Early Morning Family photos At Muscatatuck Wild Life Refuge

So it was early in the morning and the weather was perfect!! No Really. It was perfect. It had been soooo hot the week before, even in the morning. But this special morning the temperature was in the high 60’s low 70’s. And you guys, I cannot say enough good things about this family. They are so sweet!! They drove out of their way to come and get their pictures done, and it was such a treat! Being from Missouri they trusted me with the location. They are the type of people that are just seem so laid back. Billie is a photographer as well, so that’s like a super honor for another photographer to trust you with their own family photos. Hope you enjoy these!

Thanks for looking!!

How To Do a Simple Composite

Here is my photograph that I am going to use to be the center of my composition.

I start out by using the quick selection tool to select the cabin and some of the ground. I then copy and paste it to a new document in Photoshop. (I just use a generic size and then extend my canvas with the crop tool).  Next step it is cleaning up the image.  You can use the erase tool, or you use a layer mask to tidy up those edges and get rid of anything extra the quick selection tool may have selected.

I then add more ground by selecting some from other pictures I took from the same shoot. Keep the edges of everything soft by using the blur tool or use a soft brush on a layer mask. Next, I add the sky and use a black and white layer to make everything black and white.  In this picture I used a cloud layer from Jessica Drossin’s Macabre skies and overlays.   However, you can use one of your own if you have one! To make sure the light is coming from the same direction in my clouds as it is in my cabin picture I flip the sky horizontally (which may not be necessary in your image) and then add a gradient fill layer (white to black) to change the light. I changed this to layer to soft light and adjusted the opacity to my liking (28%).

Next, I added a smoke layer for the chimney mostly to add more drama! The smoke layers also come in Jessica Drossin’s Macabre Skies and overlays package. Then I add some more smoke/fog to the bottom using another overlay.  You can also create a fog brush. Phlearn has a very handy tutorial here.

Then I notice the ground in front of the cabin is a little too bright.  So, I simply paint over it with a soft black brush (on a new layer).  I then set it to soft light and adjust the capacity to my liking (54%). Then I add a stamp visible layer (which is all the layers put into one new layer) by using the short cut Ctrl+Alt+shift+E (on a PC).  I then went to Filter + noise + add noise.  I selected Uniform at 1.05% - Then I set that layer to soft light and adjusted the opacity down to 38%. This just brings everything together in a more cohesive way.  

I then darkened part of the entire image and added contrast using dim the lights action (which comes with Jessica Drossin’s Macabre Skies Package).  This is a Gradient Map layer, but you could just add a brightness and contrast layer to do roughly the same thing. After this I just cleaned some of it up using the clone tool, and blurring parts of the image.  (Blurring can trick your eyes into thinking something belongs in the image when it doesn’t.) And then you have my final image here:  

How to Enhance a Sky in Lightroom

First off, I would say you need to start with a good image right out of the camera.  This idea took my photography to the next level. I wanted to take whatever pictures I could and then go edit them in photoshop.  While this was fun and helped me to learn a ton about photoshop, it wasn’t until I took my technical skills seriously that I really saw a difference in my photography.  So, for an amazing sky you need to expose the picture properly.  I prefer shooting in raw now, but I didn’t when I was starting out.  I found that the constraint of a jpeg helped motivate me to get a better picture in camera.  Now that I think about it, that probably wasn’t the norm!

I have three examples of a sky that I enhanced in Lightroom. Here is the first one sooc (straight out of camera). 

This one is shot closer to blue hour. The sun was down, and it was already very dark.  In hind sight I should have had my shutter speed up and ISO up as well (since there is a bit of motion blur).  However, I was in a hurry because I was losing light. I still love the sky. So I do my regular adjustments first.  Then to enhance the sky I look at the colors that are already there. I use the brush tool, and I adjust the temperature and tint to give a more golden tone.  Then I use a soft brush to paint the areas where the light is coming through.

Next, I use a new brush to paint over the whole sky (carefully going around my subject).  Here, I increase the contrast, and the clarity.  I also lower the exposer and dehaze it slightly. After I have done that, I lighten the exposure of my foreground just slightly to make it look more natural.  You don’t want to go overboard with that part though.  It will not look right if you have a gorgeous sunset sky and a foreground and subject that looks like they’re lightened to be midday.  So just be careful with that part.  I try to make many small and subtle changes.  I don’t want to add what is not already there.

Here is the final image after all my adjustments.

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In the second picture I have exposed properly for the sky.  Here is the image sooc.

After doing my regular adjustments I use the brush tool again and go over the whole sky.  I lower the exposure, increase the contrast, increase the clarity and increase the saturation.  I don’t often use the saturation slider as it can easily get out of control, but for this one I think it worked well.

Here is the final image after adjustments.

For this last one, I exposed for my subject.  Even though I underexposed slightly I still blew out some of the sky.

So, for this one I made my usual adjustments and then I went in with the brush tool.  I painted over the whole sky and lowered the exposure significantly. I also increased the contrast and warmed up the temperature/tint.

You could then see the rays of light coming from behind the clouds.  I decided I wanted to enhance that part.  So, I used the radial filter and put one right on top of the main light source (the sun).  I increased the temperature and the tint. Make sure that when you are using a radial filter that you click the invert button, or it will affect the entire picture other than where you put the filter. I use this often when enhancing light.

Here is my final image.

I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial! Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have!