MAINTAIN COLOUR AND DETAIL

Simon Xu (simonxuphotography.com) describes his process for balanced and impactful golden-hour colour

1 SHOOT IN RAW To help ensure better colour accuracy, shoot one sample RAW image in the same light as the main scene, using a colour checker that allows calibration in Lightroom.

4 REDUCE THE EXPOSURE

Underexposure will lead to loss of colour and details for objects in shadow. Expose as brightly as possible, without overexposure, then reduce the exposure so colours in the sky contain more interesting detail.

2 USE MANUAL EXPOSURE

It’s best to use manual exposure mode aided by the camera’s Live View. Try to take more than one picture, at different exposure levels separated by 1-2 stops.

5 HARMONISE LIGHTS First adjust Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks. The goal is to reduce highlight and increase shadow detail to produce even brightness, then adjust exposure to bring the image to the right exposure.

3 EXPOSE FOR HIGHLIGHTS

Check the histogram to ensure that the highlights are not truncated. Immediately review the picture taken, to make sure the image contains no blinking overexposed areas.

6TEMPERATURE ADJUST COLOURS Adjust and Tint in LR, then Saturation and Vibrance, sometimes reducing these.

Use Split Toning to add warm colours to highlights and cold colours to shadows, to bring out colour contrast.