So let's get right to it often in landscape photography, we have to take more than one picture. Let me go to my Develop module here so you can see this. So what I did here I was focusing on this birds to guide my eye into this fisherman. And you can also do it the other way around your the fishermen can be your point of interest and they can your I can go here and then come out the picture. So either way, we're creating a triangle here. Don't worry about this.

This crooked horizon I know it's crooked but I was shooting on the fly. So often you have to when I saw this guy going out there to fish in this flock of birds I just literally dropped my bat and ran to the beach to the water. To get this photo here I have another one. So I took probably 15 pictures. I wasn't spraying and praying, I was kind of moving around a little bit here, I wanted to make sure I got a profile of a bird. And I got this guy kind of working.

He had just thrown this bucket right here into the water. I think he was cleaning it he had fish in there or something. So when I do this, it's important to take multiple photos of multiple things in the within the same scene. So here we're using this line right here to guide our eye on and it's very important to have leading lines. So as you can see, this is our leading line, the horizon and this shoreline, almost meet at the fisherman with Is the story you're trying to tell. So we have a good story here we have a fisherman, we have the ocean and we have the birds.

Same here, except this one's a little more calm, less chaos, a little more peaceful, a little bit more colorful. So you kind of got to decide what you like best. I like them both and I'm going to edit both of them so you can see. So let's get started with the editing. Here are my camera settings. One 120 fifth of a second.

F 11 ISO 500 I shot this at F 11 because they wanted everything to be perfectly in focus. And as you can see, I went up I blasted my ISO to 500 and that's okay because I wanted to make sure I didn't get the fisherman blurry. I wanted to get them perfectly still. Another fish the the birds are okay. If they are blurry that shows motion it shows action in your photo. So this is actually really really good is what I was trying to get.

But here I wanted to get them completely still if I would have you know dropped my shutter speed I would have done blurry water, a little bit more blurry on the birds but he his movement would have also been blurry and I was not looking for that. So I hope that makes sense. So any camera now you can blast the ISO pretty high mine I can go up to 3000 ISO and still get really really good quality images. So don't worry about pushing your ISO pushing the ISO is absolutely okay. I do it and I do it often. Okay, so let's get this off.

Always shoot RAW. I always try to shoot RAW. So we'll get that off. And first thing is first, I'm terrible at this You see with most of my photos, most of my edits, I'm just bad at getting my horizon light straight. But I always know that that's the first thing I'm going to fix in post production. So I'm going to click here.

This is to correct my horizon. This is my crop tool. And I'm just going to align that with this grid right here. So it is line. That's what I'm looking at. So I am looking at this slide.

And I just want to get it straight. It's got a little bit of work to it, so it's not going to be perfectly straight. So I think that's pretty close. Now, I don't want to crop the image, maybe I will later right now I do not. So I will click out of that. And as you can see my horizons finally straight.

I want to come to my lens corrections, and then click on this profile. And then I want to enable profile corrections and that gets to warp a little bit off always remove your chromatic aberration. Now chromatic aberration is this line of weird color you get here, I don't know how to explain it. And, and the easiest way to explain it is this see this green line of color? Well, you will have that in most of your photos, maybe green, maybe some other sort of color by the watch when you click this, that green goes away. So that's what chromatic aberration does.

It cleans that up and it works really really well. So now that we did that, we can go back to our basic panel. Again, this is our most powerful panel in all of Lightroom. So first thing I want to do, someone open my my shadows a little bit. I just want to be able to see what I'm working with. I still want to quite dark Let me reset that by clicking shadows twice to reset that.

And what I'm thinking right now I want this photo to look kind of intriguing. And by keeping in dark, it does that. So, I'll open up the shadows maybe right about there, maybe a little less, maybe right about there. All right. Now want to come to my contrast and I'm going to bring the contrast up, and this will give it a punch. It makes the image punchy.

As you can see, our colors came out quite a bit, just from bringing the contrast up. Now I want to come to the vibrance I never ever touched the saturation and there's a reason for that. When I first started in photography, I always saw this overly saturated photos and I didn't want to be a photographer that did that to their photos. Because they To me, it ruined them. It looked terrible. So I just decided not to ever use this ration slider and I really never do.

