Video: Evolution of a Photo (Using Lightroom, Photoshop and Luminar)
On my recent photo essay from Hook lighthouse in Ireland, I was editing the images, and wanted something a little special for the cover photo. I had tried lots of different things, and in the end, the image I used went through several steps to get it to where it was for the final use of it. In this video I talk you through the steps I took from the starting raw photo to the finished image.
Note that this isn’t a tutorial per se. Instead, it is a discussion of the processes taken and the thoughts behind them. I often find that tutorials where you see the instructor going through every step can be boring, and often unnecessary as the individual tasks may be quite common and easy to do on their own. I wanted instead to offer an overview of the “why” rather than the “how”.
I used Steely Blue as a base for this. I have recently added this back to my GumRoad page and its available on sale. The version I used in this was a evolution of the original presets, and I’m working on Steely Blue 2 for release sometime in the future. I also used both Photoshop and Luminar in some of the processing.
On the final image I did do one additional step after I recorded this image, and that was to enhance the rocks in Nik Viveza. I basically just opened the photo in Viveza and put a control point over the rocks in the foreground and added some structure. This brought out the detail and colour in the rocks. I probably could have done this in Lightroom too, but it was easier to get the effect I wanted in Viveza with one adjustment (and no, “Texture” in Lightroom didn’t do the same thing.)
Let me know if you like this style of video and I’ll try and do more in the future!
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