So in this lesson, I'll show you how we edit a night photo. So that's the before. And that's the after. Of course, we start with the raw development in Lightroom. And then we add a little special effect here. You can see it on the clouds here in Photoshop.

So let's start. I already imported the raw files to lateral. So I decided to again take an HDR image. So why did I choose to take an HDR image so you can see this and the photo has is very bright, and the hill here and the middle ground is very dark, so it of course, I could just open up the shadows to 100 but then we will have a lot of noise and I want to make brint out of this image. So I decided to take an HDR which we have all the details and then we can reduce the noise because we have an overexposed image where we have the details in the middle ground, and we have an underexposed image where we have all the details in the fortress. Yeah, so I can show you the EXIF data how I took this photo, you can show this in Lightroom by pressing Command and y on your keyboard.

And it was at 2.5 of a second at aperture of eight, and is a 100. And of course, it was taken again with the Sony A 6000 and with the kid lens at 16 millimeters, so at first we of course have to again make the HDR. So we select all the three RAW files that we make right click, go to Photo Merge and HDR but it takes some time for Lightroom to create an preview. Okay, so once Lightroom finished with the preview, make sure that auto nine is enabled here at the top and make sure that the gross amount is set to known because you don't need any diggers because it was taken on a tripod there was no movement between the single RAW files. And so we can just add this to non here. Then, if Lightroom has done his work, we just click merge.

And again, it takes some time. So Lightroom is ready with creating the HDR, you can see this here, it's HDR dng. So it's now one big RAW file with all the informations of these three single RAW files. So now we can start with our workflow. And first of course, let's take a look on the white balance. I think the camera did a good job in this photo and I think the white balance is okay, so I will let the white balance so on the exposure it's a bit too dark for my taste.

So um, let's line it up a bit. Maybe something like that. Okay. Contrast is fine now. Add Now the important thing I bring down the highlights as you've seen in the first lesson, and I open up the shadows, maybe not so much in this image because we have really a much information we have a really overexposed image here. So I think we can stick with 16 and now we will set our whites by pressing and holding the Alt key we can see what is burning out, maybe run 40 okay to bring back the contrast and then we can set our blacks to something like that until we see them things which are really black, okay.

Then, we have more contrast of course in the image, but now again it has a bit of them HDR look so we will reduce the clarity to about minus 20. Sorry, minus 25 is fine here as well. So if we zoom in, it has a great sharpness, we have no noise at all. So wonderful vibrance, just a bit more color. But I think this image is also very saturated. So don't overdo this.

And if we now what else saturation, I can show this to you. Yeah, it looks very weird because the blue is to blue. And I think the orange is too saturated in this image also if we have saturation at zero, so we have to take care of that. And we can do this in Lightroom with the HSL color section, as I already showed you in the basics video, so the orange tones are too saturated here. So let's take a look if we can reduce this. So orange saturation, you can see this what happens if I drag it to Milan to minus 100.

So all the orange tones are now completely unsaturated. So maybe let's go to something like minus 20 until it looks fine for us, okay. And I think the blue tones are a bit too saturated so we can boost the saturation at the blues and bitch. So you can see this will just affect it by the blue tones. And maybe we can go to around 35 something like that, okay. And we can also boost the Aqua pitch also to around 30 wonderful.

So for first and why no keyword we see the before and after. And here we have a big change already with these single steps. So we have brought back all the details by first and making an HDR image then opening the shadows and bring down the highlights. Then we brought back our contrast by setting the whites and the blacks Now we took care of the colors by doing local saturation and reducing the saturation of the orange tones, that it doesn't look weird. And I think it looks quite good already. Okay, um, now we can also take a look at the Split Toning, you can do something there.

So I always after I've done the basics, the basic retouching, I take a look at the Split Toning, if it makes sense to add some color here, so press the Alt key and then we can see how the color affects our image. So let's take a look if you find a tone that we like maybe something like that, and not so much saturation just a bit that we reduce the bluish look a bit and that it gets a bit more interesting the image here so maybe something like trendy here and so I can show you the effect of the Split Toning bye Switch by turning it off and on here. And you see we just reduced a bit this blue look because otherwise it looked a bit like we had just the filter a blue field and I don't want that. So I want to make it more natural.

