Today is a good day.
Today I get to come ‘full circle’ on something that has been on my creative wish list. I have wanted to do a series of editing (or post processing) video tutorials for a while now. As the Photography Studio Manager at Londolozi, I get so much joy out of working with guests on their images that they have captured here. I get heralded as a ‘magician’, but really all I am is a photographer with a toolbox full of tools that I know how to use. The goal for this series is for you to become editing magicians, too, and for you to be able to learn and practice your own post processing at home. To those of you who have visited and spent time with me in the studio, I am happy to fulfil a promise that I have been making to all of you by beginning these tutorials so that you can always feel connected to the Londolozi Creative Hub, and the greater Londolozi family, whenever you want to –no matter where you are in the world.
I am not sure how long this series will last. There are so many new and exciting ways to play with post processing (which is one of the things that I love about photography), and I can’t wait to explore them all with you.
Grab a cup of tea and a note-pad (if you wish) and watch the first of what I hope will be many tutorials that will kick-start your own editing flow.
Please do let me know in the comments section if you have any further questions on this basic flow, or if you have any particular features you would like me to cover in upcoming tutorials.
Written and produced by Amanda Ritchie- Photography Studio Manager
HI AMANDA
LOVED THE TUTORIAL!
BEST
JERRY
Thanks Jerry 🙂 So glad you enjoyed it! I hope you are keeping up with your practice after our sessions 🙂
Too much info too fast for one not totally familiar with the editing vocabulary…..guess I need more basics first! Thanks, it’s a great idea.
Hi Anne. Thanks for the comment. I promise that as the series continues, I will go into greater detail on each of the aspects of Lightroom. I wanted to ‘set the scene’ first with my basic workflow so that you could see the whole picture before I broke it down. 🙂 Looking forward to helping you with the basics!
Hi Amanda,
Great idea! Would love to see a tutorial on your workflow with monochrome editing and also backlit shots.
Best,
Radheesh
Hi Radheesh. Keep watching… it’s definitely on the list of series topics! Glad you liked the tutorial.
HI AMANDA,
IT WAS GOOD TO MEET YOU LAST WEEK DURING MY VISIT.
WHAT A GREAT IDEA AND SO WELL PRESENTED!
WOULD YOU BE SO KIND AS TO ELABORATE ON THE SUBJECT OF PHOTOGRAPHING IN JPEG AS YOU MENTIONED THE EDITING ASPECTS ARE PERTAINING TO RAW PHOTOGRAPHY.
IS ONE NOT ABLE TO TOUCH UP THE JPEG SHOTS IN THE SAME WAY AS YOU EXPLAINED IN YOUR TUTORIAL.
THANK YOU AND I LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR ANSWER AND THE FUTURE BLOGS.
KIND REGARDS,
TED.
Hi Ted- Yes the approach will work with JPEG’s, though RAW images will offer more tonal range and subtlety. See my post to Amanda below on August 4.
Thanks so much for the comment, Ted.
David’s comment is 100% correct- you are able to use either RAW or jpeg file formats in Lightroom (or any other editing software). The benefit of using RAW files is that you get much more flexibility in your editing to crop in tightly, to play around with colours and the finer details of the image. RAW takes up much more space, though, and isn’t necessary unless you are serious about your post processing 🙂
Hi Amanda
Great idea and your explanations are clear and really helpful, thanks. Could you give us some ideas on how best to photograph in really low light and the big spotlights the Rangers use.
Cheers
Hi Rosmary. Thank you for your suggestion. This topic is definitely one on my list of posts to do. Taking good photos in low-light is very much dependent on our knowledge and understanding of the exposure triangle (aperture, ISO and shutter speed), and understanding how these three elements influence each other. I wrote a ‘photography 101’ series on each of these, which you can find here:
http://blog.londolozi.com/2015/04/photography-in-a-nutshell-part-one-aperture/
http://blog.londolozi.com/2015/05/photography-in-a-nutshell-part-two-what-is-shutter-speed/
http://blog.londolozi.com/2015/05/photography-in-a-nutshell-part-three-iso/
Stay tuned to the blog for a post on low-light photography in the near future!
Great tutorial Amanda, and thanks for all the helpful editing tips! I hope some day in the near future I will be back to Londolozi and will be able to visit you in the Creative Hub!
