How To Edit Travel Photos In Lightroom WITHOUT PRESETS

hey guys Ryan here at signature edits
00:02
and today we are going to look at how to
00:03
get this image from here to here without
00:06
using any presets let’s do it
00:09
[Music] 00:17
all right so let’s launch in there’s a
00:20
few things we’re going to be doing today
00:22
we’re going to be working on the overall
00:24
color of this image and then we’re also
00:25
going to be adding a couple of different
00:27
effects one the most noticeable being
00:29
this beautiful sunrise that is going off
00:32
of the bridge here if you look very
00:33
closely you can see there is a little
00:35
bit of a light rain naturally in this
00:37
photo but even if it wasn’t there we
00:39
could still add it and I’m going to show
00:41
you how you can do that in Lightroom now
00:43
let’s get started with some basic color
00:45
we’re going to go up to the top and just
00:46
adjust our white balance that is the
00:48
first thing we do with our image because
00:49
it’s looking pretty cool next we’re
00:51
going to adjust our magenta just a
00:53
little bit I’m trying to get a nice
00:57
starting point so things are just
00:59
looking natural out of the gate I’m
01:00
going to add a little bit of contrast
01:01
here and then I can up my highlights a
01:05
little bit maybe down my shadows just a
01:07
little whites up if I want to I can
01:10
actually hold down the alt or option key
01:12
and drag the whites up until I see some
01:14
clipping happening basically I don’t
01:16
want to lose any detail in the image so
01:17
I’m just gonna take it until the whites
01:18
are white and that’s it and black same
01:21
thing I can take it down a little bit
01:23
but not too much because I don’t want
01:24
her black pants to be too to black we
01:26
want them to be a very dark gray because
01:28
nothing is really truly black in the
01:30
world
01:31
alright so moving on I can add a little
01:33
bit of clarity here and the slightest
01:37
bit of da’s up my vibrance and lower my
01:40
saturation a little bit that’s just a
01:42
nice little trick to kind of get the
01:44
color there without having things be too
01:46
saturated looking next we’re going to go
01:48
into our tone curve do a very slight
01:50
s-curve just up some contrast just a
01:53
little bit and then we’re going to go
01:57
into our HSL and this is where the money
01:59
starts to happen so I’m going to go over
02:01
top my hue here and take my oranges and
02:07
move them down just a little bit warm up
02:08
towards red yellows I’m going to do the
02:11
same thing you can see how that trees
02:13
kind of take on a fall tone when I do
02:15
this and then I’m going to hop over into
02:19
my luminance and I’m going to take her
02:21
skin on her arm is looking a little bit
02:22
dark and I can use this little
02:24
eyedropper click on our skin drag up and
02:27
that is showing me that that’s in the
02:29
oranges and the red so we’re going to
02:30
brighten those up
02:31
bit perfect that is looking pretty good
02:37
again it’s baby steps one thing at a
02:39
time not going to try and edit the whole
02:41
image with any one of these tools I’m
02:43
going to do it incrementally and little
02:44
by little it’s going to get that image
02:45
from where I want it where it was to
02:49
where I want it
02:50
so moving on my detail I can leave that
02:52
maybe out my sharpening just a little
02:54
bit because I’m a bit of a sucker for
02:56
good sharpening now holding down the alt
02:58
I can actually turn up my radius and
03:00
that will define basically which parts
03:02
of the image Lightroom is sharpening
03:04
radius is how radius is how strong the
03:09
edge needs to be before it actually gets
03:11
sharpened so if I drag it all the way up
03:13
you can see what’s getting sharpened
03:14
here are these really big strong edges
03:16
of the bridge and that’s what I want to
03:17
emphasize here noise reduction don’t
03:20
need that because our photo was taken at
03:21
ISO 100 moving down lens Corrections
03:24
sure we can turn those on turn my
03:28
vignette encasement transform that’s all
03:35
fine effects we’re going to leave that
03:38
alone except for maybe a little bit of
03:40
light grain here let’s zoom in just a
03:42
little and we can exaggerate our effect
03:46
for now my size down and just like that
03:50
so there’s before and there’s after just
03:52
very very subtle effect and finally my
03:56
camera calibration this is kind of the
03:57
secret moneymaker at the end here we can
04:00
take our shadows and just add a little
04:02
bit of magenta into there take our Reds
04:06
and move them ever so slightly towards
04:08
orange take our blues move them down
04:12
just a little bit and our greens you
04:17
know in this image I’m actually thinking
04:18
things are looking pretty good natural
04:20
