Exposing Lightroom's Mystery Tool You Never Knew Existed!

many thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this week's video have you ever heard of something called the Paradox of choice it basically speaks to the fact that more it's not always better and another way to say this that a bit more common I suppose is something called analysis by paralysis and both of these sayings for the most part mean very similar things see we and when I say we I mean humans we always want more we want more options we want more choices we want more tools we want more ways to do more things but there comes a point where we have so many options we have so many tools so many ways to do so many things that we end up accomplishing absolutely nothing and I find this to be a common issue amongst many people but especially photographers myself included and in this video I want to share with you a seemingly tiny little tool that produces Big Time results and the funny part is it's hidden within Plain Sight amongst all the other many many tools inside of Lightroom so to jump right into it this tool is actually contained within two completely different sections inside of Lightroom and what's interesting is that although the tool operates in a very similar fashion it impacts completely different areas of the photograph so this one tool it really feels like it's two separate tools and it all makes sense in just a moment but the very first section that I'm going to cover here is the tool that is located inside of the tone curve right here so if you come over here to tone curve and before you click off the video I know that the tone curve is so just a real quick clarifying Point regarding what he's talking about the little tool that is the entire topic of this video is not the tone curve itself the tone curve just happens to be one of the two places where this little tool resides so I just want to make that real quick clarifying point it was a very maybe touchy subject for many people it's one of those areas that is um very confusing a lot of people avoid the tone curve because it they might not understand exactly how it works or it's a little bit intimidating and I totally get it I didn't use it for years but I really think that this tool if you're not comfortable using a tone curve already I'm sure you are already aware that it is extremely powerful and it's an absolute game changer for adding contrast to a photograph and impacting pretty much every aspect of your image but I'm hopeful at the end of this video you'll feel feel much more comfortable because this tool is a great way to get more comfortable using this uh this uh important aspect of photo editing so right here the tool is this little area right here and this is what I mean it's it's a tiny little tool and you really don't see it expand out until you put your your mouse pointer right over it and that's what I'm saying like it's a tiny little thing that most people don't even realize it's there or maybe they have noticed it but they haven't really paid my much attention to it because it's not obvious at all but if you click on this tool right here you'll see that your mouse pointer has changed to a tool that looks just like that icon and if you look at the histogram if you watch this line right through here as I move this across the scene you'll notice that it is starting to move and what's Happening Here is this area right through here you can see on the tone curve this is the darker mid-tones this right here is the mid-tones this right area right through here is kind of like the brighter mid-tones and now we're getting more over towards the highlights and it works just like a histogram on this side is the Shadows on this side is the highlights and everything on in between is the gradual transition between the two and as I move this through here you can see exactly what's happening and what is happening is wherever you put that pointer whatever pixels you place that pointer on it is going to identify the the corresponding luminance or the corresponding brightness level on the histogram of the pixels that you have that pointer on so when I put it right here here you can see where it is you can see it moving across the the tone curve on the right side of the screen and that's a very important aspect to uh to remember when I go to the next image here which is a more you know it's not a more real life scenario it is a real life scenario it's another image from my trip to Norway I'm a little bit on the fence as to whether or not uh I like this Photograph and you'll see why in just a moment but here it is and I there's a lot I I really do enjoy about this Photograph but this little pier here it's kind of messing with me a little bit I I do enjoy how this mountain area is close to the same size as this foreground area here proportionally it takes up a very similar amount of space in the photograph which I do enjoy of course I love the little boat right here which just happens to be going across the scene right in the right where the the sun is reflecting on the water but I just kind of feel like this pier is kind of pointing the the viewer's eye outside of the frame and it's kind of messing with me a little bit it's not a fully edited photograph yet but I'm working on it so nevertheless if I I come over here and one of the things that I think is lacking with this image right now is it's lacking contrast you know the the sun rays is kind of washing the scene out a little bit but I absolutely love the sun rays but the image needs contrast so if I come over here and I click this little guy you'll see that my mouse pointer has changed once again to that similar area and if you look to the right side of the screen to the tone curve as I move this around you can see that little dot is moving around so if I come over here to a very bright area you can see that the dot on the tone curve is reflecting the a brighter highlight area if I come over here to a darker area you can see that that dot is now towards the shadows and as I just move this all around the image you can see that that is bouncing around now if I want to add some contrast to this