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Lightroom 2 Beta - Creating a Bluer Sky with Selective Color Control
More often than not, we end up with a washed out sky when we would like something really dramatic. There are of course some really complicated methods for dealing with this in Photoshop CS but in Lightroom we have been given a very simple way of dealing with the problem in just a couple of very easy steps.
1. Open your image in the Lightroom Develop Module.
2. Open the HSL Panel to get at the Hue, Saturation and Luminance controls.
3. Select the Luminance control panel.
4. Select the Target Adjustment Mode button. That little circle the cursor is pointing at in the top left hand corner of the Luminance panel.
5. Click on an open sky area on your image and drag your mouse down to darken the sky. Notice the Target Group Luminance read-out in the panel at the bottom of the window. The final effect is sort of like a digital polarizer.
6. Check too see that there is not too much noise created by your action and adjust the Noise in the Detail Panel if necessary.
The second monitor screen below shows a Compare view of the before and after images.
Nice. That feature is so cool. I knew it was there, but have not been using it enough and you brought it to my mind again.
Gav
Wow! These are great colors! Now, I am assuming that the reds got a little help from Lightroom too? Right? :)
Still, it looks amazing...
Seim Effects - I had kind of forgotten too and have brought it back to my mind again.
George - I purposely made only the one image adjustment in Lightroom (in addition to the crop). I did cheat a little (by accident) though, I was shooting RAW+JPEG (fine) at ISO 100, with a slight Vibrance adjustment in-camera. I used the JPEG for this example because it required less work. The before example (in the second monitor image) is actually the default RAW file.
Sorry I didn't realize this slight deception until you asked about it, I just picked the better image. I guess it also shows that the adjustment works as well on a JPEG as a RAW image file.
George,
This is a great tip that I've used often, and with the absence of a polarizer can really help bring back some blue in the sky. It should be noted however that this is not a new feature and has been around in Lightroom 1 since its release.
I've been doing this for a while, I also often give a slight bump to the saturation (also with the TAT tool) while I'm at it. Both adjustments combined do a pretty decent job of mimicking a polarizer on skies.
Your headline suggests that this is a Lightroom 2 feature, but this has been around in Lightroom 1 for quite a while hasn't it?
I appreciate all the comments and yes I am aware that this is not a new feature, but the entire Lightroom 2 interface has been changed quite a lot with the inclusion of the second screen. Therefore I am taking a new look at all the program's features and reporting on them as if I am seeing them for the first time. I am no longer interested in using (or writing about) Lightroom 1.