like that when I dialed the Blues back
04:24
just a little okay so that is pretty
04:26
close to the way that I would like it to
04:28
be I’m going to add maybe a little bit
04:29
of saturation back into this image and
04:31
then we’re going to work on our
04:33
beautiful streak of light up here so how
04:35
do we do that well we go over to our
04:36
radial filter and it’s actually pretty
04:39
simple if you have the signature edits
04:40
pack comes with all of these pre-made
04:42
brushes one being a Sun flare
04:45
which we can actually just drag down
04:47
here and bam we’ve got a flare that we
04:49
can finesse but we’re going to make one
04:51
from scratch assuming you don’t have
04:52
that pack right now so I’m going to go
04:54
just up to exposure here add some
04:58
exposure some temperature some tint
05:01
lower my contrast because that’s what a
05:03
Sun flare does and then we’re going to
05:07
upper highlights a little bit up our
05:10
whites clarity is going to go down
05:12
because we’re losing sharpness whenever
05:14
a flare happens d haze just a little bit
05:17
and let’s just see how that looks for a
05:20
starting point and not too bad we’ll
05:23
dial that in okay so what I’m going to
05:24
do is drag this down to around here and
05:26
then if I grab this line up here I can
05:29
actually make the gradient from 100% to
05:32
0% I can make that smaller so that
05:35
there’s more of a defined line and grab
05:38
that middle line again and drag it back
05:40
down so I basically want it to be just
05:42
poking out here over the edge of the
05:45
bridge this corner right here now
05:47
obviously this looks pretty silly but
05:48
it’s helping us to be able to see
05:50
exactly where it is then we’re going to
05:52
refine it and make it more subtle so
05:54
what I’m going to do now is hit this
05:55
little brush thing and obviously the
05:57
sunray is coming over the bridge we
05:58
don’t want it on the bridge here so what
06:00
I’m going to do is hold down alt while
06:03
I’m on the brush that’s going to toggle
06:04
to my eraser and I’m actually just going
06:06
to erase this section of that gradient
06:11
filter just like that it’s already
06:14
looking closer now let’s dial it in a
06:16
little bit more things are looking
06:18
pretty red there we don’t need that I’m
06:20
going to take my contrast back up a
06:22
little bit exposure doesn’t need to be
06:24
so extreme that’s looking better and
06:28
maybe take my white balance down just a
06:32
little so it’s not quite so crazy my
06:35
whites could go back up a little and
06:40
sure maybe a little bit less clarity a
06:43
little bit warmer let’s see how we’re
06:47
looking that is pretty good not you
06:49
could go harder or more subtle depending
06:52
on your personal taste but I’m liking it
06:53
there what I might do is just duplicate
06:55
this
06:57
right the second one up to about here
07:00
and just have kind of a second flare
07:05
going on just to make it a little bit
07:07
more organic pull it everything way back
07:11
so it’s far more subtle there we go just
07:18
like that alright and that is how you
07:21
take this image from here to here in
07:24
Lightroom without using any presets now
07:26
presets are a great starting point they
07:28
can save you a ton of time obviously
07:29
this photo took me 10 minutes to edit by
07:32
myself if I were using a preset maybe it
07:34
would take me a minute or two minutes or
07:36
maybe thirty seconds if I have a great
07:38
preset and I’m just using my preset for
07:40
this lovely sunray as well now there’s
07:42
some other little things we could do to
07:44
finesse the image a little bit maybe we
07:45
could go down here and grab our add
07:47
texture brush which is basically just
07:48
some clarity some sharpness a little bit
07:50
of contrast and we could bring out some
07:52
texture here and if for whatever reason
07:55
we wanted our subject this girl to be
07:58
more in focus because she is out of
07:59
focus in the original photo we could
08:01
possibly take another brush here up our
08:05
clarity our sharpness and you know get
08:08
her back to where we’d like her to be
08:14
press o and I can see where my mask is
08:17
actually being painted
08:22
perfecto presto again to take that off
08:28
great so now she’s not all the way as
08:32
sharp as if she were actually sharpen
08:33
camera but that will do once we zoom
08:36
back out just like that our image is
08:41
done so that’s how you edit this image
08:42
without any presets inside a Lightroom
08:44
if you are a hands-on learner
08:46
I got you make sure you download the
08:47
image below you can practice with the
08:49
raw file in Lightroom on your own until
08:53
next time if this was helpful for you
08:54
please hit that like button don’t forget
08:56
to subscribe leave me a comment and I’ll
08:58
see you in the next one
08:59
[Music]