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Light

Lesson 2 from: Developing and Retouching in Lightroom Desktop

Jared Platt

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Lesson Info

2. Light

Next Lesson: Profiles

Lesson Info

Light

now that we have all of our images selected and we've created whatever hdr and panels inside of the grid that we wanted to make, it's time to go in and start adjusting the images. Now, over on the right hand side, inside of lightning desktop, you will find that there are little icons at the top right hand side. Those icons air all of your adjustments. This is basically, for those of you were light from classic users. This is basically your develop module right over here. So you have your edits. You have your crop, you have your healing brush. Um, you have your regular brush, which is toe do burning and dodging. You have a Grady int and you have a radial Grady int. So those air the controls that you have the these are global up here and then these air local down here. So we're gonna go into the edit tool and you'll notice that you can't adjust something unless you're looking at it in full size. So I'm gonna double click this image so that we're looking at the entire image. Um, and I'm a...

ctually going to collapse this, um, filmstrip here so that We're looking at just the image and ah, I'm going to start adjusting this image. Now, remember, this is an HDR image. So it is, um it's got a lot of latitude to it. So look at this exposure here instead of fives. Usually this goes up five stops, but I can go 10 here and 10 down, so I literally can go everywhere from pure white, too pure black and anywhere in between because I've got all this data. So I have a lot of control over this image. Now, the exposure can stay right in the middle, cause that looks pretty good. Um, so let's just look at the light and dark, Basically, this light area, Um, because this is where you do all of your exposure, um, and contrast. So first thing, I'm gonna look at his exposure. I I want to make sure that I have, um I'm always looking at kind of the mid tone areas when I'm doing exposure, because that's what exposure is actually working on is the midtown areas. It's not actually working on anything but the mid tones. One of the things that was absent while we were just working here is the hissed a gram. And so I went into the view and I came down to the edit panels and turned on the hissed a gram because it's really important to be looking at the history, Graham, while you're working so that you know what your image actually consists of. It also has these two little triangles right here. And if you click on them, it will show you the clipping on the black and the white area. That way, when I overexposed, you can see that I'm clipping or when I under exposed you can see I'm clipping those air really important. That's important information. So make sure that if that if you're not seeing that, go up to the view, go to the edit panels and choose to show your hissed a grams so that you can actually see it. This is also where you can show various things like, for instance, we can show the clipping I can make it. I can show the overlay mask tool. This is where the white balance and guided upright are. All of this stuff is in here as well as over here. So just be aware that the view is a great place to go look and make sure that you're seeing all of your tools. Eso If you're missing something, it's all right in here. Okay, so now back to working on our exposure and contrast. I have a lot of latitude in this image because it's an HDR, and so I don't need to do much to it because I can see everything. So now it's just a matter of finessing it. So noticed that I can see a lot mawr. And if I bring the highlights down, I'm recovering all of this information back here in the background so those mountains can just disappear if I don't bring down those highlights. But you'll also notice that is bringing down some of the highlights up here because again, this is all global adjustments. So I'm bringing down the highlights. But I'm gonna have to play around with the other tools to make sure that I don't completely lose my vibrance of of this area here. And so I'm gonna take the shadows, play with shadows. You can see that the trees and things like that are getting richer. The shadows in the pillars here getting richer as I bring the shadows down. Many people spend a lot of people, especially in images that aren't HDR. They take the shadow up way too bright because they're trying to actually do that in the exposure exposures the mid tones, and that's where you want to bring up your mid tones. But a lot of people will actually try to bring it up in the shadows, and they'll cause a lot of noise to come into their image because they're Overblowing the shadows in order to try and bring up what should be the mid tones. So remember your exposures is the mid tones. Your shadows is the dark kind of the dark grays, and then you're black is everything below dark gray. So don't bring the shadows up too high, especially on HDR. But in HD are you can actually bring it up quite a bit because there's a lot more information in it, and then the whites. I could bring those up, and that's gonna allow a little bit more punch in here. But notice that the white also brings in exposure issues up here at the top. But that's OK because we have the ability. Once we get everything the way we want it here inside of our, um, global adjustments. Then we have the ability to come in and do local adjustments to fix some of the things that we've caused. So let's ah, quickly, and we'll go and talk specifically about the local adjustments in a minute. But if I grab a Grady int and I tell it that I want to bring the exposure back down and the highlights down a little bit, I can just drag it across that background. And there I've fixed the background by simply taking what I pushed up and pull it back down so we can negate that and we'll talk a little bit more about those localised adjustments later. But oh, and we need to do another one right here. Um, bringing exposure down. This got too bright here, too. So we're just gonna just go like this and dark in that up just a little bit. And now we're back to normal, and so we've got a good shot. Now we, ah, need to move on to another image. So that's just the basic lighting area. And remember, basic lighting is it is all global and it should be very simple. Your job is to create normal, so you need your black points to be correct. You need your white points to be correct. Um, and you you just want to get your image to normal. And then, from there you can start adding style to it through all sorts of different methods. But the the light area is for just getting your exposure correct. Get your black so that they look good. Get your white so that they look good. Get your mid tones correct. Get your contrast, correct and leave it and then we'll start adding style to it.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Workflow in Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Lightroom Mobile Cloud
Adobe Lightroom Image Pipeline System
Black & White Preset Collection
Color Art Pro Profiles

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