Image Rescue
A potentially pretty landscape shot needs work in Lightroom to bring out the qualities of light that were present on location
This photo has the makings of a lovely landscape but underexposure means that tonally the old building and its reflection merge together in a way that is dull and unattractive. Although there is some good light, shooting in the Daylight white balance setting has accentuated the blues too much, giving it a cool feeling.
We’ll select an Adjustment Brush and mask over the building and the reflection
1 . It’s important when you work on shots with reflections that you cover both areas with the same brush, so any changes you make will stay in sync: the reflection should always be slightly darker than the object it’s reflecting. We’ll increase the Shadows and Whites sliders by +50 and
nudge the Exposure slider up by +25. This gives us better balance and more details.
To brighten the foreground 2 , we’ll apply a reverse grad using the Graduated Filter Tool over it and then increase Shadows by +50. For some extra warmth and to reduce the overall coolness 3 , we’ll just change the white balance from Daylight to Cloudy. This will give some extra zing to the bricks in the building, as well as improving the sunlit reeds. To give the image more edge, we will take Dehaze to +35 and deepen the shadows slightly.
Finally, using the Clone Tool we can remove the unsightly sign 4 , making sure we sample from the natural area in the bottom half of the window.