A Landscape Photographer's Editing Workflow in Lightroom and Photoshop

There are so many ways to approach editing a landscape image, and virtually every photographer has their own way of doing things. This video is a peek into my own workflow, as I edit an image for the first time while on a live-stream.

For the beginner, opening up an editing application for the first time is a daunting process. We all kind of start the same way, though, by getting to grips with some type of raw editing software like On1 Photo, Luminar, Exposure X5, etc. and then eventually stepping things up a notch with Photoshop. There's a reason that there really is no equivalent to Adobe's flagship creative application. As Adobe has added more and more features over the years, there are still a ton of legacy tools within it, allowing the user to approach the same problem in a multitude of ways — some more effective than others depending on the specific task. Because of this, it's very hard to know where to start. But just like with learning new photography techniques, we see something we like, and we figure out how to reproduce it, one technique at a time.

I've picked up everything I've learned from many different sources. YouTube is a fantastic, free source of information. But if you're looking for something more comprehensive, I've learned so much from Elia Locardi's "Photographing The World" series.

This video shows my basic workflow. To start off, I stick with the tried and trusted Lightroom Classic to get the most out of my raw image before getting a bit more creative and selective in Photoshop. There's no complex exposure blending, focus stacking, or compositing — just simple techniques that can drastically improve your final image. Because I streamed it live on Twitch, it's a much more casual approach to an editing video compared to the usual YouTube fare. So, grab a cup of tea or a beer and relax, and hopefully, you can pick up some new techniques.

Would you have done anything differently? Let us know in the comments.