Post-processing is where a good photo can become great—or go completely wrong. If you’ve ever opened a raw file that seemed unremarkable and then transformed it into a keeper, you already know the power of a thoughtful edit.
Coming to you from William Patino, this practical video highlights some of the most common pitfalls in post-processing. First on the list is relying too much on the auto button in software like Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw. While tempting, this shortcut often leaves you with adjustments that lack nuance and need extensive reworking. Patino advises skipping it altogether and starting with a manual approach, beginning with a subtle profile adjustment and then working through exposure and dynamic range step by step.
Another important point is avoiding global adjustments that affect the image’s overall depth and realism. Patino explains how improper highlight and shadow recovery can flatten an image, particularly in dynamic lighting situations. For example, when brightening shadows or recovering highlights, it’s easy to forget that these changes apply to every part of the photo, including areas where you might want to preserve contrast. He recommends using local adjustments instead, such as a brush with a high feather setting, to maintain depth and separation between elements.
One of the most valuable techniques Patino covers is the use of tonal adjustments to emphasize key areas. By selectively increasing whites or highlights, you can draw attention to parts of the image that naturally catch the light. This creates a pleasing tonal separation without overexposing or washing out details. Similarly, he suggests carefully adjusting contrast in the foreground to enhance texture while keeping distant elements lighter and less defined for a realistic sense of depth. That's just the start, so check out the video above for the full rundown from Patino.
And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out our latest tutorial, "Photographing the World: Japan II - Discovering Hidden Gems with Elia Locardi!”
Very informative! Yes the Sky section does over lap the ground meaning some zooming in to take it out.
There is one step I do is to click on the four little squares in the upper right there will be all the windows showing your camera used jpeg profile for your camera, Adobe Lightrooms best guess for no camera maker has given the recipe. But you can roll over each and see the changes to get a good starting point. It is like doing a Astro Milky WAY on a beach if using your capture I find two things the beach even the darkest of night will be the best shade of tan and the real color of the night sky along with the yin and yang colors of Pegasus and lastly the possible colors of high altitude gas colors, yep they are all there just selecting the right profile. You can check how close the Adobe profile is just by doing a jpeg also BUT select the profile in camera as well as other just jpeg applied settings you would use for just a jpeg image. If you want Sony's IEDT editor you can also check and apply to a tiff image as well as doing denoise and other things.
I bring all this up due to looking at the many MW images that are so dark in foreground and have no color in the sky or vegetation the camera does capture only photographers eyes do not see due to the inability to see color in dark places.
Also bracketing images and blended gives a more dynamic range for editing, Lrc does a great job today where as when HDR was first started with DSLR's due to dynamic range of early cameras and edits were more cartoonish looking.
Lastly the color picker if on a pure white or a grey place where looking at the histogram and seeing the equal of all sections could give a head start to the colors of the image taken. Also in Lrc you have the As Shot selection where you can choose shade, sunny etc. if you always use AWB all the time. I know all of this would make for a long video but could help at the start of editing.