't want to affect this i will be darkening the mountain i want to make this shape to stand out a little bit stronger i want to work towards stronger distinction and i'm perfectly happy with the foreground i've been already working on it with my luminosity adjustments when i was applying luminosity adjustments globally to the whole image let's just zoom out and let's erase the mask so when it comes to my personal workflow i avoid working manually with the mask as much as i can so even erasing the mask it took few seconds and if i can create the mask that doesn't have to be touched manually then i'm really really super happy okay so let's take a look at the mountain so here we can maybe work with curves so i'm going to go for luma curve i don't want to affect colors i don't want to introduce more saturation to the mountain i want to only darken it so one more tip here if you hover over let's change for the neutral coarser if i hover over the specific area over the mountain so i want to work on the luminosity range that is here visible along the ridge so now inside the curve here in this graph you have this orange vertical line this line will be moving and it is indicating which luminosity range i'm hovering over so now it moves towards the right because i'm over the highlights so i am here and i can see that this peak of information in the graph this indicates where i have to affect this graph to affect the stones here so i want to add control point here and move it downwards and this will super precisely darken the mountain let's just zoom out so as you can see here if i wouldn't adjust if i wouldn't refine my mask i would make darker the whole foreground and that would be simply counterproductive because i want to make the mountain darker in relation to the foreground so let's see this is before applying the adjustment and this is after applying the adjustment darkening this blue part here in the sky doesn't really bother me it works well it sort of frames the whole composition so we've been burning on the mountain layer let's add burning here we've been working with the luma mask and let's see what else we can do here with the style brushes so let's scroll up and we can use the style brush add detail so i want to work with the mountain in the center let's reduce size of the brush and let's paint over these shapes i'm going to zoom out i don't want to sharpen those rocks i just want to add a bit of definition specifically to this mountain so let's paint over this part we can go for slightly larger size of the brush so for the sake of this video i'm working really fast just to show you what can be done here with the style brush if i will be working for my own edits i would be way more precise let's hit m so now we will see the preview of the mask this is the overlay i'm going to decrease size of the brush and paint over these areas as well so this is the difference this is the mask painted manually versus here mask generated automatically with capture one okay so we are working with our style brush let's paint over this bit as well and let's make sure this whole part is covered let's hit m again hide the mask overlay so let's judge this at least at 100 magnification level i'm on the retina display so it will be a good idea to go even for 200 so now we can assess what we have achieved so this is after working with the style brush added detail this is b4 way softer now we have way more definition so let's see if we just move over the exposure tab we can see so this applied clarity at 60 and structure at 40. let's see if there was some sharpening no there was no extra sharpening applied so let's take a look at 100 again if we switch off and on so this particular adjustment i think looks quite well even with the opacity at 100 if we want to we might go a bit lower but i think it's fine so we can leave it as it was at 100 percent and now i would like to apply some sharpening over the whole image as the final touch to unify the whole composition so i'm going to add new field adjustment layer and let's rename this layer let's call it sharpening so here again we should be at least at 100 magnification level and let's go to our sharpening i'm going to go quite subtly here because we have those strong edges we have dark edge against bright area and this will very often cause issue in the form of a halo so if i go too far we'll see this bright line so we want to avoid this so let's go for quite subtle value here so i would say up to maximum maybe 180 let's go a little bit lower so let's evaluate here the foreground capture one is still calculating okay so that way we got a little bit more detailed here in those rocks and over the whole image so it affected the sky and the clouds as well so let me just switch off the layer so this is before applying sharpening and this is after applying sharpening so if we now take a look at all the layers that have created the image we've been working with style brushes here on this layer add detail we've been working with the style brush deep sky and with this one worm so how about the other style brushes when it comes to the color as i said before first of all i would be working with filled in layer i would apply color grading all over the whole image if this doesn't work if i need to adjust specifically certain area in this image then i would always try to create color based mask or i would try to create luminosity based mask if this doesn't work only then i would work with style brushes so this applies to color and this applies to light and contrast i just don't see any point in painting in these adjustments brightening darkening or dodging on burning with my manual brush if i can generate in a few seconds pixel perfect mask click the thumbnail to watch the video where i explain in detail how to create color based masks how to create luminosity-based masks and how to add depth in landscape images and for those of you who want to learn more about capture one i have very recently released free master class so you can click the link down below the video and sign up thank you very much for watching this was kasia zomokwa from digital art classes and i will see you soon in the next video thanks for watching see you bye now

Channel: Kasia Zmokla

Views: 2,498

Keywords: Kasia Zmokla, photo editing, capture one, capture one pro, capture one tutorial, lightroom alternative, post processing, capture one 21 tutorial, capture one 21 photo editing, capture one 21 editing, style brushes capture one, capture one 21 new features, capture one 21 landscape, capture one 21 workflow, landscape photography, capture one pro 21 tutorials, how to, in depth

Id: hg9EN7VuYs8

Length: 32min 58sec (1978 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 23 2021