and I'm sure that you've heard of the S curve within the tone curve and the S curve is kind of the standard curve to apply contrast to a photograph so if I come over here to a brighter area of the scene I think something right here looks good and I'm just going to click and I'm going to drag up a little bit and what's really interesting is once I've clicked now I have this Anchor Point there that's the exact point that I just clicked on and you can come over here to output and you can just use the up and down arrow keys to impact that area and I the reason that I I bring that up is that the tone curve it's a very sensitive tool which also leads to a little bit of the the the haste or the uh the the desire for many people to not mess with it because it requires such subtle moves or you'll otherwise make your image look completely bananas but if you just use the output or output area and use the keys on your keyboard keyboard you can make very very refined adjustments so as you can see I'm just holding down the the arrow keys on my keyboard so if I just bring up that area a little bit there so maybe we'll start right well let's go up a little bit higher right there now I'm going to come over I'm going to click that air the tool again I'm going to come over to a shadow area or just a darker area like here I think looks pretty good I'm going to click and I'm going to drag this down just a touch and you can see what just happened there I barely moved my my finger on my trackpad but it made a fairly large jolt to the the S curve that's why I like to use that output area so I'm going to come back to the output and let's kind of just bring this up just a touch or we can bring it down a little bit and you can see what it's doing to the the photograph now and that's ultimately what contrast is you know you're brightening one area of your scene and you're darkening the other and it just adds that illusion of additional contrast to your photograph and if I toggle this on and off this is before the tone curve and after before and after and that made an absolutely massive difference to this overall photograph and it added a ton of very very targeted contrast to the overall photograph and you can also let me just go over here to to reset this you don't have to do it just for uh just for creating contrast in your photograph if you just want to brighten or decrease an area of your scene just come up here to the tool and let's say we just want to bring down the highlights right through here maybe this area maybe about right there I think and we'll just kind of bring it down just a touch right there or adversely let me just change this around if we want to bring up maybe just this Shadow area right through here I can or the darkest Shadow area click right there I'm going to come over here and just bring it up you can actually impact it from the the tone curve there or you can come over here to the output and do that as well but as you can see that is there's multiple different ways I should say to adjust the tone curve once you put that Anchor Point on there but this tool is absolutely fantastic for finding a very specific area of your photograph to impact now the other location and this is perhaps my favorite favorite location of this tool and like I said it operates in a very similar fashion but it impacts a completely different area of your scene and it's right here let me close down the tone curve it's in the hsl color section and as you can see you have one of those little tools here in the Hue section you have one of those little tools in the saturation section and you guessed it there's another one of those little tools an illuminance section and it operates like I said in a very similar fashion so I'm going to click it and I'm going to start dragging it around to different pixels in my scene once again this is another photograph from from my recent trip to Norway I haven't shared yet not fully edited but I absolutely love this light just kind of kissing the tops of this peak here I love the dark stormy clouds in the background and all this beautiful light just kind of raking through across this little village and of course I love the color of these Huts through here as well so there was a lot in the scene that I'm very very very happy with so if I want to let's say increase the luminance value and I I absolutely love luminance luminance is the brightness value of a particular color and it can it's very very powerful as well so if I click this right here and as you can see I can drag it around to a color and you can see that color area is being highlighted on the right side in the luminance section so if I come over here that's yellow over here that is orange which is interesting right so yellow orange orange to me that color looks orange or very orange but what's so precise what's so targeted about that tool is it's looking at it at a much more granular level than we are so it is able to identify colors that we really can't see because a lot of times in this particular scene when I look at these Huts these huts look very orange but if you really really dig into it deep there's orange and yellow in all of these Huts right through here so if I didn't use this tool I would have just come over here to the the slider and just pick orange and started moving around but if you want to get very very targeted and really Target the the colors that are in that scene this is the best way to go but there's one more thing that it's doing as well so so I'm going to come over here and actually let's go right over here and I'm going to start to bring this up and now you can see it's also bringing up the yellow as well very very little and I'm just kind of moving this up and down right now but what's Happening Here is it's identifying that there is a little bit of yellow it's mostly Orange in that area but there's also a little bit of yellow and it knows the proportion of that color in that area as well and it is impacting that other color according to how much that color is in that area I know that sounds a little bit confusing but as you move this this cursor around and you impact it and I got another