Thanks Jill! I look forward to meeting you soon!
Hi Amanda, You helped my son with his shots during our visit in May. I became quite interested in playing with my latest pictures to see what I might improve. I really enjoyed this first tutorial, but I did not understand Ted’s question about “raw photography” vs jpeg”. Is this something I should know about?
Hi Barbara. I am so glad that you are still playing around with your photography 🙂
To answer your question, RAW is simply a file format, just as .jpeg is a file format, which is why we call our current form of photography ‘digital’. This means that the information that the camera captures on its sensor when you press the shutter button gets transformed into a digital file. a RAW file is simply 100% of the information that the sensor captures- the colour gradients, the light, the shadows, the detail etc. Jpeg (depending on what size of file you ‘tell’ your camera to take when setting it up) is a much smaller file, and only captures what the camera deems the most important information. A jpeg will have information about the colours, the shadows and light parts, the detail etc, but won’t be as in-depth as a RAW file. A RAW file is better to use for editing as you have much more freedom to crop, edit colours, enhance details etc., but they do take up a lot more memory. Jpegs are perfect if you don’t plan to edit or print out your photos in a large format, as the most important part of the photo will remain. All of the above said, I think that a short blog post is warranted on this topic, so keep in touch for that in future 🙂
I really enjoyed the refresher course. I find the vignette touches and the eye brush very useful to try on my pix soon. Thank you Amanda for taking the trouble to do the tutorials. 🙂
I am so glad that you found it useful, Kit. That vignette is a really great trick, and definitely one of my ‘staples’ when I edit.
Hi Amanda
Great tutorial. I’ve recently switched from Aperture to Lightroom so your tutorial was very helpful. Like one of the previous comments would love to see how you work in black and white. All the best Andy
Thanks so much for your comment, Andy. Your images that we worked on during your time with me still resonate with me. I will most certainly be doing a black and white processing tutorial, so keep in touch with the blog for that one soon. I am going to touch on a few more of the basics before I get there, but it is definitely on the cards.
Awesome video Amanda, I hope you continue to produce more of these as I have found it extremely useful.
Glad you enjoyed it, Rich 🙂
Congratulations Amanda for one of the best Lightroom tutorials I have seen. The basic technique is one I learned a few weeks ago in another tutorial, but your version is more accessible and easier to understand. It is also pretty different from most of the workflows I have seen in books, in that it does not follow the sequence of sliders in Lightroom’s basic panel, which I understand are arranged in somewhat the sequence that Adobe thought was appropriate. It might be worth noting also that Amanda’s approach will also create a realistic (i.e. not over-processed) HDR-like result from one image in a high contrast situation. That seems like a plus in wildlife photography. No doubt it works best with RAW images but I have used it to pull out amazing detail, especially in shadows, from a JPEG. I’m re-editing many of my LR JPEG Collections on this basis. That one-image-HDR option might be a good tutorial topic on its own.
Thank you so much for your great comment, David. I know that editing (in Lightroom or other programs) is very much an ‘each to their own’ situation, and I always love to learn new tricks from fellow editors to make sure that I grow, so I am so glad that you found my flow useful! My next tutorial should be up on the blog next week 🙂 Thanks again!
I don’t think I’ve every told you, Amanda, how much I enjoyed this video! After watching it a second time, I thought I’d better let you know. It’s a great review of all you taught me while I was there in May/June and I continue to edit my 12,000+ photos using your tips and techniques. I’m so looking forward to the next tutorials!
Your tutorial was excellent and really helped me understand the process. Even though I took a course with National Geographic on Lightroom, your explanations of the various steps were much clearer and more accesible and have helped to make my photos something I can be proud of. I look forward to your next tutorial.
Great tutorial Amanda. Just found you! I am really eager to know how Trevor (I think it is he) creates photos of animals that are like chiraschuro with the animal emerging from a black background with intense eyes (I understand the eye enhancement) but not changing the background to black. Also, the technique you all are showing with the animal on a pure white background with the just the spots, eyes etc. creating the shape of the leopard. This would be a wonderful tutorial. Thanks so much. I have emailed this question before but did not get a response….
Great job and super images to use as examples. It was hard to see the sliders on the right as they were very small.
I discovered your lightroom tutorial series in 2016 and find myself coming back to it now and again over the years – thank you – it’s really useful!