step By step Getting Gritty with it 01 Shadows, highlights and Clarity

Learn how to give your photos a grungy desaturated look with simple Lightroom controls

Import the starting image into Lightroom then head to the Develop module. Begin in the Basic panel to the right. Use the sliders to lift the Shadows, reduce the Highlights, increase Clarity and apply negative Saturation where you feel necessary.

02 desaturate the Colours

Scroll down to the HSL panel and click the Saturation tab. Grab the Target tool from the panel then drag up or down over the image to adjust the saturations. We’ve reduced Yellows to desaturate the foliage and increased Reds and Greens to boost the train.

03 Boost the train

Grab the Adjustment Brush from the toolbar, then set Exposure to +0.75 and Clarity to +75. Set Feather to 100 for a soft-edged brush tip and use the ] and [ keys to resize it. Using a large brush, paint over the train to lift the tones and crisp up the details.

04 Pull out the detail

Click New in the brush options and set Exposure to +1.0. Paint the darker bits at the bottom to lift the area. Next, go to the brush options and set Range: Luminance. Hold Alt and drag the right end of the slider to confine the adjustment to shadow tones.

05 enhance the red line

Hit New again. Set Saturation to +100, Highlights to -57 and click once at the end of the red line, then hold Shift and click the other end to paint a line between the points. Set Range: Color in the brush options then Shift-click over the red line to target the colours within.

06 add a vignette

Grab the Radial Filter tool from the toolbar and knock down the exposure slightly. Drag outwards from the centre of the image to create a circular adjustment. Make sure the tool is set to Outside in the options on the right so the corners of the image are darkened.