Original subtitles

(electronic beat)

Welcome back.

In this lesson we're gonna dive right in

to editing your images.

And we're gonna learn about

white balance, adjusting exposure and dynamic range,

and increasing definition of your images

by adjust the presence lighters.

Let's start.

So here I am in the library module.

First thing I wanna do is I wanna

go into the develop module.

One of the fastest ways to do that

is to hit the D key on your keyboard.

And that takes you right into the develop module

on this image that we're looking at.

So we're gonna start with white balance correction.

And I like to think of white balance

in two different ways.

You can correct white balance

to achieve the proper color of the scene

or to correct white balance creatively.

So let's start with correcting for the proper color.

I've taken an image with a color swatch in it.

And that's crucial for actually correcting

for the proper color

and using the white balance tool in Lightroom.

The white balance tool is located right here

under the basic panel.

And you'll see that you have

a little eye dropper tool which

is what you're going to use to actually then

pick up a neutral color in the scene

in order for Lightroom to sample the image,

find a neutral color and do a precise adjustment

on the color itself.

So I'm gonna show you how to do that.

So I'm gonna click on the dropper tool

and move it over to the color swatch

that I have here.

What I'm trying to do is I'm trying

to find a neutral color in my image

that then Lightroom could key off

to actually balance the color in the scene.

Now as I said before, I took this image

with a color swatch which makes it really easy.

All you need to do is pick one of the neutral colors

up here on the top of the swatch.

And you see that automatically it goes ahead

and neutralizes the color in the image itself.

Now in an image that I did not have

a color swatch in it, you can also perform

the same function.

And the way that you do that is,

I'm gonna show you right here in this other image.

These are some Sandhill Cranes

that I took in New Mexico.

What we are trying to do

is find an area like I did before

that is neutral in the scene.

And by neutral what I mean is

an area of the image that has no color

that is too warm or too cold.

So for example, I'm gonna zoom in a little bit here.

I'm gonna use the Z key on my keyboard to zoom in

to a particular part of the image.

I'm gonna scroll around

until I find an area that to me looks

as neutral as possible.

I'm looking at this area down here.

Right down in the shadow of the birds themselves.

I'm gonna pick my dropper tool again.

And what I'm doing is I'm going around this area

and trying to find a spot by looking at this target

that has an equal number in the R, G, and B numbers.

So for example, in this particular spot

that I'm hovering over, I have 34.3 for the red,

29.6 for the green, and 27.4 for the blue.

That's actually pretty close in the numbers

so that is actually a very nice and good location

to actually try to color correct this image.

Now one of the things that you're gonna see

is over here on the left hand side

in the navigator.

As I move my cursor around, it's gonna give me a preview

of what the image will look like

if I try to color correct it.

89 00:03:34,200 --> 00:03:37,800 So if I pick one of these places over here.

And let's zoom out again.

You can see that the image, the color's

actually been much more neutralized.

It's actually a very neutral color

as the light was when I was actually shooting this image.

Let's do the same thing on this image.

In this case we're looking at an image

that's actually a little too cold.

The other one that we looked at

was a little too warm.

So what I wanna do is actually correct

for the blueness in this image.

And actually bring out what the natural colors

were in the scene as I was there.

Again I'm gonna pick my dropper tool

and I'm gonna hover over this area of the rocks

because I know that that area's kinda grayish

and neutral in tone.

I'm gonna find a spot that is as close

in numbers as possible.

Here I have an area that is 23, 22, and 23.

So actually very very close in the numbers.

And very neutral in color.

So I can click with my mouse.

And again, it tries to correct for that scene.

Now it's not always going to do

what you want it to do.

It's not always gonna create the effect

that you're trying to create.

That's why I prefer to do what I call

creative color correction.

I want to correct for the scene

the way I want it to look like.

The way I saw in my mind's eye

when I was making that image.

So let's take a look at for example

this other example here.

This lighthouse in northern Maine.

This was actually really early in the morning

when the sun was actually coming up to the clouds.

A very warm scene.

But to me it is still not warm enough.

One of the things I want to do

is I wanna take my temperature slider over here

and actually play around with it a little bit.

And see what the different effects,

what changes are going to occur to my image

as I move my temperature slider from left to right.

As I move it to the right you can see

that it gets warmer and warmer.

As I move it to the left, it'll get cooler and cooler.

