EDITING STEPS

1

FIX THE SHADOWS This was a high-contrast scene between the bright, reflective stupa (shrine) and the shaded areas in the foreground. So the first thing to focus on is to brighten the shadows and recover the highlights slightly to avoid them being clipped.

2

ADD CONTRAST Fixing the highlights and shadows has meant that the image now looks a little flat. The next step is to remedy that on the Tone Curve by moving the sliders to create an S-curve. I also added a bit more Clarity to define the edges of the objects.

3

TWEAK THE BRIGHTNESS Boosting the contrast has darkened the image slightly again, so I tweaked both the Brightness slider and the Shadows slider to make it lighter. To make the colours pop a little more, I also increased the Vibrancy and Saturation sliders.

4

ZOOM IN AND FINESSE At this stage, I zoom into my image to make some local adjustments and tweak things. For example, increasing the brightness has resulted in some of the highlights being clipped, so I created a mask and recovered these local areas.

5

STRAIGHTEN AND CROP Next, I try to fix the converging lines in the image. In most cases, the image can be straightened by selecting the Auto setting in the Transform tab. I then cropped in slightly on either side and the top of the image to get a 4:3 ratio.

6

TIDY UP My last step is to zoom into the image at 100 per cent and check the photo for things like dust spots, which often become more noticeable when you darken clear sky areas. I use the Healing function to remove these and clean up the rubbish in the foreground.

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Pictured QUIET REFLECTIONS By using the long-exposure technique, the movement of people at this busy location has been rendered invisible BEFORE

Pictured SILENCE IS GOLDEN After a few adjustments to fix the shadows and converging lines, the final image shows a peaceful and uncluttered scene AFTER