None of my photos are saturated. Now with this slider, I only use my vibrance slider. And I will bring this up just enough. If you're just getting into this and you're just learning your sliders, don't be afraid to push it all the way up. See what it does bring it all the way down. see what that does.

So I'm usually around the 40. Sometimes I push it to 5060 is the image calls for it. This does not call for that this calls maybe for like a 30. between 30 and 40 is good, because it's got plenty of color and you don't want to overdo it. So I think that looks really nice. So now the highlights usually the highlights, get rid of your hotspots all throughout. And I don't I don't use my histogram.

A lot of people die by their histogram. I don't I try not to use it and I tell you why. I think your eyes are a much more Judge of an image than this thing will ever, ever be. If you start using the histogram, you will be so fixated on this fist on this histogram, you will stop paying attention to your photo. That's why I don't use it. I think my eyes are a much better judge or calibration of what's happening in the image.

And if you train yourself not to use the histogram, you will become better at using your camera in the field. You'll know what settings you want, you know what you're looking for, instead of relying on the histogram. So try not to use it. Some people love it. I never use it. I have no idea what my histogram looks like when I shoot or when I bring it in.

I never ever touch it. Okay, so back to the highlights. So we'll bring those down. And that all that does is give me a little bit more color here. I don't really even need to do that. And now if I want, I can bring up my exposure just a tad, as you can see makes everything a little bit nicer, a little bit crisper.

And that looks really nice. Now let's check before and after. So if you press your y key, it'll always give you a before and after. And you can check this during your whole entire process so you can see what's happening. And I think this looks really, really cool. We didn't do much to it.

We just did a few sliders and look at the difference already. So in fact, you could call this a finished image. It's very nice. It's subtle changes. I think it's beautiful. Now one thing I always tell my students is the temperature the white balance.

It's usually I shoot it automatic Have the camera and it's usually really good. But what I try to give my photographs is the feel when I was there, this particular day, I remember it was hot. So if you bring this your temperature to the left, it cools it down. If you bring it to the right, it heats it up or warms it up if you will. So I use one to warm it up just a tad. And as you can see, if I warm it up, it brings out this colors much, much more.

So that's really nice. Maybe right about there, that looks really good. So I'm really happy with this photo, except they still see a little bit of warp on the horizon. So I'm going to come back to my profile corrections or lens corrections. I'm sorry, I'm going to go to manual and look at this distortion right here. So when you click on it You can see it get a little better.

And if you click the other way, it works even better. That's way too much. My computer is a little slow today on the thinking. But there you have it. Right about there, see how that looks perfect. Look at the horizon.

And what I'm looking at is this is this line, this this horizon line in comparison to the to the grid. That's perfect. That is absolutely perfect. So I'm very happy when it comes. When it comes to that. I'll click out of that, and that's really good.

Let's click before and after. There's our y key before and after. And look at that. We've come a long way. Just doing very simple very subtle, very simple slider movements. So you don't have to go crazy to make beautiful, colorful, wonderful images.

Now, I always like to finish up my images with the detail slider. So I will bring the sharpening up, maybe 250. And I'm going to come to my masking, and you're going to hold down your option key, and then you're going to bring this up. Now what's White is being sharpened. What is black stays untouched. Here, I just want to focus on this guy on the fisherman.

So I think that looks good. Click out of that. Now looks really nice. Now, my sensors really clean so I don't have any sensor spots, but it's always good. Before you finish up. You want to come to your Spot Removal Tool.

Okay. When you hit this Spot Removal Tool, you're going to come down here To visualize spots, you're going to click on that. And now you're going to look for spots here, I don't have any. But when you have, when you have sensor spots, you will see these white doughnut dots looking all over. So you're all all you're gonna do is clean them up by pressing, like so that will clean them up. And always make sure you do that, because there's nothing worse than having a beautiful photograph full of sensor spots.