In certain areas of the scene

it'll look really really neutral as well

because I am actually matching the color

of the scene that was in that particular location.

Now when you're looking at the temperature,

you'll see that next to the temperature slider,

there is a number associated with that.

And that is the temperature in Kelvin.

Kelvin is the measure in which

we measure the temperature of the light.

Typically neutral color during daylight

is around 5,500 Kelvin.

But in this particular scene because

it was really early in the morning,

the light was much warmer than that.

As you saw earlier before I made any adjustments.

The camera captured the white balance

as it saw during that particular scene.

Now below the temperature slider

you will see also the tent slider.

In some images you may notice

you have a tent to the scene as well.

Typically it goes between a green tent

to a cyan or magenta type tent.

And you can actually compensate for that

by moving the slider from left to right.

Again I like to do this to taste.

Yes you can use a color swatch

to actually get the perfect color

as it appeared in that scene.

But what we're doing here is creating art.

And what I'm trying to do is actually

adjust and play with my white balance

to create the look that I like.

The look that I saw in my mind's eye

when I was on location.

So I want to be able to use these tools

not just in a precise way,

but also in a creative way as well.

Now you also will notice here

that under the white balance heading,

there is a little menu.

And you can see that right now

it's set to custom.

And as you pull down that menu,

you will see you have a number of different choices.

These are the same choices that you will find

in your white balance setting in your camera.

And you can actually click on any of these

and change the white balance

to suit that particular setting

in your camera.

So for example, if I select daylight,

what you'll notice is that my temperature slider

went to 5,500 because daylight,

full sunlight is around 5,500 degrees Kelvin.

But I could pull down the slider

and select cloudy

which tends to be a little bit warmer.

Around 6,500 degrees Kelvin.

Or I can even go to shade

which will be even warmer than that.

7,500.

So you can play around with these settings

until you get the look that you like.

Again I recommend that you do that.

Not just go by the numbers

and not just go by the picker.

Yes the picker's a great tool

when you need to achieve precise color

for a particular scene.

Let's say for example you're shooting

some product photography.

You need to make sure that the colors you see

in a shirt match the true colors of the shirt itself.

One last thing I wanna cover before we move on.

And that's here under treatment.

You'll see that you have two options

for color because this image is in color.

That's highlighted.

Or you can click on the black and white button

to convert your image to black and white.

And this is a very quick and easy way

to convert an image to black and white,

however that's not the way I recommend

you convert an image to black and white.

I'm gonna show you a much better way

in a later lesson how to convert images

to black and white while retaining a lot more control.

Let's move on to adjusting exposure and dynamic range.

Here we have an image of Pronghorn

that I took in Yellowstone a number of years back.

And while this image is amazing,

I love the detail in the image.

I love the expression of the animals.

Especially how they're all looking towards me.

You know, it still looks a little flat.

It could use a little more punch

and a little more definition.

So we're gonna get into that right now.

We're gonna go into and adjust my exposure

and the dynamic range on the image.

First off you're gonna see here

on the sliders I have an exposure slider

as well as a contrast slider.

And those are the sliders I'm gonna start off with

when I'm adjusting my exposure and my dynamic range.

So first let's look at the exposure slider.

I'm gonna click on the exposure slider

and I can move my slider left or right

in order to adjust the exposure in the image

to what looks right to me.

Again there are all sorts of ways

of adjusting the exposure

in a more pragmatic fashion.

But I prefer to do this for what looks right to me

and what feels right.

So I'm gonna adjust my exposure.

I think I want a little more light

in this scene.

So I'm gonna adjust my exposure up

by about half a stop.

Maybe a little bit more.

Now the next slider that you're gonna see here

is the contrast slider.

And the contrast slider's gonna add a lot of punch

to the image.

It's gonna increase the contrast in your image overall.

But it's not a tool that I use all that often.

And the reason is because a contrast slider

is a very coarse tool to use.

I much prefer to use the tonal curve

that I'm gonna talk about in a later lesson.

So for the mean time let's ignore the contrast slider.

And like I said, I don't like to use the contrast slider

because I find it a very coarse tool.

I'm gonna show you a much better way

that allow you much more control

on adjusting contrast in your image

to make it really pop.

Let's move over to the other sliders.

First we're gonna look at the highlight slider.

The highlight slider allows me to control

the highlights in the image.

In a lot of cases, an image like this

where I have an animal that has high contrast

meaning that it has parts of the fur or the coat

that are white, and parts that are really dark and black.

