Can't get the light right

[maximus43]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom 6

Operating System

1. Windows 10

High guys!

I'm struggeling with this photo (but also some other photo's taken on different times on different places where I recognize the same struggle as this photo).
It's a landscape and the view there was amazing, but I can't get it right on Lightroom.

Here is the photo:

There is a lot of light difference between the shades and the sunny parts. The area was very green, but I can't get it right on Lightroom.
The first thing which I'm struggling with are the details in the greens. In the upper photo I put (in lightroom) the exposure up. If I put it down, like the next phot, I see way more different variants of green (for example in the gorge on the right middle part of the photo):

I like all those details, but this picture looks way to dark.

So my first question:
Why is lightroom giving me more detailed variations in the greens when I underexposure the picture?

The second question is:
How can I get this picture right?
Feel free to trial-and-error with the raw-file, I would love to see some better versions (with also a screenshot of the lightroom-edits you've made). You can download the rawfile here

Thanks a lot for your help!

 

[hanoman]

My trial in Lightroom.
Basic Panel:
Highlights -100
Shadows 83
Whites +15
Blacks +5
Clarity +26
Dehaze +33
Vibrance +14 and
Radial Filter over the hill behind the lake:
Exposure 0,42
Clarity 45
Dehaze 20
Good luck!
Hannes
www.pixel-werke.de

 

[davidedric]

My question is a bit different: What is the picture about?
When I look at your first image, my eye wanders all over the place. There is nothing to keep my attention.
I think a big reason the second looks better is because the eye is drawn to the lake.
So my suggestion is to decide how you want your image to be appreciated, and use Lightroom to help deliver that.
To put it another way, you say "the view was amazing" (and I'm sure you are right), but the question is, "Why".
Dave

 

[Tony Jay]

Hi Maximus43, welcome to Lightroom Forums!

I decided to ignore the philosophical questions posed by some of the respondents and instead concentrate on the technical questions asked....

Before delving into the actual edits a few more general points are worth noting:

• Getting colour correct in an image is a function of several components including white balance, contrast, and the black point! I downloaded the raw image that you offer and, based on the distant clouds, the white point is indeed almost neutral, so, probably no need to change much there! Many people do not appreciate the affect that contrast has on colour. A low contrast image will always have muted colour. (Nothing wrong with low contrast and muted colour if this is the intended effect, though!) The black point is crucial! Evaluating colour is always much easier for the eye if there is a part of an image that is true black. It does not have to be a large area, just as long as it is present...
• Something not always understood is that the greens in foliage always have a lot of yellow. Whether this misapprehension is in play for you or not I am not sure - if it isn't then just ignore this point!
• Everyone else, apart from you, will be at a big disadvantage in evaluating this image because we were not there to see it with our own eyes! This is what you are trying o recreate in Lightroom! Therefore our efforts may not be that successful....

Given the two images that you post, it appears that you would the highlights to, roughly, resemble the first posted image and the the shadows to, again roughly, resemble the second posted image. This is not actually particularly hard to achieve!

Here are the settings that I applied to your raw image:
Temp 5214
Tint +14

Exposure -0.48
Contrast 0

Highlights -100
Shadows +100
Whites +43
Blacks -40

Clarity +21
Vibrance +17
Saturation 0

Tone curve S-shaped tone curve applied
HSL nil
Split Toning nil

Sharpening

Amount 45​

Radius 0.7​

Detail 50​

Masking 37​

Noise Reduction

Luminance 6​

Detail 50​

Contrast 0​

​

Color 25​

Detail 50​

Contrast 0​

I also applied a lens correction that included the profile for the lens and removal of chromatic aberration.

Now lets look at what I did and did not do with an emphasis on why!

Camera colour temperature was set at 5900 K and this was very close to neutral using the clouds as a gauge. I opted for a slightly cooler colour temperature to help make the greens pop a little more by negating the yellow components of the foliage.

I reduced overall exposure by nearly a half-stop. I did this to try and make the image slightly more moody than it otherwise may have been. I never use the contrast slider because it is way to much of a blunt instrument in my book! Hence contrast remains at 0. However, manipulating contrast in an image is key to getting it right (especially the colours!) and the following edits achieve this... In most landscapes I will minimize the highlights and maximize the shadows - immediately after doing this the image will look really strange and bland, but manipulating the blacks and the whites sliders creates the contrast I am looking for! This strange, apparently paradoxical, movement of the highlights and whites sliders and then the shadows and blacks sliders creates the maximum contrast in the image of the darkest and lightest parts of the image. Although, for the moment anyway, mid-tone contrast is relatively muted, the contrast in the highlights pulls out all the details in the clouds as well as the dark shadows in the image while maintaining the appropriate tones overall for those areas.

Now to fix the mid-tone contrast! There is one slider whose entire job is manipulate mid-tone contrast and that is the Vibrance slider! I did not pull the slider up too far, because I had an additional maneuver in mind and that was the Tone curve! (see attached file...)

The sharpening settings and other edits are fairly typical for what I do for images shot with Canon equipment and I won't discuss those further.

 

[Zenon]

I use LR8 and Adobe improved the Auto feature. One click with Auto. Note: Auto does not effect Clarity. +12 is my import default. Also the only thing Auto does is sometimes it lowers Contrast too much. Auto selected -21 but I raised it to -5. Contrast was the only change I made, LR did the rest. This is my typical starting point.

 

[Zenon]

The subscription version comes with DeHaze which Auto (like Clarity) does not adjust either. Those are the only 2 not effected by You can get 3rd party Dehaze plug-in for LR6.

Next I moved DeHaze to +45.

 

[Zenon]

To finish up LR7 introduced new Adobe Colour profiles. The above examples were using the new Adobe Colour which is now the new default. It is kinda like Canon Standard. Since you shoot with Canon I switched over to Canon Landscape at the end of editing (1st image) . The 2nd image is using Adobe Landscape.

 

[prbimages]

Just for fun, here's my version:

 

[mariah1902]

There are some light balancing techniques on you tube just search it, you will find some. I have learned some of the techniques and found great help while I applied them.

 

[mariah1902]

Beautiful photo

Just for fun, here's my version:View attachment 12129

Beautiful photo I must say. What is your camera and lens that you used to click this picture?. Do you have more of these?, can you share some of these with us?.