Auto Photo Eraser

Part of the joy of landscape photography for me is standing around and waiting for the light to change. You put your camera on its tripod, compose a shot and wait, taking photos every few minutes, whenever the sky or light or whatever looks interesting. I caught the tail end of a storm in Santorini, Greece, with heavy clouds blowing over right at sunset. An hour or so later and it was blue hour, with streetlights and buildings lit up. Both photos are below, after being edited in Lightroom using the Lightroom Develop System. They are both individually pretty good, but what if we could combine them? A stormy sunset over Santorini. Blue hour and streetlights in Santorini. CREATING & USING COLOUR CHANNEL LUMINOSITY MASKS I would like to be able to take the illuminated buildings and streetlights from the blue hour photo and add it to the stormy sunset. As with shooting into the sun, the best way to do this is through luminosity masks, but with a slight twist. ...

Let’s face it. Half the articles sharing “the top tips” for you to capture better landscape images are rather generic. Sure, straightening the horizon and photographing during Golden Hour may have a positive impact on your photos, but will they make you a better photographer? Instead of looking at those basics, I want to share 7 slightly different but equally important suggestions. These tips aren’t going to instantly improve your photography, but they’re aimed at  making you a better photographer . Take the time to learn and try them, and I think you’ll start seeing a difference in the near future. #1. Good Light is NOT Limited to the ‘Golden Hour’ I wasn’t going to talk about the Golden Hour in this article, but it’s such a common piece of advice that I can’t help bringing it up. While most people (myself included some years ago) say that you need to photograph during sunrise or sunset to get better images, I’m going to argue that this is not the case. Good light can happ...

One of the more difficult aspects of post-processing is identifying when you’re starting to over edit a photo. It’s common knowledge what many of the characteristics of an over-edited image are, but determining when you’ve gone too far, that’s the challenging part. In this 14-minute video, I break down five tips that have helped me to understand and identify when I’m beginning to over process an image. Sign #1. Unrealistic Shadows and Highlights A common issue with landscape photography is when you’re shooting into the sun and either you overexpose the sun, sky, or both. A quick tip before you make any adjustments is to change the profile from Adobe Standard to Adobe Neutral. Adobe Neutral is a flatter profile that’ll give you more latitude in recovering clipped highlights or shadows. In order to resolve the overexposed area, if you reduce the highlights to a point that you begin to see an unnatural ring around the sun, then you’ve gone too far. On the o...