As I try to expose for those two contrasting areas,

you know I have to make sacrifices in one place or another.

And typically what I want to do is

I wanna make sure that I have enough detail

in my whites as well as enough detail in the blacks.

Often times what that means is that

I need to bring down my highlights some

because they may be a little bit overexposed

or a little too bright.

And that's what the highlight slider does.

I can simply click on the highlight slider

and move it to the left or to the right.

That allows me to control the highlights in the image,

the areas that are much brighter than anything else.

And the same thing goes along with the whites.

The whites control those areas of the image

that are very very very bright.

I also have a shadow slider control

that allows me to bring out detail in the shadows.

So areas that may be a little dark,

that you may have lost a little detail,

the shadow slider may be able to bring those out

as I move to the right.

Let's zoom in here a little bit on this Pronghorn.

And you can see the effect that it has

on this nose right here.

We're gonna go back to the default setting

and you can see you do not have a lot of detail

in this nozzle of the Pronghorn.

But as I move that shadow slider

a little bit to the right,

I'm starting to bring a lot of detail

into that part of the image.

Again what this allows me to do is adjust

the exposure of the dark parts of your image

independently of the brighter parts of the image.

And that's what these four sliders do.

Allow you to adjust the highlights independently,

from the blacks, or the blacks independently

from the whites.

Or the shadows independently from the highlights.

It allows you complete control to actually

adjust the dynamic range

and make that image really stand out.

So let's take a look at the histogram

and how the histogram helps us

make those adjustments to exposure

as well as to the dynamic range of the image

including the shadow and the highlight sliders.

So your histogram up here on the upper right hand side

of your interface in Lightroom

shows you the amount of data that exists

within the image, and the different colors

as well as the different tonalities in the scene.

By the way, I'm often asked

what does the perfect histogram look like?

And I have to tell you there is no such thing.

Each individual image is gonna have

its own unique histogram.

Okay so let's take a look at this histogram here.

And as I hover my mouse over the histogram,

you'll see that different parts of the histogram

are highlighted within the histogram itself.

But not just in the histogram.

If you look at the sliders in the exposure,

highlight, and shadow sections.

As I move my histogram, as I hover

over the histogram, different sliders

are highlighted as well.

So for example, right here the highlight slider

is highlighted.

As I move to the center of the histogram,

the exposure slider is highlighted.

And that's because what this is showing me

or demonstrating to me is that I can manipulate

that histogram directly.

And if I manipulate this part of the histogram,

I'm adjusting the exposure.

And I'll show you what that looks like.

What I'm going to do is I'm gonna click on the histogram.

And as I move my mouse to the right,

you can see that the exposure slider

is moving a little bit to the right.

Or as I move to the left, it's moving

a little bit to the left.

And I'm adjusting the exposure.

It's another way to manipulate the exposure

and the dynamic range of your images

by manipulating the histogram directly.

I prefer to use the sliders.

Some people prefer to use the histogram.

Again I can do the same thing here on the highlights.

I can click on the highlights section

of the histogram, and move that.

And I can manipulate the histogram directly.

And you can see that highlight slider

move left and right.

On the upper part of the histogram

you're going to see two little triangle looking buttons.

And what these are is showing me a warning

for when I'm clipping my shadows.

Or the button on the right will show me a warning

when I'm clipping my highlights.

So let's see what that looks like.

I'm gonna click on the shadow button

and you can see that that button now

has a little marquee around it, is highlighted.

And I'm gonna zoom in again on this nozzle

of the Pronghorn.

As I adjust my exposure,

you can see that certain areas of blue

are going to come up onto the scene.

And that's telling me that those areas

right now have absolutely no detail.

That they're completely black.

that I've clipped any information that's in there.

Now let's take a look at what happens

when I do the same thing,

but instead of the shadows do it to the highlights.

I'm gonna click off the shadow slider here.

And I'm gonna reset my exposure on the image.

And I'm gonna move over to an area that's white

so you can see what this would look like

as I click on the highlight clipping

warning button.

And I move my exposure to the right.

You can see that some of the parts of the image

are now turning red.

And that's telling me that the image

in this particular area, is being

completely blown out.

There's no detail there.

This is akin, or very similar

to what you see in the back of your camera

when it's giving you an over exposure warning.

What this is doing is telling me

these parts of the image

are completely over exposed, or under exposed.

