r/postprocessing

Wanted to give this bird shot a much darker and colder look while recovering some of the darker details in the bird. I’m really happy with how this one turned out! As always that’s some super heavy editing so this certainly isn’t for everyone. Keep in mind my goal isn’t to keep the image “natural”

Everything was done in Lightroom and can bee seen in this start-to-finish editing video: https://youtu.be/9f-0lbbu9rI

1. Basic Adjustments

First, I denoised the image, applied heavy cropping (cant be seen here in the before version, but it was shot in 4:3 not 3:4) and removed the out of focus tree branch at the bottom.

Then, the exposure and the highlights were dropped to make the bright background darker. To recover details in the subject the shadows and blacks were raised. The white balance was slightly to warm, to fix that I dropped it a bit to make sure I have some nice blue tones in the background.

For a clean and sharp looking image, texture, clarity and dehaze was slightly increased.

2. Masking

Here is where the biggest transformation happens. First, I had to make the background darker and colder without affecting the subject. I used and objects mask in combination with a landscape mask to select bird + tree branches, then inverted this mask which results in the perfect background mask. Since there usually are fine white lines around more complex masks, I used the newly added edge and feather slider to clean that up.

Once the mask was set up, I brought down exposure and temperature to make it darker and colder. Then, I duplicated that mask (save some time not creating new masks) and slightly adjusted positioning / subtracting other masks and continued making the background darker by dropping the exposure / temperature. I made sure to not darkern the upper left corner since I also wanted to create a light effect coming in from this corner!

To improve the light effect I placed a radial gradient over the corner and subtracted the subject from it (I want the light to be BEHIND the bird), then simply raised the exposure, blakcs and whites to add light.

I also added some light on the upper part of the bird using a subject mask for the upper half of it by raising the exposure.

3. Colors

Finally, I pushed the blue saturation slightly to give the colors some pop

Fog rolled in heavy last night. Shot on iPhone 17 pro

this was shot on Z Fold 8, exited in LR mobile.

I was trying to make strong contrast (orange/blue) but I think that I overdid it. I spent too much time on this. I can't see it proprely already

This is my son channelling Icarus on Patmos in Greece… Greyest day and my favourite photo - and could be anywhere! Shot on GRIV Monochrome. I debased the sky and added an S curve in PP - have I gone too far?

First time at an airshow on an overcast day and looking for advice on my photos and how I've edited.

I really want to like my photos, but I feel like I might be over-editing and something feels off/doesn't quiet look right. Wondering if I can get away with less editing and the images still looking really good or if a fair bit of editing is actually needed, different youtube tutorials sort of suggest different things so it's a little hard to figure it out.

1st photo has minimal editing

Others have a decent amount from adjustments to layers of masks

Canon m50 mk2 Body + Canon EF 100-400 mk2