EDITING STEPS

1

BRIGHTEN UP Naturally, when shooting in low-light conditions, you will find that your images will be slightly underexposed. So in your preferred editing software, start by brightening the whole image as well as lightening up the shadows, which are too dark.

2

ADD CONTRAST Here, I wanted to ensure that I maintained the general ambience of the scene, so I slightly increased the contrast using the Tone Curve. I also boosted the Clarity slider a little so that it added some more definition to the edges.

3

ADJUST THE WHITE BALANCE Whenever you are photographing in these conditions with any sort of artificial light, you will need to check your white balance settings. Here, I added a magenta tint to the image, which also benefits from being slightly warmer.

4

CHECK THE SATURATION The candlelight and the striking red robes dominated the scene, so I decided to reduce the overall saturation and vibrancy. This gives the scene a more natural look rather than the bright reds that were a little overwhelming.

5

CROP THE PHOTO On reflection, there was too much dead space around the main subjects (the monks) in the frame. So I cropped in slightly to remove the dead space at the top. I also checked whether the image was perfectly level and straightened it up.

6

ADD VIGNETTE For this type of image, where the viewer’s attention should be focused on the subjects in the centre of the frame, it can sometimes be a good idea to add a vignette. This darkens the edges and helps the viewer to navigate to the middle of the photo.

Pictured READING THE ROOM By applying a few shooting techniques, this low-light image has come out sharp and in focus. However, we can still make a few improvements BEFORE

Pictured SILENT TREATMENT After some post-processing, the final image looks warmer and more vibrant, with a vignette highlighting the two centrally positioned subjects AFTER