Landscape photos can be spectacular or mediocre, depending on the use of tonality in the image. If you don’t pay attention to the areas of brightness or which colors stand out, you can be at a disadvantage. Understanding luminance and the tools to adjust luminosity can help you improve your images.
Using the brightness of subjects in your landscape photography image is a key component of getting your viewer to focus on what drew your interest to the scene. A viewer's eye is drawn towards the brightest elements in the photograph. In this video, Todd Dominey takes a close look at luminance and tools to adjust luminance in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.
Dominey begins by explaining the difference between brightness and luminance, with the latter being a quantitative value that can be measured. By working with luminance and hues, a photographer can have a highly targeted influence on what objects are bright in a photograph.
Using an example of a rock against a bright sky, Dominey demonstrates options in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to target specific colors in an image to make them brighter. By using targeted adjustments, he can bring the rock to be a more prominent subject in his scene.
Given the importance of directing the viewer's eye via brighter tones, I appreciated Dominey’s comparison of brightness and luminosity and how they differed. His demonstration of adjusting luminosity via multiple tools was quite helpful.
Great information! The one thing not mentioned when in Lrc is the little point with the up and down arrows. If you select the the little point and just go to a place in the image and click and then slide up or down the color will change without having guess the color you want to work with, But again if the same color/s are in the image those places also get adjusted. But using the mask and then sectioning a color is a better way not to adjust the same color in other places of the image. But why not just use the point with the up and down arrows to do a pin point selection and just watch all the color sliders move on their own. Most do select and move the color sliders they think are the colors involved but not the case. Lrc is great for knowing the colors involved.
It is kind of like getting the image colors right when you first start using the color picker, like night time astro milky way images, most times just picking the galactic center that is white will bring the colors of say the night sky where as we human eyes can not see the colors at night and even using AWB the colors also are not captured in the field but a need to get the colors in post, In this regard your camera may have captured the colors of high altitude gas colors that you had no idea was there. But after getting the over all image colors with the color picker (all three values equal) then you may want to bring those colors out more but that's when you need to just us the pin point with the up and down arrows and you will find many colors will be involved.
Jut saying selecting the colors you think are involved may not ger the result you maybe look for.
I do like that handy tool! It is nice that it reads all the colors at that point and adjusts them in coordination with each other.
What is it with this apparent YouTube fashion of cutting for no reason for a taking head shot? Cutting from a wide-ish shot to a slightly tighter one almost randomly? While also using random re-framing? What’s it all for? Shooting in 4K and delivering in HD does provide for many reframing options if required. But putting in random no reason jarring cuts should not be one of them. I see it used in so many videos on YouTube and find if so distracting At the start of this video I find using these random cuts detracts from the message Jeffery is trying to put over. It also undermines his message especially as he is dealing with perception. Breaking basic visual rules can weaken any visual argument you are trying to put over. Many years ago while doing an MFA in film I attended a workshop on editing by an Oscar winning editor who gave many bits of advice on the art of editing. The most basic and useful was; motivation for the cut. In other words the story you wish to tell should provide the need for a cut on a certain frame one that will help move the narrative along. Cutting through fear of letting the scene just go is not a good reason. My advice to Jeffery would be to let the shot run, he is more than interesting enough to hold the audience without the need to ‘jar or jolt’ them every few seconds. The chopping of the top of the head and random reframing through talking to camera what does it achieve? It’s needlessly distracting. An editor would only really use such a cut for a good reason, to introduce some change of tone or to inject a feeling of uncertainty or tension into a scene. It’s just not required here Jeffery, you don’t need it you and your message are interesting enough. While photography has its language and rules video is just the same. They may be more subtle but learning them might be a good idea for anyone wanting to produce a video.
--- "What is it with this apparent YouTube fashion of cutting for no reason for a taking head shot?"
I believe they are called jump cuts. Usually, when they mess up and don't want to have to redo a major or whole part of the dialogue. They'll redo a section and splice it in.
--- "Cutting from a wide-ish shot to a slightly tighter one almost randomly?"
In this case, I think he was just trying to add a little variety without adding multi cam angles; or was trying to cover up jump cuts.
For me, it doesn't bother me too much because:
1. The audio is usually pretty fluid.
2. It's a tutorial on Youtube. I don't expect 100% professional grade production every time.
3. I commonly skip (right arrow) through parts of YT videos so I'm desensitized to the jumps.
Yeah - jump cuts. And definitely used to redo a section and splice it in, remove a false start, remove the "uhms" and "aws" that happen along the way.
And in the YouTube world, where a lot of YouTubers feel like they are competing against shorter form videos and limited attention spans there is lots of use of jump cuts as small, visual interrupts to help keep attention. Also some will add subtle sound effects when text pops on the screen and such as an audible interrupt, again, seeking to keep attention.
Whether that is right, wrong, annoying, or not annoying is pretty much up to the viewer.