photograph as well you'll really start to understand what I'm saying so let's come over here to this area here and now look you see that red the red luminance Channel actually went up as well just a tiny bit because in that area where we were Lightroom is indicating that there is a tiny bit of red as well and I'm going to bring this all the way up here we can bring it all the way down as well so I'm just going to bring it up to something about maybe right here and if we come over here just kind of looking around a little bit see what this area is doing yeah see now it's bringing up a little bit of yellow as well but but the predominant color is definitely that orange which is which is you know what it's to be expected but I never would have guessed it would have been yellow or really orange or red in there but it's mostly orange now this next image here is a easier example to understand because there's multiple different colors going on where where the the image from Norway was pretty much just all orange so in this particular scene from Colorado let's say we want to impact the saturation so I'm going to come over here and hover this area here I'm going to click and I'm going to drag up and as to be expected orange is moving up and as I move this back and forth you can see what is happening so I'm going to boost up that Orange let's come over here to this green let's bring up this green and you can see look what's happening to the yellow here as I move this back and forth so in that area Lightroom is indicating that there is a lot of green but there's also a ton of yellow as well in that area and as I move this back and forth you can see now you can't see my cursor on the screen because it kind of goes away but it is right there as I move it up and down so I would have never in a million years guess that there was any yellow in that green area as well and I find that a lot of times green contains the color yellow as well so if you're just trying to boost the greens in a photograph and you just go to the green slider and saturation slider and just start cranking it up you're really missing the boat because there's also a lot of yellow in there as well and that's one of the big benefits of this targeted tool so I can bring that up let's come down here to luminance let's say I want to brighten up the green in these trees just a touch and once again look at all the yellow there's actually more yellow in the green of these trees than green itself and as I bring this back and forth look at that and if I wasn't using this tool I would have never known that I would have just cranked up the green slider but with the tool telling me that impact screen and yellow which is super super beneficial you can also do this in the in the Hue section as well I'm going to click the the Hue here and kind of bring this up I don't really do it too much with you but you can definitely do that as well but the biggest benefit is just being able to drag that tool on top of specific pixels and it being able to Lightroom will tell you exactly what colors are contained in that area and it will impact those sliders accordingly which is very very very helpful because it takes all the guesswork out of it and it also produces better results than just saying okay that color is green let's impact green or that color is red let's go ahead and make HD change to the color red this tool is a better way to do that so that's a very very tiny tool now you know what I mean when I say tiny tool it is so small inside of Lightroom but it really does produce big results now before I do wrap up this week's video I just want to say a huge thanks to the the long time sponsor of the channel which is Squarespace who I use for absolutely 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 in page physics 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 markdenny for a free trial and 10 off your first purchase so those two tools seemingly similar Tools in totally different sections now you'd see what I mean how they they operate kind of the same but they are completely different as far as the areas that they impact so I hope that information was helpful and like I said if you're not comfortable or if you're not familiar with the tone curve please give that a shot that too I promise you you will become more comfortable with it and the tone curve is one of those things that if you understand how to use it and you start practicing with it I guarantee you that your photo editing will improve because that tool that area that seemingly confusing little graph in Lightroom or photoshop or capture one is probably hands down the most powerful area of the entire photo editing suites available out there so that tool is a great way to become more comfortable with it and of course the the hsl um color I don't know what you call targeted picker adjustment tool is a great way to impact colors as well and uh from my knowledge those are the only two sections that that uh that picker that targeted tool is available if anybody knows any or other place that it's hidden I would love to hear that let me know in the comments section below and if you have any questions please leave those in the comments section as well do my best to get back in touch with you as soon as I possibly can and if you enjoyed this week's video if you could give it a thumbs up subscribe to the channel if you're not subscribed already and as always I really do appreciate you checking out this week's video and I will see you all next Wednesday bye

Channel: Mark Denney

Views: 61,919

Keywords: landscape photography, landscape, photography, mark denney, landscape photography tutorial, landscape photography for beginners, landscape photography tips, lightroom, lightroom tips, lightroom tutorial, best lightroom tutorial, how to edit photos in lightroom, how to edit photos, how to edit landscape photos in lightroom, how to edit landscape photos, lightroom cc tutorial, lightroom cc, lightroom cc editing, photo editing tips lightroom, photo editing tips for beginners, tutorial

Id: XTyqEIfZSuQ

Length: 16min 35sec (995 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 01 2023