From Click to Post

Posted by jason on Sep 27, 2010 | 2 comments

Ever wonder how one gets from the initial image to the final edit?  I have.  Sometimes I wonder if other people take as long as I do to finally get the image complete in the dark room.

Well, here we have an image I took a couple of months back while driving the Denali Highway on the last Alaska Photo Workshop.

Now, because I shoot in native RAW and not JPG the image looks a little flat when it comes to colors, brightness and the like.  This is normal.  But, by shooting in RAW I now have more leeway to get the final image I want.

Things I liked about the photo:

• water blur
• old posts sticking out of the water
• clouds with a hint of blue sky
• the green moss and foliage
• tilt of the camera

However, this image has a couple of items I needed to “fix” for the final edit:

• colors need oomph
• camper trailer needs to “go away”
• lighten and darken select parts of the photo (dodge and burn for the Photoshop fanatics)

In order to accomplish this I raised my exposure by 2/3 and raised my black levels to 16 (from the default 5).  I also used a custom Tone Curve: highlights: +66; lights: 0; darks: -33; shadows: -47.  Saturation levels were all left at default levels.  I also used Lightroom’s Spot Removal tool to hide the camper.

After a bit of work in Lightroom this is what I ended up with…and no camper!