And I tell you what, I do a lot of portfolio reviews. And that is the number one thing that I see that and crooked horizons, it's okay to shoot your horizons crooked like I do because I'm just more focused on the competition out there. But make sure you always fix it in the Lightroom or whatever you use to edit. So I think That's a completed image. I'm very, very, very, very pleased with it. Let's see before and after.

Look at that. Perfect. Let's move on to the next one. So here I have the same style of photo, same style thing. And let's, let's, let's edit that. So let me teach you something.

So let me bring this up. So here's the photo we just edited. If it's the same style of photo, the same style of thing, the same photo, if you will, you can command highlight this other one, and then you're going to sync the settings. This is going to be under your Develop module still. You press that and then you're going to check all this is all your settings you just made to this photo. We'll press synchronize and now we have the same settings to this photo.

Now if you like it great, you can just come here your horizons are often going to not be the same. So if you like it great, you have two cool edited photos shot in the same time, the same color palette. If you want to make it a little different, then you can do that also. So let me right click Reset. And let's get started on this one as well. So let's see our settings.

So settings 120, fifth of a second, f 11. ISO 500 it's an F 10. I'm sorry, f 11 was the other one. f 10. We still get everything in focus. And I think this image is really, really nice.

I really, really love this bird. I think this burden itself tells a story. So to me this speaks to me just in case it speaks about freedom. This fishermen kind of represents me or the viewer. There's this vast, beautiful ocean. And there's this bird of freedom kind of telling you, you can do whatever you want go whatever you wish in the world and the planet at this time.

And that's the story I was trying to convey. Again, here, the leading lines to the fisherman. Here, you stop, you look at this fisherman and your eye continues into this beautiful birds. So it all makes sense in a very subtle way. When you're looking at this photo, you kind of start here and your eye slides down here, goes up here and then comes this way. That's what you want to do to all your photos, you want to put some sort of pattern that will invite the viewer and as opposed to just taking a picture of something.

This takes a lot of thought. A lot of practice, but it's doable. And I've learned to do that over the years simply by shooting every single day. So let's get started. So first things first, let's use our crop tool. And we're going to strain this horizon.

Now, again, I'm not the greatest at this in the field, but I know to correct it immediately. So there you go, we have a perfect horizon. Now, again, it's a little work so we'll come to our lens corrections. Here we'll remove the chromatic aberration as I explained to you what it was before. And here are profile corrections. It all worked it and that that looks really nice.

Come back to my basic panel. And again, I want to warm this image up because it was a one a warm morning. And I remember that clearly. And now I'm gonna bring up my contrast and look at this. No Contact Makes a flat image, give it some contrast and look at that just makes it punchy gives it that punch. A lot of people don't use this contrast.

And it's crazy to me, they're kind of they're trying to make the image look like kind of like HDR. But to me when you don't use the contrast slider, you're missing out on a ton of ton of detail. So I like to use it. And that's just how I edit. To me, the images are much more dramatic that way. So now you can open up your shadows.

Again, the purpose of this image for me was to let me click this shadows work twice that reset. The purpose of this image to me was to keep this kind of mysterious, and really to show the birds and the fisherman. And this tells the story i don't i don't care about facial expression or any of that, to me, this tells a nice story. So I'm going to keep the shadows just Like that, I'm going to bring the highlights down. And again, I'm just trying to close some of this highlights and bring out this color just a tad more. And I think that works really well.

Now let's see what happens when I bring up the whites. So I'll bring it to taste just right about there. Now here's the quick tip guys, when you click your option key people say that the correct amount of white and this works for the blacks too is when a little bit starts showing on your screen. So see how that registered showed up showing up. So suppose the that's the correct amount. Now again, I like to do everything by my by eye.

And I think right about there looks, looks right. Now same with the black. They say when a little bit of blacks are shown on your screen, that's the correct amount. Again, I like to do it by I think my eye is so much Better judge than a computer. So I'll keep the blacks right there. Now I'm going to bring up my vibrance.

Again, I never touched the saturation for the simple reason that I've trained myself not to ever touch it, because when I was starting out, I didn't want to overdo it. So the vibrance, it's really nice right there. I think that looks really good. So now every time I'm doing this, I like to step back, sit back and just observe it for a minute. Here. I really love the shadows.

