Understanding how to effectively edit your images in Lightroom is crucial. Mistakes in editing can turn exceptional raw photos into disappointing results.
Coming to you from Serge Ramelli Photography, this insightful video highlights three common but critical errors that you might be making during your Lightroom edits. First, Ramelli emphasizes the importance of proper white balance, illustrating how easily you can ruin an image by choosing unrealistic colors or extremes like overly magenta or excessively yellow hues. He demonstrates how subtle adjustments can enhance your photo's mood without compromising realism.
The second mistake addressed is the misuse of clarity. Ramelli notes that many editors overuse clarity, creating a harsh, desaturated, and distinctly digital look. Interestingly, he advocates for decreasing clarity slightly, which softens the image and maintains a more natural appearance, steering away from overly digital artifacts. This technique can significantly elevate your photos, giving them a professional finish without sacrificing authenticity. Learning to subtly manage clarity adjustments could markedly improve your post-processing outcomes.
Ramelli then covers sharpening and texture as another common pitfall. Many people tend to apply excessive sharpening or texture, unintentionally introducing noise and unnatural detail into their images, particularly noticeable in areas like skies or water. Ramelli introduces an effective two-step process that precisely targets sharpening. By combining moderate sharpening settings with a carefully adjusted masking slider, you sharpen only critical details while preserving smooth skies and clean water surfaces. This nuanced approach prevents the typical noisy backgrounds that result from indiscriminate sharpening, significantly enhancing your final print quality.
Expanding further on these points, Ramelli demonstrates an advanced technique for selectively enhancing image elements, using brushes with adjusted feathering, flow, and exposure. He effectively adds subtle lighting details to specific areas, which contributes significantly to the depth and professional feel of his final images. His practical advice includes methods for emphasizing sharpness specifically on buildings while keeping water and skies intentionally soft, a technique particularly beneficial for gallery-quality prints. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Ramelli.
