A photograph is hidden in RAW #1: Post processing a long exposure frame.

A few of my friends were interested in understanding what are the in-between steps from taking this picture from RAW to the final output.

So I thought why not write a small tutorial :)

Step 1 : Opened the RAW file in Adobe Lightroom to balance the exposure by adjusting the Highlights and Shadows and finally a little bit of increase in exposure. I fixed the White Balance of the image to what it looked like at that time. Next I fixed the lens distortion and vignetting. (I usually add a custom vignette at the last stage of the process)

Step 2 : Took the adjusted file and open up in Photoshop for further processing.

Step 3 : Added a fast exposure of the same frame and using a inverted mask brought in the static leafs of the trees.

Step 4 : Now I merged all the visible layers to create a new merged layer and opened that with Color Efex Pro 4 to add some Polarization. This has increased the vibrancy on the foliage and given some contrast to the clouds.

Step 5 : Next I used Silver Efex Pro to convert the image to B&W also added additional contrast to enhance the dynamics.

Step 6 : Finally I used a Curve Adjustment Layer and pulled the midtones just a bit to make the image a little darker. I inverted the mask on it and painted in a custom vignette to pull the viewers eye towards the subject in the frame.

And voila its done.

As you can see once you have the basic idea of what you want to achieve, it will be just few simple steps to get there.

Although this one took not more then half hour to process. I would admit that in some of other pictures I did spend days taking breaks in between to get to the final output.

Hope you guys have enjoyed the explanation here and will excuse me for the cranky language.

Till the next picture, keep clicking!!

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