I'm really loving all this I love all this color. But I want to get a little more blue out of this out of the sky. So these up here are our local adjustments. Let me click out of this basic hide it and this is called a graduated filter. This is a very powerful filter. Now when you click it, click the effect board twice that will reset all your sliders, it often stays from the last time you used it.

So make sure you click the effect or twice. Now what this does, you can draw it so click and drag down in the middle is where you'll be fading to. So this is your fade line. Now this is a trick that I kind of developed just by tinkering with stuff. So this area is going to change and watch this. When I bring down the temperature, it just makes it bluer See how it's turning bluer.

Look at that. If you bring it up, you'll come and make it yellow or or warmer if you will. But I want to make the sky blue or it was a blue sky this morning. I remember it clearly I was so happy. I felt so so blessed to Be admiring this incredible sunrise. Now here I'll use my saturation slider.

Again, this is a local adjustment, what that means it's only adjusting locally, that means we're you were you have it highlighted. And if you press your Okey, this, the red shows you what you've been adjusting, so you can even bring it up a tab if you don't want to come down so much. All right. So let's click the old key again to get out of that and let's bring out the saturation. And with that, I just want to bring out my reds a little bit, but that's not working that's bringing out the blues more. So I'll double click the saturation word that will reset the slider and I'm happy I simply brought down my temperature made it bluer and I'm happy with that.

So let's click out of that. Now here's another trick. I'm going to come to So my color HLS Hue Saturation luminance, this is called. So he'll come to my color. All right, and then I'm gonna come to my red. So you click on the red.

And here, we will bring up the red for the saturation. So if you bring it all the way up, you can see how crappy that looks. I just want to bring this out more, so maybe it's not the red, maybe it's the orange. No, doesn't do anything. So the red does a tad not too much, but that's fine, just subtle changes. Let me do that.

And that looks really nice. So let's see before and after. There's before and there's after and look at that. Just made the image pop completely with very subtle changes. So click the white key to get out of that. Now let's go a tiny bit deeper.

So now I'm going to use a local adjustment which is My adjustment brush. So what this does, it creates a brush and where you click, that's what's going to be adjusted. So here I'll bring up my exposure. And I simply want to bring this up a little bit more, just bring it out a little bit more. I think his reflections are really, really beautiful. So I want to bring him up.

So he can see how much they come out. And he can bring it down and darken them up. But I just want a little subtle change just like that. Okay, so now I'm gonna click on new, I'm happy with that. So I'm going to click on new what this does, this creates a new brush. So see this dot, you'll always have this brush here.

When you go back you can adjust it. This click on new and what I want to do, I want to bring this exposure up quite a bit in light Just want to highlight this water dis waves Look at this. Just very subtle changes. Just super subtle. Okay, now click the O key. And there you can see what you just did.

And if that's too much, the reason I went up so high is so I could adjusted later. I just wanted to see what I was doing. Bring it down and it's adjusted appropriately. There, you can adjust a little more, bring it down a tad more. And there you have it. So let's click done to get out of that.

Look at that. That looks beautiful. Wow. It's just really, really nice. Now here are two birds up here in the distance. When you zoom out, you can tell that they're birds.

They kind of look like sensor spots. So we're gonna click on the Spot Removal Tool. Facial eyes spots. You can see it here with the visualized spot. Here you'll see your sensor spots. So that will look kind of like donuts.

So be aware of those. But here I'll delete those simply because they look like it looks like it looks dirty doesn't look like birds. To me, that looks much better. And look at that. I think that's a completed image. Click the white key for before and after.

And I think that looks really really nice. Again, top it off with the detail, bring it up a little bit. masking option. What's White is sharp, what's black is left alone. And I think that looks really nice guys. Press the Y key before and after.

We've just beautifully created this image. Let me bring this up so you can see both Have them so there's one image. There's the other image as you can see two beautifully done images. You don't really need to do a lot and very subtle changes go a very long way.