skip to Main Content

Creative photography not only involves the work you do in the field, but also how you approach the processing stage. Your goal should be to let your vision for the image serve as a creative guide from beginning to end, whether that’s a finished file or a fine art print. It’s an approach that I believe yields better results, gives you a much better sense of creative direction, and enables you to use the tools in Lightroom much more effectively. Why to use a tool becomes much more important than how. 

Check out my latest screencast where I share my creative approach in processing a recent Photo Journal image: Fog at Sugarloaf. (The original post explains my notes on the making of the image.)

Please share your questions, comments or feedback below – I’m always happy to clarify or help in any way I can.

Watch on Youtube.

Experience your work in the real world. The Printmaker Masterclass is live and growing! Learn more here.

This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. I really like the video, but I have one question.

    In your video, you use the tone curve as a replacement for contrast, and I understand why you did that. But is the tone curve interchangeable with the highlights and shadows slider? Thanks…

    1. Hi Jacob, thanks for the feedback – the Lightroom tone curve is not the same as the highlights and shadows controls. The tone curve is primarily used to adjust any tonal value, or multiple tonal values from black to white, including the white and black points. It can not be used to recover clipped highlights or shadows. The highlights and shadows sliders CAN be used to recover clipped highlights and shadows, and also works along a very narrow band that can not be adjusted the way the tone curve can (no target adjustment tool for example). So while both can create a smilier look, the function differently and have different purposes depending in your image and needs.

      Hope that helps!
      RR

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *