Landscape Practice at Three Peaks

• Learning
• Landscape

I have never been very intentional about landscape photography, and I want to improve. I’ve realized I’m just a beginner when it comes to landscape editing. Like Astrophotography, good landscapes require a lot of post-processing. I’m starting to appreciate the sophistication that goes into great landscape edits. Even the landscape master, Ansel Adams, had a very sophisticated post-processing workflow in his darkroom. Each print he made was essentially edited by hand according to his detailed notes of where to apply dodging and burning.

The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways. -Ansel Adams

The new Lightroom masking capabilities sent me down this path. With the new masking capabilities in Lightroom, you can now start to approach the level of editing sophistication that Photoshop has always provided. Ironically, the masking features in Lightroom pushed me to start learning how to do this stuff in Photoshop because it is still a superior tool for the job, particularly for landscapes.

I took the kids to Three Peaks this evening and let them climb on the rocks while practicing some landscape work. I captured a few scenes, but this is the one I liked the best. After that, I put my new Photoshop skills to work. I’m sure I’ll look back on this photo and hate it. When learning new editing skills, it is easy to overdo them.

New skills employed on this photo:

• Focus stacking
• Layer masks
• Dodging and burning