And you see this year and the clouds and the reflection. These the Split Toning affects these parts of the image and it quite like it. Okay, let's take a look at also the color in the shadows, but I think it's blue enough and it would also make no sense to add on one color here so I think we can leave the shadows on this image. So we're fine with the highlights here in the Split Toning. Okay, now if I took the image, it was a bit difficult to find the the right points where I placed my tripod because I really wanted the fortress to be in this center of the image. And but I think he in this image, yeah, it's not really in the center and also a bit of you have to transform it a bit because I was standing on the right side and not exactly in the middle.

So it's not perfect from the perspective here. But Lightroom has a great function transform. So often we can use auto a right, let's look what auto right does here. Okay, it just rotates the image a bit. But I think that's too less for us. So we can do a manual transform in Lightroom.

So you have these switches he vertical, horizontal and more. So let's take a look what vertical does here. It and correct the perspective and I think it looks better so the fortress is a bit. It doesn't look really straight. So let's go to minus just a bit and horizons. We also have to do something because I as I told you, I was a bit too far on the right.

So let's take it to drag it a bit to the left, maybe something like that. And now you'll see the fortress is completely in the middle. And it seems like we were standing right in front of the fortress Derek directly in the middle. So, of course, we have to crop it now. So let's open the crop tool and make sure that the fortress is completely in the middle. So something like that.

Okay. I can crop it here also a bit. So it's not that interesting here. Maybe something like that. And let's make it a bit more panoramic. Okay.

I think we need to level up the horizon. So let's take this tool here and make sure that our horizon is correctly lined up. Okay, fine. Then we just take down and we look at it, and water. It seems now like we were standing directly in front of the fortress in the middle. And it's much better than before so I can show you what the transforming he did.

So can you see that I was tending to found the right and now it seems that I was standing directly in the middle. So here we corrected the perspective, the correct perspective. And yeah, it does a great difference. It adds a great difference to the image. Because I think the the most important part point of this image is the symmetry, the reflection and the symmetry that is directly in the middle and that's very important. So it's Wonderful that we corrected this.

We also make sure that enable profile corrections is switched on. Okay, it is by default and remove chromatic aberration also. So now let's add a bit more than dynamic to the image, make it a bit more dynamic. And of course, we can do this by making local adjustments as I already showed you in the last lesson. So let's take a graduated filter and close up the photo. So if you hold the shift key, your gradient will be straight like this.

And then lower the exposure to really close up the photo and to get the fuel into your picture, something like that. And then we also do a gradient at the bottom. Maybe we can recrop it here because it's a bit too late spawner. So something like that, okay, and go back to our gradient, I think he at the bottom, it's too strong. So let's something like that looks fine. Okay, so I can show you without the gradients and with the gradient so it adds more a lot of more dynamic to the image, just a bit less.

Maybe a bit more at the top. Okay, wonderful. So we can also add a little vignette that we darken the corners of the image. So let's go to effects section in Lightroom and choose an amount for the vineyards so we can add a strong vineyard in this image. And maybe the midpoint is fine. The roundness we can adjust a bit.

So you see, it gets a bit more other shape. So we can go to minus 60 and make this tailoring, higher of course that it doesn't seem unnatural. And I like it. Okay, so um now the gradient at the bottom is a bit too strong, so we make a bit less. And here at the top, it's fine, I think. Wonderful.

Okay. And then just click down. So that's all so we closed the photo now. And and now let's do some magic. So we take the local adjustment brush and we go to exposure and exposure and now And I think the most important part of this image is, of course, the reflection and the clouds. So this should be a bit more dynamic and bit more drama.

So we can add a bit more interesting things by just rushing over the reflection the clouds here and make them a bit brighter. So I'll show it to you. Just like that, brushing into our image. So I do this, every landscape image, I asked myself, What is the important task where the viewer should look at and it's, of course, the reflection and the clouds, of course the fortress also, but I think these clouds add a lot of dynamic to the image so we really should brighten them up. Okay. Just like that.

Let's see here on the top a bit. underfoot, maybe boost exposure a bit more. Okay, so let's take a look at this brush dead big difference Okay, then click done and I think if we take a look at the before and after we already changed a lot sorry and yeah