These controls can be very helpful

in helping you adjust your exposure

and your dynamic range in the image.

Now let's take a look at how to increase

the definition of your images

by adjusting the clarity, vibrance, and saturation sliders.

Here we have an image of a mountain hare

that I took in Yellowstone a number of winters ago.

And what I'm going to do

is actually zoom in on the face here of my hare

and you can see how well defined

and sharp the image is.

However, I still want to add

a little bit more definition.

I wanna really bring out that fur.

And this is where the clarity slider

really comes into play.

All you really want to do with the clarity slider

is adjust it a tiny bit until you see

the individual hairs really pop out of the image

and give you that distinct 3 dimensional look.

Often times this slider gets overused

and folks like to push it all the way to the end

because they think that sharper is always better.

And that's not necessarily always the case

because one of the things, or one of the side effects

that the clarity slider does

is increase the contrast in your image as well.

That's one of the unfortunate side effects

of the clarity slider but that's because

of the way it works.

So what you really want to do

is use this slider in moderation.

Enough to bring that detail out

but not make that image look artificial

or what I like to say, crunchy itself.

And again just keep in mind

that clarity is also going to add

quite a bit of contrast to your image.

Often times I find myself having to go back

to my exposure slider and add a little bit more

exposure to the image after I've adjusted

my clarity setting.

Here I'm gonna use another image

to show you how to use the clarity slider.

And the reason I wanna do that is because

I have found, again that this slider

gets overused quite often.

And you don't want to overuse it

otherwise your images will not look natural.

They'll look a little bit out of sorts.

So I'm zooming in onto this mountain goat.

And you can see here as I move my slider,

my clarity slider, the definition

of that fur, and even of the background

actually comes much more into focus.

And the way it's doing that is by applying,

again a little bit of contrast to that.

If I were to really push the clarity slider

all the way to the end,

the image would just look way too contrasty

and just not natural at all.

So you wanna use this slider judiciously.

And not overdo it.

This is one of the great mysteries of Lightroom.

A lot of people get confused

or don't really understand the difference

between vibrance and saturation.

Because they seem to do the exact same thing.

Let's talk first about saturation.

498 00:19:22,566 --> 00:19:24,100 What does saturation do?

Saturation slider, what it does is

it increases the saturation or the richness

of all the colors in your scene equally.

So it's gonna, an image like this of my son

at Glacier National Park.

If I were to move the saturation slider

what it's going to do is it's gonna

increase the green in that foliage,

it's gonna increase the red on his jacket

and on his shirt.

And it will also increase the blues in the sky.

However the problem with using saturation

in a situation like this, and I'll show you that

is I take the saturation slider and move it to the right

to add saturation to this image,

skin tones get affected quite a bit.

And now my son is looking kind of orangey

which is not what you want at all.

In a situation like this what you want to do,

use the vibrant slider versus the saturation slider.

What the vibrant slider does is increases

the saturation of all the colors equally,

except for the oranges and the reds.

It actually increases those at a much smaller rate.

Therefore you can actually boost the saturation

of all the colors here in the scene

without making my son look orange.

Maintaining his skin tones.

One of the reasons why you wanna protect those reds,

not just to protect the skin tones

on someone's face.

Is also because the reds tend to block up.

And you start losing definition on the reds

very very quickly.

As you increase the saturation on the reds.

So my rule of thumb is if you want to increase the colors,

if you want to increase the saturation on an image,

typically you wanna use the saturation slider

unless you have reds or people in the scene.

If you have people, or reds in the scene

typically you'll want to use the vibrant slider

more so than saturation slider.

That doesn't prevent you from using both.

In certain cases I may actually use a mixture of both

because I do want to saturate those reds,

I just don't want to saturate them all that much.

And I tend to use the vibrance a lot more.

What I hope in this lesson,

I've been able to show you

how incredible Lightroom is as a tool

to bring out the best qualities of your images.

But remember, it is no substitute

for creating great images out in the field.

The better the images you create,

the better the end result will be

once you bring those images into Lightroom.

As you know, practice makes perfect.

So I'm gonna give you a little bit of homework.

Select a few images to practice setting the white balance.

And do it both for correction purposes

as well as to exercise your creative muscle.

Also select a few images

to experiment with saturation and vibrance

and help you determine

which is the right tool to use

for any of those images.

In the next lesson, we're going to cover

presets, history, and snapshots.

(electronic music)