Have you ever taken a photo, and then once you viewed it on your computer, thought to yourself, "Man, that didn't turn out like I thought..."?
Dumb question, I know.
Everyone - even the most famous and accomplished photographers - have had those moments in which their photos simply didn't live up to their expectations.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't ways to rescue your photos that don't have a lot of life in them.
In the video above, Evan Ranft uses one of his boring and lifeless photos as an example of what you can do in post-processing to bring some excitement to the image.
It's really quite amazing when you see the difference between the original RAW file and the final product.
So, have a look at the video and see what Evan does to rescue the shot, and for those of you that learn best by reading, check out the summary below!
Step 1: Shoot in RAW
I won't get too technical here, but if you aren't shooting in RAW, you aren't doing yourself any favors.
Where JPEGs are compressed and lose some of the data that's originally captured by your camera's sensor, RAW files are uncompressed. That means there's a lot more for programs like Lightroom to work with when you process images.
You can learn more about shooting in RAW, but the short of it is that RAW is the best format to shoot in.
Step 2: Make Basic Adjustments
The first order of business is to make a few basic adjustments to the bare-bones image.
That includes cropping the image as needed, adding vignetting if so desired, and feathering the image as well (all of these things have already been done in the screenshot above).
Then, for this particular shot, Evan brings down the exposure to better show off the details in the sky. This is done simply by moving the Exposure Slider to the left.
Evan also brings the contrast level up, which brings out the highlights and the shadows in the image. This makes it a little more punchy as opposed to having flat light like the original shot. Again, making adjustments to the contrast level is done easily by moving the Contrast Slider to the right. You can see the progress in the screenshot above.
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The next order of business is to work on the highlights and shadows.
Using the sliders in the Treatment Panel, Evan moves the highlights down and brings the shadows up.
This helps bring out the detail in the clouds a little more while also making the road in the foreground less dark.
Bringing the whites up and blacks down further helps make the shot more punchy and contrasty, as you can see in the screenshot above.
Lastly, Evan increases the saturation and vibrancy.
As you can see in the screenshot above, this gives the shot just a small injection of color - nothing too over the top, but just enough to start showing off the colors of the sunset.
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Step 3: Brush in the Sky
Now that the basic adjustments are out of the way, the next step is to use the brush tool to work on the sky.
The Brush Tool is located in the upper righthand side of the Lightroom workspace, as shown by the cursor in the screenshot above.
Once you have the Brush Tool open, simply brush over the entirety of the sky in the shot.
Once you've masked the sky, reset all the slider values for exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, and so forth, back to zero.
In Evan's image, he adds a purple tint to the shot to get some interesting colors going on in the clouds.
He moves the tint toward the yellow side too, for the same purpose.
After adding a lot of saturation to the shot, you can start to see the drama coming into the image, as seen in the screenshot above.
Step 4: Fine-Tune the Colors
The next step is to fine-tune the colors in the shot.
Using the Temperature Slider, Vibrance Slider, and Saturation Slider, Evan makes the colors in the image really come to life.
As you can see in the screenshot above, the sky is beginning to take shape.
Note, however, that while the sky looks great, the reflection of the sunset on the building looks far too saturated. To fix it, Evan uses the brush to paint a mask on that small area of orange, and then brings down the saturation to make it look more natural.
Step 5: Split Toning
The Split Toning feature in Lightroom allows you to work on the tones of the highlights and shadows separately.
In the screenshot above, Evan is working on the highlights to bring even more color to the sky.
This is where you can get really creative and add whatever color you'd like to the highlights or shadows of your shot.
In Evan's case, he adds punch to the sky but takes it easy with the tones in the shadowed areas to get the beautiful result shown above.
Editor's Tip: Add punch to your portraits with colorful, texture-rich props.
Step 6: Add a Graduated Neutral Density Filter
Lightroom gives you the capability of adding a graduated neutral density filter to your images.
You can do so by clicking the rectangular box in the toolbar, as shown by the placement of the cursor above.
In this case, by using this tool, Evan is able to lighten the foreground of the image, which to this point has been quite dark.
Starting from the bottom of the shot, Evan slides upward to add the filter, and then resets all the slider values back to zero, except for the clarity, which by increasing it, allows him to make the lines on the roadway pop.
Looking at the screenshot above, you can see how the image is getting close to being completed.
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The Final Product
After a little more fine-tuning to the image, the process is done.
The changes made from the initial shot on the right to the final shot on the left is really quite astounding, especially considering the process only took about 8 minutes or so.
You can use these same Lightroom tools and processes to bring that kind of life to your photos as well!