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1.
Load the photo
This
sample photo offers a lot of opportunities for editing.
The background is rather light, the sky is severely bleached,
and the foreground is too dark.
Of course we're handling a RAW file, easily
editable in Lightroom. The main problem is that usually,
adjustments affect the whole picture. This is why Adobe
Lightroom versions 2.0 and up offer the Adjustment
Brush tool which allows selective adjustments to
be applied only to specific image areas. Today, we'll start
with the sky.
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2.
The brush
The
Adjustment brush can be found in the Develop
pane, on right side of the upper toolbar. Click it to display
a settings panel which offers six types of adjustments:
Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Clarity
and Sharpness.
Our primary goal is to make the sky somewhat darker, that
is, decrease its exposure.
Select Exposure and the '-' sign which
represents decreasing. Intensity can be specified using
the Amount slider. For now, set it to -1.0.
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3.
Brush size
The
adjustment brush, true to its name, is to apply the selected
adjustment like you were painting. Where the brush touches
the picture, the photo will become darker by -1
exposure value.
But
first, set the Brush - Size slider at the
bottom of the settings panel. Make sure Auto Mask
is selected below.
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4.
Paintwork
When
it is over the picture, a couple of circles show its size
and a + sign its center. The larger circle
is the sensitive area of the brush, which, when Auto
Mask is enabled, attempts to separate objects in
the picture.
The painted area—that is, the exact size of the brush—is
the smaller circle. This is where exposure decrease will
be applied. Darkening will only affect those areas which
the + sign passes through.
For example, when darkening the sky, the + sign
must only touch the areas belonging to the sky, and thus,
every sky pixel inside the inner circle will darken. The
circles can touch other picture elements, for example, roofs.
The brush will distinguish them from the sky and won't affect
them, only if the center touches them as well.
The way it works is pretty similar to Photoshop's smart
color swap brushes and backdrop removing erasers. In fact,
trying it will make you understand quicker than reading
this explanation.
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5.
Manually
If
you messed up something, press Ctrl+Z to
undo the last step. Beware though, it will also revert the
whole of a larger area which has already been painted over.
For correcting smaller errors, use the Erase
feature belonging to the Adjustment Brush.
This is at the top of the settings panel, near the brush
size control you already know.
After painting over the desired areas, a dot
appears where you started painting. Hover the mouse pointer
over this dot to display a transparent red mask
showing the painted areas. If you painted some parts unintentionally,
click the dot, and then click Erase at
the bottom of the panel. Now you can use the Size
slider to set eraser size, and start tidying up those messed-up
parts.
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6.
A bluer sky
By
painting, you have now decreased exposure, but you can apply
other adjustments as well to the painted area. Click the
switch in the upper right corner of the settings panel to
display all possibilities. Adjusting exposure by
-1 EV is already in effect, but for now, enhancing
the blue of the sky is also desirable as it is currently
rather dull. To do this, increase the Saturation
slider. Darkening and saturation increase will both affect
the sky.
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7.
As you like
Further
areas can be adjusted using the same procedure, without
affecting the whole of the picture. Click a new option (e.g.
Exposure+), set up the brush, lighten the
shadowed areas in the foreground, then select another (Contrast+)
to increase contrast. You have a multitude of choices. After
painting for a few minutes, we got the above result. The
difference can be best judged by placing the mouse pointer
over the image to see the original.
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